Rodent

by Lisa J. Lawrence

  Then we are still again. I feel him twirling the ends of my hair between his fingers, his heartbeat against me.

  “I can’t go back,” I say.

  “You can.”

  “No, I really can’t. You don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand?” he says.

  Somehow the darkness makes the words easier. “My mother is a drunk.” A lump rises up again. I swallow it down. “And I do live in a dump.”

  “I don’t care about that stuff,” he says.

  “Well, I care,” I say, pushing away from him. “Do you know what it’s like having the whole school know that?”

  “No.”

  “No. That’s why I can’t go back.” He doesn’t respond. I lean in again. Silence. “But I’m not a prostitute.” Better clear that one up.

  He laughs his deep laugh, and I worry someone outside will hear it. “Okay.”

  *

  We sit through the bell at the end of lunch, not moving. Then the bell at the end of the first class. Then the second. Through two announcements over the intercom calling me to the office. The whole afternoon in the dark.

  “How did you know I’d come here?” I ask him.

  “Where else would you go?” he says. Like it’s so obvious. “I don’t know. I just knew.”

  When I want to forget, I ask him to talk. About anything. So he does. Star Wars, his mom’s obsession with vampire books, being an only child, the probability of being struck by lightning, his dog.

  In a lull, I say, “Will, you know I punched that girl, Ainsley, right?” I’m not sure why, but I need to know.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “And?”

  “I figured you had your reasons.”

  That’s it? If only Mom and Mr. Talmage would cut me that much slack.

  When the last bell rings, I know my prop-room hiding with Will is over.

  “Can you do something for me?” I feel his chin nod against my head. “Get my backpack and jacket from the cafeteria?”

  When he brings them back, I’m standing just inside the prop-room door, waiting. I cringe away from the crack of light. He tries to shut the door behind us, but I swing it open.

  “My sister’s waiting now,” I say.

  He tugs on my arm and tries to pull me close again. Wants something more. But the door is open, the real world flooding in. Time to go.

  “Thank you, Will.” And I’m gone.

  *

  Maisie can’t stop staring at my face. “Did you get hurt?” she asks. I nod. “Was it that girl again—the pokey one?”

  I nod again. “I think so.” Wish I’d had time to splash some water on my face.

  I see her mouth opening, brow creased, about to ask how I don’t know which girl hurt me.

  “What did you do at school today?” I say.

  That does it. “We got to play with the parachute in gym!” That’ll keep her going for another ten minutes without me having to speak at all. I hear about every possible game one can play with a parachute.

  When we get home, I tell Mom, “I feel sick. I’m going to lie down.” Forgetting about my vow of silence.

  She opens her mouth, prepared to act all motherly, but I wave her away. “Just stay with them,” I say over my shoulder.

  My camping cot never looked so good. I climb in and pull the covers over my head. I replay that moment in the cafeteria, a sick pit in my stomach. I’m never going back there again. I’ll tell Mom I need to find a new school. Make up something—rampant drugs, a rat sighting, no running water. Something. She can’t make me go back.

  Will. The best and the worst all at once. To be humiliated so completely and then to sit there, so close to him. I’ll probably never see him again.

  I can’t lift my head. Can’t move from this bed. When Mom comes in to get dressed for work, I pretend to be asleep.

  SIXTEEN

  I lie low over the weekend, mostly on the sofa.

  “Why don’t you call Jacquie?” Mom says, searching my gray face. I shake my head.

  I don’t set the alarm on Sunday night. Mom gets up halfway through the day on Monday and finds Maisie cutting out a picture of a flower at the table. Evan is playing with the crooked dollhouse. Me, I’m watching daytime court shows.

  “What’s this?” she asks.

  “I felt like throwing up.” I pull a blanket up to my chin.

  She mumbles something and disappears into the kitchen.

  *

  Tuesday morning, I take Evan to day care and Maisie to her school. I wait at the stop across the street to catch the bus back home, the wind churning up grit and tossing it in my eyes. I keep looking over my shoulder at the school doors, like Mr. Talmage might come bursting out and haul me back in. Or Will. Or anyone else in the school who knows my name and face, which is possibly everyone now. My name’s Isabelle, I’ll make your life hell.

