If This Were a Story

by Beth Turley

  “I figured it out,” I say.

  “Figured what out?”

  “Why you smoke.”

  She hisses a shh at me and looks around the room. “What are you talking about?”

  “You do it because you know you shouldn’t. You hope it might help someone notice that you’re not okay.” Ashley points the plastic knife at me, her jaw clenched tight. I back away.

  “Look, you might think you’re smart because of your big words, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She starts scribbling on our data collection sheet with her big, bubbly letters. She writes about the bones we found inside the pellet, and lies about the ones we didn’t. She forgets about the little mouse skull entirely.

  “There. We’re done,” she announces.

  When everyone’s finished digging, we walk around the room to look at other people’s pellets.

  If this were a story, the desks would turn into tombstones. Instead of writing on data collection sheets, we would carve the names of the bones we found into the granite. Here lies rat femur. Here lies shrew rib. Fog would roll in from the windows, and we’d leave flowers on the graves.

  It’s hard to keep my feet moving. I catch Ashley’s eye a few times from across the room, but she looks away quickly. It hurts when something ends and all you have left are the bony remains.

  • • •

  We get off the bus that afternoon and walk in a line to our classroom. Courtney is ahead of me. She taps Joanie on the shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Joanie,” Courtney says. Joanie’s eyes wander the hallway like there’s a practical joke waiting for her around the corner.

  “Really?” she asks.

  “I mean it. I won’t bring up what happened anymore.”

  “How am I supposed to believe you?” She twists a bright red braid around her finger.

  Courtney looks up and down the line and then cups her hands around her mouth.

  “Hey, everyone, remember when I threw up all over John Block?” she announces.

  Some people start laughing, but it’s not mean laughing, and Courtney joins in. It’s like that horrible moment has turned into a funny memory we all share instead. Joanie smiles bigger than I’ve seen her do all school year.

  “Shh, shh. Too loud, everyone,” Mrs. Bloom says, but we’re all laughing too hard to stop.

  We get close to our classroom door and see Ms. Meghan waiting just outside. I see her eyes shift between Courtney, Joanie, and me. They settle on me. She talks quickly with Mrs. Bloom, and then Mrs. Bloom opens the door to let us inside. I look straight ahead, determined to stroll into the classroom and sit at my desk and get through the rest of the school year with my best friend back the way she used to be. Ms. Meghan touches my shoulder when I try to pass.

  “Can you come with me, Hannah?”

  I step out of line with shaky legs.

  “We have your parents in the conference room,” Ms. Meghan says when the class finishes shuffling into the room.

  “Why?”

  “We did a search of the classroom while you were all gone, and we found some things in your desk. Pieces of notebook paper with torn corners. Handwriting samples that match what was on the notes.”

  My breath comes in short, heavy bursts.

  “You think I did it?” I ask.

  “We’re not blaming you for anything. We’d just like to talk.” She stretches her arm out toward the hallway, toward where my parents are waiting for me.

  If this were a story, then this would be the part where the main character tries to see the good in the situation but comes up empty.

  Conference

  My parents are at a circular table with Principal Jenkins. The notes lie on the table, along with torn pieces of paper from my desk and the drawing I did in Ms. Meghan’s office. There’s a picture of the writing on the bathroom wall, too. The papers form a line between us and the staff. Gellers vs. Brookview.

  “Sit down, Hannah.” Principal Jenkins points to the chair between my parents. Dad’s mouth is in a hard line when he watches me cross the room. Mom touches my leg when I sit down. A vent pours out so much artificial heat that I have to put a cold hand to my face.

  If this were a story, Gellers vs. Brookview would take place in a courtroom. Principal Jenkins would wear a white wig, and my parents would sit on a wooden bench. Ms. Meghan would instruct me to put my hand on a Bible and tell only the truth. Suddenly the Bible would turn into a bird and snatch the gavel from Principal Jenkins, before flying over to me. “Hold on,” the bird would say to me. I’d grab its wing and soar through the windows without getting cut by the glass. The bird would drop me off on a deserted island and then fly back into the sky, joining a long V of other birds on their way to Florida.

