by Tony Abbott
“Like New Haven,” I said. “And how is she running from the police if she’s in school where everybody can see her?”
Ignoring that, Eric said, “Feeney sort of sounds like a made-up name, doesn’t it? Jessica Feeney? Jessica Phony, more like it.”
The sound of Rich’s laughter came from inside a stall just before the toilet flushed. “Jessica Phony Baloney!”
“No, wait, you guys,” I said, my throat suddenly hot. “Nobody knows —” I wanted to say that nobody even knew what happened. It was just a picture of her sister that started all the rumors. But I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say and I couldn’t seem to get it out right.
“Maybe we should call the police,” said Joey Sisman, back in the classroom, where we set up the AV equipment for health. “Tell them that she’s right here in our school. She left today because we found out her secret, but maybe they can send cars and catch her before she moves.”
“We should at least tell Mrs. Tracy that we’re afraid,” Kayla suggested. “I mean, I guess we’re scared, right?”
“Scared?” I said. “You’re scared?”
“I’m not scared,” said Eric.
“Me, either,” Rich added, puffing himself up. “I can handle killers okay. Except don’t make me touch them.”
The afternoon just dragged on and on. The worst of it came when someone said that Jessica should be the dead one, and not her innocent, kind, TV-beautiful, tennis-playing genius of a sister.
I felt so mad. I was really mad. What people were saying was all so idiotic and pointless and hurtful that it made me sick. I tried lots of times to say something, but it sounded just as lame as the things they were saying. “Nobody knows what happened! It’s just a picture!” I finally nearly asked to go to the nurse.
I only stayed because the day was almost over anyway, and I didn’t want to miss any work. And it wasn’t everybody. It was actually just a few kids, and some of them, like Kayla, didn’t think anything was real. They just wondered if this was true or that was true. I must have said it was dumb to Joey and Ryan and Rich about a thousand times before the end of the day. Finally, I just stopped. I didn’t like the feeling of being the only one and alone, like she was alone. That wasn’t fair, either. By last period, it had almost died down anyway.
Jeff had been pretty quiet the whole afternoon. The Cobra thing was supposed to happen the next day, but he hadn’t said a word about it all week, so I wasn’t sure his uncle was even coming. Then, while we were packing up our books to go home, but before the buses were called, he turned to me.
“Maybe I should go to public school,” he said.
I wondered if he was doing that thing again. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“My father would sure be happy,” he said. “And my mom would probably get off my case about grades.” He looked right at me with a face that seemed cold. “Besides, if I did go to public school, I wouldn’t have to be here and see her and all this —”
He swore under his breath.
Even though he didn’t mention the fire or the supposed murder, a spike of something jolted through me. He was really close to being mean about Jessica again, and I didn’t want to hear it.
“Is your uncle coming over tomorrow?” I asked, trying not to make it seem like a big deal. “You said he was, right?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Next week for sure. I gotta go to my father’s dump again. My mom’s working the whole long weekend. Can you believe it?”
That’s right. It was Columbus Day on Monday. My family always took a long car ride and looked for pumpkins up in the country. “That stinks,” I said. I shrugged a little and tried not to make it any worse. I knew something was going on.
“Here’s The Human Torch,” he said, digging into his backpack, then holding up four or five comics. “I thought they’d be better from the way my dad talked about them. Anyway, they’re only okay. This one’s the best. You can have them. I have some more at home, too. I don’t have to go to the city until morning. You coming over now?”
I took the comics but didn’t feel like going. I was tired and didn’t want to hear Jeff say anything about Jessica, and then find myself laughing five minutes later at some doofus thing he did.
“I can’t,” I said, trying to think of something. “I’ve sort of got stuff to do…. I have this church thing of my mom’s after school. She signed me up to help.”
“Are you kidding? What are you going to do there?”
I shrugged. “I don’t even know.”
When they started calling buses, and Jeff went into the hall to his locker along with some other kids, Mrs. Tracy called me up to her desk.
“Would you please take Jessica’s homework to her?” she said. “And her math book? She left before I remembered to send the assignments home with her. I want her to have them for the long weekend.”
Talk about off-the-wall. I guess I looked surprised. “What?”
“You’re just a few houses away from where she lives, aren’t you?” she asked, waiting. “Or are you busy after school? Do you have something to do?”
I couldn’t tell her the church thing because she’d know there was no church thing. “Um … okay,” I said finally. “I mean no, I don’t think I have anything. I guess I can take it.”
“Great. Would you find her math book while I write a note?” She sat down to write while I went to Jessica’s desk and reached under the seat.
“You’re taking stuff to Jessica?”
I looked up. It was Courtney. She had paused on her way to the lockers.
I was surprised. “Yeah. I live nearby.”
“Right,” she said. “Nice.”
Nice? What was this? And right? Did Courtney even know where I lived?
“Don’t forget the workbook,” she added.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.” I dug out the math book and the workbook underneath it. When I looked up, Courtney had already gone. Jeff was standing there instead.
“Church thing, huh?”
