by C.T. Millis
Chapter 12
When James got back to his house he closed the door as quickly as he ran there, so not much cold was let in. James’ mom still shivered when she hugged him hello.
“I made macaroni and cheese with mini-hotdogs,”
“MMM. That’s good- can I help you with anything?”
“You can set the table,” she started walking toward her room, “I’ll just wash up,”
James stepped on a chair to reach the dishes, grabbed the silverware from the drawer and moved to the dining room. He set up his plate and silverware at the end of the table. Then, he set up his mom’s plate with the silverware next to his. James was still holding a plate, and a fork. He stopped smiling, went to the kitchen, stepped up on the chair, and put it back in the cabinet.
James sat down at the table, and looked down into the clear glass lid that held the food, watching it fog up with steam. The kitchen window was fogged up whenever his mom cooked using boiling water, and he thought about how living in a house is a lot like being cooked.
“Do you want something to drink?” James heard his mother say from the kitchen.
“Can I have some Dr. Pepper?” James asked, sitting back in his chair.
“Ehhh, try again,”
“Kool-aide?”
“One more time?”
“How about milk?”
“Milk, we can do.” James heard his mother slide the gallon of milk out of the refrigerator shelf and put it on the counter. He heard her put the chair he used to get the plates out with. She grabbed two glasses and James could hear the swish of milk splash against the walls of glass. His mother put the milk jug back and carried two glasses to the table.
“So, are you a peasant, prince, or king tonight?”
“Prince, but I might be a king, I just don’t want to get more than I can eat.”
“Fair enough,” she scooped out two serving spoon-fulls of the orange, noodly, hot-dog concoction. She took the same amount for herself, and put the lid back on the dish.
“I think God understands that we appreciate the food, right?” she smiled at James,
“Yep! Let’s chow down!” She took a bite and said under her breath,
“I think he knows we wish there was more people for it to go around to.” James pretended he did not hear her. They didn’t pray at the table after what happened to his father. Even when his dad was home, they would all lower their eyes and James’ mom would say something nice.
“I met Sophie’s parents today, after we were playing in the school playground for a while, she invited me to her house to warm up.”
“That’s nice, are they good people?” she took a big bite of a hotdog bit.
“I think so, they seem very nice.” James took a sip of his milk, he squinted when he thought about the thick slabs of coughing Sophie’s mom sent down the stairs. It sounded so painful to him, “thank you for making dinner, I can do the dishes.”
“What a good kid, no wonder my sisters are jealous, your cousins don’t do anything but complain and make trouble- you’re pretty good at staying out of trouble, considering.” She finished up her plate, “You just get this into the sink for now, you won’t have time before the meeting to wash all of them, just get the dishes and silverware into the sink, and put the leftovers in the fridge- just in the pan, we can eat it for lunch tomorrow.” she put her fork on the plate and sipped a miniscule amount of her milk, “I’m just going to get dressed and try to look a little more like the living,” she chuckled and walked off. His mom left most of her dinner on her plate.
James scooped the rest of his food into the dish when he saw she was out of the room, and drank his milk. He brought all the dishes into the sink, put the platter into the fridge, and used a sponge to mop up the mess by his plate. James never had to clean up the table where his mom ate, but he remembered how his father usually made about the same amount of mess that he did.
When James’ mom came down, she was wearing nice black pants and a nice black blouse. Her hair was pulled back for the first time in a month, and her eyes did not look so puffy because she put on eye makeup. She smiled and James saw how much whiter her teeth seemed because of how red her lips were with the lipstick.
They both bundled up in their coats and decided to walk to the parent teacher association meeting. James’ mother wore the scarf that had his school colors on it, even though it clashed with her jacket. James blushed and hoped none of the other kids would notice, but his mom could not see him blush because it was dark outside already.
She walked him to the classroom where the kids were going to wait while the parents and teachers met in the gym. Sophie was not there yet, so after James’ mother hugged him, he went to the section of books and opened on up that had a picture of some kids in the forest on the cover.
There were a few kids from different classes, but nobody who he really wanted to talk to. He started to look at all the different books, and wondered which one was read more, wondered where the kids were who first read that copy of the book.
