by Beth Turley
I’m ready to be a beautiful family. I’m ready for things to get better.
• • •
“I think I know why I hear sounds so clearly. And why I can talk to you and other things,” I say to Ambrose that night. I lie on my stomach in bed with “Lost in the Funhouse” in front of me. Ambrose is perched on my back.
“Why?” he asks.
“Right here it says Ambrose had receivers in his mind and it allowed things to talk to him. They made him understand things he shouldn’t. That’s it. I have receivers too.”
“You must,” he says.
“I think mine are acting up, though. I’m going to fix them so that all I hear are the happy sounds.”
“So, start tomorrow. Retune them,” Ambrose replies. I sit up in excitement, and Ambrose flies off my back. He lands on the floor.
“Now I need to be fixed,” he mumbles. I giggle and pick him back up. I hold him close to my heart.
“Ambrose, if I fix my receivers, does that mean I won’t be able to hear you anymore?”
“I’ll always be here for you,” he says.
I try to ignore the fact that he didn’t really say no.
Importunate. Spiteful. Acute.
In class we practice spelling. Mrs. Bloom goes over the words on the board.
IMPORTUNATE.
SPITEFUL.
ACUTE.
The thing about spelling is, you don’t need to know the definition of a word to spell it. But I like meanings. I think looking at a word only for how its spelled is like judging a person by their outsides.
We’re copying the words into our vocabulary journals when there’s a knock on the door. Ms. Meghan is standing at the back of the classroom.
“Keep copying,” Mrs. Bloom says, and joins her.
“Importunate” describes something that is persistent.
“Spiteful” means something unkind.
“Acute” is when something is felt very intensely.
Mrs. Bloom and Ms. Meghan talk in the back of the class. I snap the tip of my pencil on purpose and walk to the sharpener near where they are standing. I hope my newly repaired receivers can hear them.
Before I make it to the sharpener, Mrs. Bloom is tapping Kimmy on the shoulder. She motions for Kimmy to follow her. Kimmy’s eyes are wide when she puts down her pencil. They look wet by the time she’s taken out the door.
If this were a story, a big red arrow would appear above my head, so that everyone would know I am to blame.
I put my pencil into the sharpener.
“It’s over now,” I say under my breath.
“Yooouuuu diiiiiid theeeeee riiiiiiiight thiiiiiing,” the sharpener whirrs at me. I pull the pencil out, and the voice stops. No one’s looking at me. No one else has heard.
I put the pencil back in. “You—” Pencil out.
Quiet.
Pencil in. “Did—” Pencil out.
Quiet.
Pencil in—
“Hannah? Stop playing with the sharpener,” Mrs. Bloom says.
Pencil out.
I go back to my seat and start copying the words again.
Sometimes when you learn vocabulary, it’s useful to put the words into a sentence.
Maybe I did do the right thing, but the importunate reminders the spiteful notes have left me with an acute pain in the center of my chest.
Counselor’s Notes: Thursday, October 29
Name: Kimmy Dobson
Grade: Five
Reason for visit: Discussion of classroom incident involving notes against Hannah. Kimmy has been suspected of being responsible for said notes. There is a history of competition between the two.
Demeanor: Kimmy shows little consideration for personal appearance. Features are clouded by expression of anger. Pushes chair back from table to increase distance. Behavior is consistent with what has been demonstrated since recent death of her mother, and subsequent move to live with her grandmother.
Visit: Transcript follows.
COUNSELOR: Do you know why you’re here?
STUDENT: I have no idea.
COUNSELOR: You know there’s been some bullying going on in your class.
STUDENT: Yeah. You came and talked to us.
COUNSELOR: Do you have any feelings about the notes?
STUDENT: Why would I?
COUNSELOR: I know you and Hannah haven’t always gotten along.
STUDENT: Did she tell you that I wrote them? Did she?
COUNSELOR: You’re not being accused of anything.
