A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

  “Julian?”

  I spin around.

  And the moment seems to slow.

  It’s as if I’m standing still and the world is whipping past like a car down a dark street. And for just a second, headlights shine right on me. That’s what it’s like—standing frozen in the dark, then seeing him. Adam Blake. Leaning against the brick wall, somehow managing to look relaxed while fidgeting.

  For just a second I feel a burst of pure happiness. I’ve always wondered what I’d say if I saw him again. Then it occurs to me that there’s nothing to say, except maybe I’m sorry, and my happiness falls away.

  He breaks into a grin. I glance around to find who he’s smiling at, but no one is there.

  “It’s me,” he says. “Adam.”

  I don’t know why he’s telling me his name. Even if I didn’t already know, I’d know. I’ve only been in this school for a little while, but I’ve heard his name a hundred times, mostly from girls who are in love with him. Their fascination with him is a little confusing. He isn’t neat the way my mom told me a boy should look when she used to brush my hair in the morning. His brown hair is sloppy, as if he tried to comb it in one direction, got bored, and combed it in the other, then switched five more times.

  He’s taller than me, but not all that big—nothing like the huge blond boy he’s always with—and I thought girls liked boys who were really tall and strong. He doesn’t even act the way popular guys should act. The boys in my grade walk a certain way, almost stomping as if they’re angry, but Adam speeds everywhere like he’s running late. I’ve seen him trip over his own feet more than once, but he just smiles and keeps going.

  That’s another thing. Boys don’t smile a lot. I’m not sure if they’re unhappy or if they’re just pretending to be unhappy. But Adam always looks…kind. And kind and clumsy isn’t cool. But in this school, I guess it is.

  As Adam watches me expectantly, the anxiety in my stomach grows. Not knowing what to say is nothing new for me, but not knowing what to say to him feels a million times worse.

  “I can’t believe it’s you,” he says.

  Suddenly he lunges forward, and I leap back. He halts, looking confused, and now I’m really embarrassed. It’s Adam, and if he’s lunging forward with open arms, it’s probably just to hug me. But even so, the embarrassment and pain are all too much.

  I see a split second of surprise on his face as I spin around, then I race down the hall, in the opposite direction of Dr. Whitlock’s office.

  Once I’m out of Adam’s sight, I slow down so I don’t get stopped by a teacher. I take a deep breath, turning over the crumpled yellow note in my hand. Soon Dr. Whitlock will realize I’m not coming. If she tells Mr. Pearce, he’ll call Russell again, then Russell will want to know what I’ve been doing to get sent to her in the first place.

  But if I do go to her office, Dr. Whitlock will stare into my eyes and ask embarrassing questions I can’t answer, and my stomach will hurt. Afterward, she might call Russell just to tell him I’m seeing her again.

  I stop, sick with indecision.

  There’s no good choice.

  And with every passing second, it’s more likely she’s telling Mr. Pearce.

  I should turn back, but I can’t seem to force my feet in that direction. At the moment, the certainty of seeing Dr. Whitlock is worse than the possibility of facing Russell. I know I won’t feel that way if it comes to it. I’ll tell myself how stupid I was to risk it. But I guess I am stupid, because I’ve already made up my mind.

  I skip the English Hall, because those teachers always stand at their doors like a neighborhood watch, and I head down the Science Hall. The air is thick with a sickening chemical odor, the smell of something being dissected. At the end of the corridor, I turn the corner and freeze. Mr. Pearce is standing there, bent over his crooked cane. Whether he’s angry or just in pain I don’t know.

  I duck into the alcove with the water fountains and wait. I count to sixty, then peek around the corner. He looks up, glaring right at me.

  I duck back, and now I can hear the clacking of his cane. I press myself against the wall, trying not to wince out loud. Mr. Pearce and his goblin are getting closer. Clack. Clack. CLACK.

  Then he limps past me, as if he has no peripheral vision at all.

  I wait until he disappears from view before running past the gym into the wide-open lobby in front of the auditorium. I slip inside the theater and let the heavy door fall closed behind me.

