An Invisible Sign of My Own

by Aimee Bender

  Lisa stood directly next to me and gripped the handle of the ax in my hands.

  Hey Lisa, Ann said from her seat. I have an idea. Ms. Gray, she said, let’s make a Number and Material out of you.

  The class hushed, instantly.

  What do you mean, Ann? I asked.

  I mean, I bet you won’t cut off a finger if we dare you to, Ann said.

  Oh, I thought to myself, I bet I might.

  Lisa leapt in. We’ll cut one off you, Ann, she said. I’ll come over and chop off your big mouth if you don’t shut up. Ellen, STOP sharpening!

  John Beeze, always loyal to Lisa, started laughing. Ellen, at long last, removed her pencil from the sharpener, blew on it as sweetly as if it were a dandelion wish, and sat down at her seat. Without the electronic rrr buzz, the room seemed almost empty now, it was so quiet.

  Ann looked a little nervous but still turned to me. Her eyes were clear and green. Who cares about a finger? she said. Let’s make a 1 for Numbers and Materials. It’ll be way better than the arm.

  Hey, shut up, said Danny O’Mazzi.

  It’s true, Ann said, holding up her hand, splaying her fingers. Look how straight, she said.

  Well, Ann, I said smoothly, I need my fingers to count on. Fingers are a crucial part of math because ten is a good base. Nine is too complicated. Our bodies are made for math, just the way they are, I said.

  Don’t do it, said Elmer.

  I shook my head. Don’t worry Elmer, I said. Lisa, let go of the 7. Class, pull out a piece of paper and do the problems on the board. Remember to carry over from the tens place if you need to.

  Ellen removed a paper from the stack on the bookshelf, and wrote her name and the date at the top in perfect cursive. She had no eraser but then pulled from her pencil case a second pencil, this one with no lead but just two sides of eraser, hammerhead shark’s brother, that she had constructed herself with some tape.

  Come on, said Ann. I want to see a finger as a 1.

  I want to slice Ann in half, said Lisa, still standing next to me.

  Danny O’Mazzi pulled off his sneaker and sock and stuck his bare foot on top of the table, wiggling his toes. Yesterday in the bath I thought my baby toe looked kind of like a 6, he said.

  I got pulled in for a second, looking at it. His toe did look kind of like an upside-down 6, or else a little wobbly 9.

  So chop if off then, Ann said.

  You can stick it on your mantel, added Lisa.

  Danny whisked his foot off. Lisa and Ann shared a rare smile. Outside the room, the parents laughed about something and heels clicked away from the door.

  Dumb parents, I hate them, Lisa said.

  Just because you have none, said Danny, pulling on his sock.

  John jabbed Danny in the side with his elbow. Lisa’s mouth got hard and she raised my hand with the ax, trying to pull it up, get under the chair and swipe at Danny’s toe, but I pushed her fingers off, placing the ax down on the side table where I held it down firm with my hand.

  Stop! I said. Let’s get going. Ann, did you or didn’t you bring back the 42? Danny, stop smelling your sock.

  Elmer’s eyes were wide and nervous. Is skin a material? he asked.

  Everything is a material, said John Beeze.

  Lisa was still standing right up next to me. I could feel the heat of her, rising. This room of mine had no windows.

  If you want someone to cut off a finger, I’ll do it, she said then. I can do it. I don’t mind. I want to do multiplication with 1 like Danny did. We never get to do multiplication and I know all multiplication, even the 9’s. I want to play an amputee in Life Acting class.

  It was MY idea, said Ann. That’s not fair.

  Lisa, I said, no way. Go sit.

  She stepped closer to me, skin so warm I could feel it. Why not? she asked. I don’t even like my fingers. They’re stubby. See? Give me back the 7. I want to be a word problem. Lisa had five fingers and then she cut off one finger. How many fingers did she have left?

  Four fingers! sang out John Beeze.

  Now Ann stood. Well I want to too then, she said.

  I pressed my hand on the ax handle as Ann approached, ready to go hang it back up, and Lisa was glaring at Ann and Ann was glaring at Lisa and just then, at the back of the table Ellen, surrounded by hammerheads, peed.

  Ellen, bathroom, I said.

  She crept off, but in that one instant, Lisa had seen my fingers relax and she whipped the ax right out from underneath my palm.