STUDENT: Hannah is thoughtless and weird. But I didn’t write any notes about her, I swear.
COUNSELOR: Let’s forget about that for a minute. How have you been doing? How long has it been since your mom died, now?
STUDENT: A year.
COUNSELOR: How have you been feeling?
STUDENT: It feels like she’s been gone forever. Like I never had her at all.
COUNSELOR: It would be understandable if you wrote these notes out of pain.
STUDENT: I didn’t write them!
COUNSELOR: Okay, Kimmy, okay. I want you to calm down before I send you back to class. What can I do to help?
Student points to dictionary on shelf.
STUDENT: Can you quiz me?
Next action: Despite Kimmy’s clear anger and feelings of helplessness, it is still unclear whether she wrote the notes. However, she may need more consistent sessions to combat her volatile feelings.
A Pink Trailer
Kimmy doesn’t come to school on Friday. When the day is over, I take a detour before going home. The crossing guard watches me walk halfway down my street, and then I cut through the neighbor’s yard into the woods. The October air is starting to fade to make room for November. November air feels like spices, strong and bitter and sweet. Skin remembers what true cold feels like.
White branches crisscross above my head, and fallen leaves slide under my feet. I use the stepping stones that break the surface of the stream to cross to the other side. The woods are quiet except for the wind and rushing water.
Sometimes when you’re in the woods, you take a breath and you’re somewhere else, experiencing some other day when the air smelled exactly the same. You realize that you’re a collection of memories all strung together. The you that you were a few weeks ago and one year ago and ten years ago are all the same, no matter how much time goes by, no matter how many things are different. I like to think that when I’m a hundred, I might be able to breathe in deeply and remember who I am right now.
It doesn’t take long to get to the trailer park. The homes are spread out in the grass, across the street from where the school buses are parked at the end of the day. One dirt road cuts through the middle.
Kimmy’s trailer is pale pink with white shutters. There’s a plastic ghost stuck to the door and a pumpkin on the front steps. It’s already rotting, just a day before Halloween. Looking at it makes me feel empty.
The door to the trailer opens, and Kimmy steps out. She has orange-and-black garlands in her arms. I watch her wrap the strands around the rusted rails on her front steps. The October wind blows her green checkered shirt. She doesn’t have a jacket.
I know I should leave my hiding spot in the trees, but I can’t look away. She puts a black cat decoration right under the ghost. She rests a small scarecrow against the rotting pumpkin. There’s not enough room on the door or the rails or the little front stoop, so the decorations all lean against each other.
If this were a story, a bus from a home-makeover reality show would roll into the trailer park. The host would call out to Kimmy and her grandma. In just five minutes the crew would demolish the trailer into a million pieces and build a mansion from the ruins. Kimmy would have a whole room just to practice spelling in, and there would be plenty of space on their new front porch for Halloween decorations. Sometimes it hurts to remember that this is not a story.
Even if Kimmy is a bully, maybe I’m not much better. I threw pennies at her in th
e grocery store. I told Ms. Meghan that she wrote the notes, when I didn’t know for sure if she did.
When she’s done decorating, she walks down her steps and observes her work. I don’t know what Kimmy sees when she looks at it, but she drops to the dirt ground. She sits cross-legged in front of the pink trailer and puts her face in her hands. I wait for a few minutes, but no one calls her inside. No one says it’s too cold to be outside in just a green checkered shirt.
I want to go over and tell her that the garlands glitter even though the sky is gray, but I know she wouldn’t want to hear from me. I have done enough.
From Hannah’s Pages of “Lost in the Funhouse”
Suppose the lights came on now!
The Girl in the Arcade
We go to Dad’s bowling league with him that night. His teammates mess up my hair and tell me how old I’ve gotten. I know it’s rude to say the same thing to them, so I just smile.
The bowling alley smells like feet and french fries. I take out my vocabulary list to study.
“Mom, will you quiz me?” I ask. She has lipstick on, which she only does when we go to the bowling alley. She’s not wearing a bun tonight; instead her hair rests on her shoulders in shiny, black curls.
