Disorder

by Martha Adele

  “All right!” Janice rises from her seat with a sheet of paper in her hands. She marches to the front of the class and snaps for everyone’s attention. “Okay, all right! Guys!” Everyone quiets down and looks back to her.

  She smiles. “Thank you. We have our winners.” Janice pulls up the paper and wiggles it. “Drumroll please!” Everyone in the class pats on their legs in unison, including Henry. Janice looks down to the paper and calls out my name, Logan’s, Mavis’, and Henry’s.

  The four of us can’t help but smile. I look over to the other kids in the room and watch as they scoff. The obnoxious kids continue to whisper and give Henry dirty looks, now extending to me. Before I get the chance to say or do anything, Janice interrupts. “All right, you four, stay for a bit and come get your treats. Everyone else, class is dismissed!”

  The kids all get up and sling their bags over their shoulders. One boy makes sure to stomp out and shove a desk out of his way. He scowls at me just as his body exits the room. Henry seems unfazed by all of the whispering and dirty looks he gets from his classmates as he jumps up from his seat and rushes over to Janice’s desk, but it doesn’t help me feel any better about the situation.

  Janice grabs a green plastic container off her desk and pops off its lid. She leans it forward for Henry to pick his tart and chuckles. “Go ahead.”

  “Thank you!” Henry grabs his piece and scurries backward, out of our way.

  Janice leans the bucket toward Logan. “I heard Henry tell you about tarts. I don’t know that I ‘mastered the craft’ of making these, but I have had a lot of practice.”

  Logan looks over the end of the bucket and glances over all of the pieces and picks one out of the corner. He pulls out a small powdery ball and walks over by Henry, who has already eaten his entire piece.

  Mavis picks her piece out quickly and heads over by the others. I follow her example and grab a piece at random. The small ball is squishy, like dough, and very pleasing to the touch. I look over to Logan and Mavis, who hold the tarts in front of them, hesitantly observing them.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Janice pulls a ball out of the bucket and holds it up. “Cheers!” She takes a small bite out of the side of her tart and moans with joy.

  Logan, Mavis, and I all sniff and/or squeeze the ball. We look at one another and chuckle. Mavis is the first one to take a bite. When she does, her eyes close, and her mouth curls up into a petite smile. Logan follows her lead and takes a bite. He doesn’t react in the same way she does, but he seems to enjoy it just as much.

  The moment the powder hits my tongue, I know everything Henry says about tarts is true. The soft dough is sweet and light. It leaves me satisfied, but not stuffed. I lick what’s left of it off my fingers and watch Henry thank Janice, say goodbye to us, and leave the room.

  Logan swallows the last few bits of his tart and chuckles to Janice, “Can we have more?”

  She chuckles and wipes the powder off her hands. “If you win another mini challenge.” Janice pulls out a pump of hand cleanser from behind her desk and takes a few squirts. “You guys are going to need to go ahead and get going. You don’t need to be late for your next post.”

  Each one of us nods to her and takes a squirt of the hand cleanser.

  Janice closes up her container of tarts as we all grab our things and begin heading out of the door.

  She chuckles just before Logan crosses the threshold. “Hey, Logan, tell Commander Young I said hi.”

  Clenching his fist, Logan answers, “Yes, ma’am,” and heads out of the room.

  Mavis and I leave Janice to her empty classroom and head out into the hallway. We have quite a few minutes before we have to be in our cafeteria. There are two public cafeterias in Bergland, and the one we are to go to for Culinary Aid is only about two miles away by foot.

  We make our way through the hall, chatting about what we’ve learned, about Henry, and about anything else that comes to mind. I slide off my jacket and tie it around my waist as a noise pierces my ears.

  As we round a bend, the familiar sound of chattering and horseplay echo through the hall. Their deep and obnoxious laughs make my stomach curl as the group of guys that roughed me up the other day come into sight. Zigzag leads his pack of idiots down the hall straight for Mavis and me while the nice and lean dude who helped me to the restroom is nowhere to be seen.

