Amalee

by Dar Williams

  “John!” Phyllis cried.

  “But she can’t tell you that, because now she works in his office!”

  He laughed and skipped out the door.

  “I don’t think anyone’s an idiot. That’s an unkind word,” Phyllis told me and Carolyn.

  “But do you like him?” Carolyn asked, not realizing, as I did, that Phyllis was trying to be a role model.

  Phyllis looked at me, and then at Carolyn.

  “The principal is very good at …” she started. “I mean, his intentions are …”

  Wow. She couldn’t even think of something nice to say about his intentions.

  “He believes that obedience and order are very important.” She shot me a look, “And they are, of course. It’s just that sometimes things are out of order and I believe — this is just me — that it’s valuable to ask why they’re out of order, rather than just forcing everything back into order.” She looked miserable.

  Carolyn asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Well, here’s an example,” Phyllis pressed on. “We’ve had budget cuts, which means when the middle school got more students, we had to hold some classes in those drafty outside rooms we rented.” I could see Phyllis starting to get upset as she explained. “Suddenly, I noticed a lot more students going to the principal because they were always late or caught running more than once. Some of them even had skinned knees!”

  Hey! Phyllis knew what I thought only the kids knew, that our school was too big for us to get anywhere on time.

  She continued, “Clearly these kids were late because they didn’t have time to get to class! That made me upset. You’d think Al Shapiro would poke his nose out of his office, or maybe just care enough to ask students why they were always late, but you know what his explanation was? He just thought the kids were getting lazy. I mean, it didn’t even occur to him to get more information!”

  Carolyn snorted. “Is he one of those guys who says that American kids are slower and fatter than they used to be?”

  Phyllis groaned. “Basically, yes. He’s believed that ever since I was in school, and he’s only gotten worse.” Then she widened her eyes. “Oh, Amalee. He’s a good man, don’t get me wrong.”

  “I won’t tell on you,” I promised her.

  “Oh, no, it’s not that,” Phyllis protested. “Well, maybe it is.”

  “I won’t say a word,” I repeated. “But I agree with you.”

  Carolyn looked at me. “So your principal doesn’t understand kids, and you’ve got some whiner going around pretending she’s going to sue you. John’s right. Phyllis said all this to us, even if she won’t admit it to you. That’s what Phyllis said.”

  “Oh, Carolyn, honestly …” Phyllis said. “Look, let’s give Lenore a break. She’s just a kid.”

  “So is Amalee!” Carolyn shot back. “The nurse said this kid was fine, so what is this lawsuit thing about? She’s threatening Amalee! Whose side are we on, anyway?”

  “Maybe she feels threatened by Amalee,” Phyllis suggested quietly.

  “Oh, c’mon, Phyllis, we know this was an accident,” Carolyn answered.

  “Well then she should tell us,” Phyllis said, looking at me.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s an accident. She is going to sue me,” I said.

  They both stopped and looked at me.

  “Tell us what happened,” Carolyn pressed.

  “No.”

  “Tell us,” she said.

  “No.”

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  “No!”

  She took a breath. “When I was ten, I left my little sister in the car. My mother told me to stay with her, but I wanted a chocolate bar, so I went into the grocery store where my mother was shopping, and I bought one. It was the summer. I left the windows rolled up almost all the way, and my sister really, truly almost died. Okay? Now tell us what happened.”

  Well, that was awful. Should I tell them?

  Suddenly, Phyllis jumped in. “Amalee, I kicked your dad in the shins when I was twelve, because I had a crush on him and he was being mean. He had to go to the hospital. I guess I kicked him harder than I thought. I was nervous,” she added, still defending herself.

  “Pretty mean,” said Carolyn.

  “You almost killed your sister! For chocolate!” Phyllis protested.

  “I pushed Lenore down the stairs!” I shouted, interrupting them. “She hit her head! I heard it. It was awful.”

  “Aha, okay, was it on purpose?” Carolyn asked immediately.

  “Of course not. I pushed her, but I didn’t even do that on purpose.”

