Afterward, he bursts out laughing really loud, and Tilly looks annoyed, but I think it’s actually probably good. It’ll make the adults think that everything is business as usual over here. If they glance over to see what we’re doing, it’s just Ryan quoting The Simpsons and Tilly with her hair in her mouth. Just lunch the way it always is.
“Yeah, right,” I say. “It protects us from the big bad esquilax.”
“Or anything bigger,” says Tilly. It might be better if she just lets it go and waits for the new kids to ask us questions, but I think she’s too excited to do that.
“Like what?” asks Kylie. She’s still acting all cool, but her forehead’s sort of wrinkled, like maybe we’re getting to her a little.
Tilly and Candy and I all look at each other, like we’re trying to decide whether to say anything. Ryan puts his hand over his mouth, so he doesn’t start laughing, but luckily no one else is paying attention to him.
“We don’t really know,” I say, “but we think there might be something bigger out there in the woods.”
“Like what? A bear?” asks Jason. His eyes are really wide.
“No,” I say. “Something bigger. Something . . . worse.”
“We think . . .” Tilly begins, but I cut her off before she can say anything stupid. I don’t want her to say the word “werewolf,” or it’ll ruin the whole thing. It’ll make it sound silly, like a cheesy ghost story. The thing that’s scary should be that there’s something out there, but we have no idea what it is. What’s scary is that it’s something none of us have ever heard of before. Something so weird and freaky that it doesn’t even have a name.
“We don’t know,” I say, talking over Tilly, which isn’t easy to do, I can tell you. “It’s just noises and shadows. It’s probably nothing.” I look straight at Jason then, careful to keep my eyes away from his spit-pile. “You don’t have to worry at all,” I say, and even I can hear that my voice sounds mean.
Then Scott gets up to make afternoon announcements, and we don’t have time to say anything else, which is just exactly perfect. I feel light and bouncy, like I’ve got helium inside me. I made this work. I made it go exactly the way we wanted it to.
I keep feeling that way until about a half an hour after lunchtime, when Scott comes to get me out of the Red Rover game and pulls me hard by the arm into the office.
I can’t believe how short a time it took. Scott tells me that Jason (of course) got scared (of course) and told his mom what we’d been saying. And somehow, because of whatever he said, I’m the only one who’s in trouble. Right away, the helium’s gone, and I’m starting to feel worried. Because I can tell that Scott is really mad at me, like a lot. More than it seems like he should be for the situation, actually, and I have no idea what he’s going to do. I wish for a minute that my mom were here, or my dad, but then I realize that it probably wouldn’t help. They’d probably back him up. “Every adult is your mom here”—that’s something Scott likes to say. “Every adult is your dad.”
Scott paces through the little office, around the chair that I’m sitting in. He’s squeezing and unsqueezing his hands into fists, and then all of a sudden, he picks up a stapler from the desk and throws it at the wall behind my head. It doesn’t hit me, but it makes a loud noise, and when I turn around, I can see that it’s cracked the paint. The paint that I put up there on our very first day. I scrunch down in my chair and pull my legs up, like my knees are going to protect me somehow.
“I am trying to figure this out,” says Scott. His voice is practically burning, like it’s red with anger, almost. “But I cannot for the life of me figure out why you would do something like this. Do you know who you are?”
He stops and looks at me, waiting. It seems like one of those questions you shouldn’t have to answer, but I don’t want to make him madder. “Iris Hammond?” I say, in a tiny voice.
“Yeah,” he says. “Iris Hammond, fine. But beyond that, you know who you are? You’re our good kid. You’re the one we trust.”
I make a little sound that I didn’t even mean to make. What he said, it hurts me, like an actual pain in my chest, and it keeps hurting more, the more it sinks in. For a minute I feel like I can’t even breathe. Then I really am crying, the worst sort of crying, where you sound like you’re moaning, and you can’t stop, no matter what you do.
