Rodent

by Lisa J. Lawrence

  Mom raised a hand to her mouth, shocked. Anger like a fire engulfed every part of me. It radiated so strongly that when Mom turned her head to speak to me, she felt it—saw it—from across the room. Closed her mouth. She couldn’t look away.

  I haven’t spoken to her since the night of Maisie’s birthday, around the time we had cake. That is my only power.

  “You can’t stay silent forever, Isabelle,” she told me Sunday evening. “You’ll have to talk to me sooner or later.” That’s where she’s wrong. Why didn’t I see it before? My words only kept me tangled up with her, pulled into her mess. That endless back-and-forth tying us together. It’s my silence that cuts her from my world. You will find out, Mother, just how little I need you.

  *

  Mr. Drummond’s at the front, all wrapped up in Hamlet again. Enough bloody Hamlet already. He waves one hand as he talks, his voice carrying to every corner. He must like this part because he doesn’t ask anyone else to read. “How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time / Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more…”

  I tune out until he gets to: “How stand I then, / That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep?…” A mother stained, and let all sleep. The words scratch at me.

  “What’s Hamlet saying here?” Mr. Drummond asks. We all sit in silence, trying to avoid eye contact. After an awkward minute he answers his own question. “Hamlet has good reason to take action—his father murdered by his own brother, and his mother married to his father’s murderer—yet he does nothing. Meanwhile, he watches thousands laying down their lives for a piece of land that isn’t even sufficient to bury their dead.”

  He turns back to the play. “O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” He looks up at us. “So what’s Hamlet going to do?”

  “Take action?” Rachael says.

  “Take action.” Mr. Drummond nods.

  At the end of class, Mr. Drummond catches me as I dash for the door, waving Will and me over.

  “Where are we at with Words on the Wall?” he asks.

  I look at Will for the first time since class began. “Can you fill him in?” I say. I don’t wait for a response. Out the door. Down the hall. Up the stairs two at a time, to the computer lab. It’s not as quiet as the library, but it’s easier to hide in. No Ms. Hillary pretending not to look over your shoulder.

  I find a computer near the back corner, facing the door. Don’t want any surprises creeping up behind me. I log in and bring up Google. Spend the next half hour trying to find information on becoming emancipated as a minor. Is there a legal process? Can I just leave? I find a jumble of information. Some sites say there’s a legal process. Others say you can leave at sixteen if you can support yourself.

  Who would know for sure? I think of sweet Miss Yee. She would try to help, but that’s the problem. I don’t need some naïve do-gooder messing around, trying to fix my broken life.

  If the websites are right, I’ll have to be able to support myself to move out. Choose between being free and being in school. I know what Jacquie would say. Still. I’ve seen what’s out there for people who don’t finish high school. Look at half of the people in my apartment building, shuffling around like they’re in a zombie apocalypse. How could I ever do anything better for myself?

  And all the old worries about Maisie and Evan surface. Could they dodge bottles in the middle of the night or make supper from a box of macaroni and a bottle of mustard? I could take them with me. I’m already doing all the work. No, someone would come after us for sure. Maybe when I’m eighteen I could sue Mom for custody. Spill my guts about all the crap. Or I could live nearby and visit every day, make sure they’re okay. I could buy them a cell phone and teach them how to use it if they need me.

  Thoughts swarm my head, possibilities heaped one on top of the other, cutting each other off. I close my eyes. Muddled. Tired. The room spins in a slow circle.

  The lunch bell rings while I’m still mucking around, nothing accomplished. I don’t feel like going to the meeting today. With Zara and her damn clipboard. Damien’s props. Will’s hopeful eyes. Do I have to? It all seems really pointless now. I end up hiding in the computer lab for the rest of the lunch hour, checking the doorway for a group of angry freaks in costumes.

  In Spanish class Damien asks, “Hey, what happened to you today? We don’t have a poem from you or Will. Zara almost had an aneurysm.”

  “There was something I had to do,” I say. I know which poem I’ll use.

