The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates

by Anna Cackler

  He winced. “Do you think she’ll forgive me?”

  “No!” Again I tried to leave, but he kept a firm hold on my arm just above the elbow. I rolled my eyes. “What now?”

  “Tell her I’m sorry,” he begged, his big blue eyes wide with desperation.

  “No.”

  “You have to!”

  “I don’t have to do anything, and I’m going to be late for class!” I pulled my arm away from him but he stopped me again. “Oh my god, what do you want?”

  “I want you to get her to forgive me!”

  “Why me, Charlie? Why can’t you do it? It’s your problem, not mine.” The halls were beginning to empty now. I only had a couple of minutes to get all the way across the building to my locker and to class.

  “But how?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Maybe if I could prove my love to her or something. You know I love her! Tell her that.”

  “You’re seventeen years old!” I said. “You don’t know what love is! If you really did love her, then you wouldn’t have cheated on her!”

  “It was a mistake! But you’re right. I have to be the one to fix this. Thanks Em.”

  “Don’t call me that!” I spat at him. The bell rang and I groaned. “Great! Now I’m late for class! Thank you very much!” I tore away from him and stalked off down the hallway. I glared back at him. He stayed right where he was, obviously planning his great act of love. What a baby.

  I should warn Shannon before he did anything stupid.

  I got to our lunch table long before anyone else. Ethan was sitting with his back to me across the room, laughing with some red head whose name I didn’t know. Maybe it was Maggie what’s-her-face from Shannon’s Spanish class.

  Shannon’s laughter from across the room drew my attention. She was walking toward me with Mandi Erickson and Kathy Fuller in tow. They were laughing and joking about something, but I couldn’t tell what.

  “See you guys later,” Shannon told them as she approached our table. The other girls waved and veered away from us without even glancing at me. I picked up my slice of cold pizza and took a small bite.

  “Hey,” she said as she sat her lunch tray on the table.

  I swallowed my half-chewed bite. “You’ll never guess who I ran into this morning.”

  My tone was enough for Shannon to know that something was terribly wrong here. “Who?”

  “Charlie.”

  Her eyes immediately took on that pinched look that she had only just gotten away from a few days ago. She cleared her throat. “Oh. What did he have to say?”

  “He begged me to get you to forgive him.”

  “What?” she exclaimed.

  “Yeah. I know!”

  “Well what did you tell him?”

  “I said ‘no’ of course!”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “Why--why’d you tell him that?”

  “Because he’s a lying, cheating jerk-hole!”

  “Oh.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Shannon, please don’t tell me that you’re thinking about forgiving him.”

  She squared her shoulders. “No. Of course not.”

  “Good. Because he’s delusional. He said he loved you!”

  Her lips twitched upwards ever so slightly, but she wiped her face clean almost immediately.

  She liked the idea that Charlie loved her. She liked it! How could she? How could she do that to herself? “Shannon please tell me that you’re not seriously considering getting back together with him!”

  She frowned, obviously displeased with my negative reaction to this new development, but she never got her chance to answer. Finn suddenly appeared by her side and slid into his seat.

  “Nice stain,” he said when he saw my shirt.

  “Thanks,” I said around the bite of pizza in my mouth. I looked around, expecting to see Margo come up behind him. “What? No miniature Finnegan-Shadow?”

  “She’s sitting with Jessica and that weird kid again,” Shannon said.

  “Rusty,” I said.

  “Whatever.”

  “You know, Rusty isn’t really that weird,” Finn said. “He just sees the world in a different way than the rest of us do.”

  “He blows his nose then studies the contents of the tissue for at least five minutes in public,” Shannon said. “The kid is weird.”

  “Eccentric at worst.”

  “You know what, Finn?” Shannon began in an accusatory tone, “I feel bad for Margo. I feel bad because her boyfriend has a crush on the weird kid.”

  “Rusty,” I said again.

  “Whatever!” She crossed her arms and glared at him even though I was the one who had corrected her.

  Finn frowned at her. “Down girl!” Poor guy. He had no idea what was bothering his sister or why she was yelling at him. I wanted to tell him about my conversation with Charlie, but the look on Shannon’s face stopped me. She didn’t need reminding just then.

  Usually I would have expected Shannon to blow up at Finn for being patronizing. Instead, she turned to me and her face got suddenly bright and cheery. “So Emily, did I tell you what Margo said about Finn this morning? Why she is so upset with him right now that she’s not sitting with us?”

  Finn sat up suddenly. “Shannon? What are you doing?”

  “No.” I leaned forward, intrigued by the promise of good gossip.

  “She said –”

  “Shannon! Don’t!” Finn nearly came out of his seat, his face suddenly desperate. I stared at him in alarm.

  Shannon ignored her brother and charged onward. “She said that Finn is so in–”

  BANG!

  We all jumped as a sound like cannon fire exploded through the cafeteria. A couple of trays hit the floor with a loud clatter that sounded like pin drops in comparison to the explosion. Teachers rushed from their posts around the room in the direction of the blast, and aside from the noise of their scrambling, the entire room was dead silent for a full minute and half.

