“Oma?”
“It’s ‘grandmother’ in Dutch. She’s Dutch. I’ve always called her Oma.”
We paused at the corner to watch the streetlight. Vehicles sped by, a breeze brushing over my face. New Winchester was nothing like the city. Now that was traffic.
The light switched to green, and he touched my back again to get me moving. It felt comforting to have him at my side, an adult who wasn’t family, who wasn’t even a friend. I could say anything to him and know it would go no further, even if he laughed at my words.
Michael ran his fingers through his long hair. “It must be hard watching her disintegrate.”
I winced. Disintegrate? What an awful word to use, but was it the truth? Her dementia would keep getting worse, and Oma had no intention of going to a doctor for medication to slow the progression. I’d mentioned a checkup a few times, and Oma had announced doctors were evil, only out to make money in any way they could.
I counted the cracks in the sidewalk to keep my mind off her.
“How do you like New Winchester?” Michael’s voice broke through my reverie.
A man stood in a yard playing with a push mower, cussing when it refused to start.
“It’s fine,” Oma lived here. She didn’t belong in a nursing home.
“No, how do you really like it? I’m sure it’s a one-eighty from New York.”
“Have you ever been to the city?”
“I used to go a lot when I was younger. I grew up in New Jersey, but then my parents moved to Utica. I went to college at SU.”
“SU?” I picked at one of my cuticles.
“Syracuse University. What are you going to do about college?”
“I don’t know yet. I want to go for teaching, like my mom. I might go to Oneonta. That’s where she went. It’s supposed to be the teaching college.”
“I could never teach. I don’t like little kids.”
“Really?” I’d always thought of them as cute and innocent. “How come?”
Michael chuckled. “I’m a guy. Guys don’t like little kids.”
I’d never heard that before. “My dad likes me and my sister.”
“Normal guys like me don’t like little kids. Your dad has to like you guys. You’re his kids, and he has to pay for all your crap.”
That didn’t sound pleasant. Unsure of how to respond, I looked away. A woman sat on the front porch, rocking back and forth.
We were almost home. Home… Was this home?
“Thanks for walking me home.” The words emerged robotically from my mouth.
Michael held out his hand. “No problem, kid. My mom taught me manners.”
“Thanks, really.” I shook his hand, and he kissed my knuckles. His scruff tickled my skin.
The mail truck pulled to a halt alongside the curb.
“Did you ever want to be a mailman?” I asked to get my mind away from the softness of his lips.
Michael pulled an elastic from his pocket and tugged his hair into a short queue. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Good exercise?”
The mail carrier stepped out of his mail truck, and I noticed it was a different man. This one had black hair, not red, like the mailman who had come every day since I’d arrived.
“You wanna be a mailman?” Michael asked.
“Me? Oh, no.” I giggled. “I want to be a Goat Child!”
“A kid?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ve never wanted to be anything that wasn’t human.”
“No, they’re a warrior class. Tough mythical warriors. They battle evil in the twilight hour with the night swirling around in their wake.”
“Sure, if you say so.” We arrived at his apartment, and he held out his hand again. “It was nice talking with you, Kezy.”
I clasped his hand, amazed that his wrist was nearly twice as wide as mine. “See you around.” He laughed as he walked away.
I folded my arms across my chest. Something caught the corner of my eye, and I looked at the mailman. He held a packet of white envelopes in his hands, his head tipped to the side as he stared at me. His lips parted and he said something, but from the distance, but I couldn’t hear him. It could have been a question: “Are you sure Muriel died of natural causes?”
****
I am five years old. Oma decides I shouldn’t have to eat in the cafeteria at lunch, so she drives to the elementary school every day and brings me home. She heats me a TV dinner. I eat it in the living room while I watch the Wizard of Oz tape.
“She won’t make friends if she doesn’t stay for lunch,” Mama says.
“Keziah, where do you want to eat?” Oma asks me.
