Tornado Brain

by Cat Patrick

  “Phones away or they’re mine,” Ms. Garrett said. Some people groaned, but everyone made their phones disappear. Not literally: I don’t go to Hogwarts.

  Ms. Garrett kept talking: “Let’s all work on something productive. That means you too, Anna and Daphne. Marcus! Settle down now.”

  The room got quiet. Everyone took out homework, because first period is homeroom and that’s what you do. I opened Call of the Wild, which is about a dog named Buck who lives in the freezing Yukon. Sometimes I specifically don’t like books that other people tell me to read, but I liked that one even though reading it wasn’t my idea.

  This lady—this specialist who was always checking in with me at school—popped her head into the room. Her name is Ms. Faust and she’s fine, I guess, except no one else has weird ladies checking up on them, so I pretended not to notice her and eventually she left. Ms. Faust was assigned to me or whatever, so it was her job to check in, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want her anywhere near me.

  I was several chapters into my book when Ms. Garrett put her bony hand on my shoulder, startling me. I cringed and pulled away from her, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t say anything she’d think was rude. I didn’t want her to call my mom. I touched my opposite shoulder to even myself out, looking down at my notebook and noticing that I’d drawn a few tiny tornadoes while I’d been reading.

  “Sorry, Frances,” she said, looking embarrassed.

  “My name is Frankie,” I snapped accidentally. Thankfully, she let it go.

  “Again, I apologize. I know you don’t like when people touch you, but you didn’t answer when I said your name.” I strained my neck looking up at her because Ms. Garrett is skyscraper tall (not literally, of course). She kept talking. “Uh, I notice that you’re reading your book for English, which is great, but I wanted to make sure you’ve finished your math homework. We only have a few minutes left in the period and Mr. Hubble asked me to check with you. He said that yesterday, you—”

  “It’s in my backpack,” I interrupted, which wasn’t a lie. It was in my backpack. It was also unfinished.

  “I see,” Ms. Garrett said. She tilted her head to the side like my dog does sometimes.

  Behind Ms. Garrett, across the room in the regular rows, several kids were watching us. Tess smiled at me with her mouth but not her eyes, a halfway smile, which was confusing; Kai smiled at me with his mouth and his eyes, an all-the-way smile, which was confusing in a different way; and Mia didn’t smile, just stared, which wasn’t confusing in the least. I frowned at all of them and they went back to their classwork.

  Ms. Garrett opened her mouth to say something else—maybe to ask to see my homework—but the announcement bell chimed, and the office lady started talking. That was unexpected, because it wasn’t announcement day, which is Tuesday. And if we had had announcements, they would have been at the beginning of the period, not the end.

  “Attention, students and staff,” the office lady said. “Please proceed immediately in an orderly fashion to the auditorium for an address from Principal Golden. Thank you.”

  Ms. Garrett looked at me blankly for a few seconds like she was stunned, but then she told everyone to get up and move toward the auditorium. Kai smiled at me all-the-way again as he left the classroom with his friends. Confused by how I felt about that, I waited until everyone else left, too, and then went into the hall.

  I watched Kai walk like he was going to wobble over, laughing so hard his eyes got watery as his friend Dillon told a story about some try-hard tourist who had wiped out at the skate park. Kai had on dark blue skate pants with cargo pockets and checkerboard slip-on sneakers and his shiny black hair looked especially interesting, like he’d been blasted by a huge gust of wind from behind and his hair had gotten stuck. I could see a scab on the back of his arm above his left elbow, which grossed me out.

  Their conversation got quieter, then Dillon turned around and looked at me, so I stopped watching Kai and stared at the wall instead.

  You should know that most people think Ocean View Middle School looks incredibly strange. About five years ago, when the old school was getting run-down, instead of wrecking it and building something new, they just added on. The front part with the offices, cafeteria, and math and English halls is clean and bright, but the back part with the auditorium and shop and music rooms is dark and smells like old sneakers.

  I like to run my hands along walls when I walk because I don’t like being surrounded by the other kids since they sometimes accidentally bump me. That’s what I was doing when Tess appeared next to me.

  Tall and skinny, not as tall as Ms. Garrett, though, she walked sort of bent in on herself like she was trying to be shorter. Her smooth, dark hair was parted on the side, so she had to tuck the hair-curtain behind her right ear to make eye contact. Eye contact made me uncomfortable.

  “Did you get in trouble?” she asked quietly, raising her perfectly neat eyebrows. I stared at them: Eyebrows are really weird, actually. They never exactly match. There’s always . . .

  “Frankie?”

  “Huh?”

  “I asked if you got in trouble?” Tess repeated.

  “For what?”

  “For not doing your homework?” She practically whispered it. Tess talked super-quietly, like she didn’t want anyone to hear her. I barely could.

  “I did my homework,” I said, which wasn’t a lie. I’d done some of my homework. And it wasn’t really her business in the first place. But I managed not to tell her that. Despite getting hungrier by the second, I was doing okay at manners so far today. I mean, except when I’d snapped at my teacher. But since she hadn’t gotten mad, it didn’t count.

  “Oh, okay,” Tess said. “Sorry.”

