Quaking

by Kathryn Erskine

  I am wedged into my guidance counselor’s office. It has the size and ambiance of a janitor’s closet. And a worse stench. You can get a nicotine fix from the cigarette odor. The large, bearded guidance counselor is clicking away on his computer. “You took some, uh, tests before you left your last school, and we need to look at those before we place you.”

  I do not know why only Loopy will call them IQ tests. Perhaps everyone else wants to hide what they really are in case I fail them.

  His fingers stop, his eyes open wide, staring at the screen. He whistles.

  Oh, God, I failed them.

  His eyes dart over to me then back to the screen. He coughs. He puts a hand over his mouth. He looks at me again and then quickly away.

  “Am I going to be sent back to middle school?” I ask, unable to bear the silence any longer.

  He laughs loudly and awkwardly. “And you’re a joker, too, huh?”

  Elementary school?

  “I think it’s safe to say that you’re eligible for the accelerated program we have here at Franklin.”

  Excuse me? Is he saying I am actually smart?

  He looks at me over his glasses. “You’ve been skating by, haven’t you? Well, you might actually have to do a little work for a change.” He looks back at the screen.“You have to take World Civ with the other ninth-graders because that’s a required course to graduate . . . and, hmmm.” He raises his eyebrows so high I think his eyeballs might rise above his glasses. “Playing around in math class, were we? Pre-Algebra twice?”

  Well, Mr. Jefferson was calm and predictable. And he left me alone. Why would I want to leave that? So I wrote the wrong answers on tests. But really, I like solving equations. Math problems always have a right answer. Unlike my own.

  “We’ll put you in regular Algebra, but if it’s too easy, we can move you up to the accelerated class. All your other classes can be Honors or AP.”

  “AP?” I whisper. Can I be inconspicuous and AP at the same time?

  “A . . . P,” he repeats slowly. “You know, advanced placement?”

  I nod jerkily.

  He types away at the keyboard. “Okay, got to take PE twice a week . . . AP English, AP Biology, and . . . let’s see . . . we can’t fit Spanish in your schedule, but we’ll put you in Honors French.”

  The implications of being AP are just dawning on my newly enlightened brain. “Does this mean I can graduate early?”

  “Yes.” He glares at me over his glasses. “But you don’t need to rush it.”

  But if I rush it, I could be done by, say, sixteen and get a job. Or go to college. Or move to Canada. I read on the Internet that you can be declared an adult in Alberta at age sixteen. I could be on my own officially, instead of by default.

  “How fast can I graduate?”

  He sighs. “You kids, you have no idea how lucky you have it. Like I tell my own kids, you’ll realize how tough it is when you’re out in the world and don’t have Mom and Dad around anymore.”

  I stare at him like he is the blind man and I am the seeing-eye dog.

  “You’re only fourteen, right?”

  In people years, maybe. In dog years I am ninety-eight. I have lived an entire lifetime.

  He shakes his head and hands me my schedule.“One day at a time. It’s Friday, so World Civ is your first class. He’s expecting you, and he’s got a . . . a short fuse. Don’t irritate him.” He reaches over his desk to open the door. “Go on, now. Hurry. Oh—enjoy your first day.”

  Enjoy? I am not sure which is worse, first days or nightmares. Actually, first days are nightmares. I have been through enough of them to know that. And this time I get to start with the teacher who has a “short fuse.” Exactly the type I try to avoid.

  I run all over the stupid school looking for the right room. The building is huge. And not well marked. Since when did C come before A in the alphabet? And what are purple lockers doing in the “Blue Quad”? And why is the “quad” actually a triangle?

  When I finally find 3B01, I peek through the window in the door first. The World Civ teacher is balding even though he is not that old. He is talking but he keeps stopping to squeeze his lips together like he is trying to keep his head from exploding. His face is red and I wonder if it always looks that way or if his short fuse is already on fire. I think about not going in at all and, instead, arriving at my second class early. But then I notice that his lips have stopped moving altogether and he is staring straight at me. Through the small window in the door. Which is focusing his beam on me with increasing intensity. His face looks even redder. I want to run but I know that I am trapped.