“At your house.” I get a warm meal, rather than a soggy sandwich, and I can drink all the milk I want.
“You don’t have to,” Mama says, but she doesn’t bring it up again.
Chapter 12
“Okay now.” The substitute gym teacher clapped her hands, the sound echoing through the gym. All up and down the woman’s pudgy fingers glistened rings, the cheap kind from costume stores that turn skin green.
I wondered why she was allowed to wear rings, but we weren’t. Homeschooling must have poisoned my mind against the unfair tyranny of high school.
“Come on, class,” the gym teacher said in her deep voice. “Since it’s raining out, we’re going to pass on Ultimate Frisbee for a round of kick-ball.”
The class divided into lines. After the first day of explaining line placement, the students seemed to have “forgotten” where everyone went. They sat next to friends, so none of the lines had an equal number of occupants.
“Lines two and four, you’re up to kick first. The rest of you, out to the field!” She blew her whistle and punched the air as if we were about to play a national championship. A boy yelled with her, but it was sarcastic and everyone snickered, except for me. Should I tell this teacher that I didn’t know the rules to the game?
Every time I’d tried before, our regular gym teacher had told me to stop fooling around. “These aren’t complex, newfangled games. Get to playing!”
I followed a boy into the so-called field. The occupants of rows two and four lined up along the wall near the gym office. A boy kicked the padding and yelled a cuss.
Since everyone in the field faced that line-up, I moved to the back near the door to the boy’s locker room. The gym teacher retrieved a ball from the office and tossed it from hand to hand, the whistle balanced on her lips.
“Hey,” someone said.
I turned to the girl next to me. “Hello.”
“How come you always wear stockings for gym?” she asked.
I wore green and black striped stockings, sagging a bit over my black high-tops. The gym uniforms consisted of a T-shirt and shorts, both in an ugly reddish-orange color, and New Winchester was printed across the front of the shirt with a man saluting dressed like a pilgrim.
“I like stockings.” It was easier to wear stockings than shave, since other than gym days, I never bared my legs.
“You have really pretty stockings. I like the ones you wore last time. The ones with all the spider webs.”
“Thanks.” If Tiffany had said that, I would’ve asked if she wanted to borrow them.
The gym teacher blew the whistle and pointed to the kicker. “First strike!”
“My mom would never let me wear anything like that,” the girl said. “My mom’s really strict.”
“The only time Mama’s flipped out was when I got my tattoo.” I pointed at my left ankle where a fairy perched, hidden now beneath the stockings. “I’d mentioned wanting one, but then I went with my friend Tiff, and my mom was mad because she didn’t think the tattoo place was all that clean. Plus, it’s like a law to have parental consent, and I obviously didn’t.”
“Yo,” the boy standing in front of me shouted.
Who says “yo” anymore? I chuckled. Then, he turned around and chucked the ball he’d caught into my face.
Blackness. Stars followed, br
ight lights that flashed, falling in a waterfall of rainbow colors. The pain started in my ears when they popped then spread across my forehead, chin, cheeks, and then my nose. I stumbled a few steps backwards, lifting my hands. My fingers brushed against my glasses. They hung off my nose at an odd angle, and when I tried to fix them, they fell off. Silence filled the gym a second before they plinked against the floor.
The blurry world spun, and the pain spread into my chest. My nose hurt too much for me to leave my fingers against it. When I pulled them back, blood streaked them. A roaring began in my ears.
“Yo, I had no idea you were there,” the boy who’d thrown the ball said. “Sorry about that. Where’d you come from, anyway?”
Bastard.
“Hey, are you gonna be okay? Your glasses are pretty mangled,” another boy said.
The gym teacher blew her whistle as she crossed the gym. “You wanna sit this one out?”
“My nose is bleeding.” When I spoke, it sounded like the words came from a mile away. My lips throbbed. Maybe those weren’t the words I’d said at all.
