by Louis Sachar
“Peanut butter makes your hand bleed?”
She shrugged. She didn’t want to talk about it. Not with Hope. But she didn’t think her rash had anything to do with peanuts or peanut butter.
It had to be the fuzzy mud.
2 × 4,096 = 8,192
2 × 8,192 = 16,384
—
Plastic bags were no longer allowed at Woodridge Academy, and no one past the second grade would be caught dead holding a lunch box. Tamaya and her friends carried their lunches in reusable cloth sacks.
Monica’s sack was black with a rhinestone peace sign. Hope’s was also black, with a red heart. Tamaya’s was plain white, frayed around the edges from its many trips through the washer and dryer.
The girls headed down the stairs toward the lunchroom. “If they ask you about why your hand is all bandaged,” Hope said, “don’t tell them it’s a rash.”
Tamaya didn’t know who “they” were. She figured Hope was just talking about the other kids in the lunchroom.
“Rashes are gross,” Monica agreed.
“Tell them you stabbed yourself with a pencil!” said Hope.
“That’s gross too,” Tamaya pointed out.
“But it’s the kind of gross that boys like,” said Monica.
Tamaya still didn’t know what they were talking about.
Summer, who was in the other fifth-grade class, was waiting for them just outside the lunchroom. “What happened to you?” she asked when she saw Tamaya.
“She stabbed herself with a pencil,” Monica answered, before Tamaya could say anything.
Summer looked very worried. “Why?”
“Just because,” said Hope.
“Not really,” Tamaya whispered.
The four girls entered the lunchroom. “Act like you don’t know they’re there,” Monica said as she set out toward the same table where they had sat the day before. The older boys were already there. The lunch period for the upper grades began fourteen minutes before that for the middle grades.
Tamaya was relieved not to see Chad with the group of boys, although she was curious where he was. Looking around, she didn’t see Marshall either. She hoped nothing bad had happened.
“Don’t look at them!” Monica sharply whispered.
“We’re just sitting where we always sit,” said Summer.
“If they happen to be there too,” said Hope, “well, that’s just a coincidence.”
Tamaya bit her lip. She wondered when her friends had decided that they’d sit next to the boys again. Or maybe they hadn’t talked about it. Maybe it was one of those things she was just supposed to know.
The girls stepped over the benches and sat down at the table without even glancing at the boys. Tamaya kept her eyes down.
“What happened to her?” asked one of the boys.
Summer turned. “Oh, hi,” she said, as if just noticing the boys were there.
“Tamaya stabbed herself with her pencil,” said Monica. She smiled at the boy.
“It went right through her hand,” said Hope. “In one side and out the other!”
“Cool.”
Tamaya examined the contents of her lunch and didn’t look up. She knew they were all staring at her. If she could have, she would have crawled inside her sack.
“Didn’t it hurt?” asked the boy next to her.
Tamaya’s heart was beating very fast as she continued to concentrate on her lunch. She had a sandwich, a juice box, a granola bar, and a container of sliced fruit.
“Course it hurt,” said Summer. “What do you think?”
The boy touched Tamaya’s other arm, just above the elbow. “Why?” he asked.
It took all her courage to turn and look at him.
“Why not?” she replied.
The boy continued to stare. He was obviously very impressed.
She smiled.
At least nobody thought she was a Goody Two-shoes anymore.
“So, did you guys hear about Chad?” asked one of the other boys.
Tamaya felt as though she’d been jolted by a thousand volts of electricity. “What about Chad?” she asked.
“He’s gone,” said the boy next to her.
“He’s been missing since yesterday afternoon,” said another. “He never made it home.”
All the boys were talking at once.
“The police are looking for him.”
“He’s probably in jail somewhere.”
“He’d already stolen, like, ten cars.”
Tamaya’s head was spinning. Again, she looked around the lunchroom for Marshall.
“If he was in jail, then wouldn’t the police know where he was?” asked Hope.
“Not if he didn’t tell them his name.”
Tamaya’s feeling of dread returned, stronger than ever. It wasn’t her rash, or her ruined sweater, or having to lie to her mother, or the fear of being beaten up by Chad. It was worse than all of that.
It was this.
She stood up. Then a rush of dizziness made her grab the edge of the table.
“Are you all right?” asked Summer.
Taking her lunch, she nearly fell over the bench as she stepped away from the table. She had to find Marshall!
“Where are you going?” asked Monica.
As she moved through the lunchroom, desperately looking for Marshall, she could hear different groups of kids talking about Chad.
“He climbed up on top of the school and is trapped up there and can’t get down.”
“He joined a motorcycle gang and is on his way to Mexico.”
“He got into a knife fight and is lying in some hospital with amnesia. He can’t even remember his name.”
Everybody seemed to think that whatever had happened to Chad, it had to be his own fault. He was a bad kid, and bad kids do bad things, and then bad things happen to them.
Nobody suspected that it was a good kid who was really to blame. A Goody Two-shoes with perfect attendance who had done only one bad thing in her whole entire life!
Tamaya went down the hall and pushed open the door. She felt a welcome blast of cold air. She took a deep breath as she looked out past the soccer field to the woods.