  “Why did you push her?” Phyllis asked.

  “Because she wanted me to sleep over at her house.”

  “And?” Carolyn wanted more.

  “And I’d already said I couldn’t, and she wouldn’t stop asking.”

  “So you were annoyed, and that’s why you pushed her?” Phyllis asked.

  “Well, I was already upset, because Ellen and Hally had stolen my notebooks as an April Fool’s joke.”

  “Not funny,” Carolyn observed. “Go on.”

  “And I was really upset about it, and then Lenore wouldn’t leave me alone, and then she said this thing.”

  I paused for a moment. I didn’t want to repeat Lenore’s words.

  “What thing?” Phyllis asked suspiciously. “What thing did she say, Amalee?”

  “This thing where she said her mom said … that I should be grateful to go over to their house since Dad is … is … dying.”

  There. I told them. I started crying.

  “Did she just say what I think she said?” Carolyn asked Phyllis. “It sounds like Mrs. Nielson said that David was dying, and Lenore said it to Amalee. I guess Mrs. Nielson found out somehow. I know John was at the bank last week. He might have told her,” Phyllis said, sighing.

  “So, John gave her the news, but then she told her daughter? No way!” Carolyn exclaimed. She and Phyllis were both so upset, they didn’t even get up to put their arms around me, which was fine. If they hugged me, I’d have to pretend that I didn’t feel so alone.

  “I don’t know about Mrs. Nielson, but that Lenore is a mean child!” Carolyn stormed, on the verge of tears — something I’d never seen. “Are you sure you didn’t push her on purpose? I would have!”

  “Look, it wasn’t okay what she said,” I explained, trying to stop crying. “But I’ve been avoiding her all year. I’ve been walking around letting everyone think I don’t like them and not saying anything when people are mean to people I like. I’ve been awful.”

  “Wait a minute, Amalee,” Phyllis said, stopping me. “Are you saying you deserve what she said, because you think you’re a bad kid?”

  “Um, yeah. That’s why I didn’t want anyone to know about Dad. I knew they’d get back at me for …”

  “For what?” Phyllis asked impatiently.

  “For changing. I used to be nicer.”

  Phyllis tried to disagree. “People won’t punish you for that. Sweetheart, I don’t know why Lenore would say something so mean —”

  “Because she’s the devil,” suggested Carolyn.

  “Stop it, Carolyn! Amalee, you shouldn’t expect people to be so cruel.”

  “But they have been. It’s true,” I explained. It was the simple truth.

  “This is so upsetting,” Carolyn said. “First of all, your dad’s not going to die, but we’ve been on pins and needles about him. I can’t believe someone would make you more worried.” She pounded the table in exasperation. “We’ve been tiptoeing around, saying, ‘What about Amalee? Should we talk to Amalee? Is David going to talk to Amalee?’ And this kid just waltzes in and says, ‘Do what I want you to do or I’ll tease you about your sick dad.’ We should have pulled you out of school. I would have given you painting lessons.”

  “We’ve been a little worried about you,” Phyllis confessed.

  I started crying again. They had been worried about me? They knew I was h
aving a hard time, and I didn’t even have to tell them. They’d been watching out for me.

  For once, Carolyn talked to me as if I were more her daughter than a friend. “We’re sorry, Amalee,” she said. “We’re sorry that we haven’t insisted on talking to you about your dad. The thing is, we don’t know what to say, and we told Joyce not to get too … you know, like a therapist. But, well, I feel like a jerk. We should have insisted that you tell us how you were feeling! We should have taken care of you better.”

  “You think you haven’t taken care of me?” I asked. “Of course you have. And it’s not like I’ve made it easy for you.”

  Carolyn nodded her head and smiled, grateful that I’d let her off the hook.

  Suddenly, Phyllis stood up. “Okay, it’s official. I’ve got to do something.”

  Phyllis grabbed her coat. “I’ve made a decision,” she said. I almost thought she was angry at me, she was so decisive. “You’re getting in my car, and we’re going.”

  Where?