“I . . .” When I try to talk, it sounds all wrong, my voice going up and down like waves. “I am a good kid,” I say, finally, but in my head, I’m going through the whole conversation with Jason, thinking about how I wanted to scare him, wanted him to . . . I don’t know, wet his pants or something, or be so scared that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. And I know it’s not true, what I’m saying. I’m not a good kid.
I put my head down on my knees and cry for a long, long time. The thing is, I should be mad about what he said, but it should be for Tilly’s sake, not just my own. Because if I’m the good kid, then it means Tilly’s one of the bad ones, and no matter how mad I get at her, I know that’s not true. So I’m crying for everything in the whole world, it seems like. It’s partly because I was mean to Jason, and because Scott just told me I was bad, and as soon as he said it, I knew he was right. But more than that, I’m crying because I’m realizing that this is what I’ve wanted, maybe my whole entire life: for someone to take me and Tilly, look us both up and down, and tell me that I’m the one who’s good and smart and special and nice. And feeling that way just might be the worst thing I’ve ever done to my sister, whether she knows about it or not.
By the time I finally look back up at the rest of the room, I’m gasping, almost like I’m going to throw up from crying so much. Scott’s looking at me, not mad anymore, but not particularly concerned, either. Just kind of blank. I reach out and take a tissue from a box on the desk.
“Let me tell you a story,” he says. “When I was growing up, I had a little brother named Jesse. He’s dead now, but that’s neither here nor there.”
I look up, surprised. I wonder if I should say something, like “I’m sorry,” but there’s no chance. He just keeps on talking.
“Now Jesse was a little bit like Tilly, and a little bit like Jason. And that didn’t always sit right with me, as I’m sure you can understand.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to nod or agree with him or whatever, because that means I’m saying that I don’t always like Tilly. Or you know, that I don’t always like the way she is. But Scott isn’t even looking at me, anyway.
“So when I was about eleven, and Jesse was about ten, he used to collect these stickers called Wacky Packs. They were like parodies of brands, like things you might find at the supermarket. Like there would be a picture of a Snickers bar, but it would be called Sneakers, and it would say that it tasted like old gym shoes, or something like that. They were stupid, but kids thought they were funny, and Jesse was wild about them.”
Scott wipes his good hand across his forehead; we’re both sweating. I wish he’d just turn on the air conditioner, but I don’t think I should ask when I’m still in trouble and he’s in the middle of telling a story.
“He didn’t just have a normal collection, either. He studied up on which ones were rare and hard to get, and he wrote letters to people who collected them in other countries. And this was before the Internet, so it was a lot harder than it is now to hunt down whatever you were looking for. I’m a little amazed when I think about how he managed it. He had hundreds of those things.”
He stops talking, obviously thinking about these stickers, or his dead brother or whatever. I scratch a mosquito bite on my arm, kind of just to remind him I’m still in the room.
“So anyway,” he says, finally. “One day, I got mad at Jesse because he knocked a bunch of stuff off my dresser—we shared a bedroom—and so I took all his Wacky Packs, and I brought them to the woods behind our house, and I burned them all up.”
I gasp, like
actually make a little gasping noise. I don’t know what I thought he was going to say, but this is worse.
“Jesse was devastated, of course. And I got a beating, because that’s what childhood was like back then. But the worst part was that when I tried to fix it, by saving up my spending money and buying him whatever new ones I could afford, Jesse wouldn’t even look at them. It was like I hadn’t just ruined those individual cards; I’d ruined the whole thing for him forever.”
I’m going to start crying again; I can feel my throat getting tight and sore. But I don’t really understand why he’s telling me this. Is he saying that the stupid werewolf story I told Jason was really as bad as this horrible thing he did to his brother when they were little? Or that it ruined something for Jason forever? For a while, neither of us says anything. We both just sit there, sweating in the little room while I try to even out my breath.
“All right,” he says, after a while. “Try to calm down. I’m afraid that there has to be a consequence, no matter how sorry you are. So AD Block tonight, and no swimming this afternoon.” He sighs. “You’ve lost a little bit of my trust today, Iris. Start trying to earn it back.”