“They want to turn the kick ball field into a parking lot!” James heard Sophie say behind him. James turned around, and waved to her father who just finished putting her coat into a cubby for her. Sophie turned around and then turned back when they left,
“My dad is going to fight it,” she stepped closer to James, “What does your mom think about it?”
“I don’t know, she didn’t tell me about it- it must have been in the newsletter, she never lets me read the newsletter.”
“Do you think your mom will talk to the other kids’ parents again about how mean they are?”
“I hope not,” James said, “Let’s go talk over there,” James motioned to the corner, where there were fewer kids and more toys.
When they got to the corner, Sophie said, “I wish they would let us listen and talk about these things, too. They don’t ask us about anything.”
“That’s for sure, do you know what is so funny,” James said looking at the alphabet in animals on the wall. Sophie looked at him and smiled for him to continue, “A few years ago, I never thought I’d learn the alphabet, and now it’s really easy.” They sat down in chairs.
“Yeah?”
“Well, right now, it’s really hard for me to get along with people-”
“You get along with me!” James smiled,
“You know what I mean,” he continued, “In a few years, I think we’ll figure it out, I think we’ll all figure out how to get along and just have fun.”
“But James-”
“Yeah, Soph?”
“It’s just that...” she looked away, “a bunch of grownups can’t decide whether or not to have a parking lot or a kick ball field,” she sat down and put her hands on her lap, peering into them, “and even more grownups can’t decide if they should be friends or not with the people we’re at war with- and...”
“That’s a good point, Soph, I didn’t think about that.” They were quiet for a while.
“Do you want to play dentist?” Sophie asked to break the silence,
“Let’s play something else,”
“Like what?”
“We can play lost in the jungle.”
“How do you play that?”
“Oh, we got lost from our jungle tour, and we have to survive until they find us.”
“Who finds us?”
“The search party.”
“Who is playing the search party?”
“Our parents, when our parents pick us up, we won’t be lost anymore.”
“Okay, let’s try-”
They started crawling on the ground, looking for ants to eat, and water to drink.
“We can drink from the cups of the leaves,” James suggested.
“Yeah, it’s nice and warm here in the jungle, can there be a lake somewhere we can go swimming,”
“Oh yeah, over there,” they walked to the clearing in the desks.
�
��Watch out, it’s an alligator-” James warned.
“No, don’t worry, it’s friendly.” Sophie replied, causing James to look at Sophie sideways, “He’s just lonely, he won’t eat us because he can talk to us.”
“He can talk?”
“Yeah, but only I know his language, I’ll translate,” She was quiet for a bit before saying “He wants to tell us about his family.” Sophie warbled words and then came out with sentences telling James about the alligator’s family for a long while until the rescue crew found them, trickling into the playroom one by one.
Sophie’s dad was one of the first to pick her up. They smiled at James, who was still sitting on the floor, and put Sophie’s coat on. After they left, a few more sets of parents came and took their kids. Last was James’ mother, who lost some of the makeup under her eyes and was sniffling from what James thought must have been a cold. She pulled her mouth to the sides of her face and tilted her head like she was smiling, then she reached out her hand to lead James home.
“How was the meeting,”
“It went pretty well, James, they wanted to talk a lot about the kick ball field.”
“What did you think about the kick ball field to parking lot idea?”
“I’d say I didn’t care- I told the PTA about the toilet paper, but they all started grumbling,” they were leaving the school building and she passed some chatting parents so she lowered her voice, “one person raised their hand and said outright that it was unimportant,”
“I wonder how they would feel if it happened to them?” James asked.
“Exactly, I told them that,” James’ mother started getting worked up again, “another person told me it was your fault, they said-” she stifled a sob while James squeezed her hand tighter to encourage her to go on, “They said that if you had a father, he would teach you to deal with these kids, and the toilet-papering wouldn’t have happened-”
James looked at the ground in front of them as they got closer to their house. The wind cut through his jacket and he shivered. His mother kept telling the story,
“I told them you had a father, he passed away, most of the parents were quiet- but there were a few,” she was beginning to get really worked up, “they just kept saying ‘that boy needs a father,’ they said it over and over again until I just sat down and couldn’t take it anymore,” the two were quiet for a long time until they walked into the house and closed the door.
“How did the kick ball field end up?”
“They’ll be paving it over when it gets warmer out,” she put their coats up, “sorry James- go ahead and get some sleep,” and she walked upstairs to go to her room.