  “Ooh!” Zigzag looks Mavis up and down as he and his goons strut by. “Look at you, girl. How come we haven’t seen you before?”

  Some of the boys whistle at her. Another snorts, “Yeah, and what are you doing with the retty?”

  I can feel my face get hot as they continue to catcall her. The boys walk past us and continue making comments about “the retty.” I rush forward, leaving Mavis a few feet behind me.

  “Hey!” she calls out, running after me. “Sam!”

  The embarrassment rises in me as I stumble forward, ignoring her pleads.

  “Sam!” She grabs my arm, which I jerk away from her, and continue forward. “Sam, what’s wrong?” I feel her eyes watching as my cheeks grow red from anger and embarrassment. Mavis continues to walk beside me, keeping up with my pace. “Did you know those guys?”

  I stop in the middle of the hallway. Mavis passes for a moment, then stands in front of me with her arms crossed.

  “Sam?” she repeats.

  “No,” I answer, “I don’t know them.”

  Mavis tilts her head and narrows her eyes at me. I lower my head and look to my feet. The embarrassment on my face is obviously showing.

  “Then why are you upset?”

  “Because they called me a retty.” I storm past Mavis and march down the hallway.

  She scurries beside me, trying to get my attention. “A ‘retty’? What? What’s that?”

  I can’t help but stop and turn to her. Before I know it, I am looking down at Mavis and shouting in her face. “It’s one of us! A ‘retty’ is what they call people with mental disorders!” I pull myself back and look at the horror on Mavis’s face. Her eyes have faded. The optimistic sparkle that found itself at home in her eyes when we arrived in Bergland has been swallowed up by a dark and fearful look that shakes me to my core.

  “I …” I back away and take a few deep breaths. “I’m sorry.”

  “How …” Mavis chokes back the tears slowly rising in her eyes. “How do you know those guys?” She watches as I struggle keeping my anger and embarrassment in. “How do you know what ‘retty’ means?”

  I stay silent. I don’t want to share what happened. I don’t want to relive the embarrassment.

  “Sam.” Mavis takes a step forward. She gets closer to me than she needs. She tries to look me in the eyes, but I keep my focus averted from her. I know if I see one tear fall from her cheek that I caused, I will lose it. “What did they do to you?”

  I look up to see her focus on my elbow. The large and swollen black-and-blue bruise throbs as I realize how observant she is. I straighten my arm and get the bruise out of her sight, but it is too late.

  “Did they do that?” She points to the bruise on my arm, formed from Zigzag’s tight grip.

  I throw my jacket back on to cover the bruising.

  “Sam.” Mavis reaches out, like she is going to hold my hand, but she retracts. “Please, just tell me.”

  I take another breath, trying to cool my cheeks. Nothing works. Maybe getting it off my chest will. I tell Mavis what happened with those guys. I tell her about how I was just trying to go to the restroom when Zigzag and his goons started throwing me around and calling me a retty.

  She reaches out. This time, she takes my hand. “Sam …”

  Pity.

  That’s all she has for me.

  That’s all she feels for me. I don’t need her pity. I have enough on my own. I am embarrassed enough without Mavis making a scene and treating me l
ike a child. I yank my hand out from her grasp.

  She slowly retracts her hand. “Are you going to tell someone?” Mavis stammers out the words, “I … I mean, you have to!” She says it like it is an obvious decision that would be stupid to ignore.

  “No!” I bark. “And you can’t tell anyone either!”

  “What? And let them get away with it?”

  I square up and get in Mavis’s face once more. Before I begin shouting like I did earlier, I calm myself and work the words into a growl. “My mother always taught me that snitches get stitches, and there hasn’t been a single instance that has proven her wrong.”

  “But, Sam …” Mavis steps back from me. “I’m sure Janice would make sure that—”

  “No!” I shout.