Chad was out there somewhere. She was sure of it.
How else could she and Marshall have gotten away from him so easily? It was because she had smashed the glob of fuzzy mud into his face. Deep down, she must have known it all along.
She looked at her bandages, covering not only her rash but also her guilt. Whatever was happening to her hand, Chad’s face had to be ten times worse.
She spotted Marshall. He was playing basketball with a group of boys. She had never been so relieved to see anyone.
“Marshall!” she shouted, then ran toward the game, calling his name two more times.
He glanced at her as she neared the court, but then kept on playing.
“I have to talk to you!”
He ignored her.
Boys were running up the court. The basketball flew through the air and bounced off the rim, and then the boys were running the other way.
“Oh, come on!” she exclaimed.
She knew he didn’t want her talking to him at school, but that didn’t even make sense anymore. For the last two days she’d been eating lunch with other older boys. If they weren’t embarrassed to be seen with her, why should he be? It wasn’t like anyone would accuse him of having “cooties.”
“It’s important!” she yelled to him.
Someone threw him the ball. He caught it, took a quick look at her, and then dribbled twice and passed it to someone else.
The boys were all down to their shirts. She stepped over their crumpled blue sweaters as she moved up and down the sideline, staying even with Marshall, trying to catch his eye. He wouldn’t look at her.
She studied her bandaged hand and thought, Maybe I really do have cooties.
The ball clanked off the edge of the backboard and was coming her way. She raced after it and caught it on the t
hird bounce.
A boy came toward her, hands out, expectantly.
“I have to talk to Marshall,” she said.
“C’mon, girl. Just give me the ball,” said the boy.
Tamaya held the ball against her chest, wrapping her arms around it.
“What’s your problem, girl?” he demanded.
Marshall came toward her. “Quit being a pest,” he said.
“Chad’s missing,” she told him. Although, as she said it aloud, she realized he must have known that already.
“So?” he asked.
He put his hands on the ball. She held tight for a moment, then loosened her grip and let him take it.
She waited by the court for the game to end, her eyes constantly returning to the woods. The lunch period for the upper grades ended fourteen minutes before the one for the middle grades. When the bell finally rang, she hung back as the boys were retrieving their sweaters, then slowly approached Marshall.
“What?” he snapped.
“We were the last to see him,” she said. “We have to tell someone.”
The other boys were heading back to the building.
“No, Tamaya,” Marshall said firmly. “You can’t tell anyone, ever. Look, he’s the one who hit me. I didn’t hit him. Besides, it’s got nothing to do with us, anyway. He ran away from home or something.”
She held up her bandaged hand. “Look at my hand!”
“I know, you told me. Your mom’s taking you to the doctor.”
“Look at it!” she screamed as she pulled at the bandages and ripped away the medical tape.
As the gauze pulled loose, a powdery substance sprinkled out, the same powder that had been in her bed earlier.
Marshall stared. Even Tamaya was stunned by how much worse her rash had gotten, just since Mrs. Latherly had treated it. Huge blisters, bleeding and crusted over, now covered the entire area, from the tip of her fingers down past her wrist. Smaller bumps extended halfway to her elbow.
“That’s…really bad,” said Marshall.
“The mud in the woods,” Tamaya said. “I think it’s dangerous. I picked it up with this hand, and then smashed it into Chad’s face.”
She was afraid she was about to cry, but fought it off. “Into his face!” she screamed.
“So?”
“Why do you think he didn’t chase after us? He’s still out there, and it’s all my fault!”
“You don’t know that for sure,” said Marshall.
“I have to tell Mrs. Thaxton.”
“No, you can’t!” Marshall insisted. “I already told her that I didn’t see Chad yesterday. What are you going to say? We walked home together, and you saw him but I didn’t? Think about it, Tamaya. ‘Oh, now I remember, Mrs. Thaxton. I did see Chad yesterday. He beat me up in the woods. I just forgot.’ ”
“I have to tell somebody.”
“It’s just mud. And anyway, I heard he joined a motorcycle gang and is on his way to Mexico.”
“You know that’s not true,” said Tamaya.
“I don’t know anything,” said Marshall. “And neither do you.”
He turned away from her. She stared after him as he headed to the building. He never looked back once.
—
Fourteen minutes later, Tamaya was still out by the basketball court when the bell rang for her to go in. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to get Marshall in trouble, but somebody had to do something! She remained there, motionless, as kids all around her returned to the building.
Once again, she gazed out into the woods. She took a step toward the soccer field. Then another.
She walked slowly at first, but her pace increased with every step. She tried not to think about Ms. Filbert or Mrs. Thaxton. She started to run.
Her lunch sack swung from her hand. She was glad she still had it. Chad must be hungry.
2 × 16,384 = 32,768
2 × 32,768 = 65,536
It had been more than a month since Marshall had played basketball with his friends. A month since he’d had any friends, and all it had taken was a day—just one day—without Chad.
“Marshall never did anything,” Laura Musscrantz had said. “Chad’s just mean!”
Those may have been the sweetest words he’d ever heard in his whole life.