“Of course,” she says. She takes my list and looks it over. “ ‘Aptitude.’ ”
“A-p-t-i-t-u-d-e.”
“That’s right. Good job.”
Dad has an aptitude for bowling. If this were a story, Dad would be an Olympic bowler, but he’s just the champion of his league. It makes him happy the same way stories and words make me happy.
Mom quizzes me while Dad plays. Each time he knocks all the pins down, he comes over and kisses Mom. He gets a little bit of lipstick on his mouth, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
“ ‘Tenacious,’ ” Mom says.
“T-e-n-a-c-i-o-u-s,” I say.
“Got it.”
“That means ‘strong-willed.’ ”
“I know that one. That’s you,” Mom says.
“You think I’m strong?” I ask.
“Of course you are, hon.”
I’ve never thought that I might be strong, because of the way I get sad and let my mind wander. But maybe it does take strength to have all that inside me and still not give up. Maybe Ambrose was strong too. It must have been scary to be lost in the funhouse. He could have waited in a dark corner until someone came to find him, but he kept moving, even if that meant he got farther away from where he was supposed to be.
The bowling teams start a new game, and I leave the table for the arcade. The room is lit in neon and strobe lights, so everything looks dim. The prizes in the crane game have been the same for years. The arcade is empty, but the machines chime anyway, calling out to me with bells and pings and voices. It’s one of those places that goes untouched, that exists without anyone really noticing it’s there.
I see what I’m looking for on the floor by the shooting game. A penny flashes in the colored lights, and I inspect it. Heads up. I take the coin and tuck it into my pocket. My career as a coin dropper started in the arcade, when I had my first urge to get the pennies out of the dark and replant them somewhere brighter. I find two more by the pinball machine and think about how hard it is to forget the past when it’s always right there just waiting for you to grab it.
There are two sections to the arcade, so I leave the front part with the games and walk into the back with the air hockey tables and black lights. My white Converse sneakers glow blue, and I use them to guide me to another penny across the floor. I turn and look up to see something else illuminated in the dark corner of the room. A T-shirt. A flash of white teeth. A girl with her back pushed up against the wall, and a boy with his lips on her cheek.
“Stop, stop, there’s someone here,” the girl says, but he doesn’t stop. Her eyes squeeze shut like she’s having a nightmare. The boy’s hands move up the wall on either side of her, and the girl disappears behind him. I run from the back room. The coins in my hand fall and bounce against the floor. A sad-day sound like shattering glass.
“Don’t go, Hannah,” the pinball machine calls out when I pass.
“Nothing’s changed. We’re still the same,” the crane game says.
When Ambrose saw confusing things, they became new pieces of the jumbled-up puzzle inside him. I won’t forget the girl’s face flushed white in the black light. I wish I knew her story.
I rush back to the table and notice that the bowling teams have gotten quieter. Dad’s score is a line of red Xs, which means he’s gotten all strikes. When a bowler is on the way to a perfect game, it’s tradition not to speak to him. Even one word could disrupt the rhythm and ruin everything.
Dad keeps rolling strikes. I try not to pay attention because it makes me nervous. I hope for the girl to come out of the arcade, but she doesn’t. Across the bowling alley, a woman with dark hair shaped like a mushroom walks toward the exit that is next to our table, and my breath gets sucked from my lungs. It’s Ms. Meghan, and she sees me too.
“Hi there, Hannah,” she says. She has a red balloon in her hand.
“What’s that?” I ask, and point to it.
Ms. Meghan laughs. “I was here for my nephew’s birthday party. Every guest gets a balloon.” She tugs at the string. I look at Mom. She crosses her arms like she’s making a shield.
“We’re here watching my husband,” Mom says, and points to Dad. He’s bent over retying his bowling shoes. He looks in our direction when he sits back up.
“Hello, Mr. Geller,” Ms. Meghan says.