  Slowly I open the door, my heart pounding.

  It is still and hot and smells faintly of rotten garbage. All eyes are on me, not just the teacher’s. I cannot stand the spotlight but it is shining on me so hard it makes me sweat. Desperately, I lunge for the desk in the back row, out of the teacher’s eyeball range. It is just a few steps away but I manage to bang into every other desk and flop into the chair, tipping it noisily.

  There are snickers all around me and I hold my breath, hoping the class will just go on. A horrible silence follows. Then the teacher’s nasal voice. I swallow so hard my ears are momentarily blocked and I panic, not knowing if he is talking to me, about me, or what.

  “. . . was saying, I’d like a report on the local, uh, political debate over our role in the Middle East.” He clears his throat and I finally breathe.

  Until I hear the sneer from a few desks forward and one row to the left and I shiver. I recognize the cruelty in that voice. The bully. From the bus. Why does he have to be in my class?

  And then he speaks. “You mean, like, between the real Americans and the pro-terrorist scum?” He snorts.

  I look up, surprised that even a bully would talk that way to a teacher.

  Amazingly, the teacher is smiling. “I suppose that’s one way to put it.” He squeezes his lips together again.

  I hear a murmur somewhere near me. A murmur of discontent, I am sure.

  The bully’s black shirt stiffens, his back arches, and he sits up straight. His dark hair is rigid and sticks out at the back of his neck. He raises his head and his nose twitches, sniffing the air, smelling his prey. His head whips around and his small Rat eyes catch me.

  I look down fast. Please, let him not have seen me! I was not even the one murmuring, for God’s sake. I shift in my seat, leaning on my right hip, to hide behind the boy in front of me.

  “Yeah,” he says slowly, “I’d put it that way.We’ve got soldiers fighting to stop the terrorists and keep America safe. Then we got these assholes who won’t fight—won’t even support our troops—because they’re just chicken-shits.” He pounds his desk and I jump. “They’re trying to stop the war and help the terrorists.” He snorts, an angry snort. “And they call it peace.”

  He spits the word out but lets the ending hiss linger. It makes me shudder. I remember what Loopy said: You know how Quakers are into peace.

  I can hear the Rat breathing. I wish he would turn around. Is he still looking at me?

  “Yes,” the teacher sharply agrees. “People have different ideas about peace, don’t they? So, who would like to report on what’s happening in our town? Actually, in a lot of towns across the country.” He stops to squeeze his mouth shut momentarily. “How do some of the rest of you feel?”

  I feel nothing. I just want this class to be over. Someone, please, volunteer to do this report so he does not think to call on the new girl.

  For some reason, I look over at the Rat. He is hunkered down and grinning at a student next to him in my row. The Rat squeezes his lips together to the point that his entire face scrunches up in a horrible sneer and turns red. There are muffled snorts of laughter. Is he making fun of the teacher? I wonder if the teacher saw. I glance at the front of the room but the teacher is not looking.

  Oh, God, what did the teacher say? Did he just say Quakers? I think he did. Any Quakers? Why would he say that? And
why is he looking at me? Does he know? How could he know? I am not a Quaker, I just live with them. It was not my choice!

  “How about our new student, Misssss . . .”

  Oh, God! He knows! I refuse to look up.

  “Hmm?” he insists.

  The only sound is the static hum from the fluorescent lights. Their buzz—crack! makes my ears throb. My eyes are blinking as frenetically as the lights flicker. My arms and legs are starting to shake. That familiar, awful feeling. I wind my legs around each other, grip the edge of the desk, and stare at the gouged-out blob in the middle of it.

  At the front of the room, papers rustle and finally snap. “Matil—”

  “No,” I squeak-scream before the teacher even has my name out.

  “Excuse me?” His voice goes up. “No?”

  I shake my head, still looking down at the gouge on my desk.“I—I—” I cannot even think, much less speak.“Not—I—I—am—um—not—”

  The Rat snorts. “Uh—I—ah—ew—ahn—DUH!” I can feel him turn in his desk but I crouch down, out of his radar, I hope.