  “The most important thing for you to know is that you’re not in any trouble. We want to have an honest conversation. We hope you will be honest,” Ms. Meghan says and sits across from me.

  “About what?”

  “Did you write these notes, Hannah?”

  “I didn’t write them,” I say. Ms. Meghan half-smiles.

  “There you go. If she said she didn’t do it, she didn’t do it,” Dad says. His hand is in a fist on the table, next to the first note. NOBODY LIKES HANNAH.

  “Hannah is the only one who had torn paper like this in her desk,” Principal Jenkins says. “You can see from the drawing that her name is written very similarly to the handwriting on the notes and the bathroom wall.” I want to flip the table over.

  “She’s a good girl. There has to be some sort of explanation,” Mom adds. The mousse in her bun isn’t working; the flyaways are flying everywhere. She grips my leg more tightly. It might’ve hurt a little if my limbs didn’t feel all injected with that numbing medicine they use at the dentist.

  “Can you give us that, Hannah? Can you give us an explanation?” Ms. Meghan asks.

  My magic has a mind of its own now, but I try to find something, anything, in the room to talk to me. I focus on Ms. Meghan’s coffee mug. It’s white with a tie-dyed peace sign printed on it.

  Help, I say to the mug with my mind.

  “What do you want me to do, tip over? That’s a serious shattering hazard, and I’m really jittery,” the mug answers.

  Tell me what to say.

  “Hannah?” Ms. Meghan urges.

  “Tell them you write notes to your friends,” the mug offers.

  “I write notes to my friends sometimes. Just normal notes. I know we’re not supposed to, but that’s why I have the ripped paper.”

  “And what about the handwriting?” Principal Jenkins asks.

  Mug? I channel.

  “Idon’tknow,Hannah. Ijustdon’tknow,” the mug rants. His words run together like a train wreck. A little steam pours out of his top.

  Calm down, Mug.

  I’m on my own.

  “I can’t explain the similarities. All I can tell you is that I didn’t write them,” I say.

  “We want to believe you,” Ms. Meghan responds.

  “Then believe her,” Dad retorts.

  “Someone needs to be suspended for this, and we have the most cause to suspect Hannah,” Principal Jenkins says. “We can give her only so much benefit of the doubt.”

  “Maybe we can spend some time talking about Hannah’s home life,” Ms. Meghan suggests.

  “What does she mean by that?” Mug asks. I ignore him.

  Dad stands up so fast, his chair nearly tips over.

  “I won’t let you pin this on her just because it’s convenient.” Dad rests a hand on my shoulder. Half of me wants to collapse into him, and the other half wants to run, but both halves are just so tired.

  Principal Jenkins calls an end to the meeting and tells me I can go back to class. My parents start walking me out of the office.

  “What about the home life, Hannah? What about the home life? Are you okay?” Mug calls out to me.

  The door closes behind us before I can answer.

&
nbsp; Here’s What Happened to the Astronauts

  Captain Bass held his breath and watched the red line of the laser make contact with the asteroid. The targeted planet hung in the distance like a dartboard waiting to be struck.

  “Sir? The asteroid is absorbing the laser.” Jessica turned to face him from the window of their shuttle. Her face was softer than a second-in-command’s should be.

  The laser’s light grew heavier and darker as it dug into the side of the asteroid. It burned and burned at the point of contact and then exploded into crimson flames. The crew’s shuttle rocked back and forth from the impact. There wasn’t even a small crater left in the surface of the asteroid.

  “Was that the last blast?” Captain Bass asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. The thing’s laser resistant,” Brainy Jack said from behind his computer.

  “What else can we do?”

  The crew offered their suggestions:

  “Bombs?”

  “Freeze Spray?”

  “Fire Cannon?”