  Behind me the windows of the English classroom stare at me. If Will turns his head to the left, he’ll see me standing here. What would he think? Or Celeste. Anger churns up at the thought of her, that sick charade. Better to take me in the hallway and knock me to the floor than to apologize, pretend to speak kind words. The most cruel thing of all. Now I know I underestimated them all, to think their payback would be insults and bruises.

  And something else. It had hit me on Sunday afternoon, watching Chef Cathy make homemade pesto on TV. I’d been so busy feeling ruined about others learning the truth, I’d forgotten to ask myself how they knew it in the first place. How did Ainsley or Pole Dancer or one of their minions know that my mom is a drunk and I live in a dump? The question had been flitting around like a mosquito ever since. Who ratted me out?

  I never told Will, Clara, Miss Yee, Mr. Talmage. Nobody. Jacquie’s the only one who really knows my life. As I peek over my shoulder at my English classroom, I remember. Mr. Drummond. He’s the only one. Who did he tell? In an instant, I hate him. Hate him for setting me up to come crashing down, for pretending to care. I can hardly breathe. I want to bang into his room, screaming. What have I got to lose?

  Down the street, the bus rumbles toward me, a cloud of dust rising behind it. No, I’m going to walk away from this place and not look back. Will can find some other less-insane girl to like. His future children will thank me.

  At home, I lock the apartment door behind me and jump. Mom’s standing there, hair tangled. Pouches under her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I say, stepping close.

  She studies my face and swallows. “Mr. Talmage called.” He must have called about ten times in a row to get her out of bed this early. I know where this is going.

  “I’m not going back!” I push past her, still wearing my shoes and coat.

  “Isabelle—”

  “No!”

  I try to get away, but there’s nowhere in this whole damn apartment that’s my own. I march down the hall to our bedroom, kick off my shoes and climb into my cot with my coat on. Blanket over my head.

  “Don’t even try,” I say. “You have no idea.”

  I hear the creak of her bedsprings beside me. She gives me a minute to sulk. “What happened?” she finally asks.

  “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “He said some girls embarrassed you during a school event you were involved in. Why didn’t you tell me you were doing that?”

  She knows I was publicly humiliated and now she wants to know why I didn’t tell her about my extracurricular activities? I’m glad Mr. Talmage didn’t tell her more. How can I say that she was their weapon, that they attacked me with my own mother?

  “They made up a stupid poem about me being a prostitute, and the whole school saw it.” I choke on having to say the words out loud.

  She peels back the blanket and rubs a tear off my cheek. Smooths my hair away from my face. I look up to see a glint in her eye, her jaw set. I don’t often see her angry. Usually she’s as soft as Play-doh.

  “Mr. Talmage asked if you could come in tomorrow. Those girl
s received an in-school suspension for two days, and he wants them to apologize to you.”

  Not worth it. I’ll get exactly the kind of apology I gave to Ainsley.

  “Think about it,” she adds.

  “Okay,” I say, to make her stop talking. Then I roll over and face the wall.

  She doesn’t move, lingering. “Isabelle,” she says, “have you had boyfriends?”

  Now she’s wondering if I really have been whoring around the school. “Goodbye, Mother.” Blanket back over the head. As if it wasn’t enough with Jacquie always asking me.

  *

  The next morning, my arm stretches out to stop the angry beeping. Maisie or Evan is already moving next to me. I open one eye.

  It’s Mom, pulling on a pair of jeans.

  I push myself up on my elbows. “What are you doing?”

  “Going to the school with you,” she says, doing up the jeans button and rummaging for a shirt.

  “What?”

  “I think you need some extra support through this, so I’m going with you.”

  The full meaning of this hits me all at once. Me, trotting up the front walk of the school with my mother—the very same mother from the poem. Sitting in Mr. Talmage’s office with those three girls, my mother by my side. Not only do I need my hand held by mommy, but by my drunk mommy.