  *

  When I open the apartment door, I can smell supper cooking. The living room is clean. There are a few coloring books on the table. Maisie and Evan run to them without even taking off their shoes.

  “I saw these on sale today,” Mom says to me, motioning toward the books. Yes, coloring books. Those will fix everything.

  I drop my backpack on the floor and turn to leave for work. With this kind of routine, I can easily make it until the end of the year without saying a word to her.

  “Early today!” Rupa says as I walk through the door. Arif, at the other till, watches me but doesn’t say anything. Hasan’s not in tonight, so I’m busy running around, stocking shelves and helping customers. There isn’t even time for me to clean the bathrooms.

  Five minutes before the end of my shift, Rupa waves me into the back room. I stand there, not wanting to come. She’s going to sit me down and tell me that times are tough and they don’t have any more hours for me. Or they have to slash my already pathetic wage. Or they don’t want any funny business between their son and me.

  She’s smiling, though, so I follow her. Once I’m through the swinging door, she leads me over to a box filled with cereal and cans of soup.

  “Arif and I noticed that you”—she pauses and looks away—“take good care of your brother and sister.” She doesn’t seem to know what to say next. I start to squirm. What do Maisie and Evan have to do with my job? “We wondered if you might like some extra food for your family?” She’s actually blushing. “Better eat the cereal right away. It expires soon. I’m sorry for that.”

  I didn’t see that coming. She nudges the box toward me and smiles. I look in it again—easily a week’s worth of wages in food. I don’t know how to thank her without sounding trite.

  “Wow. Thanks” is the best I can do.

  As I haul the food home, cans clanking, a warmth edges over the ache. There’s even a box of Evan’s favorite cereal.

  *

  “Shakespeare?” Zara says. “Really?”

  I could have picked Justin Bieber. She should be happy. “Yes. That’s what I choose.” I stare her straight in the face.

  “Sure.” She shrugs.

  Damien, across the circle, nods. He’s wearing a seventies shirt with a butterfly collar. I humor him today and slip on an enormous pair of cowboy boots. They’d probably fit Will’s big boats.

  “And you?” Zara turns to Will now.

  “Still don’t know,” he says. “I don’t read a lot of poetry.”

  “Choose a song,” Damien suggests, and all the others pipe up at the same time. Probably trying to keep Zara from keeling over dead. Amanda’s bumblebee antennae wave above her head as she talks.

  Will finds his way to my side again. I give up. Let him follow me around. He’ll see what good comes of it. I find him a plate-sized belt buckle on a chewed leather belt and loop it around his skinny waist. Rescue the Stetson from a shelf. Don’t look at Damien.

  Today is our last meeting before setting up in the cafeteria. It’s our last time in the prop room. Last time to wander through Wonderland and have this mad tea party. Today I don’t want to think about anything else. I want to let myself sit close to somebody who wants to sit close to me. Because in thirty minutes it will all be over.

  “Do you want to try these on?” I ask Will, pointing to my fancy boots.

  H
e shakes his head. “No, they look good on you.”

  “Maybe I’ll wear them to Words on the Wall.”

  “Let’s move on,” Zara says, giving us the evil eye. “The Art Club is coming to help us set up on Thursday afternoon during the third and fourth periods and after school.”

  Great. Two things that won’t work for me. “I can’t stay after school on Thursday,” I say.

  Zara sighs. Stuck with the worst class leader ever. “Why not?”

  Too busy selling meth in the parking lot. Should I have to explain myself to her? “I babysit my brother and sister after school.” Babysit. Such a normal word.

  She rolls her eyes. Not good enough. “What about Thursday after lunch?”

  “Yes, I’ll be there.” The thought of standing around with Ainsley flattens my buzz over finding Will’s arm behind me. He leans back on his palms, long arms spread wide.

  Zara runs through the list of supplies she assigned to Amanda and Nimra. Then she says, “We need someone to write the poems on the paper before it gets put up on the wall. The writing has to be big, so you can read it from far away.” She holds her hands wide to show “big,” in case we didn’t understand.