  “We don’t have time to experiment. None of those are stronger than the laser,” Captain Bass said. To try to find a hidden solution, he thought about his last five years as a captain. He and his crew had saved the universe in impossible ways at the very last minute so many times before. There had to be a way.

  The space shuttle flew parallel to the asteroid, keeping speed with it. The targeted planet grew larger in the windows. It was close enough for the crew to see the lakes that covered the surface, the rivers that ran through the mountains like paths of tears.

  Jessica cleared her throat.

  “That planet is the last one in the universe with water. If the asteroid hits, everyone we know will eventually die. We’ll die too.”

  “Was there an idea in there? ’Cause I’m pretty sure we already know that,” Brainy Jack said.

  “What are you thinking, Jessica?” Captain Bass asked. He looked at Jessica. Her eyes were as blue as that doomed planet.

  “It can be the whole world that dies, or it can just be us.”

  “You’re saying . . .”

  “We need to give the asteroid a new target. We need to sacrifice ourselves.”

  The crew chimed in with their disagreement. Captain Bass held up his hand. The planet was all they could see from the windows now. The rest of the star-studded sky had disappeared.

  “She’s right.”

  He took his place in the captain’s chair and put his hand on the controls. The crew got into position. The space shuttle dipped and redirected itself into the asteroid’s path, where it would strike them instead of the planet. The planet disappeared from sight and was replaced by the rocky surface of the asteroid. Jessica reached out from her chair to hold Captain Bass’s hand.

  “Crew, don’t you ever forget. We always save the day,” Captain Bass declared.

  Then the TV screen went black.

  No one knows for sure if the astronauts perished or survived. The TV show got canceled.

  Have a Happy Day, Brookview Elementary

  I should be walking to school, but instead I’m frozen at my front door. It’s only a matter of time before they decide whether to blame me for the notes.

  If this were a story, I would be an accused criminal in medieval times. Today would be the day I face the guillotine, a crowd gathering in the town square to turn my sentencing into a spectacle.

  Thank goodness this isn’t a story. Being suspended would be a catastrophe, but I definitely don’t want my head chopped off.

  “What are you doing?” Dad asks from the kitchen table.

  “Waiting. It’s early,” I say. He stands up from his bowl of cereal and joins me at the door. He puts an arm around my shoulder. I want to cry for a million reasons and no reason at all.

  “This past month must have been hard.” Dad looks out the front door. When the notes started, there were still leaves on the trees. So much has changed. I can’t recognize the bare skeletons the fall has left behind, or the reflection of myself in the glass.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Maybe we should change schools. Brookview hasn’t taken good enough care of you.”

  I hear Mom moving around in the kitchen, picking up Dad’s bowl from the table.

  “But my friends are there. And I’m the spelling bee champion.”

  “Is that what’s most important?”

  “I don’t know.”

  On that day, the worst day, Mom said she was tired of walking on eggshells. I’m tired of it too, but I just can’t make myself stomp down. What will happen to all those little broken pieces? I pull away and open the door. The cold air hits me like a painful memory.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Dad says.

  I nod at him and run away from another chance to speak up.

  • • •

  Courtney sits at our blue caterpillar (I mean “table”) again. There’s not enough room inside me for the gladness that she’s back. Nerves stab my stomach like spikes from a cactus.

  “Are they going to suspend you?” Courtney asks.

  “They can’t. You didn’t do it,” Ryan says, and pulls the chips from Courtney’s lunch bag.

  “Innocent people get sent to jail all the time.” Courtney takes Ryan’s banana in retaliation.

  “Thanks for that,” I say.

  If today were normal, if I were normal, I’d join in the food war. I’d steal Courtney’s sandwich and Ryan’s carrots. I wouldn’t feel like a nighttime sky with no moon or stars to break up all the darkness.

  The cafeteria sounds blend together and attack my ears. The chatter is like metal scraping metal. The footsteps are like firing cannonballs. A scream builds up inside me.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I tell my laughing friends.