“How did he die?” I ask. My voice is still all wavery.
Scott shakes his head. “That’s a story for another day.”
He leaves the office, and I put my head down on my knees again. I’m waiting to see if I’m going to cry again, and almost want to, like otherwise there’s no place else for this hurt in my chest to go. But I feel . . . empty. My head hurts, and my mouth is dry, like I’ve cried out all the water in my body.
I get up and throw away my soggy tissue in the little trash can. In with the other garbage, there’s one little scrap of paper that catches my eye. It’s all covered with Magic Marker swirls, and I recognize it right away: it’s one of Candy’s envelopes, from the letters she writes to her dad. Which is confusing, because why would it be here in the trash? But my head feels empty, like I don’t have the energy even to wonder about anything, so I just focus on the pretty pattern of flowers and swirls. I keep the picture in my mind, as I walk back to our cabin and lie down on my bed, and when I fall asleep I don’t dream about anything besides white paper being filled up with color.
• • •
When I wake up, it’s almost dinnertime, and my mom is sitting on the edge of my bed.
“Hey, sweet girl,” she says when I open my eyes. I reach my arms around her waist and give her an awkward hug, pressing my face to the skin just above her knee.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asks.
I shrug. She puts her hand on my hair. “I heard about AD Block,” she says. “I’m sure you’re disappointed about the candy.”
I hadn’t even thought about the candy. “Are you mad at me?” I ask, my voice muffled by the fabric of her shorts.
She pulls me up into a sitting position. “No,” she says. “I don’t think that was a nice thing to do, but I know you’ve already been scolded by Scott. Honestly, I think he’s being a little rough on you.”
“So I don’t have to go to AD Block?” I ask.
She breathes out a laugh. “No, you still have to go. But I can tell you that you won’t be alone. I don’t know the details, but I heard that Candy got in trouble for something, too. I’m not sure what. And on my way here, I heard Ryan yelling at Scott, so he may very well be on the AD Block roster by now.”
“Huh. So now only Tilly and Charlotte are eligible for the candy award? And I guess maybe Hayden?”
My mom shakes her head. “I guess, I don’t know. That’s really Scott’s department. Listen, your hair’s tangled from napping on it. Let’s get it brushed before dinner, okay?”
• • •
AD Block takes place in the kitchen, so I just hang around the dining hall until everyone else leaves. And my mom’s right: I’m not the only one who got in trouble today, even though I guess I’m the only one who got in trouble for the werewolf story. Ryan and Candy are both here, plus Hayden’s dad, Tom, who’s here to supervise. And it actually ends up being fun, at least for a while.
“Okay,” says Tom, once we’re all there. “I’m supposed to start by reading you this task list that Scott left for us. One, clean up from dinner . . . and then there are like fifteen subsections. Wash dishes, dry dishes, wipe tables . . . you guys think you can figure out what ‘clean up from dinner’ means, or do I have to read you every single step?”
“READ US EVERY SINGLE STEP,” yells Ryan, just to be annoying. He’s bouncing around like he can’t stay still for even a second.
Candy hits him in the arm. “We get it,” she says.
“Yeah, I think we can handle it,” I add.
“Okay, good,” says Tom. “Basically, there are three major tasks: clean up from dinner, set up for breakfast, and talk about what you all did to get here. If we multitask and do our talking and our cleaning at the same time, we may be able to get out of here fairly quickly.”
So we divide up the chores, and we get started. I’m washing the dishes, Candy’s sweeping, and Ryan is cleaning the tables, pretending that his spray bottle of vinegar and water is a laser gun.
“All right,” says Tom. “Looking good. Now tell us, Iris: why exactly did Scott suggest that you grace us with your presence this evening?”
So I tell him about what happened with Jason, and I say all the right things about how I shouldn’t have done it, and it was mean and I’ll never do anything like it again. Tom watches me carefully, and it looks like he’s going to ask me some more questions, but then he just shakes his head.