  It’s dark.

  This is the scariest part of the whole journey. If I get caught, I’ll definitely be in trouble, because there’s no logical reason for me to be here. That thought spurs me to run until my toes hit the stage.

  I climb the stairs, then slip behind the curtain. Back here it’s even darker, and it smells like dust and candle wax. For a moment the air seems to thicken, as if something is standing right behind me.

  I hold my breath and stretch out my arms like I’m blind. I keep stumbling until my hands close over what I was looking for—the black iron ladder bolted to the wall. I climb until, finally, there’s light streaming in through the dirty attic window.

  The attic is massive, with countless trunks and cardboard boxes overflowing with hats and plastic swords. In one corner there’s a giant papier-mâché dragon with a glittering red eye.

  The first time I came up here, I was so afraid someone might discover me any minute that I spent the whole period pacing. But then I found the passageway.

  Behind the old armoire I locate the two crooked boards dangling from their nails like fence posts. I push them to one side to see the room beyond this one. In the crawl space between the attic and my secret room, the floorboards are crisscrossed, and there are a couple of feet of dark void where there is no floor at all. I have to jump.

  And now I’m standing in my room. The walls and floors are much darker and smell older here. It’s empty and just big enough for me to lie down in one direction but not the other. There’s one window, round like a porthole on Elian’s ship, where I can look down at the courtyard where no one ever goes.

  In my room that feeling, the one that sits at the bottom of my chest, practically disappears. I can see all four corners, and no one knows this place exists but me.

  When the bell rings for lunch, I sit and pull the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an Elian Mariner book from my backpack. This story is one of my favorites. Sometimes Elian just goes on adventures, but sometimes he saves people. In this one he saves an entire planet.

  WHEN I WAS a sophomore, Principal Pearce read some study on the inverse correlation between temperature and academic performance, and there was no turning back. He cranked the AC so high that even if it’s scorching out, inside we have to dress for a Siberian winter. The cafeteria’s the only room in the school that was spared his policy of Freezing Us Into Learning, so the second I walk in, I start tearing off clothes.

  At the same time I twist my body sideways, winding through the dangerously crowded room. My friends and I have to cram into a table that shouldn’t seat more than ten, which means finding a chair’s like a game of Twister. When you combine the sudden heat, stripping, and intertwining limbs, lunch is basically soft-core-porn-time.

  I manage to squeeze in next to Emerald, and our thighs press together. As usual, her reddish-blondish-brownish hair is up and twisted into a complicated style most girls would save for prom. Her eyes lock onto mine—so blue I’d figure she was wearing contacts if I hadn’t known her since the fifth grade.

  “Hi.” I smile, kind of mesmerized by her, like always. She looks like a 1950s starlet with her perfectly painted red lips, pale skin, and the mole on her cheek—basically way too glamorous to be sitting here eating greasy french fries out of a Styrofoam container. There are about a million things I want to say to her right now, but I’m distracted.

  Across from me, Camila’s just whipped the scarf off her neck to reveal a shirt so low-cut that if she sneezes, her nipples are going to fall
out. I try to pretend I’m not looking, mostly out of courtesy to her twin brother, Matt, who’s sitting beside her. The pair of them stare at me for a second in that eerie twin way, reminding me how much they look alike—both small with dark hair and skin. When we were kids, they dressed alike too, till she started wearing tight skirts and four-inch heels.

  I tear my eyes away from Camila when Charlie slams down his tray, looking even more menacing than usual, then with great difficulty folds himself into a seat. I used to envy his height till it got to ridiculous levels. When you’re six foot five, you just don’t fit anywhere. He’s forever complaining about his cramped legs and sore knees. But then again, he’s forever complaining, period.

  Case in point: “Fucking freshmen. Do you know how long it takes to get through the line now?”

  I do in fact know. He’s been telling us every day this year. Allison (Charlie’s on-and-off-again girlfriend since sophomore year) sits on his thigh, which is as long as a freakin bench, and gives him a sympathetic pat. Calming Charlie is a big part of her job description. The tall blonds look enough alike to be another pair of fraternal twins—the time I said that aloud to Charlie didn’t go over so well, though.

