Feeding the Fire

by Amy Waeschle

  In the bathroom, three girls were clustered at the far end of the row of sinks. One was coloring her bangs with a purple felt marker. Another stood, arms crossed, frowning. The third leaned into the mirror, applying eyeliner to already blackened eyes.

  Jessie realized they were the ones who she’d seen on her first day, clustered around a locker. The ones who had recognized her.

  “And I said no way,” one of the girls in the corner said.

  Jessie ducked into the stall closest to the door.

  “Did he break up with you?” another girl said.

  Jessie heard a long sigh. “He’s already boning Shannon Kobeck.”

  “No!” the other girls gasped.

  Once finished, Jessie stepped out to the sinks. She felt eyes on her but didn’t look up. The cold water running over her palms sent an icy shiver over her skin.

  “The kiddie bathroom’s across the street,” one of the girls said.

  Jessie turned off the water and reached for a paper towel, sneaking a look at her reflection. Dark eyes, thick hair pulled back into a ponytail. Black hoodie. Jeans. Did she really look like a little kid?

  “Hey. You’re that girl,” the one with purple bangs said. “Evan’s little sister.”

  “Yeah,” the girl with spider eyes said, turning toward her.

  Jessie took a step back but the third girl had already moved in, blocking her way. “How old are you, anyways?”

  “Thirteen,” Jessie said, her voice sounding meek.

  “I hear Evan’s in juvie.” Her lips twisted into a shrug. “Sucks to be him.”

  “He’s not,” Jessie said, feeling her knees lock.

  “He used to think he was such hot shit. Other guys gave me a break for . . . let’s say . . . certain services.” She cackled, then her eyes narrowed. “Not him. Oh no. Heavenly Evan thought he was too good for me.”

  Jessie’s heart beat hard into her temples.

  “You know, if you’re gonna survive up here, you might want to work on your image,” Purple Bangs said.

  “Yeah, the skater look is so 2012,” the girl behind her said.

  “We can help,” Spider Eyes said.

  Jessie stepped back but bumped into the girl behind her.

  “Let’s start with a shower,” Purple Bangs said.

  Before Jessie could protest they moved her to the sink and shoved her head under the tap. Cold water sprayed over the back of her head. Fingers jabbed at her skull and she smelled soap. “I could sing some pretty juicy tales about that brother of yours to the cops,” a cruel voice said. The icy water ran down her neck.

  “But we’ll just keep this between us for now. How does that sound?”

  The bell rang.

  “Shit!” Purple Bangs shouted.

  “Let’s go!” another one said.

  Then they were gone.

  Jessie grabbed a bunch of paper towels and wiped her face and neck. She tried to process everything that had just happened but realized the trouble she was in for being late, so hurried into the now-silent hallway. Only when she sat down in her seat did she feel the change inside her pouch pocket.

  The egg—broken.

  When the girl in front of her turned to pass Jessie a small stack of papers, a strange look passed over her face. Jessie pinched her lips tight and the girl turned back.

  She realized the papers were the quiz.

  Jessie passed the rest of the quizzes to the boy behind her then wrote her name on the top of her paper.

  Graphs and equations. She turned it over. More graphs and equations. A drip of water splatted in the middle of the page.

  Then Darnell was standing at her side.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, his fingertips touching the corner of her desk.

  Jessie blinked up at him. “What?” she said, her voice shaky. And too loud, because the all kids nearby looked up. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Stef’s empty seat.

  Mr. Darnell’s watery blue eyes leaned closer.

  Jessie thought about the crushed egg. And about Cam. How his mom wouldn’t let him skate if his grades slipped any lower. She thought about what the girls told her: we’ll just keep this between us for now.

  “I’ll have to report you tardy,” he said softly, though it was full of warning.

  Her eyelids itched as they dried. “Okay,” she whispered.

  Darnell’s concerned look loomed over her a moment longer, then he drifted back to his desk.