“Why don’t you go to the nurse then? You know where the nurse is, don’t you?”
I’d never been there. “No.”
“Someone take her to the nurse’s office,” the gym teacher yelled.
“I’ll do it,” offered the girl I’d been talking to when I’d been hit.
“Thanks. Hurry back.” The gym teacher blew her whistle again. The sound pierced through my skull, eliciting a wince.
“You forgot your glasses.” The girl picked them up.
“That’s why I wear contacts for gym,” someone called.
When I got to the nurse’s office, my nose had stopped bleeding, but my glasses had dug into my skin during the impact, leaving a cut. The nurse washed it off and gave me an ice compress to take down the swelling.
“Can you go back to class?” The nurse peered into the little room in the back of the office where she’d let me.
Stretched out on a cot, I kept my eyes shut.
“Here, move the ice pack and let me see how it’s coming along.”
When I did, the nurse clicked her tongue.
“Dear, it looks like you’ve got two black eyes. I looked at your glasses, and they can’t be fixed. You’ll have to get new ones.”
Maybe I could sue the school.
“I want to go home,” I said for what had to be the hundredth time.
Instead of saying that ice and rest would help – again - the nurse headed toward her desk. “I’ll give your house a ring.”
I settled into the hard cot. Everything throbbed, and the ice only numbed my hand, not the wound. A glove to cover my palm with would be awesome.
“Keziah?” The nurse opened the door again and the hinges squeaked. “I called your house and no one answered. I also called your uncle. I got his voicemail.”
Where was Oma? I sucked breath through my lips.
“I can’t send you home without parental consent,” the nurse said. “I’ll try calling again in a little while. Maybe you will feel well enough to go back to class by then.”
Oma never went out. What if Oma had fallen and couldn’t come to the phone? She might need me.
I sat up. My head throbbed worse, the room spinning, and my stomach quivered. I set the ice pack down, eyes shut and breaths even. I blew through my nose, willing my stomach to settle.
When I stood, I had to grab the wall. No, I will not throw up. I will not pass out. I opened the door, pausing to catch my breath. The veins in my head tried to pound out through my skin, and my nose felt as though it was on fire.
It took everything in me not to stagger as I emerged from the room. The nurse sat at her desk tending to a little boy.
“I feel better.” My face hurt too much to attempt a smile. “I’d like to go back to class.”
The nurse smiled for me. “You don’t have a concussion, so you should be fine. If you feel bad again, just come back. Here’s your glasses.” She lifted them off a manila envelope. She’d attempted to fold the arms down, but they stuck out at odd angles. “Let your teachers know so they can help you with notes.”
“Of course.” I curled my fingers around the glasses and didn’t look back as I left the office.
I walked past the classrooms. No one tried to talk to me. I pushed open the main doors and stepped into the sunshine.
My purse and clothes were in my gym locker. I still wore the uniform.
Who cares?
The sun was too bright. I couldn’t see a thing. Even squinting, everything was a colorful blur.
When I reached the first street corner, I folded my arms across my chest. Cars zoomed by, and down the street, a horn honked. Autumnal wind bit through the thin gym uniform. I had to look a sight, spots of blood on my shirt and my face swollen, complete with two black eyes.
The cars slowed. Had the light changed?
I ran, praying the cars would stop for me. They didn’t start up, didn’t approach, and then my foot caught on the curb. I sprawled across the sidewalk. The cement gouged one of my elbows and tore my stockings. My glasses shot out of my hand.
“Shit!” I felt around for my glasses and my palms scraped over the cement.
Someone approached from the right dressed in blue. I squinted. They carried something that reminded me of a harp, but it couldn’t be one.
“Help me,” I called. The stoplight must have changed because the cars sped again. What if my glasses had fallen in the road?
“I can’t see. I lost my glasses,” I said to the blue person as they drew nearer. “Can you help me find my glasses?” They probably thought I’d gotten in a fight or was having a Velma moment from Scooby-Doo. “I got hurt in gym class, and now I can’t find my glasses.” A tear slid down my cheek. “Please help me!” I lunged for their leg.