  “You should start bringing a lunch,” I suggest, lifting my glass container.

  “Tofu?” Camila asks suspiciously.

  “I’m not going vegan or whatever you are,” Charlie adds.

  “It’s lemon chicken. I eat meat—occasionally—as long as it hasn’t been raised in a factory. Come on, try some.”

  Emerald spears a small piece with her fork and chews precisely, as if this is a formal dinner, then dabs her perfect mouth like her napkin’s made of cloth. “This is amazing,” she says. “Why don’t you cook for me?” She takes another neat little bite, and this time she hums around it.

  Charlie gives the two of us an annoyed look, so I wave a piece in his direction. “You sure you don’t wanna try? This food’s much better for you. It makes you stronger, gives you more energy—”

  “Exactly what you need,” he interrupts. “More energy.” Everyone laughs, which seems to make him proud, because he doesn’t get a lot of laughs. Then he takes a deliberately huge bite of his pizza. “I shouldn’t have to bring a lunch. They shouldn’t be here.”

  “LET IT GO, MAN.” Jesse’s voice is too loud, probably because an earbud is still stuck in one ear. He leans forward, his latest growth spurt making him look like a scarecrow, and he sets his drumsticks on the table. He carries them everywhere, but he gets away with it since drums are the one instrument you’re allowed to play and not get called a band nerd. “It’s been like a month.”

  “Come on, Charlie.” I grin. “Don’t you think they’re just a little bit adorable?” I ask this knowing he hates kids even more than the word adorable. He looks like he’s tempted to punch me, but then he always looks ready to commit an act of violence.

  He was, in my opinion, irrationally livid when he found out we’d be sharing the cafeteria with the freshmen. Last year a group of concerned parents complained that their kids didn’t have time to eat, so this year instead of four lunch periods—one for each grade—we have two. Longer lunches, yeah, but twice as crowded, and for people who actually eat school food, now half their time’s spent in line.

  We were told that putting the freshmen and seniors in the same lunch period was purely a numerical decision. We were the smallest class; the freshmen were the biggest. A few days into the semester I started to suspect a more deviously brilliant plan.

  The cafeteria was chaos. Freshmen were running around like kindergartners. Worse maybe, because even kindergartners know to stay in their seats and not write on their tables in ketchup and pull each other’s hair. It didn’t take long for unrest to rise among the seniors. We all wanted sanctity restored, but the faculty just stood there looking traumatized.

  Naturally it was Charlie who confronted them. He Terminator-marched to a table that was having some kind of green bean launching competition, and told them to sit down and shut the fuck up. As they looked up at him with fear and awe, they reminded me of a cage full of big-eyed, terrified mice, and I know exactly what that looks like.

  My career as a pet store associate lasted less than a day. I got to work early, stoked and ready to play with dogs—I never got to have one, since my mom’s allergic to every type of fur—but I soon found out my job was to clean up shit. The liquidy shit of anxious animals. I did my job, then removed a couple of the sadder puppies and rolled around on the floor with them to cheer them up.

  I got yelled at by the manager—an old man who looked a lot like Santa Claus, only his beard smelled like cat pee. He ordered me to clean up more shit, this time from a pissed-off cockatiel that clawed and cursed me.

  All in all, my day was going okay till a guy came in and asked me for a mouse—a nice plump one. I thought that was weird, then he added, “It’s for my boa constrictor.” I’d only been working there for, like, five hours at that point, but I already felt responsible for the collection of smelly, caged animals in my care, and these were the smallest of all. Santa told me they were in the glass case in the storeroom, and sent me off with the awful task of deciding which one was going to die.

  When I opened the lid, a hundred mice with huge round eyes stared up at me. I stuck in my hand, grabbed a little white one. Cute and trusting with tiny ears. I held him for maybe a minute before I stuck him back in the case and watched him burrow under all the others.