  Her body jolts as my scream echoes off the walls, getting attention from a few passersby.

  “No,” I utter. “Don’t tell anyone, Mavis. Just don’t.”

  “But, Sam …” She looks to me, wanting to convince me to turn in the goons. Before she gets the chance, I storm off. I march away as quickly as I can and escape from Mavis’s sight.

  The bathroom I break into is a single. As soon as I get into the room, I slam the door closed and lock it. My heart spazzes as I struggle to get the overwhelming mixture of wet and dry anger under control.

  Dry anger is the type of anger where your nostrils flare and your whole upper body clenches to try to get yourself under control. It is completely different from wet anger, which is even more uncontrollable. Wet anger is where you sniffle, your eyes flood, and you choke on your emotions.

  I look into the bathroom mirror, panting. I slide off my jacket and try to sling it off, but one of the sleeves gets caught on my right wrist. I fling and flail my arm around, trying to get it off. When it finally comes off, I find myself picking it back up and trying to tear it to pieces.

  Why did those guys treat me like garbage? There was absolutely no reason for it and no logic behind their actions. I throw my jacket back down after failing to tear it and stare at my reflection as it stares back at me. I pull down the collar of my shirt to reveal the long strip of bruising on my chest from Zigzag’s arm.

  Why did I let them do that to me?

  Why did the nice dude let them do that to me?

  Why didn’t the nice dude jump in to help?

  Why am I so useless? Pitiful? Unnecessary?

  All I want to do is break the mirror. All I want to do is fracture the reflection that is me. I want the reflection to look just as awful as I feel. I want the reflection to cease to exist. I want to cease to exist.

  Wait.

  The vials. Last time, they made me feel so much better.

  Better. That’s what I need.

  Better.

  I reach down and open up one of my pants pockets. I pull out the smooth glass vial. Its blue medicinal contents drain into my leg the moment I inject it. Within seconds, I feel the calm warmth radiate from the injection sight. Slowly, it moves down to my feet, then circulates back up my legs to my torso. I slide down the wall and take my seat on the cold tile floor.

  The wall supporting me seems to give in, just like the blue foam floors in the training rooms. I lie here consumed with the odd feeling of relaxation that I am not acquainted with. It’s a feeling that I would like to have more often. A feeling that is so much more enjoyable than anger.

  The gray grooves in between each white tile on the floor seem to collect dust much more than any tile. I wonder why they use tiling in the bathrooms, while the hallways have hard and flat flooring. Why would they have concrete floors on some levels, while carpet on others?

  My head seems to sink further into the wall behind me, and my shoulders relax even more. I feel myself fall back into the wall as my breathing steadies.

  Better.

  That’s what this is.

  Better.

  Mavis

  With its hard and thin blue skin and its even harder solid yellow pit, bugels top my list of the strangest food I have ever come into contact with. The moment I enter the kitchen, Sarah asks me where Sam is. She puts me to work immediately after I told her I had no idea.

  Sarah leaves me alone with all of the bugels to peel and pit. Hundreds, maybe thousands, all by myself.

  That’s not what I am concerned about, though. I’m worried about Sam.

  Why did he storm off like that? Why did he get so angry? And why won’t he turn those thugs in? What they did was assault, and they should be punished accordingly.

  Forgetting the bullies, I can’t stop thinking about their victim, Sam. I am worried. Where did he go? Why didn’t he tell me sooner? Does he not trust me? I think of him as a brother, and I would hate it if he felt like he couldn’t trust me.

  At this point, I don’t know if I can trust him anymore. I wonder if he even knows how loud he was shouting, how loud he was shouting at me. Never before has Sam scared me in such a way. He is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. I would absolutely hate to think of him as anything but.

  I peel and pit for an hour before Sam comes into the kitchen.

  I turn to him, not sure what to do. “Hey,” I softly say, hoping to not scare him away, “Sam.”