My hand passed through the leg. It felt like nothing, and smoke swirled before solidifying back into that leg, the person continuing down the street.
Impossible. The lights played tricks on my blurry eyes. There was no one there.
My legs shook as I stood up. I’d have to look for my glasses later. I had to get home before I passed out. The sidewalk wavered beneath my feet with its hills and dips, and everything tried to consume me. I gasped out my sobs and everything hurt more. By the time I got to Oma’s driveway, I hiccupped so hard I couldn’t breathe.
“Keziah? Oh my God, what happened to you?” Michael grabbed my arm, and I would’ve fallen if he hadn’t pulled me against him. “Did someone beat you up?”
I couldn’t see a thing from the tears. Sputtering, I pointed at my house and then my face.
“Your grandmother went for a walk. I don’t know if she’s back yet. I’ve been unloading groceries. Here, come on, I’ll help you. Where’re your glasses?”
I pointed down the street. Snot poured from my nose, but I didn’t care.
“Did someone punch you in the eye?” He helped me walk towards Oma’s front porch.
“Gym,” I sputtered.
“There’s your grandmother.”
Oma never went walking by herself. It must be what Uncle Jan called a “good day.”
“What an awful school.” Oma pet my arm before Michael led me into the house.
I rested on the bed while he called the school. “Hi, this is Jan, Keziah’s uncle. She won’t be back in from lunch today. She’s not feeling well.” Michael left at some point and the real Uncle Jan came. He looked for my glasses, but didn’t find them.
“I thought I saw a man,” I muttered as Oma spread a cool washcloth over my face. “He was dressed in blue, and he had a harp, but then he wasn’t there.”
Oma stiffened. “Did he have black hair that looked green?”
Yes, because that made sense. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see.” It felt good to be home, curled up in bed with the soft blankets tucked around me. My face still hurt, but wet cloths helped more than the nurse’s ice pack.
“He was a Comaly,” she
said.
“Huh?”
“Those who watch the Goat Children. They wait for weaknesses. They spy and report. That’s why you couldn’t touch him. He wasn’t here. He was hiding.”
So much for it being one of her good days.
“I’m going home,” Uncle Jan said. “Call me if you need more pain killers.”
“I’m going to make dinner. We’ll have spaghetti and pepper. You love that,” Oma said.
Spaghetti mixed with green peppers was Oma’s favorite, not mine. As soon as Oma went into the kitchen to dice the green pepper, I reached for the phone to call my mother.
I would have to get new glasses, but Mama could send my old pair. In the meantime, I would have to miss school until I could wear the glasses, which meant the swelling of my nose would have to lessen.
I shouldn’t have let Oma go into the kitchen to dice vegetables with a sharp knife, so I dragged myself out of bed to tell Oma I’d rather have frozen pancakes for dinner.
****
I am six years old and have a wart.
“When you touch other kids at school, this is what you get,” Oma says.
“All kids get warts.” Mama buys me medicine patches, but they don’t help.
The wart spreads. Now I have eight across my fingers, and one on my wrist. Oma takes me to the pediatrician. The appointment is during school, so Mama can’t go.
The doctor tells me to soak my hands in hot water every night for a half-hour. “They’ll be gone in a week.”
I do it, even though the water burns, and I have to keep adding fresh when it starts to cool. In a week, though, my fingers are wart free. The one on my wrist is still there, so Oma takes me back to the pediatrician.
“Stubborn thing,” he says. “I’ll have to burn it off.”
I cry, but Oma holds me close. He cleans the area, numbs it, and takes out his tool. It stings, but the pain isn’t too bad as he burns off the nasty wart. It hurts more once he finishes.
“Would you like a get-well present?” Oma asks as she drives me home.
The Goat Children Page 9