  What happened next was like a time warp where you’d swear you didn’t do it—or at least you didn’t plan to do it. But I guess sometimes, without thinking, you find yourself tilting over glass cases full of mice. One interesting fact: scared mice are fast.

  When I heard the screeches, I bolted back out front to find the boa constrictor guy ducking a squawking cockatiel, freaked-out ladies hopping onto countertops, Santa soothing the ladies, little kids chasing the mice, and Santa’s teenage helpers chasing the kids. Somewhere amidst all this chaos, I blurted out that I just couldn’t give a living creature to that guy.

  Later, as the manager was firing me, he laid a wrinkled hand on my shoulder and said, “Son, you don’t have the stomach for the pet shop business.” He was right. I did not have the stomach for mouse execution.

  I didn’t have the stomach for freshman intimidation either. I could see that it was a necessary evil, but I left that to Charlie. One harsh sentence from him that day and they sat down and shut the fuck up.

  Charlie’s still looking pissed, worse even than his normal pissed, so I have to ask, “You all right?”

  “My mom’s having a baby,” he answers.

  “ANOTHER ONE?” Jesse says.

  For some reason Charlie’s mom waited seven years after he was born to have a second child, then produced a kid every twelve minutes after that. I remember our first-grade teacher telling the class during circle time that something wonderful had happened to Charlie that morning. He’d become a big brother. He responded by flinging himself into the center of the circle and screeching, My life is ruined!

  “What’s this one going to be called?” Camila asks with a little smirk.

  “Shiv.”

  “Shiv?” I say. “Isn’t that what they call knives in prison?” It’s a good thing I’m sitting too far away to get punched.

  “And,” Charlie adds, “I failed my Chemistry test. I don’t know why I let my counselor talk me into taking AP. I’ve gotta get her to switch me into Regular! Adam—”

  “I’ll talk to her.” If I don’t agree immediately, I’ll have to hear him say that maybe his parents would have time if they didn’t have nine million other kids—the bitter complaint he’s been using since Brother Number One. I know I could refuse, tell him that he’s totally capable of pleading his case himself, but knowing Charlie, he’d end up doing something crazy and get another in-school suspension.

  By this point, Emerald’s eaten the majority of my chicken. I’m debating whether to take my container back or to
keep watching her chew.

  “So are you guys coming or not?” Jesse’s asking, and I realize I have no idea what everyone’s talking about.

  “Maybe,” Matt says. “Could be cool—”

  “No,” Camila interrupts him as if that’s the end of the discussion for both of them. It probably is. She’s older by two minutes and has used this to rule over him ever since I can remember.

  “It’s too far,” Charlie whines. “Like at least an hour drive.”

  “Yeah, it really is far.” Of course Allison agrees with him. “We don’t even know if they’re good.”

  “They are good,” Jesse insists. They must be talking about some obscure band he wants us to go see, because he has a prejudice against anything anyone might have actually heard of.

  By now the entire table (Charlie, Allison, Camila, Joe, Natalie, Kate, Bianca, Michael, Josh, Maddie, Sean—basically everyone) is grumbling that they don’t want to go. The concert’s outdoors and not till the end of October. It’ll be cold. It’s too far. Jesse and Matt both look disappointed but seem to be settling into acceptance.

  “I’m in,” I tell them, already getting excited, because the mini road trip will be fun. “Yeah, it’ll be awesome. Adventure! And we’ll bring blankets.”

  Jesse grins and shoves one of his earbuds in my ear, painfully hard. “You will not be disappointed, man. Listen.”

  The screaming vocal and clashing guitar sound about like every other band he’s shoved into my ear, but I smile and chew my last bite of chicken. I can only half-hear the table now as they decide how many cars we’ll need to get all of us there.

  AFTER SCHOOL, I take a sharp right and cut through the park. It’s not really much of one—no slides or jungle gyms or anything that might attract parents and their kids—but it’s thickly wooded, with a few small ponds and some faint pathways. I like this route better than going through the neighborhoods not because it’s faster, but because it’s as if I’m doing this deliberately instead of avoiding Jared and the bus like a coward.