  “I’ll do it,” I say. I am our class leader, after all. And I’ve seen Will’s chicken scratch. I can do my job in a quiet corner and then disappear. “I have decent writing.” If she asks to see a sample, I’m going to kick her in the teeth with these boots.

  “Okay.” She scribbles something on her clipboard. “That’s the first thing on the agenda then. Get your poems to Isabelle right after lunch on Thursday. We’ll all meet in the cafeteria.”

  She pulls out a sample inkpot, which is made from a spray-painted plastic vase. It looks pretty good, actually. She shows us a few quills, which she made by gluing bright plumes to ordinary pens and markers. As much as she’s a pain in the butt, it’s probably good we have someone in the group like this, who actually gets things done. I imagine asking Mom not to get drunk for a night so I could spray-paint vases, or dragging Maisie and Evan to fifty places on the bus to pick up craft supplies.

  Zara wants to talk to Nimra about the Art Club and its plans. The minutes tick by. Yesterday’s ache is gone, but there’s a sinking in my chest as the minutes pass. I lean back until I feel Will’s arm against me, my hair brushing him. I wait for him to shift away. He doesn’t.

  I don’t want to say anything—just sit here and feel this, everything here in this circle. In a week, these people will get on with their lives. A few meetings in a closet will be nothing in their worlds of family, vacations, friends, parties. For me, though, it’s been the best time of my life.

  I sit, hardly breathing, until the bell rings out in the drama room. It’s done. I give my boots to Damien and leave without looking back. Goodbye, Will. Too bad we can only exist in Wonderland.

  FOURTEEN

  I run into Clara in the library during lunch on Thursday.

  “Here you are!” she says. “I just dropped in on a whim. You disappeared for a while.”

  Odd. In the last two weeks, I entirely forgot about Clara, my Jane Austen girl. I explain to her about Words on the Wall and the meetings.

  “Oh, you’re part of that?” she asks, surprised.

  “Class leader.” I can’t help myself.

  “Cool.” She lingers another minute, tapping her fingers against the tabletop. Maybe this would be easier in the prop room, wearing overalls and a straw hat.

  “I have to meet Emma now—my friend,” Clara says. Yes, I know who Emma is: the one who almost wet her pants when I said hello.

  “All right. See you later.” I watch her go, knowing I won’t see her later. Knowing that we never found two building blocks that fit together.

  I wait for a minute after the bell goes to give the cafeteria time to clear out. I walk in to see Zara wiping down one of the long tables.

  “We’ll cut our paper on this one,” she says. We stand together, hands on our hips, waiting for the rest of the group to show up. Damien’s next, waving from the far door. Then Nimra, Amanda and Will all at the same time. Once we’re all huddled up, Zara explains the process.

  “The scroll will be made from five long sheets of paper attached together.” She points to the fat roll of white paper on the table. “Our poems should be staggered throughout the scroll, so we’ll put one on each sheet. One sheet will have two.” Got it. “The Art Club will help shape the paper into the scroll, and they also made the banner for Get Your Poet On.”

  Nimra asks, “Are we putting our names with our poems?”

  Amanda and Damien say yes at the same time Will, Nimra and I say no. We all look to Zara.

  “This isn’t about us being superstars,” I say. As though posting large poems in public makes us superstars in any way. More honest would have been, Let’s not make ourselves targets more than we already are.

  Zara looks stunned—it’s a question she hadn’t thought of. “I don’t think the organizers typically post their names,” she says slowly. “Let’s leave them off.”

  Zara and Nimra roll out the paper along the table, and Nimra uses a tape measure to figure out where to stop. Once they get the sheet cut to the right length, Zara waves me over.

  “You’re up,” she says. Then, to the group, “Whose poem is first?” Funny, I thought it would be hers.

  Damien lopes over. “Me, pick me!”

  We discuss what kind of letters he would like, and I write with a dark-purple marker.