  And then the fire alarms went off. An awful noise that shrieked, wailed, and clattered all at the same time. The racket was even more deafening than the initial explosion.

  It wasn’t until the cloud of billowing white smoke started wafting around the corner into the cafeteria, though, that people began to panic.

  “Holy shit!” I stuttered in shock, but didn’t make a move. The rest of the students were pushing towards the door that lead from the cafeteria into the courtyard outside, their frantic shouts almost louder than the fire alarms now, but I remained exactly where I was until I felt a hand close around the back of my shirt. My collar constricted around my throat and someone jerked me backwards towards the door.

  “Move, Emily!” Finn’s voice cut through the general panic that flooded the room.

  “It’s okay! It’s not a fire!”

  But Finn didn’t listen and his vice grip on my collar made it difficult to fight with him. I looked over and saw that his other fist had closed around Shannon’s upper right arm. She didn’t even look like she wanted to complain, though. She was peering curiously over her shoulder at the expanding cloud of smoke as we were dragged outside by her obnoxiously strong brother.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Shannon whispered to me as soon as Finn had released us outside. We were surrounded by a sea of students, every single one of which was freaking out. The frigid wind whipped my hair into my face and I shivered involuntarily. My coat was still draped across my chair in the cafeteria. Shannon crossed her arms across her chest and huddled next to her brother for warmth. He put his arm around her protectively.

  “Jeff and Tom!” I said suddenly. “I knew there was something off with them this morning!”

  “Who?” Finn asked.

  “Jeff and Tom from Lit class,” I said. “Their experiment exploded this morning, just like that one, but smaller. And they left out their stuff at the end of class.”

  The smoke was drifting out of the doors and over the courtyard now, and
people began making the most ridiculous faces. I started laughing, and I wasn’t the only one. Several people were chuckling and grinning now, though they all looked a little nauseated too.

  “Oh!” Shannon covered her mouth and nose with both hands. “What is that?”

  “It’s a stink bomb!” I exclaimed, laughing out loud now through chattering teeth. “The nerds made the world’s biggest stink bomb in chemistry class!”

  Finn was grinning now, too. “She’s right. That’s exactly what it is.” Several teachers could be seen dashing out of the school with their hands over their faces. They looked furious--every last one of them. Well, except for Mr. Lankford, who was trying very hard not to laugh.

  “They had to have snuck back in the lab during lunch,” I said, covering my mouth and nose with the collar of my shirt.

  “Well, well,” Shannon said. “I have to say I’m a little impressed.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Who knew?”

  We were all allowed back inside an hour later, though nobody wanted to go in. The entire building smelled like a rotten tomato left out in the sun too long. The teachers threw open the windows even though it was bitingly cold outside, and everyone huddled closer to the fresh breeze, wrapping their coats tightly around their bodies. I think the debate team had class outside that afternoon.

  Jeff and Tom were caught almost immediately. They didn’t even try to hide their involvement in the whole thing, and they were right not to. The instant that bomb went off, they became two of the most popular kids in school--just because they were nerdy enough to be able to halt the education process in its tracks for a full hour. Too bad they were expelled until the next semester and they couldn’t enjoy their sudden fame until January.

  They hauled Jeff and Tom out of the building and sat them on one of the benches to await the police. The principle stood by them, preventing anyone from getting too close, but the entire school crowded around them anyway, jockeying for the best position to see exactly who had done the dirty deed.

  “Why’d you do it?” someone shouted as the police car pulled up in the parking lot.

  They both just grinned like mad scientists happily awaiting their doom at the hands of a mob. Tom took a deep breath and calmly said, “George Bernard Shaw once said, ‘If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you’d best teach it to dance.’”

  I don’t think anybody but me and Finn got the reference.

  That afternoon I got to Lit class long before Finn, which was unusual. Because Jeff and Tom had already been escorted from the premises by the police, I was the only one at our table. That was all right by me. Those two had always made our class a little awkward. Who knew what it would be like when they returned to class in January?

  I sat there alone for one long minute, waiting impatiently for Finn to arrive so that I would have someone to talk to. I started looking through my bag for my notebook and my pencil just to have something to distract me from the awful smell that still permeated everything in the room. I found my last pencil in the very bottom, the lead broken clean off.

  “Great,” I muttered, shoving my bag into the floor. I got up and walked over to the pencil sharpener by the door. My pencil was already sharpened so short that it was difficult to write with, but I stuck it into the sharpener anyway.

  “Come on, Finn! Don’t be mad at me!”

  “I can’t believe you were gonna tell Emily about me and Margo!”

  I froze when I heard my name and pressed closer to the wall. Shannon and Finn were standing just outside in the almost emptied hallway, and their hushed voices carried easily through the open door. They couldn’t see me pressed against the wall like I was, but they would know I was eavesdropping the second that Finn came inside.

  “I was mad, okay? I was mad at you! You deserved it!”

  “But Emily doesn’t! She’s screwed up enough without having to worry about me, too.”

  “I said I was sorry,” she said.

  “I’ve already told you to stay out of this one,” Finn warned her. “I mean it. You’ve done enough damage as it is. Promise me.”

  “I promise. I’ll stay out of this one,” she said obediently in a low voice.