  She made it to Boudreaux’s class just before the bell, and raced to his desk just as he stood to start the class. “I have to use the restroom,” she said, still gasping from her sprint from Darnell’s.

  Boudreaux nodded.

  Jessie hurried across the room, her skate shoes swishing against the carpet, and grabbed the wooden hall pass from its hook on the wall. The classroom door closed behind her with a thump.

  In the bathroom, she removed the hoodie then rolled the pocket inside-out so she could scrape the bits of gooey egg from the fabric. The rest she rinsed carefully with a soaked paper towel.

  She studied herself in the big mirror. Her hair had mostly dried but the part was jagged and her bangs looked kinked. She saw how her chest made the Skate Jam 2014 letters on her t-shirt look fat and stretched. The skater look is so 2012, the girl had said.

  Jessie rolled up the side of the shirt, exposing a new sore spot. Maybe she should take the bra off at night but thought keeping it on might prevent them from growing any more. But the sore spot burned.

  She longed to go home and climb into bed.

  Someone entered the bathroom, so she tugged the shirt down and dove into her hoodie. The girl entered a stall and Jessie tossed her used paper towels into the big, round trash bin.

  Back in class, Boudreaux was explaining his policy on extra credit to a student at the front of the room, one brown-shoed foot braced on his stool.

  “Where’s the egg?” Cam hissed as she slid into her seat.

  “I forgot it,” she said, feeling heat rise in her cheeks.

  Cam’s mouth popped open. Then his eyes turned hard.

  “Thanks for telling me you weren’t walking to school,” Jessie said.

  Cam glared at her. “I did walk to school. You were late.”

  “I wasn’t late!”

  “We had Crossing Guard duty.”

  Jessie’s mind did a two-second data crawl trying to figure out what had gone wrong. “How?” She never missed guard duty. “What day is it?”

  “Monday,” Cam said in the tone he reserved for morons—one he’d never used on her before.

  Jessie’s lips felt stuck open. “Uh, right. Sorry.”

  “What’s up with your hair?” he asked.

  Slowly, Jessie turned in her seat.

  The class had turned silent while Boudreaux wrote the day’s prompt: Being a parent is hard because . . .

  Jessie looked around the room at the sea of desks, all with egg babies tucked into their little crib boxes.

  Jessie thought about Greta holding baby May and how she always seemed to know what do to. She knew how to soothe her, when to feed her, when to put her to bed, what to do when she cried. Greta never got mad, never yelled. She definitely never yelled at Cam’s dad in the middle of the night.

  She wrote: Being a parent is hard because I can’t do anything right.

  Jessie thought about the math quiz. She’d drawn lines, and worked some numbers, but had she finished it? All that came to mind was the feel of the egg crushed in her pocket.

  We’ll just keep this between us for now, Purple Bangs had said. The message was clear but did “for now” mean that there would be a “later”? And if so, what did they have planned?

  Chapter 20

  Jessie

  By lunchtime the next day, Jessie’s sweatshirt stunk. On her way to P.E. she had stuffed her hands in the pouch only to get a crusty surprise. If only she had a spare sweatshirt in her P.E. locker but there was only a t-shirt, and it was just as tight. Could s
he raid her mom’s dresser for t-shirts too? To make things worse, her P.E. class ran sprints on the track in small groups while alternating groups watched from the bleachers. During her first race she must have bounced too much because Grady Baker said, “Nice job, Jessie,” while giving her chest a slow scan.

  The day before, Mr. Boudreaux had docked an entire fifty points for “forgetting” the egg, but said she could earn back twenty-five if she and Cam both wrote a report on responsible parenting. Cam was not talking to her.

  During Block at the end of the day, Miss Klein lectured about the Wax Museum setup for Thursday night and showed them the map of where each of them would stand, discussed the timing of set-up and cleanup, then gave them free work time. Jessie didn’t need it: her costume, sword, and poster were done. So she read the packet Boudreaux had plucked from his file cabinet with long, thin fingers, titled: “The Cycle of Neglect and Adolescent Development.”