“Okay,” he says. “Ryan, what brought you here this evening?”
Ryan stops wiping. He’s spraying way too much cleaning stuff; his towel is sopping wet already. But I guess the tables won’t be dirty, at least.
“Sir, yes, sir!” he shouts. I don’t get his brain sometimes—like, is he acting like a military guy because it fits in somehow with the laser-gun thing he was playing a minute ago? Or is it just as random as it sounds, because he has too many ideas in his head, fighting to get out? “I called Scott an asshole, sir!”
Tom’s face twists, and he turns away so we won’t see him smile. “Yeah, that’ll do it,” he says. He bends down to hold a dustpan for Candy to sweep stuff into. “And how about now? Are you thinking that was a good decision?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” says Ryan and laughs like crazy.
Tom turns to stare at him. “Really,” he says, not even a question.
Ryan shrugs and sprays some more vinegar-water on the table. “No, not really,” he says. “I guess. But it was a joke. It was funny.”
“Which one was a joke? Calling Scott an asshole, or saying it was a good thing to do?”
Ryan’s eyes get wide when he hears Tom say the word “asshole.” I can tell he wants to laugh or say something about it. Just answer the question, I say in my head, trying to send him a telepathic message. I do that all the time with Tilly, when I can see that she’s about to do something stupid or inappropriate. It never works.
But somehow, Ryan pulls himself together and just says, “Both. They were both jokes.”
“Okay, well, that’s where your problem is,” says Tom. “It sounded like a joke to you, but I didn’t think it was funny, and I sure as heck don’t think Scott thought it was funny.”
I see Ryan’s lips move. “Sure as hell,” he whispers. He thinks he’s quiet enough that we won’t hear him, but he’s totally wrong.
Tom sighs. He carries the dustpan over to the big, gross garbage can where everyone scrapes their dinner plates, and empties in all the scraps and junk he’s collected. He pulls up the edges of the garbage bag, getting ready to tie them together.
“You’re an interesting kid, Ryan,” he says. Candy kind of snorts, hiding her mouth behind her hand.
“No, I’m serious,” Tom says. “I don’t mean it in a negati
ve way. You know what you are? You’re like a scientist, doing tests in a lab. You don’t just take it for granted that you’re going to get in trouble if you cuss at Scott; you have to like perform an experiment to find out exactly how far you can push him, and exactly what sort of trouble you’re going to get in.”
Ryan sort of jolts upward, excited, and he says, “My dad told me this story about a scientist guy who spilled some kind of acid on his hand, and his hand got all burned and shriveled up, and it had to be amputated.”
Tom shakes his head and gives up a little. “Yeah, okay. Hey, you want to know a secret, Ryan? When you’re a grown man you can swear as much as you want. Until then, try not to say every single thing that comes into your head, okay?”
“Okay,” says Ryan, though I’m not even sure he’s listening. He’s spraying some of the vinegar-water on his hand and looking to see if it does anything.
“No, but I know what you mean,” I say to Tom. Sometimes around adults, like teachers and other kids’ parents, I get this feeling, like it’s up to me to show them that some kids can act smart and mature, even if nobody else is behaving that way. But also, what Tom was saying reminded me a little of Tilly. “It’s like there are these invisible signs everywhere, you know what I mean? Most of us just have them in our heads. Like if you come to a busy street—I mean, if you’re old enough to walk around without holding a grown-up’s hand—then you know there’s an invisible sign there that says, ‘Don’t Cross Until the Cars Stop Moving.’”
“Or you could just look at the ‘Don’t Walk’ sign, which isn’t invisible,” says Candy. It’s kind of funny, because I hadn’t thought of that. But I want to get my point across.
“No, okay,” I say. “But like if you see some kind of machine, and it has a big red button on it that says, ‘Danger, Do Not Press,’ there’s also a little invisible sign in your head, telling you that you should follow those directions. But some people want to press it anyway, just to see what happens.”
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