And then, when they were all so sad they could barely speak, you would cough.
Your dead body letting out a quiet peaceful cough.
Just one itty-bitty cough.
The entire room would freeze.
Could it be?
Then you’d cough again. A little louder.
Your dad would yell, “Olivia! Olivia!” And he’d run to your side.
And your mom would say, “Keith, is it true?”
And he’d turn and there would be tears streaming down his face and he’d say, “Yes! She’s here! She’s here! Our child is alive! She’s alive!”
And then you’d sit up and everyone would shout and cry and hug each other.
And Mr. Brown would not be saying Olivia, “Do you know the answer to the question?”
I looked at him.
I looked at the clock behind his big head. It was 10:13. In the morning. I was in pre-algebra. I was in pre-algebra. He was asking me a question.
Berkeley was here.
She was in the supply closet we found upstairs.
In seven minutes I could check on her.
I’d already checked on her once and she was doing her coloring book.
“Olivia? Is something wrong?”
Someone whispered, “Retard.”
And people laughed. Mr. Brown said, “Jared. Stay after class.”
Then Mr. Brown said, “Are you okay?”
And I said, “I just have a headache.”
And then he folded his arms and said, “You stay after class, too.”
And Jared or whoever he was said, “BUUURRRRRN.” Which it was not a burn.
And then you sit there.
And you think, I wish the fish didn’t work and I wish I was dead.
~
Mr. Brown talked to Jared first while I sat at my desk.
He said, “Do you think it’s appropriate to ever use that word.”
Jared said, “Yes.”
Mr. Brown said, “Yes?”
And he said, “No.”
“That’s right. No. It’s not appropriate. Ever. What do you have to say to Ms. Hales?”
Jared, who I’d never even seen before, looked at me. Then he said, “Sorry,” and when Mr. Brown turned to look at me Jared made a pig face.
I looked at my desk.
“Do you accept his apology, Olivia?”
“Yes,” I said.
He looked at Jared, who was now folding his arms and looked very concerned.
“Please don’t ever let me hear you using that word ever again.”
“Okay,” said Jared. Then he said, “Can I have a pass?”
And Mr. Brown said, “No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“I’ll get a tardy.”
“Not my problem.”
Jared glared at me. Then he grabbed his bag and walked out the door.
The bell rang which meant my next class was already starting which meant I wasn’t going to get to check on Berkeley which meant she was going to be scared and what if she had to go to the bathroom and I had some crackers in my bag that I’d forgotten to leave with her and what if they’d found her because what if they used that closet even though it looked dusty and smelled like old rags and was clear out of the way but even though that, what if they found her?
Mr. Brown sat in the desk next to me. He smelled like my dad’s spice shaving cream but he was about fifty years old and had rings of sweat under his arms.
“I’ll give you a pass. Don’t worry.”
I said, “Okay.”
“First of all, I’m sorry about what Jared said. People can be jerks.”
I said, “Okay.”
Then he said, “Second of all, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about what’s been happening. We, your teachers, have met with your mom a few times and she told us you’ve been sick.”
He’d met with my mom? When? And what was he talking about? I’d been sick?
He was watching me.
Was I sick?
Was this something Mom hadn’t told me? Or Dad? Maybe that’s why he left. Maybe he couldn’t take it. Maybe I was dying. Was I dying? Or was this just something she told them so she wouldn’t have to go to court.
Right then I felt sick to my stomach for real. If she’d told them that, things were getting really bad.
He was staring at me still. A sweat ball starting on his forehead.
I said, “Yes. Very sick.”
He paused for a minute. Then he said, “How are you feeling now?”
“Better,” I said. “A little better.”
He kept staring, like he was studying me to see if I was telling the truth, which I was not.
“Did you get the note that you may have to go to summer school?”
I nodded. “Miss Hill gave it to me.”
Miss Hill is a school counselor who told me she was my friend.
“Did your mother mention that?”
“Mention what?”
“Summer school.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. Just Miss Hill.”
“Huh,” he said.
Then he said, “Did Miss Hill talk to you about your illness?”
I said, “No.”
The counselor and this dumb-bum teacher. Had Mom told the principal I was sick? Who else had she told? I started to feel itchy.
I’d read an article about a mom who lied and told everyone her kid had cancer and got a whole bunch of money and then ended up in prison.
Prison.
Had my mom told them I had cancer?
He kept talking and I tried to focus. “Your mom said you were sensitive about it. How it was contagious. She really didn’t want us discussing it with you now that you’re on the mend.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling woozy.
“I want you to know that I’ve had some medical issues.” He coughed. “That were not pretty.”
I looked at my hands.
“I didn’t want to talk about it either,” he said.
He waited.