  “We’re just kidding, Hannah,” Courtney says.

  “Don’t be mad,” Ryan says.

  “I’m not mad! I’m not anything!”

  Liar.

  I retreat from their worried eyes.

  Bubby the lunch monitor writes me a pass and lets me go. I don’t look back.

  I make it to the bathroom and sit down in a stall with my head in my hands. Just shut up for one minute, I tell my head. Just for one single minute stop thinking. I slow down my breathing and clench the hall pass, willing each breath to bring some kind of calm over me.

  “Have a happy day, Brookview Elementary.”

  The pass slips from my hand.

  The code words.

  The lockdown code words.

  This can’t be a drill. Bubby never would have let me leave the cafeteria if he’d known there was going to be a drill.

  If this were a story, then—no, no, no. This isn’t a story!

  I’m not ready for my life to have a climax. I should be in the cafeteria, with Ryan on one side of me and Courtney on the other. Instead I’m surrounded by walls that don’t even reach the ground, that don’t even have a ceiling, that don’t hide me from any angle. There are empty spaces all over the stall, and still it’s closing in on me.

  I am Ambrose. I am lost in the funhouse. I am alone.

  Alone

  I curl myself into a ball on the toilet seat until I’m as small as possible, and I wait. All the sadness from the notes comes crashing down over me. Nobody likes Hannah. Why would anyone be friends with Hannah? Go away, Hannah. The words can’t be real, they just can’t be.

  My legs shake from balancing. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. The thick smell of flowery soap makes my head spin. A small sob escapes my throat, and I throw my hand over my mouth before I’m found.

  “Hello?” I hear.

  I freeze. I don’t know what’s speaking to me.

  “Who’s talking?” I whisper. I put my ear to the toilet paper dispenser. “Is it you?”

  “I’m a girl,” the voice says. It’s coming from the stall next to me. I want to stand up and look over the top of the wall to see who I’m trapped with, but I can’t. We’re still in hiding
.

  “Do you know what’s happening?” I ask, trying to keep my voice as quiet as I can.

  “No, I’ve been in here a long time,” she says.

  “How long?”

  “Since October.”

  I feel a teardrop on my cheek. The girl in the stall next to me makes no sense. But she’s all I have.

  “I’ve felt a little trapped too,” I say.

  “Why?” the voice asks.

  I take a deep but quiet breath.

  “There were these notes on my classroom floor. They were hurtful. It all turned into a big mess, and now everyone just wants to know who wrote them.”

  “Who did write them?”

  “Why do you assume I know?”

  “I’m not assuming. I’m just scared.”

  I put a hand on the wall that separates me from the girl on the other side, as if it might comfort her. All the things I’ve held on to for so long don’t seem so important. I’ve turned myself into a locker. If I ever get out, I’ll release my memories into the air like dandelion seeds and watch them fly away.

  “Have you ever read ‘Lost in the Funhouse’?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “There’s a character named Ambrose, and he has a lot going on in his head. He has all these bad memories and this self-consciousness, and he just doesn’t feel normal. And the worst part is that he doesn’t know how to tell anyone what’s wrong.”

  “What does that have to do with the notes?” the girl asks.

  “I just think if someone couldn’t talk about their thoughts, they might end up doing something, well, crazy. They might become a bully.”

  “How does the story end?”

  When I think about “Lost in the Funhouse,” I never think about the last passage in the stack. It takes me a minute to answer.

  “He decides he’s going to build funhouses for other people like him. Places where they can’t get lost.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do?” the girl asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re Ambrose, aren’t you?”

  By only thinking of Ambrose as lost, I’ve been taking away his conclusion this whole time. I forgot about the moment when he realizes the good he can do. Maybe I’ve been taking my resolution away too. It would be worth it to be the way I am if I could help other people. People like Ruby or Ashley or maybe even the girl from the arcade.