  He ambles over toward me. Slowly, he lifts his head and looks to me. The whites of his eyes are glazed over with a subtle pink. He stares at me as if he has no feelings or thoughts at all.

  Empty. He looks empty.

  “Are you okay?” I set the bugel and the knife in my hand down on the table. “Where did you go?”

  Sam shrugs. “Nowhere.” He makes his way over to me and points at the bins full of bugels beside the table. “Are we doing these?”

  I nod.

  He turns from me and heads to the sink. He washes his hands, puts on a pair of gloves, and returns to the pit and peel station. We work together silently for a moment before Sam clears his throat. “I’m sorry I was shouting at you.” He continues to peel.

  I shrug it off. “It’s okay.” He was obviously dealing with something. “I’m just happy you’re okay.”

  “I am. Thanks.”

  We continue to work with the bugels for the next thirty minutes. The process goes a lot faster with Sam helping. I watch him peel the fruits as the pink in his eyes fade. By the end of the period, he looks like his normal self, but my mind is still soaring.

  Where did he go?

  What was he doing?

  I push my thoughts aside and try to do my job.

  Sam and I work and work. We go back to our normal little side chatter and joking. We joke about Logan joining the Taai, about those girls who ogled him and Logan, and about how weird Bergland is.

  Sarah comes by and takes the freshly peeled and pitted bugels away so that she can deal with them further. Another two workers in the kitchen come by and take all of the peels and pits away to an unknown location.

  Everything finally seems like it is back to normal when the siren goes off.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mavis

  “Follow me!” Sarah hobbles through the crowd, rushing out of the kitchen. She pulls off her hairnet and waves us to follow. “We go to tunnel 48C.”

  Sam and I exchange a terrified look. Neither of us has heard this alarm before. The bomb alarm sounds like a buzzer. This is more of an overwhelming wailing.

  “What’s going on?” Sam shouts over the siren.

  Sarah doesn’t seem to hear him, so I repeat the question. “Sarah! What’s happening?”

  She looks over her shoulder but ceases to stop forcing her way through the masses. “Fire alarm. We didn’t have a drill scheduled for today.”

  Sam and I look to each other again, still worried.

  People flood down the stairs and exit through side doors I didn’t even know were there. We follow Sarah past the side exits, down to a lower level. “Forty-
eight C!” she shouts at us as we go farther down the stairwell.

  After treading down what feels like thousands of stairs, Sarah finally pulls us over to one of the side doors.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, still shouting over the alarm.

  “When there’s a fire, we go to an escape tunnel just in case we have to get out.” Sarah grabs hold of each of our wrists and pulls us through the sea of people in an open and dark tunnel lined with luminescent floors and railings. “Each section of Bergland has a different tunnel assigned to it. They are all equally safe and are connected to each other, just in case.”

  Sam puts his hand on my back and pulls me closer to him to help us weave through the crowd. He shouts over the madness, “Just in case what?”

  “Against the walls!”

  Sarah releases our wrists. She separates from Sam and me as Bergland officers filter through the crowd, shouting at us to get against the walls. It takes a minute; but we all line up, side by side, against the two sides of the tunnel. The officers with their hologram wristbands walk up and down the lines, taking attendance.

  With an officer only a few people away from us, Sam pulls my hand off my arm, preventing me from scratching any further. He cradles my hand in his and nods to me, mouthing the words “It’s okay.”

  After a long wait, the officer gets closer to Sam and me.

  “Name?” he asks the woman beside Sam.

  “Lynds—”

  The walls shake, and a loud boom echoes through the tunnel so ferociously that I can feel it in my chest. Everyone jolts into a hunched or squatted position. Many of us scream. We all fall silent a moment later as the officers raise their hands and touch their earpieces.

  The sounds of people’s horrific screams echo from their headsets.

  Logan

  Noise.

  Ringing. High-pitched.

  That’s all I can hear.

  So high-pitched that moving hurts.