  Purple haze, all in my brain,

  Lately things just don’t seem the same.

  And into the next verse.

  “At first I thought about”—he starts to sing—“I’m goin’ down to shoot my ol’ lady, I caught her messin’ ’round with another man, but then I decided against it.”

  “Good call,” I say.

  On the next sheet, Zara’s right next to me. I knew her poem would be close to the top of the scroll. “Here, this is mine.” She hands me a piece of loose-leaf with an Emily Dickinson poem written on it. We pick a thick black marker, and she tells me she wants “elegant” writing. I do a few words in pencil first and get her go-ahead.

  Nimra and Amanda agree to share the next sheet, so I put one poem at each end, leaving room in the middle for others to write.

  What happens to a dream deferred?

  Does it dry up

  like a raisin in the sun?

  No one’s paying attention as I get the next sheet ready, so I write my own:

  How all occasions do inform against me,

  And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,

  If his chief good and market of his time

  Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more…

  O, from this time forth,

  My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

  I know I probably should have chosen To be or not to be…, but I think that one’s been beaten to death with a stick, resurrected and beaten again. Shakespeare definitely isn’t my favorite, but something about the bloody thoughts resonates with me. Like Hamlet and I shared a moment.

  Will lingers as I finish, watching me write in bold block letters. As I pull up another sheet, he shifts around, hands in his pockets. When it’s smoothed into place, I turn to him. Last one.

  He won’t look me in the eye. Drops a folded paper on the table and mumbles, “It’s a song by Tinderbox Stick Men. My mom listens to it all the time.” He walks away, making himself busy with black vases with pens. Damien’s there, right over my shoulder.

  I unfold the frayed paper:

  I see through the wall you’ve built:

  cracked cinder block and mortar.

  I stand waiting, waning,

  at the end of your self-exile.

  Take a step in my direction.

  “Wow, he’s more gone than I thought,” Damien says. Of course he would be there. Of course. “I’m sure this was inspired by mommy.” He cackles in my ear.

  Face in flames. Static in my head. I can’t ev
en tell Damien to shut up. I read it again, trying to make sense of the words, the paper hot under my fingers. I go through the motions: pick a pen, pick a script, write it in pencil. I should really call Will over and ask him what he wants, but I have a feeling the earth would open up and swallow us both.

  “Are you blushing?” Damien says.

  “Would you shut up?” The more angry I get, the more he laughs. And he called Zara a yipping poodle?

  I pick a dark red and make all the letters different sizes, like a ransom note. Zara wanders over. “Hey, that looks good. Last one?” They’ve been working on attaching all the sheets together, taping them at the back to make one giant rectangle that spills onto the cafeteria floor.

  I hear Damien’s voice, deliberately loud, a few tables away. “So, Will. What made you choose that song?” I can’t hear Will’s response. “So, no particular reason?” Damien draws out the word. I could kill him. Wrap my hands around his scrawny neck and choke him dead.

  “Are you okay?” Zara says. She must have noticed my flushed face.

  “Yes,” I say too fast. “What else needs to be done?”

  “Well”—she surveys the scene—“we’re just waiting for the Art Club now. The paper’s ready. Pens and vases are ready. Oh, here they are!”

  Nimra walks over to greet them as they straggle into the cafeteria. In the middle, a blond head, thick shoulders. I can hear her voice from here.

  I had steeled myself for this, but Will’s poem knocked my legs out from under me. I feel like a kid getting off a roller coaster. A flutter of panic rises up. Too much. I can’t do this right now. I snatch Zara’s arm as she starts to walk toward them.

  “I’m supposed to see Miss Yee as soon as I’m done here,” I say. Clearly I’m a mixed-up teen who needs lots of counseling. “Do you think you could do without me now?”

  She looks at me like I suggested we streak the cafeteria topless. “I guess so.”

  “See you at noon tomorrow,” I call after her. That’s when the principal will say a few words to officially open Words on the Wall.