  She pulls a sweater from the drawer and slips it over her head. “You need to get moving now.”

  “Mom, you don’t have to go,” I say. “I’m going to find a new school.”

  “No.” She turns, jaw grinding again. “No, you’re not.”

  “What are you talking about?” I sit up, wide awake.

  “You are not going to let some bitches drive you away from your school.” She wags her finger in my face.

  She said bitches. Mom never swears, even if she’s quoting someone. She’ll say “the b-word” or “the s-word.” Uncle Richie swears like a sailor after one beer, but Mom never does. I don’t know what to say.

  She looks like hell, dark circles under her eyes. Probably only had three hours of sleep.

  “Why do I need to fight this fight? I don’t even like that school.”

  “You fight the fight, Isabelle,” she says, her voice rising, “because the very same thing may happen at your next school. And I don’t want you running from these people.”

  I watch her pacing around in front of me. Is she drunk?

  “That, my girl, is life,” she goes on. “What do you think happens every day I go to work?”

  To be honest, I never really think about what happens at Mom’s work (besides getting pissed about her drinking with the bartender). I don’t think about what people say to her, or if old perverts grab her butt and snot-nosed kids talk down to her. Maybe her boss is uptight.

  She’s not done yet. “We all have our”—she searches for the right word—“our stuff, but you can’t just lie in bed and give up.”

  The devil on my shoulder whips up some choice words to throw at her now, but I’m too stunned to say them. And although I remember every time she’s failed, she is still here every day. Not like Jacquie’s mom. And I remind myself how hard she tried to quit drinking when she was pregnant with Maisie and Evan. I’ll give her that.

  “Now, get dressed,” she says.

  “Mom.” I stand up. “I’ll go. But let me go on my own.” She narrows her eyes, like I’m trying to brush her off. “You can call Mr. Talmage to check if you want. I’ll go.”

  “I’m dressed now. I’ll come with you,” she says.

  “Mom, I think it’s something I have to do by myself.”

  She considers this. “Okay, but let me know if you change your mind. You can call me.”

  “You’d better get some sleep,” I tell her, but she comes out instead and helps pack lunches and get Maisie and Evan dressed. Evan asks to sit on her lap as he eats his cereal at the table. It’s Christmas morning for them when she’s around.

  “Sorry about the swearing,” she says as I step out the door. I try not to smile.

  My return to school doesn’t seem real as I drop off Evan at day care, Elaine’s ugly mug at the front door. As the bus drags Maisie and me closer to school, I start to feel the nausea. And wish I hadn’t eaten anything this morning. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, moving with the sway of the bus. Trying to keep it all down.

  For once, though, I don’t feel like one solitary person pushing on through. It’s like Mom is standing beside me, not obliterated in some dark room.

  I hug Maisie goodbye at the door of her school, her head at my belly. I wish I could bring her along and hide behind her hair when I needed to. Things couldn’t be too bad if she were there, coloring butterflies.

  As I walk down the front path of Glenn Eastbeck, a few heads turn my way, whispering. I think I hear my name. Head high. One foot in front of the other. I told her I would go. I carry Mom’s words with me down the hall to Mr. Talmage’s door and as I face those six wicked eyes. Her words make it all more bearable. Ainsley’s shifty apology, the laughter in her eyes. Pole Dancer’s mumbling, already plotting my death every time Mr. Talmage turns his head. Only Celeste seems upset. Her eyes are red, staring at the floor.

  After all three say, “Sorry,” Mr. Talmage says, “There’s something else Celeste needs to tell you, Isabelle.”

  Celeste draws a deep breath, lip trembling. “I listened in on your conversation with Mr. Drummond,” she says, “about your mother.” My stomach drops to the floor. I remember then, the shuffle in the hall and Mr. Drummond getting up to close the door that day I fell apart in front of him.

  “Then I told them”—she motions with her chin without making eye contact—“and they started making this plan.”

  “You did it too!” Pole Dancer says with a whine that could rival Evan’s.