Still, as he sat at his desk in Mr. Davison’s class, three seats away from Chad’s empty desk, he couldn’t get the image of Tamaya’s grotesque hand out of his mind; torn strips of bloody gauze had dangled from her blistered flesh. He saw her eyes too. They pleaded with him to do the right thing.
Man, just when things are finally going good for me, he thought. Why do girls always have to go and ruin everything?
He knew the right thing to do. He had known it when Mrs. Thaxton had come into his classroom and told everyone that Chad was missing.
The only reason he hadn’t told her the truth right then and there was because he didn’t want to get Tamaya in trouble. That was what he told himself. He had kept quiet for Tamaya’s sake.
But deep down, he knew that was not the truth. He had remained silent because he was scared. Scared and ashamed.
Not that it mattered anymore. He knew it was just a matter of time before Tamaya told someone, either her teacher, Ms. Filbert, or else Mrs. Thaxton.
The classroom phone buzzed, and the sound seemed to vibrate deep down into his bones. As he watched Mr. Davison speak into the phone, he tried to read the expression on his teacher’s face. His leg trembled beneath his desk.
Mr. Davison hung up, and Marshall quickly cast his eyes downward, pretending to concentrate on his open book.
“Marshall, Mrs. Thaxton would like to see you in her office.”
He’d been expecting that, but the words still came as a jolt. His chair squeaked as he pushed back from his desk. He stood up, and then walked out of the room, desperately trying to appear calm.
He started up the stairs. Nothing made sense anymore. Chad beat him up, yet he was the one who was getting in trouble!
Everyone was so worried about poor Chad. “Where’s Chad?” “Did you see him?” “Did you talk to him?” “What did he say?”
Chad’s missing? Good! He’s gone, and I’m glad he’s gone!
Did that make him a bad person?
He reached the top of the stairs. The office was to the right, but Marshall’s eyes were drawn the other way, down a short hallway to a door with a window. Daylight shone through the window.
He stared at the door for a long moment. Maybe it was time people started worrying about poor Marshall, he thought.
He stared a moment longer, but then turned and headed toward the office. Tamaya was right. It was time to tell the truth.
Mrs. Latherly had her back to him and was bent over as she placed a folder in a filing cabinet.
“Mrs. Thaxton asked to see me,” he said.
The school secretary straightened up. “Oh, hi, Marshall. We’re glad you’re here.”
He wondered what she meant by that. She sent him on back to Mrs. Thaxton’s office.
The headmistress’s door was open. He could see her sitting at her desk, staring out the window.
He stepped inside and cleared his throat. “You wanted to see me?”
She turned. “Do you know where Tamaya is?”
It wasn’t the question he’d expected, and for a moment he wondered if it was some kind of trick.
Mrs. Thaxton’s face quivered. “Do you?” she demanded.
“Ms. Filbert’s class?”
“She’s not there. She never returned after lunch. I know you two spend a lot of time together.”
“Not a lot. We walk to school together. You know, because we live on the same street. Her mom won’t let her walk to school alone.”
The words were coming out of his mouth as his mind was busily trying to come to grips with what was happening. “Monica’s her best friend,” he said. “Maybe she knows.”
“I spoke to Monica. She said Tamaya suddenl
y left the lunchroom, for no reason, and never came back. Where were you at lunch?”
“Outside, playing basketball.”
“Did you see her?”
“Um, let me think. I think I might have seen her by the court.”
“Did she say anything to you?”
“Now I remember. The ball bounced away, and she got it, and I went and got it from her.”
“She didn’t say anything about leaving school early?”
“Well, this morning she told me her mom was picking her up after school to take her to see a doctor. She’s got this really bad rash. Maybe her mom picked her up early?”
“Mrs. Latherly left a message for her mother. We’re waiting to hear back.”
“Tamaya’s pretty good about following rules,” Marshall pointed out. “She wouldn’t just leave without telling someone.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Thaxton. “That’s exactly what worries me.”
Marshall waited, but for a long time Mrs. Thaxton didn’t say anything. She was looking at him, but it felt more like she was looking through him, as if she had forgotten he was still there.
“You can go now,” she said at last.
He didn’t have to be told twice.
—
A short while later, Mrs. Thaxton announced over the PA system that the school was being put on lockdown. Students and teachers were to remain in their classes with the lights off and the doors locked. No one would be allowed to enter or leave the building.
But by then, Marshall had already slipped out the side door. Like an escaping prisoner, he had dashed across the grass, frantically climbed over the fence, and then disappeared into the woods.
Leaves continued to fall around Tamaya as she wandered through the trees, hoping to see something, anything, that looked familiar from the day before. Then, at least, she’d know she was going in the right direction. But nothing stood out to her.
Normally she was very observant. She was good at noticing small details, but yesterday she had been so scared that she hadn’t been able to focus on anything. All her concentration had been devoted to keeping close to Marshall. The only thing she remembered seeing was the fuzzy mud. If she could find that, then maybe Chad would be nearby.
She tried to keep track of everything now: tree stumps, twisted branches, rock formations. There was a tree with several planks of wood hammered into it. She made mental notes of everything she saw so that after she found Chad, she’d be able to find her way back. She stopped often. She’d turn around, and then retrace her steps in her mind.