  Now she was swinging it around the room.

  Hey, I said. Lisa. Hey, put that down, NOW. Lisa!

  I put her name right on the board: Lisa.

  She ran to the back of the room, face alive with light. I ran after her.

  No, she said. I want to do it. I want to try. 9 × 9 = 81, she said.

  Ann was pouting and jumping. It was MY idea, she said. I want to, I want to. It was MY idea. Lisa always gets to do everything!

  Lisa was dodging and jumping, off chairs, under the table, around the bookshelves. I tried to grab her, putting check marks on every chalkboard I passed, one check, two checks, three. She didn’t even look up. I went left. She went right. More: four check marks, five check marks, more than anyone all year long, six check marks, seven, benchtime for the whole year, Elmer gasping at the rows of checks on the boards, but Lisa wasn’t even paying attention. She dodged again, and then, eyes glittering, put her hand flat down on the back table, and the ax hovered wobbly above it and I was rushing over and everyone was watching, frozen, and the ax swooped low and slammed down, bang, just missing her hand by an inch to make a dent in the fake wood, which shook slightly from the blow. My heart nearly stopped and Lisa was staring at her hand which was all there and John Beeze had pulled the ax out of the desk and was trying to give it to me when Ann rushed over and swept it from his hands.

  Mine! she said.

  Lisa was still looking at her hand, all whole, in total dismay. I don’t need all these fingers, she said. I wanted 9 to be my base. I wanted one less.

  I grabbed Lisa’s hand in mine and pressed down on it, dizzy with relief. Then Ann yelled out: I want two less, I want five less, and Lisa wrenched free from me, not done at all, and said, Then cut off your whole arm then, I’ll cut it off for you, it was not your idea, it was MY idea, and I yelled at Lisa to sit down and the rest of the kids were now either cowering in corners or running around the room in frantic scurried movements and someone, maybe Mimi Lunelle, was under the table, and Elmer was muttering under his breath something religious, and I managed to get closer to Ann but she held the ax behind her and I didn’t want to touch her because the blade was lined up with her back so I yelled SIT DOWN in my shrillest authoritative voice and most everyone sat down except Ann and Lisa, like gargoyles posted at two corners in the far back of the room, Ann with the ax behind her, Lisa’s hands in fists.

  I held out my arm, palm up. If I don’t get the ax right this second, I said loudly, I’m calling your parents and having them come get you. And Ann, I need the 42, too. Hand over the ax.

  I knocked on the real wood bookcase.

  My mom is dying in the hospital and can’t come get me ever again, said Lisa.

  Ann’s face screwed up. Lisa ALWAYS has an excuse, she said. She held tight to the wooden handle. I’m keeping the ax. And I’m keeping the 42 too, she said.

  Those are not yours to keep! I said. I moved sideways, very slowly, to get behind her so I could grab it.

  Ann, Lisa said calmly. If you give me the ax I’ll cut off your fingers for you.

  No, said Ann, in a sour voice. Ms. Gray, can I cut off your finger?

  No, I said, getting closer.

  Ann held the ax up over her head. Then I’m going to throw it across the room, she said.

  No! shouted Mimi, Elmer, Danny, and John.

  But Ann already had it pulled back, deep behind her. I was almost in grabbing range but she was fast, reaching up and out, arms weighted from the steel, preparing to t
hrow it, fling it across the room, and her arms lifted over her head, but right before the ax could leave her hands and go flying, the weight forced the blade down, curling the length of her own body and hitting straight into her bare thigh. We all heard as it cut past the skin, and cracked into the femur. Dead on. Metal on bone. Burying its blade in her flesh—hard into soft. Square into cylinder. Ann DiLanno, inside coming out; Ann DiLanno, opened up like timber. Blood filled in around the blade, fast. The skin puckered open and Ann’s face transformed into a horrified grimace and she began shrieking.

  I’ve cut my leg off, she screamed.