“Well, yeah, but Mrs. Tracy…” I wanted to say something more, but Jeff turned and went straight back into the hall. The office secretary announced our bus over the PA and I got Mrs. Tracy’s note and quickly followed everybody out.
Chapter 13
On the bus, Jeff swung into a seat up front that already had someone sitting by the window. I went to our usual seat in the back. When his stop came, he ran off to his house without looking back. One stop later, I got off and headed straight to the condo development where Jessica lived.
It was small, as developments go; just five houses tucked into what were probably originally people’s backyards. Each house was divided into two side-by-side units with two different families living in them.
As I approached number seven, I noticed a man standing in the side doorway near the garage. He was dressed in a flannel shirt and was reaching up inside over the door, moving his arm from side to side. It was the man in the picture who I had seen taking Jessica to and from school.
When he lowered his hand, which had a wet rag in it, he also lowered his eyes and saw me.
“Yes?” he said, holding the rag still, and looking through the door screen with a blank expression.
“I just came to give her her homework,” I said.
The guy looked at me.
“Jessica, I mean. I have her homework.”
He kept just looking.
“It’s because she left school early today,” I said. “So the teacher said because I live not too far away I should give her the assignments. And these books.” I lifted my arm slightly to show the books. Finally, I added, “My name is Tom Bender.”
Another moment of staring, then the man relaxed. “Oh, right, sure. Sorry, I’m Jessica’s father. Of course. Who else would I be? Come on in. Careful of the bucket.”
He swung open the screen and I stepped into a small hall off the kitchen. There were dishes stacked in the sink and on the table. They were caked with the remains of some kind of harden
ed green vegetable and dried ketchup.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” Mr. Feeney said in a tired voice. Still holding his rag, he took me through the kitchen and dining room to the stairs and stopped. “Jessica —”
Suddenly, there she was, coming round the corner of the living room and nearly bumping into us.
“Oh!” she whispered.
She looked right at me with her face right there.
I felt as if I must have leaped back a foot. I was ashamed at how it probably looked. Somehow I managed a smile and said, “Sorry, you scared me.”
That didn’t sound right.
“I mean, coming around so fast,” I said. “Out of nowhere. Uh, I have the homework.” I held up the books again.
“Thanks,” she said, not reaching for them. “You can come up if you want.”
I glanced at her father, but he was already heading back to the kitchen. Jessica went past me quickly, her hair practically brushing my face. She went up the narrow stairs to the second floor. She was still in the same clothes she’d worn to school, still in those thick tights. At the top of the stairs, she took a left.
There was nothing I could do. I had to follow her. It smelled a little like a doctor’s office as I hit the landing. The smell was antiseptic. But there was something else, too. Something sweeter. I stepped into her room.
I was surprised to see how girly the room was. The walls were painted a sort of medium blue color. The bed was all puffy, and there were several big pillows at the top. On the floor were a bunch of slippers and a stuffed green frog. A poster of a band was tacked on the wall. All of the guys were striking different poses to make themselves look tough.
The bed was pushed up against the far wall, and the end was right under a window that was open wide. There were a desk and chair against the inside wall and a bookshelf next to it.
The afternoon sunlight was blocked by trees in the yards around the condos, so the air coming into the window was cool.
Jessica sat heavily on the bed. Her hands were folded in her lap as if she were waiting for something. Having been brought all the way to her room, I felt I had to stay for a couple of minutes at least. I slipped into the chair, put the math books on her desk, and dropped my backpack to the floor.
I wondered if she would say anything about leaving school early. Then I thought that maybe I should, but I didn’t know what. I opened the cover of the top book and waved it back and forth. “The homework isn’t too hard,” I said finally. “You could do it easy. There’s a quiz on Tuesday on this stuff. Hey, it’s a long weekend, remember … and a test a week from Monday.”
When she didn’t say anything right away, I said, “So anyway …”
“The elections are that Monday, too,” she said. “The seventeenth.”
I nodded. “Right. The elections. Yeah.”
“Courtney will probably win.”
I looked up from the books which I had more or less been staring at. “Really? You think so?”
She shrugged. “Everybody likes her. She’d be good. I hope she wins.”
“Me, too.” I glanced at her face briefly. A glint of salve or some kind of cream was on her cheeks and neck. That’s what the smell was. Medicine. She probably got it in New Haven. I couldn’t imagine a fire that would do this to someone.
“You have a nice room,” I said, looking around. It sounded lame when the words came out.
Jessica looked at me under the thick folds of skin around her eyes. “I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but my bedroom is the first thing they do when we move to a new place. My parents, I mean. They brought all my stuff when we came from Boston. I spend most of my time in here. When I’m not at school or at the hospital. It’s okay.”
She was saying a lot for someone who didn’t talk in class.
“My room is small,” I said. “This is nice.”
“I usually get to be alone here.” She kept going. “Except when my parents come in and yell. They get mad all the time.”
“They yell? Your dad seems okay.”
“They get mad about me.” She moved back on the bed.