  “C’mon,” she insisted, getting her keys and her purse. “We’ve got to go before I lose my nerve.”

  “Where are we going?” I called out as we ran to her car.

  “I am not going to let you be bullied. You made a mistake.” She started the car. “I’m forty-two years old, and I’ll act like a parent if I want to.” She sounded like a twelve-year-old. “Let’s face it —” she couldn’t stop talking now — “your dad isn’t dying, but we all had a good scare. And we didn’t know what to do. And we didn’t know how to talk to you about it, because, well, you’re eleven, even if you act older, and we didn’t want to upset you….”

  “You did the best you could….”

  “True enough, but in the end, we were very confused. We just felt helpless.” She took a deep breath. “Helpless.”

  That was a huge word for her. Phyllis had never been helpless. She could be very unhappy, but she always, always had a plan. A plan to get her car out of the muddy ditch last spring, a plan to teach me multiplication (she wrote an equation in removable marker on every bathroom tile), and a plan to make the vegetable garden grow (it still didn’t).

  “But you aren’t helpless with Dad!” I exclaimed. “You’ve helped him so much!”

  Phyllis was silent for a full minute.

  “You know, we have. Maybe that’s why I have the courage to do this now. I’m not like Carolyn. I don’t dislike Lenore, but we’ve got to set the record straight. You’ve gone through your father’s sickness with almost no help from us. You’re not going to do this alone.”

  We pulled up to Lenore’s house, where Phyllis had dropped me off a few times. Strangely enough, I almost felt better about seeing her house now than I had when we’d called ourselves friends. I’d always hated going to her house. At least now, it was out in the open that Lenore didn’t like me. Not that I wanted to go in the house at this moment, which was Phyllis’s plan.

  “Let’s go,” she said, heading for the front door.

  My first reaction was to push down in the seat, like a dog that won’t go to the vet. But she walked with so much confidence, I only felt a small wave of dread as I jumped out and followed.

  Phyllis gave the knocker two loud raps, then stood with her arms folded.

  “Your father is going to be fine,” she repeated. We heard footsteps approaching. “But Lenore didn’t know that. I don’t want to be unkind about her, but I am really angry about this. Man, am I angry.”

  Then the door opened, and I watched Phyllis’s straight back sag a little, as if she suddenly wasn’t so fired up. Uh-oh.

  “Hi, Mrs. Nielson,” she said to the woman with peering eyes and short brown hair.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Phyllis Francisco. I work at the middle school. We’ve met.”

  “Oh. Is this … school-related?” Mrs. Nielson asked. “Would you like to come in?”

  “We’d love to,” Phyllis replied. Mrs. Nielson jumped a little when she saw me.

  “Amalee! Is this about …”

  “Lenore and Amalee, yes,” Phyllis answered. “Can we sit down for a few minutes?”

  “That’s not a good idea —”

  Phyllis interrupted, “I only went to one year of law school, but I know you can’t hurt your lawsuit if you don’t say anything. And also, we want to help.”

  We sat down at the dining room table. Phyllis had gone to half a year of law school.

  “And one more thing,” she added. “We want Lenore to be here, too.”

  I slid down in my seat. Lenore appeared from behind a door that I could have sworn was to a closet.

  “Hi, Lenore,” said Phyllis. “Thank you for sitting down with us.”

  Lenore looked at her mother, and her mother looked at me as if we’d never met.

  Phyllis continued, “Amalee doesn’t think this matters, but” — she paused — “I think it’s important for us to know that she was having a hard day. This happened at the end of the day, right, Amalee?”

  I nodded. What was Phyllis doing?

  “So at the end of the bad day, you, Lenore, invited Amalee to sleep over at your house, and for some reason, which we can only guess at, she ended up pushing you. I know you can’t speak, but I imagine that felt unfair, scary, all those things.”

  Mrs. Nielson spoke up. “It was. She went to the emergency room. It was expensive, and our insurance won’t cover all the things we need.”

  “Well, Amalee should definitely pay for the rest. You don’t need a lawsuit for that,” Phyllis said. “I just wanted you to know that this was an accident.”