  “I never wanted to!” she shouts at them. “I never wanted to be a part of this.” She turns back to me. “I’m sorry for eavesdropping and spreading that around.”

  I have to ask now. “What about the rest of the poem?”

  Apparently Celeste is the only one talking. She shrugs. “They just made it up.” A lucky guess that I live in a dump. “Can I go now?” she says to Mr. Talmage. Looks like she’s going to cry again.

  “No.” He pins her in place with a stare and hands me an envelope. “This is a letter from Seamus Holmes, who also played a part in this. Seamus is on the volleyball team. He’ll have to sit out the next three games.” I’d bet a million bucks that Seamus is that stupid blond from Social Studies. Hope he gets jock itch. I’ll save his load of crap for later, when my stomach is better. Maybe never read it at all.

  “I’ll have you know”—Mr. Talmage looks at all of us now—“I take this very seriously, both the fighting and the bullying.” Celeste starts to cry into her hands. She probably has her university application already filled out. Mom and Dad certainly won’t approve. “I encourage you to wipe the slate clean now and leave this nonsense behind you, or you won’t remain at this school. Don’t test me on that.” He rubs his stubbly chin. Does the man ever shave?

  We all nod back at him, except Celeste, who wipes her face on her sleeve. When he sends us back to class, Celeste bolts from her seat, the first through the door. Ainsley and Pole Dancer give each other looks like, That was stupid. I watch them disappear in the hallway before I move. Don’t want some cozy scene with the three of us.

  English has already started, and I don’t have the heart to walk in late. All those eyes on me. I doubt Celeste went either. I go to the library instead. Ms. Hillary gives me a nod, a little softer than usual. I’m sure she knows. I have a feeling she’s about to become my new best friend again.

  I don’t budge when the lunch bell rings. I wonder if it’s possible to spend my entire high-school career in here. I have to go to the bathroom, but I’ll wait until the dancing stage. I sign out another stack of books instead, to distract me.

  The chair next to me slides back. Will.

  “Mr.
Drummond said you might be back today,” he says. He fills me in on what happened. After the fiasco, Mr. Talmage asked students to come forward with information about the “incident” at Words on the Wall. People talked. “Janine and Seamus did the writing,” Will says.

  “Janine?” I ask.

  “The tall one.”

  Right. Pole Dancer. I guess she has a name after all.

  “But it didn’t take long for her to rat out Ainsley. Celeste turned herself in. There’s already a patch covering it on the scroll.”

  I don’t think I want to see it.

  Ms. Hillary’s mouth starts to twitch, so I say, “Pull out a book.”

  After a minute, Will’s hand slides over, entwining my fingers with his. Sparks fly up my arm. I move our hands under the table, motioning to Ms. Hillary at her desk. She doesn’t tolerate any “hanky-panky.”

  We stay like that the whole lunch hour, as I read the same page over and over. He runs his thumb along my fingers, our hands resting on my knee. When the bell goes and he lets go, my palm feels cold.

  When I walk into Biology, something’s different. Eyes follow me. A head turns and whispers to the one behind. Too still. Too silent. It’s a relief when Miss Dennhart gets started, pumped to show us a YouTube video of an experiment gone wrong.

  “Isabelle!” Damien runs to me in Spanish, crushing me with a hug.

  Daniela won’t turn to face the front, won’t leave me alone. “No one likes those girls,” she tells me in a whisper the entire class hears. “I’m glad you came back.” My face heats up.

  She turns around every few minutes to give me bright, bucktoothed smiles.

  No one’s mean, but by the end of the day I feel like hiding in the prop room again. The eyes. The comments. The whispers. I know what I told Mom, but I don’t want to live every day under a microscope. I’m starting to feel nostalgic for my old school, where I went for three months talking only to my lab partner and the librarian.

  As I walk down the hall toward our apartment door, Maisie and Evan holding my hands, I start thinking of what I’ll tell Mom. I can tell her everything that happened at the meeting except the part about her. She might want to read Seamus’s letter or hear what Daniela said. As I swing the door open, I almost expect her to be standing there.