  Snickering, and then the teacher’s voice again.

  I hold my breath.

  “No takers, then?” he says.

  Takers? Oh, God, that’s what he was saying. Not Quakers! Takers. I let out my breath and almost allow my head to drop the last few inches to the desk.

  I hate first days.

  “Hey, I care about this stuff,” the Rat says.“I’ll do an oral report, but I don’t want to write one. And can you make it count as my grade if, you know, I don’t ace the final?”

  What? Involuntarily, I glance at the teacher. Is he going to let the Rat get away with that? Again, I am surprised at his response. His eyes are soft and he nods his head and looks at the Rat the way a father might look at his son, whom everyone else knows is obnoxious, but the father is too blind to see.

  “I guess,” the Rat says, turning around to look in my direction, “some people don’t give a damn about our troops getting killed over there, trying to save our lives.”

  I care! I hate anyone even getting hurt, much less dying! I hate to see anyone being a victim! How dare he make me look like someone who does not even care? Does he really care about dying soldiers? I wonder. He seems to care more about creating turmoil.

  I look back at the teacher and his soft eyes have turned to fire and they are burning into me. This is not a good beginning.

  BAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! The electronic bell over the door makes me jump. Scuffling, and boots, and chatter move past me and I get up slowly, stiffly, and stagger out into the hall.

  The hair on the back of my neck stands up even before the hot breath hits me. The hiss is low but the tension is high. “Chicken-shit.”

  I whip around to see the narrowed eyes and ugly sneer of the Rat. He laughs mockingly and elbows a boy next to him, who starts laughing, too. The Rat stands shoulder to shoulder with several more of his Vermin. They blend into one massive Wall as they block the hallway, leering at me. I turn and run the other way.

  I shake through my entire English class until the blaring bell jangles me again.

  By the time I get to math, I am calmer. It is almost Zen to sit and do math problems. Algebra is the antithesis of World Civ. The teacher is boring, predictable, and relatively safe. He has about as much personality as a school bus driver. He sits at his desk and ignores us while we copy problems off the board and write the answers in our notebooks. At least, some of us do. Even those who refuse to work leave me alone. They throw spitballs, play games on PDAs, and trade medications. It is much like being on the bus. But without the Rat. I suspect the Rat is only in World Civ, although in his case “only” is still too much.

  I have no appetite for lunch but I am on the lunch program and at my last school the Cafeteria Police called Loopy if I did not pick up the lovely rations. So I get my tray and slump at a table with some large, loud girls who smell bad, figuring I am safe because no one will mess with them, not even the Rat. They give me strange looks but shrug and go on with their raunchy jokes. I pick at the barf on my Styrofoam plate, trying to decide if it is Lasagna à la Piemonte or Mediterranean Trout Treasure. I do not eat any of it. I drink a soda, and that fills me up without making me sick.

  I am in French 5, which is a little odd, considering I have only had two years of French. Still, my last French teacher told me that I have a “bi-zarre” facility for languages. I thought it was an idiot-savant sort of thing, like I am particularly good at languages but I am otherwise particularly stupid. Except that, apparently, I am not otherwise particularly stupid. Now that is truly bi-zarre.

  We are studying French literature. Madame insists that we speak “en français, s’il vous plaît.” This does not actually bother me because it is like speaking in code. I imagine myself in the French resistance and everything I say to the co-opted Vichy French teacher is a lie, a façade to obtain an A but never tell her what I really think of Albert Camus . . . merde!

  Biology is good. I am an expert.We are studying morphing, but I have already morphed. I have my own exoskeleton. My face is hard and cold like stone. My shoulders are piles of knots strung together into steel. My muscles are so hard they are like bone.

  I have spent years developing my armor and I will not let it be pierced.