  “She pushed me!” cried Lenore.

  “She did, but she was trying to push you away from her, not down the stairs. And she didn’t even mean to push you. It’s just that when you thought she was lying, well, you know, that’s hard, especially since she was lying. She doesn’t want to sleep at anyone’s house right now, and she doesn’t want to invite anyone over, mainly because her dad is sick.”

  I expected Lenore to look over and call me a tattletale, but she was looking at the ground.

  “And so here she was thinking she was protecting your feelings, and I think” — Phyllis looked at the ceiling as if she were consulting God, and then she plunged in — “I think when she heard that you thought she was lying, and even that she should be grateful for an invitation, because some people think her father is dying …” She was looking at Mrs. Nielson now.

  “Oh, Lenore!” Mrs. Nielson stood up. Mrs. Nielson was the one who had told her daughter my dad was dying. Now she knew her daughter had passed along her prediction. Lenore looked surprised and embarrassed. Actually, so did Mrs. Nielson.

  “I think Amalee was just trying to get home, and she didn’t know what to do,” Phyllis went on. “I think Amalee didn’t mean to push you, Lenore.”

  “Of course not!” Mrs. Nielson said.

  Phyllis went on. “You and Lenore must be very concerned about Lenore’s injury, and I am concerned, too. And I know Amalee is very sorry.”

  “I am,” I said.

  “Never mind that,” Mrs. Nielson muttered. “It’s not the point, obviously.” She stood.

  Phyllis and I got up and headed for the door.

  “David Everly is expecting to pay any bills you have,” Phyllis said.

  “Tell David to concentrate on getting better. And how is David …?” Mrs. Nielson started.

  “He’s doing much better, thank God. That’s the good news. He’s doing better every day. I would not say that he’s … in trouble anymore.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” Mrs. Nielson said, and I knew she meant it. “And I believe it. I’m sure the last thing anyone needs is loose gossip about his health.”

  “Well, you know, we try to take everything in stride,” said Phyllis.

  I could tell Mrs. Nielson was trying to apologize to Phyllis. “We weren’t going to actually sue anybody. We were just talking to a lawyer. I wasn’t trying to make any trouble.”

  �
��Of course not. I can certainly understand your concerns about money. It’s a crime what those insurance policies don’t cover, don’t you think?” Phyllis was being chatty, trying to change the subject. She must have known that things weren’t as bad as Lenore was saying at school.

  Now Mrs. Nielson turned to Lenore, who was trying to slink out of the room.

  “Don’t move,” she told her daughter. Then she bit her lip and turned to me. “Amalee, how are you doing these days?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “And I am so sorry. I should have known better. I’m sorry, Lenore.” It felt good just to say it.

  “No, Amalee, we’re sorry. We’re very, very sorry.”

  And so it was Friday, my last day of school before a week of suspension.

  I walked into English class early. Only a few kids were there. Ms. Severance was leaning up against the desk, her back turned. She was talking with Phyllis.

  Phyllis stopped talking when she saw me.

  Ms. Severance swung around and said, “Hi.”

  “Amalee, come outside for a second,” said Phyllis. She took me around the corner. “I don’t want Lenore to see us talking. She must be so embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?” I said.

  “Trust me,” she said, “you’re not being suspended, you’re not getting detention, and I can’t imagine anyone’s going to sue you. Mrs. Nielson called the office this morning.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “I agree! Listen, I’ve got to go, but …” Phyllis shuffled her papers around. “I, um, I’ve never been a mother before. I don’t know if I had any right to do what I did yesterday. It’s just, well, everybody gets to tell their side of the story. I believe that, and I just wanted to be efficient. I wanted to find the most direct way for you to tell your story. That’s all I was thinking. Are you angry at me?”

  I was stunned. “Why would I be angry at you?”

  “Because I sort of ratted on you last night, you know, by repeating what Lenore had said to you about your dad.”

  “I know why you did that, Phyllis,” I told her.

  “You do?” she asked.

  “Yeah, you wanted to clear the air.”