  The other kids in the classroom buzzed around her and Miss Klein raced back and forth trying to keep everyone on task. The noise level could raise the roof. Jessie pulled up her hood and tried to concentrate. Finally, she opted to take Boudreaux’s assignment to a corner of the floor.

  The opening paragraph outlined the four different effects of neglect. Whatever, she thought, rolling her eyes. I didn’t neglect the egg. She thought about the girls moving closer to her in the bathroom. Like wolves. Maybe Boudreaux had a packet on self-defense.

  Someone sidled up next to her. “Nice tits,” he said into her ear.

  Jessie crumpled inside. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for Miss Klein, but she was on the other side of a cluster of desks, facing away.

  “I’d like to see them bouncing up and down while you ride my cock,” he whispered.

  Jessie shot up, her papers falling to the floor. She glared at Grady. “Leave me alone,” she said.

  Nearby, his friends had collapsed into a fit of laughter, and Grady smiled.

  “C’mon, you know you want it,” he said, sliding the heel of his hand over his crotch.

  Her cheeks burning, Jessie walked over to Miss Klein.

  “Can I go to the library?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Miss Klein said.

  Jessie gathered her things and stuffed them into her backpack then headed out the door, not looking back. At her locker, her shaking fingers spun the dial and when the back of the door swung open, her jaw dropped. Covering every inch was a wallpaper of pictures taped together showing naked men and women having sex. Some pictures had been ripped from a magazine, some were printed on paper. One was a close-up of a woman’s mouth around a guy’s dick, another was a close up of a man’s giant penis.

  Furious, she began to rip the images down, then heard a burst of laughter behind her. Feeling her face burn, she slowly turned to face the group of boys peering at her from around the corner of the hallway.

  Jessie glared at them, her fists tightening. Miss Klein’s distant voice called them back, and they disappeared, still cackling.

  She finished ripping down the pictures but realized she couldn’t put them in the trashcan in the hallway. What if someone found them? So ended up stuffing them in her backpack. She could hide them among the kitchen trash at home. Her skateboard stood ready, and she scooped it up. Screw this. I’m gonna bounce.

  “Truancy? Tsk tsk,” Grady’s voice said behind her.

  Jessie spun to face him. “I said leave me alone.”

  “Blow me and I won’t tell Klein.”

  Jessie clenched her mouth tight. “Just . . . go away, okay?” she said, trying to keep from shouting.

  He moved in so that she took a step back, feeling the cold metal of the lockers press against her back. His eyes slid over her chest, which she realized was heaving with fast breaths.

  Jessie knocked him back, hard. “I said leave me alone.”

  Grady recovered his footing. “Ooh, tough girl, yeah? I’ll show you tough.” He rubbed his crotch again.

  Jessie turned on her heel and hurried in the opposite direction, pushing through the set of double doors at the end of the hallway. She worried that an alarm bell would ring, or a teacher might spot her. But the doors shut behind her with a soft clunk and she was out.

  Outside, with the air crisp and the sky a soft blue, she started to cry.

  After brushing away the tears, she hurried from the school grounds to Caldart and followed it to the church lot where Stef had taken her. But Stef wasn’t there. She skated for awhile, alone; her ollie off the ramp was getting better. The landing was even, her height better. She became warm and because no one was around, shrugged off her hoodie. God, it stunk. She would make sure to wash it tonight.

  She was practicing her fifty-fifty grind when a few cars coasted into the parking lot. Afraid, Jessie ditched into the grass and hid behind a clump of shrubs. A few more cars turned from the street into the church. She heard car doors slamming and women’s voices. They would surely ask what she was doing out of school. They may even send her back, or call someone. Would they call the police? Jessie hiked through the woods to the sidewalk hugging Caldart Avenue then stepped onto her board and pumped down the street.

  Where could she go? She felt energized by her sudden freedom. An image of her treehouse floated into her mind and knew that was the place. She had a bus pass and her skateboard. But Zach might be there. He’d know she was skipping school. She could always say they’d gotten out early, though she had a feeling he’d know she was lying.