  “What’s going on?” Ms. Walsh’s voice joined theirs suddenly, and though I couldn’t see her either, I knew she must have just stepped up to the door. “Class is about to start, Finn. Let’s go.”

  “Crap!” I darted across the room to my seat and made it just before Finn and Ms. Walsh stepped into view. I could just see Shannon walking away down the hall as the bell rang. She would be late for her last class.

  “Hey,” Finn said, lowering himself into his seat opposite me.

  “Hey.” I had to force the words out of my mouth. He couldn’t think that I was mad, or else he’d know I had been eavesdropping. How dare he say that I’m screwed up? How is his life any more organized than mine? And what the hell was going on with him and Margo?

  “All right, class, take out your pens. It’s pop quiz time!” Ms. Walsh sounded far too excited about her little announcement, but I didn’t comment on it like I usually would have. I reached into my bag for my pencil, but suddenly realized that I had left it sticking in the pencil sharpener near the door.

  Crap. I couldn’t go get it or Finn would know that I had been standing there. Ms. Walsh had already gotten to our table and tossed two quizzes into the middle of it, so I didn’t have time to get it anyway. I screwed up my courage and forced myself to ask Finn for an extra pen, which he handed over indifferently.

  “No talking,” Ms. Walsh reminded us as she returned to her desk.

  No problem.

  Fourteen

  “Come on, Mom!” I called from the front door. “We’re gonna be late!”

  “We are not!” Her voice echoed down the hall from the bathroom.

  “Yes we are and it’ll be your fault!”

  “Be nice to your mother,” Dad shouted from his office. I could see him easily through the open door; his fingers were a blur on the keyboard of his laptop. Supposedly he was writing a sequel to Mouth, for Goodness Sake, but I couldn’t imagine what he possibly could have missed the first time around.

  “All right, let’s go,” Mom said, emerging breathlessly from the hallway. She was still pulling her dark hair back in a pony tail as she stalked toward the door. The faded old smiley face T-shirt she was wearing was stretched tight across her expanding belly. I frowned.

  “You and I should go shopping for maternity clothes, Mom,” I said.

  She looked up at me, a little taken aback at the concern in my voice. “Sure,” she said. “Yeah, we’ll go this weekend. I don’t think I’ll be able to squeeze into these jeans much longer.”

  “Okay, but let’s go now. I don’t want to miss my appointment.”

  “Fine, fine.” She hurried over to Dad for a quick kiss before following me out of the door.

  “Do you want me to drive?” I asked.

  “You can drive when we take your car, Emily,” she said, reaching for the driver’s side door.

  “I’m not sure that’s fair. We never take my car.”

  “It’s perfectly fair,” she said, but she paused with one hand on the door handle, the other on her head.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just a headache.” She shook her head and got inside.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” I asked.

  “You drive your car, and I drive mine.” She looked at me smugly just because she knew there was nothing I could do about it. I think she enjoyed that fact a little more than was strictly necessary.

  It took all of two minutes to cut through the plaster twice, once on each side of my arm, and free my wrist for the first time in eight weeks.

  I grimaced when I saw my poor left arm. It was shrunken and emaciated and my skin was mottled and crusty. The worst part, though, was the hair. Instead of being short and unnoticeable, the hair was long and thick like the hair on a gorilla�
��s arm might be.

  “Aw, sick!” I exclaimed, revolted by my own arm.

  Mom and the nurse both started laughing, then. “What did you expect, Emily?” Mom asked, hiding her mirth under her hand. “It’s been a cast for eight weeks!”

  “I know, but still!” I frowned at my left wrist. “How long before this goes away?”

  “Just use some lotion or baby oil for a while. It should clear up.” The nurse smiled in a patronizing sort of way. “Now let’s have a look, shall we?”

  I held out my arm and she experimentally bent my hand backwards a couple of centimeters. “Does this hurt?”

  “A little, yeah.”

  She bent it the other way. “And this?”

  I winced under the pressure. “Ow, yes! Stop please!”

  She smiled and patted my hand gently. “It will get better pretty quickly. Just be sure to do your exercises every day.” She grabbed a couple of papers from a shelf on the wall and handed them to me. They were detailed instructions on doing a few at-home physical therapy exercises. She walked me through them, demonstrating on my arm. “The important thing is to push until you feel pressure, but not pain. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, cradling my arm.

  “Good. Then you’re free to go.” She smiled and helped me down off of the table.

  “Just in time for calculus,” Mom said with a smile, and I groaned. Mom reached for the two pieces of my cast lying on the counter after the nurse disappeared. She put the two halves together and studied it as we walked out of the room and down the hall towards the front desk. “You know, I don’t think I’ve read most of these little quips,” she said thoughtfully.

  “This is my favorite one,” I pointed at the Shel Silverstein poem that Finn had written on it the very first day.

  Mom grinned. “Yeah, I’ve read that one. Who wrote this one?” She pointed to a quote by Maya Angelou.

  “Finn.”

  “What about this one?”

  “Finn again.”

  “And this one?”

  “That was Bill.”

  She grinned, and pointed to the little green apple near the palm. “And who did this one.”

  “Finn did.”