Sure, I thought. Because of her sister, right? Because she died? Was it true what people said? Is that why Jessica cut herself out of the picture? Because of what happened?
“They shouldn’t bother you,” I said.
“Yeah, well, they’re parents. What else are they going to do?”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so it got quiet for a minute. It still seemed too early to leave.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Mine are okay most of the time. They wanted me to run for class president. Like that would work. My dad thought of a dumb slogan. My mom bought stencils for the poster and everything. I just sort of shoved the poster into my locker —”
“I hate my mother,” she said suddenly.
I shivered. “What?”
“I hate her.” She said this without emotion, still looking at me.
“Because she’s mean to you? Always getting on your case?”
“She doesn’t get on me. I just hate her.”
Okay, this was weird. My chest was feeling all buzzy and electric; my ears rang with a high noise. I fumbled around with the math books. Could I just leave now?
“My mom’s okay,” I said, trying to change the subject. “My dad, too, pretty much. He thought of this slogan for my poster. A vote for Tom is a vote for Tomorrow. Get it? They’re okay, I guess.”
She shrugged. “Good for you.”
Yikes. I felt as if I was going to explode or something. A breeze came in the window and not wanting to, I shivered again. “Do you want me to close the window?”
“No. I like the air coming in.”
I nodded like I understood. It was because of the fire, right? You felt trapped. You couldn’t breathe, right? I mean, I guess, right? What was keeping me here? Was it okay to leave yet?
“Sometimes I just lie on my bed really still,” she said, glancing out the window. “I have to stay really still sometimes when I go to the hospital —” She stopped. “Do you read comic books or something?”
I turned to her. “What?”
She motioned to my backpack. The top edge of Jeff’s comics were sticking out from between my books. The red and yellow and orange title was partly visible.
The Human …
I quickly pushed them down. “A little. Not much.”
“It’s not like I care,” she said. “I read them in the hospital sometimes, when there’s nothing else. It’s so dumb. They think all kids read comics, so they have them in the ward. Somebody donates them.”
I imagined rows and rows of beds with burned kids screaming and moaning in them.
I tried to be light. “Really? Which ones do you like?”
She shrugged, and I felt like an idiot. Of course she doesn’t have a favorite, you dork! She doesn’t read comic books. Why would she read comic books? This is insane. I’m going.
“What do you like?” she asked. “Superman?”
“Superman! No way,” I said, almost instinctively. I shook my head, wanting to end it all right there. But the way she just kept looking at me, I began to think that maybe she was talking because she didn’t get a chance to talk much. After all, when was the last time any kids came to visit her? And she just said her parents yelled a lot. She stayed in her room all the time. Plus, her sister, who she probably at least hung out with, was gone and everything.
“Well,” I said, “I mean, Superman has super everything. X-ray vision and super strength, and he can fly. It’s sort of too much power, if you know what I mean. He can do pretty much anything he wants. It’s not real.”
“It’s a comic book.”
I snorted a laugh. “I know, but still. You shouldn’t have all those huge powers. It makes everything too easy. Who’s going to stand in your way? You’d win every time. Small ones are better.”
Was I going there? Why was I going there?
“What do you mean?” she asked. “S
mall ones?”
I fidgeted. “Small powers. Never mind. It’s too stupid to talk about.”
She said nothing, but sat there waiting for me to go on. Just like Mrs. Tracy had waited for me to say I would bring the homework.
“Small powers?” she said.
I laughed. It was a nervous-sounding laugh; I knew that. But I tried to make it sound natural. “It’s dumb. But it’s just that, you know, you have the ability to fly and X-ray vision and superstrength and stuff. But sometimes I think it’s probably better to have a really dumb power.”
“A dumb power,” she repeated.
“Something really dorky and useless, like, I don’t know, having one indestructible finger or something. I think that would be really cool.”
Oh, man, was I really saying this?
She looked down. “A finger? Why just a finger?”
I sat forward in the chair. “Because otherwise it’s like asking for too much. If you want to be immortal or to fly or to control people’s brains or something, it’s like you think you deserve this huge ability. But if you’re regular in every other way, but just have one indestructible finger, who would ever say no to that?”
“So you don’t ask for too much.”
“That’s right. It’s just something small and cheap, what no one else would ever think of. It’s so much better that way.”
“Something nobody else wants,” she said.
“Right,” I said. I realized then that I had never said any of this out loud before. I wasn’t sure why I was telling her then, except that maybe I thought it didn’t matter. Who else would she ever tell? Even if she made fun of me, it would be okay because it would end here. “But maybe the best part,” I said, “is thinking how you could turn that really small dumb power into something completely awesome.”
She scratched her arm as she thought. “What could you do with an indestructible finger?”
I shrugged wildly. “I don’t know. Maybe you could stop an attacking animal or a runaway airplane just by sticking your finger out. Or scratch into the earth with it and find something you need, or poke right through the door of your enemy’s hiding place. Stuff like that. The more you think about a little power, the more big things you come up with. Pretty soon, you find you could do anything.”