I swear I hear Dad’s whole bowling league gasp. Mom clears her throat and smiles at him. I grip the sticky table. If this were a story, Dad and the other bowlers would turn into cavemen with war-painted faces. They would attack Ms. Meghan with spears as if she were a mammoth and then feed her to their god: the machine that collects the pins after someone knocks them down.
“Hello,” Dad says, and turns back to his team. Ms. Meghan tugs on the balloon string again. Her eyes look like there’s still a kid hiding inside them.
“Have I said something?” she asks.
“Dad is about to bowl a three hundred. You’re not supposed to talk to him,” I say.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t know,” Mom says.
“It’s a s-u-p-e-r-s-t-i-t-i-o-n,” I tell her. Ms. Meghan nods, and she reminds me of a fish out of water, thrown from her peach office. Her tank.
When will the girl come out of the arcade?
“I should thank you for your help with the notes situation. I’m glad it’s been resolved,” Mom says.
“We’re still looking into it,” Ms. Meghan says.
“It hasn’t been settled?”
“I’d rather not discuss that here. Please do tell your husband that I’m sorry for disturbing his mojo. Good night.”
“I’ll be calling to follow up,” Mom says. Ms. Meghan nods and puts her hood over her pom-pom hair. She slips out the automatic doors, bringing in a gust of cold air. But my arms are already covered in goose bumps.
We’re still looking into it.
Dad steps up to the lane for his last roll. His bowling ball is the color of seaweed. He swings his arm back, then forward as he releases the ball. It streaks down the center of the lane and then curves just slightly. Mom grabs my hand and squeezes too hard.
The lead pin falls into the pyramid of pins behind it, taking them out as it flies backward. There is one pin left wobbling in the corner, until the lead pin comes rolling back across the lane to knock it over.
The bowling alley bursts into applause. Dad’s name is announced over the loudspeaker. Mom smiles so hard, I think she might sprain her cheeks. I smile back, but I’m still thinking about Ms. Meghan.
We’re still looking into it.
When we walk outside, Dad holds up the trophy he received for scoring a three hundred. It shines in the orange glow from the streetlights.
“I can’t believe it,” Dad says.
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“I can,” Mom murmurs.
“What did the counselor want?”
“Just saying hi.”
“Hey, Hannah. How do you spell ‘champion’?” Dad asks me. I roll my eyes. He knows that word is too easy.
“D-a-d-d-y,” I chant.
“That’s my girl.”
He opens the doors of the truck for Mom and me. The leather seats are cold even through my jeans. I try my hardest to be happy. Dad is okay and no one is yelling and Mom thinks I’m strong, but the girl never came out of the arcade.
We’re still looking into it.
Trick or Treat
Ryan arrives at our door on Halloween wearing a pin-striped baseball uniform and carrying a glove. He takes in my boxy costume, painted white with the letter H.
“What are you?” he asks.
“I’m a Scrabble piece,” I say.
“Do people still play Scrabble?”
Ambrose and I played a game last night. The costume was his idea. But I can’t tell Ryan that my talking stuffed elephant was the inspiration.
“Where’d you get your costume?” I ask.
“It was my dad’s in the eighties. The glove, too,” he says.
My heart swells with thankfulness for Ryan, who smiles even if his costume is a hand-me-down.
“Do you want to start the candy consumption process?” I ask him.
“Only you would say ‘consumption’ instead of ‘eating.’ But of course.”
When Ryan brings up my big words, it’s not to be mean. It’s to show he knows me well. We go to the candy bowl on the kitchen table and reach in.
“Those are for the trick-or-treaters,” Mom says from the couch.
“We are trick-or-treaters,” I reply. She smiles in a way that still means business.
“One piece.” She turns back to the Halloween movie she’s watching. The broken TV hasn’t been replaced yet, so the witches fly across a crack in the sky.
I hear footsteps on the stairs. Dad walks in wearing a leather vest and a red bandana.