  Mia nudged Tess and told her to look at something on her social feed and Tess did and they both giggled—Mia loudly and Tess softly—and I was happy not to be asked any more questions about my homework.

  In the auditorium, I followed Tess and Mia down the aisle. Tess was half a head taller than Mia and Mia’s butt was half a cheek bigger than Tess’s. Tess walked like a normal teenager in her skinny jeans and gray T-shirt with an open sweater that looked like a blanket over it. Mia swayed her hips back and forth in her flowy jumpsuit, making her long, curly blond hair sway, too. They picked a row and I sat behind them on the end by the aisle. I looked around, not seeing where Kai was sitting.

  I did notice Ms. Faust smiling at me encouragingly from where she was leaning against the far wall. I wished she’d look at someone else.

  “Move over,” a mean kid named Alex said, staring down at me. He was always yelling at people—a few times even teachers. I may have big emotions, but not like Alex. “Make room for other people.”

  “I was here first,” I said, my need to sit on the aisle outweighing my desire not to get yelled at by Alex. I really don’t like being surrounded. “Here,” I said, moving my knees to the left so he could squeeze through.

  “Whatever,” Alex said, shaking his head and stepping on my foot as he shoved past me.

  “Ouch!” I said loudly. He rolled his eyes and didn’t apologize. I folded my arms over my chest and slumped down in my chair.

  It took a while for all 323 students to sit down. Well, 322 today, but we didn’t know that yet. The room felt like being on a beach when an electrical storm is coming, like you could get zapped any minute. That’s figurative language—similes and metaphors and stuff. I’m trying to use it more instead of being so literal all the time because people laugh at you when you’re literal.

  Onstage, Principal Golden held up a hand with her middle and ring finger touching her thumb, the pointer and pinkie sticking straight up: the Quiet Coyote.

  “So lame,” I heard Alex say loudly. Principal Golden looked right at him in a way I wouldn’t want to be looked at by the principal, and he didn’t say anything else.

  Principal Golde
n sniffed loudly into the microphone.

  “Something has happened,” she said, her p’s making irritating popping sounds in the mic. “This morning, there has been an incident. We’re not sure of the details, but one of our Ocean View students is missing.”

  I heard the buzzing of the microphone for a couple of seconds before the entire auditorium broke out in whispers.

  “Did she say missing?”

  “I wonder who it is?”

  “What do you think happened?”

  My mind started ping-ponging from the idea of a missing student to the missing-kid posters on the bulletin board at I Scream for Ice Cream, where my biological father made me and my sister go when he visited last year even though it was the middle of winter and pouring rain and my sister is lactose intolerant. I shook my head to tune back in to what Principal Golden was saying.

  “ . . . investigating and we don’t know anything more at this time. The police are searching the school and want to speak to select students. Rather than further disrupting this already short school day, the administration has decided to cancel class for the rest of the day. If you ride the bus, please see Mrs. Taylor in the office for instructions on . . .”

  Everyone got up at once and started talking except me: I stayed in my seat, waiting for the auditorium to thin out. My row had to exit from the other side because I was blocking my end: even mean Alex went the other way, and I was glad because I didn’t want my foot trampled again.

  It was 9:40 and I was supposed to be starting second period, English, but instead I was going to go home. My stomach rolled with the weird feeling of change. Change is my enemy.

  “She’s not answering her phone.”

  I looked over to see Tess and Mia huddled together in the aisle, whispering to each other. “When’s the last time you talked to her?”

  “Last night before dinner,” Mia said, spinning the ring on her middle finger. “She wasn’t in zero period. I thought she slept in.”

  “That’s not like her, though,” Tess said, chewing her lip. “Her bag’s not in our locker.” I leaned forward so I could hear Tess better, wondering if it bugged her that Mia’s curls were touching her hand. I brushed my own hand like they’d been touching mine. “Is she home sick?”

  They looked at each other, both with big eyes that reminded me of a certain comic book cat, Mia’s blue like a sunny day and Tess’s green-gray like a cloudy one. Maybe they felt me watching them because they both looked at me at the same time.

  “Have you talked to Colette?” Tess asked in her tentative voice.

  “Of course I’ve talked to Colette,” I said.

  “I mean recently,” Tess clarified. “Like, did you talk to Colette yesterday?” Now she was pulling on the lip she’d been biting. It was distracting: I wished she’d leave her lip alone.

  “No,” I said, just to say something. No is an easy response for me.

  “This is serious,” Mia said, leaning forward like my therapist did sometimes. She lowered her voice. “What if it’s her?”

  “What if what’s her?” I asked.

  Mia sighed loudly. “Why are you always so spacey?”

  Tess gave her a look, then explained, “Frankie, what we’re asking is: What if the missing student is Colette?”

  I stared at her without saying anything because that idea really didn’t make sense to me—since I obviously didn’t know at the time that the missing student was Colette and since I’d been mostly thinking that it felt strange being told to go home when I’d just gotten to school. This was not my normal routine.

  “Come on,” Mia said, pulling on Tess’s arm, “let’s go see if the teachers need help.”

  chapter 2

  Myth: Twin tornadoes are extremely rare.