  Oh no no, I said, just a little part, and Lisa was at the tissue box pulling out tissues one after the other, ssh ssh ssh, and I could hear Mimi gagging and Ann was crumpling down to the floor, the ax sticking out of her leg and right then Ellen walked back in the classroom in a new pair of pants, those ones left in the lost-and-found for just that purpose, plaid pleated pants of another decade, but when she saw what had happened, she turned on her heel and walked right back out. Lisa pulled the ax out of Ann’s leg, which spit blood once unplugged and we lay pieces of tissue on the open wound which was like using a bottlecap as an umbrella, and I tried to pinch the two sides together but they kept pursing open. Ann was sobbing. It was a thick gash, a clean line, a ravine of blood, from above her knee straight up her leg, closer to inner thigh than outer, far far too close to everything important, and it reminded me, all too clearly, of a version of the blow I had almost given myself.

  It’s just a cut, I said, my hands shaking.

  It’s a One, said John Beeze, sitting in his chair.

  One times Ann is Ann, said Danny O’Mazzi.

  22

  It was Ellen who made the call, rushing from the room to the phone and punching in 911, picking at those plaid pants, pointing to the math room before the laughing parents, now sitting in the kitchen gossiping, even got wind of what had happened.

  Then they rushed in.

  They found Ann in a heap by the back table, dizzy, choking with sobs, her thigh laced with wings of tissue, drooling blood out of her leg.

  Mrs. DiLanno entered, face emptying, scooping up Ann, saying, Baby are you okay? Baby what happened? Is she okay? Call the ambulance! and the sound of the siren could be heard approaching closer, the one ambulance in town, jaunty and clean, red light awhirl, and Ann started to cry louder in response. Lisa had her cheek shoved against the wall.

  Elmer’s father ducked through the doorframe. I didn’t know where to stand, where to put myself. The ax was on the floor, blade red-caked, and Gustav Gravlaki picked it up by the handle, boomed: And what is THIS? He brandished it up high, until it grazed the ceiling, and he looked like a painting, holding my ax, the exact muscled mustached woodcutter. I couldn’t meet his eyes. My boss rushed in, and ordered me to go sit in the kitchen and wait for her, which I did, head down, looking at no one. I could hear the rest of the second grade running outside and getting ready for recess early and Lisa was making her popping sounds and I could hear Ann crying and crying and Mimi was crying and Elmer was crying, talking about the bone, how he heard the bone, how it sounded like a rock, and Ellen had apparently peed the second pair of pants and there were no more pants in the lost-and-found so she had to wear a shirt as a skirt, sleeves hanging off her child hips like tentacles. John was dribbling a kickball. Lisa stopped by the door of the kitchen and looked in at me. In the background, we could hear Ann’s voice shaking down in metered sobs.

  You shouldn’t be talking to me, I said to Lisa. Go to recess now.

  The ambulance siren arrived, no Doppler effect because it did not pass, but instead stopped, parked. Kids from other classes rushed to the windows to watch. Word got out fast: Ann cut off her leg, Ann killed herself, Ann killed the whole second grade. The paramedics busted in; Lisa didn’t move, didn’t look. She was very used to ambulances. Big deal, she once told me. It’s a white van. Two huge men in huge outfits ran inside, bright blue and ruddy, the sons of proud mamas, fellows who knew CPR and used it, who birthed babies and put the air from their lungs into the lungs of wheezing town members, who watched people breathing in the park, in the hardware store, in the movie theater, and recognized their own breath in the lives of others—these men ran inside like health embodied, and the kids pulled away from the windows, leaving opaque ghosts of noses and mouths on the glass. I heard scurrying and adjusting as Ann was lifted onto a stretcher and carried out; she went by my door, bloody, wailing, getting drawings piled on her by the art class in session who all suddenly became very generous with their art and put them on her belly like sacrifices: Here, Ann, a pony; Here, Ann, a flower. Papers that weren’t steady fluttered to the floor. As she exited, I heard Ann wail, through her sobs: This doesn’t look anything like a pony.

  The low voice of a paramedic. The opening and closing of the school doors.

  She was followed by the parents and then the kids after the parents and then the siren. Then quiet. Elmer crying. John dribbling that kickball.

  The rest of the kids started to trickle into the playground. I had my hand flat on the seat of my wooden chair, pressing down, harder, and put my head face down on my other arm, slumped on the table in the kitchen. I could hear my boss shooing away all the remaining kids, telling them to go to recess. I heard Danny O’Mazzi ask, Is Ms. Gray still here? and I felt a rush of love, sweet biceped Danny. An ax? somebody else asked. Can I have Ann’s cubby? asked a third.

  No More Questions! my boss said loudly. Go play, children!