  At the highway she waited for the bus, half-expecting one of the grownups waiting next to her to ask why she wasn’t in school. But they left her alone. A cool breeze chilled her skin and she crossed her arms. With a panic, she realized that she had left her sweatshirt at the church.

  She was about to go back for it when the bus arrived. She didn’t want to skate all the way back up to the church, plus the next bus to Pioneer Hill wouldn’t come for another hour. She could go back to the church later. After boarding the bus, she worked her way to the back to where a hooded figure slumped in the corner, his eyes closed.

  Stef.

  She almost turned around—but the bus jolted forward and Jessie stumbled. Why was Stef asleep in the middle of the afternoon? Why hadn’t he been in class? Then Stef opened his eyes and blinked at her. Jessie gripped the nearest seatback and watched him recognize her. His lips didn’t smile but he dropped his legs to the floor and made room for her. She dropped in next to him.

  “Welcome to Henry’s bus,” Stef said.

  Jessie glanced at the bus driver. “You know that guy?”

  Stef shrugged. “He lets me ride sometimes.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  Stef looked out the window. “Awhile.”

  “Did you sleep here?” Jessie had noticed the dark patches under his eyes.

  Stef didn’t answer, just looked out the window again. But when she stood to get off the bus he was right behind her.

  The clear plastic outer shell that now covered the house made it look like the scene of a D-Con station in a sci-fi movie.

  “Your brother built this for you?” Stef asked as they approached the treehouse. Jessie had been relieved to not see Zach’s truck in the driveway. Showing up during school hours was bad enough; bringing a stranger would draw attention to herself even more.

  “I built the ladder, and helped nail the planks,” she said, a little defensively. During a visit last spring, Evan said he needed a project and suggested they build a treehouse. Jessie had been waiting for Zach to help her—the tree was perfect for it—but in two days Evan had it built.

  Jessie raided Zach’s bear-proof “pantry” tub he kept in the garage and plucked out a jumbo-sized bag of pistachios. She climbed the treehouse ladder, with Stef right behind.

  They settled against one wall, with the open bag of pistachios between them. For an instant she pictured her and Stef in the treehouse, side by side in sleeping bags and looking at the stars. She had begged Evan to sleep
out with her, but he always had somewhere to go.

  Stef grabbed a handful of nuts and made a pile on the floor in the hollow space where he’d crossed his legs. They ate in silence for a while.

  “Who’s Sharon Kobeck?” Jessie asked.

  Stef pulled a shell open with his teeth. “A slut.” He tossed the empty shell into the discard pile between them. “Why?”

  Jessie rolled a nut around in her palm. “Some girls were talking about her today.” She cracked the pistachio open. “Have you slept with her?”

  Stef guffawed, shook his head. “You’re somethin’ else.” He dusted his hands, then saw the frown on her face. “What?”

  “Do I look like a little kid?”

  Stef rooted in the bag for a few pistachios. “Nope.”

  “I left school today.” She wiggled her toes inside her skate shoes. “Will I get kicked out?”

  “Nah. They’ll call your house. You’ll get detention.”

  Jessie’s legs quivered at the thought of her mom getting a phone call from the school. Especially after last night. What would she do this time, eat the entire jar of pickles? Drink the creamer?

  “Why’d you ditch?” Stef asked.

  Jessie pulled up her knees. “I just felt like it.”

  Stef munched through a pile of nuts he’d shelled on the hem of his sweatshirt.

  “Are you going to be back at school tomorrow?” she asked him.

  Stef sifted through the nuts, his jaw tense. “Maybe.”

  Jessie searched her mind for a way to get him to talk, or at least not look so grumpy. “Would you show me how to do what we did?” she finally asked.

  “You mean the fire?” he asked, his hazel eyes going still.

  Jessie nodded.

  “How about something better,” he said.

  They skated to the convenience store near the bus stop back on the highway. “Wait here,” he told her when they got to the entrance.