  THE PSYCHIATRIST IS the one who labels you.

  My mom picked up clothes and books and papers from the floor while I lounged on my bed, trying to ignore her, instead of being at school. I concentrated on not being annoyed about her touching my stuff because if I exploded, she’d probably make me go to the psychiatrist again.

  Our deal was that if I could keep my anger and other stuff under control, I could stay off medication. And I really wanted to stay off medication: it made me sleepy or starving or spacey or bloated or weepy or forgetful or jittery—or all of the above—depending on which one I was taking. I was only on medication because of the labels—and like I said, the psychiatrist is the one who labels you.

  I got labeled when I was in fourth grade. I’d been digging through my mom’s desk, looking for glue. Instead, I found something that looked like a test—except the questions weren’t about math or history or science: they were about behavior.

  The directions said to fill in the bubble that fit best. You had to pick whether the statements were not true, sometimes true, often true, or almost always true.

  The child wanders aimlessly from one activity to another.

  The child has difficulty relating to peers.

  The child stares or gazes off into space.

  The child gets teased a lot.

  The child walks between two people who are talking.

  The child offers comfort to others when they are sad.

  The child has more difficulty with change than other children.

  There were seventy-five statements. None of the bubbles had been filled in yet. My name was at the top of the page.

  For a week, I snuck out of bed in the middle of the night to check the drawer and see if the bubbles had been filled in, bringing a notebook with me to write down the words I didn’t know so I could look them up in the dictionary. I wanted to know if my mom thought that I never, sometimes, often, or almost always wander aimlessly from one activity to another. If she thought I never, sometimes, often, or almost always have difficulty relating to peers. If I never or always gaze off into space. If I never walk between two people who are talking. If I always get teased a lot.

  If the child has more difficulty with change than other children.

  I wanted to know what my mom thought of me. But I never found out because one night the bubbles were empty, and the next they were gone. They appeared again in the psychiatrist’s office—but no one would show them to me. I remember that I was mad about the bubbles—and also mad because the psychiatrist said labels I didn’t understand but looked up on the internet later, like “neurological disorder” and “attention deficit” and “poor executive functioning”—labels that were directed at me! There were all sorts of articles about how parents could “cope with” kids with these problems. Until the labels, I didn’t know I was someone my mom had to “cope with.” Until the labels, I didn’t know I had “problems.”

  Mad about the bubbles and about not being included in the conversation and about being talked about in a way that felt gross, I had kicked the back of the psychiatrist’s desk. That made my mom mad, which made me madder, which made me kick harder. Eventually, I melted out of the chair onto the floor, kicking the back of his desk with full force, over and over and over. My mom and the psychiatrist left until I calmed down, but before they did, I remember my mom crying. I don’t like to think about that.

  Sometimes I don’t remember things at all, and sometimes I remember them too clearly. That’s a thing I wish I’d forget.

  “Frankie?” my mom asked, back in the present. She was holding a pile of my books and staring at me. I stared back at the reverse-parentheses wrinkles at the top of her nose between her eyebrows. “Did you hear me? I asked if I should call Gabe and make an appointment for you. I’m concerned that you haven’t seen him in a while. And with everything going on now, I think it’d be a good idea.”

  Gabe is my therapist, which is way better than a psychiatrist. Therapists spend more time with you and try to talk to you and give you suggestions. I don’t remember that much about the first time I met Gabe, but
I do remember that his office was filled with board games and musical instruments and toys, and he talked to me alone, without my mom, and didn’t label me or hide bubble worksheets from me. And he let me draw tornadoes while he asked me questions.

  “Frankie, are you listening to me?” my mom asked.

  “Yes!” I said, taking a deep breath. “But you don’t need to call Gabe. I don’t need to go to therapy every time some little thing happens.” I focused on keeping my voice calm. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

  Often, Gabe makes me feel better about things. But I still didn’t want to make an appointment with him. I wanted to prove that I could do it on my own. I didn’t want weird Ms. Faust trying to smile at me at school. I wanted to be a normal person who could just live regularly without needing help every other minute.

  And I was doing okay—as long as my routine stayed pretty much the same. But then Colette went missing—though I didn’t know it was Colette for sure yet—and her current best friends, Tess and Mia, had asked me questions I hadn’t exactly answered truthfully and I was home when I should have been in English, so my routine was not the same today.

  My mom put down the books and moved super-close to the end of my bed, maybe going to sit on it, and I really didn’t want her to. I have a thing about people sitting on my bed, even people I love like my mom.

  “This isn’t a little thing, Frankie . . .”

  Don’t sit on my bed, I thought.

  “This is a big thing, a missing child.”

  Don’t lean against it like that; it’ll make you want to sit!

  “Gabe might have some strategies for—”

  She sat down.

  “Mom! Stop!” I shouted at her, unable to keep my voice level anymore. “The kid is probably dead. We’ll all just have to deal with it.”

  “Frances Vivienne Harper!” Mom gasped.

  Whoops.

  “I didn’t mean that,” I said quickly, backpedaling. “I just said that because I’m hungry.”