  On the bus, I sit near the front, away from where the Rat hole is, I hope. Rats carry plague and must be avoided. I learned that a long time ago. I stay low, digging in my backpack for some imaginary need, wanting to slump so far down that I can hide under the seat. I make myself small and dark so that I look like a hole and there is nothing there. Nothing, Rat, only nothingness, so move on. I sense him slink past and I am safe for the moment. I know, however, that it is only a matter of time before I am dead meat.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The first day of school seems like a week and I spend Saturday in my room recuperating. It is actually Jessica and Sam’s room, I suppose, since this house has only two bedrooms and the Blob has the tiny one next to mine. Jessica and Sam sleep in the living room downstairs.

  There is not much in my room except the sofa bed, dresser, and shelves filled with an odd assortment of books—Contact, A Beautiful Mind, Fine Woodworking—and a cross-stitch on the wall that says “Be the change you want to see in the world.—Mahatma Gandhi.” I was not aware that Gandhi was a Quaker. I imagine it would be news to him, too.

  By Sunday, I am ready to see the Quaker Trio in the “family” room, aka kitchen.

  Jessica fixes a big breakfast.

  Scrapple: I call it the s word with crap inside of it.

  Eggs: aborted animals.

  Burnt toast: dead bread.

  No apple crisp.

  I eat nothing.

  “It’s First Day,” Jessica says.

  I think this is some special occasion. “First day of what?”

  “I mean it’s Sunday, the first day of the week. We have Meeting for Worship this morning.”

  “You mean church?” I try to put it in normal words for her.

  “Well, it’s our version of church.”

  “Oh, no thanks. Been there, done that.” I have been to so many churches—fundamentalist, revivalist, and even regular ones—it is ridiculous. And so are they.

  “There’s no child care at Meeting this week,” Jessica pipes up.“I was going to stay home with Rory so you could go, but if you don’t mind staying home and taking care of him—”

  “Whoa! Okay, I understand blackmail. I will go.” No way am I being stuck with the Blob.

  I am out the door while they are still staring at each other in Quaker. I crunch over the frozen grass to their Subaru station wagon. It is white. And rust. With a lime-green passenger door. And a peace symbol on the back. And a bumper sticker that says I SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, I QUESTION OUR POLICIES.The bumper is crushed right next to the sticker, and I wonder if an angry vehicle was responding to the statement.

  Sam catches up with me. I stop breathing when I see his dorky
hat. It is a too-small baseball cap that makes his hair stick out in curly clumps on the sides. He looks like a clown.

  He is wheezing.The man needs to go on a diet. And get some exercise. He will be dead by the time he is forty. Oh, God, I sound like a public service announcement.

  “You don’t have to go to Meeting if you don’t want to.” He pants. “You’re welcome, but you’re not compelled.” Another breath. “Jessica will stay home with you and Rory, if you like.”

  I ponder my stellar options. I look back at the dumpy duplex, then at the sucky Subaru. I am freezing.The Subaru is closer. “Fine, I will go to your Meeting.”

  “We don’t proselytize,” he says. Big word for a clown. “Quakers don’t try to convert people.”

  “I said I would go.” A shiver runs through me.“See, I just quaked.”

  “You really don’t have to—”

  “Could you unlock the car? Please?” I am stuck in Little Subaru on the Prairie and Pa won’t open the door.

  Finally, I am sitting in the front seat, arms folded, shivering. I look down at the shredded seats. “Which one of you had the tantrum with the knife?”

  Sam chuckles. “This is one of those ‘previously owned vehicles.’ I don’t know anything about the seats. Or the dents in the doors.” He shrugs his Michelin Man shoulders, almost like he is embarrassed.

  “It is all right. I understand ‘used,’” I say grimly.

  He smiles. The clown misses the irony.

  He shoves a hand in his pocket and pulls out an open roll of wintergreen LifeSavers with the wrapper dangling. “Would you like a mint?”

  “Why? Does my breath stink?” My arms are still folded.

  He laughs. “No. Come on, have one.”

  I reach out, rip more of the wrapper off, and take one, cautiously. Quickly, before he has the chance to make a snide remark, I say, “It will not make me sweet.”

  “Aw, you’re already sweet,” he says, stuffing the candy back in his pocket.

  “You are mistaken,” I say. And you are not very bright.

  “You’re a little prickly on the outside, maybe, but I don’t blame you. I know you’re a sweet kid inside, though.”