  I heard the science teacher, releasing his group, talking to a fifth-grader, voice worried, asking what had happened, asking where I was, but my boss swept in and told him if he didn’t do recess duty right that instant he was fired.

  That’s three, I thought, vaguely. I almost laughed out loud because it was not at all funny. I wanted to see him. I wanted to tell him he was right, every time, he was always right.

  I heard my boss click off to her office, feet sharp and fast and angry on the tile. The school quieted.

  I breathed in the familiar smell of my skin. The thought of Ann in that ambulance, bleeding on a stretcher, made my ribs compact into a box; my breathing was thickening and I thought I might throw up when I heard some kind of shifting sound and picked my head up to see Lisa still standing outside the door, small and tight in her little shorts and shirt, staring at me. Lisa Venus. Wearing the I.V. that first day like a queen. Her eyes were wide and direct.

  Well, she said, I guess we killed her.

  You’re not supposed to be here, I said. You should be going to recess now. You’re late.

  Behind me, the refrigerator whirred. The room was half-dark. I was thinking about Ann saying, That’s not from nature, that’s plastic, about Lisa’s zero—funny Ann, sensible Ann, cut-up Ann the cutup.

  Then after a second, I took in what I’d just heard.

  Wait, what did you say? I said.

  Lisa knocked her hips from side to side. She looked perfectly reasonable. She said: I took down the ax and you brought in the ax. We can send secret messages to each other in jail.

  Ann’s not going to die, I said.

  Lisa’s voice was an afternoon breeze. And, I took the ax to the back of the room, she said. And, I told Ann to cut off her whole arm. And, I hate Ann, she said.

  She’s not going to die, I repeated.

  She is TOO going to die! Lisa said, her voice rising. Fingers clenching into a fist.

  I felt like going to sleep right then, and put my head on the table, closed my eyes. What kind of math teacher keeps weapons in her classroom? The insides of my eyelids were warm and dark. I could barely hear Lisa.

  Ms. Gray, Ms. Gray, she was saying, and I ignored her, kept my eyes closed, willing her away, get out, go play some murderous pirate game on the playground, go enslave Elmer who’s probably throwing up himself somewhere from the sight of blood, the sound of bone, and I thought she had left and was sinking back into my deep worm-infested pit of horror and shame wh
en I heard in the background a very familiar sound, one so familiar I thought I was doing it myself until I realized my hands were still. Just a simple tapping, the most familiar sound in the world to me.

  Knock knock knock. Inhale, exhale. Knock knock knock knock. A perfect replica.

  I opened my eyes. She was still standing there in the doorway, intent, her fist now on the wooden door frame. She kept knocking.

  Look here, she said, lookie here, I’m Ms. Gray. Look at me, I’m Ms. Gray. She knocked at exactly the same rhythm I did. She kept knocking. Knock knock knock knock. She drew in her breath just like I do. It was a very effective imitation. I wanted to knock, watching her be me, knocking.

  I kept my head on the desk, eyes on her steadily.

  Knock knock knock knock.

  Lisa, I said.

  Her face was flushed with focus. Sometimes, she said, I do you for Hands-on Health. After cancer. If there’s time.

  I pressed my hand harder on the wood of the chair, bothered.

  I’m not sick, I said, into the crook of my elbow.

  Lisa kept knocking. The dull clamor of recess rose outside.

  My eyes felt tired against my arm, barely working, watching Lisa knock that door frame. I thought of Mr. Gravlaki waving the ax in the air, his face dark with rage, and panic flared in my ribs.

  Ann, I murmured then, mostly to myself.

  No, said Lisa, Lisa.

  I kept watching her. Inhale. Knock knock knock knock. Then exhale. Repeat: Inhale. Knock knock knock knock. Exhale. Perfect.

  I didn’t know you knew I knocked, I said then, slowly.

  Lisa shrugged. Everyone knows, she said. Even Mimi knows and she barely knows anything. When I do you for Guess Who? in Hands-on Health, everyone gets it in about a second.

  I kept my hand on the chair. Rubbed knuckles against the wood. Guess Who. I’d thought I’d been carrying on my knocking secretly, my own guilty private guillotine. Since Mr. Jones and the day of the makeup math test, no one had ever said anything to me about it.

  Does Ann know? I asked, starting to close my eyes again even though my heart was beating faster.