I said, “Thank you?”
And he said, “You’re welcome.”
Then he said, “If you can stay on task and get some help, I think you can catch up in this class before the end of the year. You’re very smart.”
I looked at him. I wasn’t sure he knew who I was. Maybe he thought I was someone else.
“Do you still have that headache?”
I nodded.
He wrote me a pass and said, “Go to the nurse for now and get some medicine. I’ll try to find you a tutor so you can catch up.”
I said, “Okay.”
And that was it.
~
Things were much worse than I thought and my mom might be going to prison.
Berkeley was still in the closet.
She had made a pile of rectangles with her scissors.
“Tickets,” she said. “For the circus.”
I smiled. “That’s good.”
I took her to the bathroom in the upstairs one and luckily it was still during class so no one saw us.
“Are you okay?” I asked her once we were back.
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess.”
“Remember, this is a secret school. No one can know you’re here.”
“I remember,” she said. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”
She said it in a way that showed she understood, which was sad.
I handed her a notebook from math. “You can draw ideas on here for what we should have for the food and maybe for what we should wear.”
She looked at me. “How long will it be until we can go home?”
I took a breath. “I
have one more class and then I’ll come in here and we’ll eat lunch. Then it won’t be long.”
“Okay,” she said, and I loved her. I loved her so so much.
~
I didn’t meet Bart at the drinking fountain by the cafeteria.
I didn’t look for him in the halls.
I didn’t even hope he’d see me and take me with him to Mongolia.
Mostly I just kept my head down and tried to not get noticed.
On the walk home, Berkeley talked about trapezes and how to make them and about how school was kind of fun and how she wanted to get a new leotard and how I should probably wear one and I was thinking how this wasn’t going to work.
Something had to happen: take care of your sister.
Take care of your sister.
Take care of your sister.
Something had to happen soon or everything was going to blow up and nothing would ever be the same again.
One thing: Maybe Berk was only coming to school for one day.
Mom would figure something else out.
Find a day care.
Let Berk stay with a friend or Melody or Delilah.
And I could meet Bart at the lunchroom.
~
When we got home I helped Berk get into her old leotard which yes, she needed a new one, so she and Sadie and Jane could practice their circus acts outside.
I did my homework.
I cleaned up from breakfast and did the dishes and made Mom’s bed.
I cooked meat for tacos and grated the cheese and cut up some old tomatoes and set the table.
Then I went outside and waited.
Berk and Sadie and Jane were making up a dance in the street. They’d all crunch down and then Berk would count 1 2 3 and they’d jump up, with their arms in the air and yell, “HOORAY!”
I laughed.
“That’s what we’re going to do at the beginning of the dance for the opening part,” Berk said.
“I thought you were doing tightrope,” I said.
“I’m doing tons of things.”
“I’m doing three acts,” said Sadie.
“I think I’m just doing this,” said Jane.
I nodded. “It looks very professional.”
They practiced so long the sun started to go down and Sadie and Jane’s mom came to pick them up.
And then it was just Berkeley.
She came and sat by me on the steps. “Where’s Mom?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She nodded. “I told Grant that he should be in the circus.”
I looked over at his trailer. “When was he out?”
“Earlier,” she said. “You were inside. He was jogging and he was really really sweaty.”
This was the second time Grant exercised. Bart would want to know.
“He asked what we were doing and I told him about the circus and he said he might do an act.”
I sighed. Berk was telling everyone. Like it was real. Like it was going to happen.
“What can he do?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He said maybe belly dancing.”
I giggled. I couldn’t help it.
She said, “What? He said he was really good.”
I giggled harder.
“What?”
“I think he would be good,” I said, still giggling.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Do you know what belly dancing is?”
“No.”
I didn’t really know either but I went out on the road and tied my shirt up to show my stomach. Then as the day turned to night, I belly danced, circling around like I was some exotic lady from Bali or Egypt.
Berk squealed and came and belly danced with me, both of us laughing and laughing and laughing and for the first time, in a long time, I thought maybe, somehow, things would be okay.
~
That night Berk and I watched the Shanghai Circus and they maybe were the best in the entire world.
We ate tacos.
We cleaned up.
We brushed our teeth.
I combed her hair.
I entered a contest for a family vacation to Orlando and one for a two-hundred-dollar Amex card which were both new contests.
Then we went to bed.
At eleven p.m. I heard Mom’s car pull up.
I watched her get out thinking maybe she’d be in her shiny new blouse and sexy jeans and lipstick with Tandi but really she was wearing a gray work shirt, which meant she’d taken a night shift at an office building.
She had bags of groceries and she looked tired.
But this meant, I hoped, that she had enough money now to pay for day care.
Things really were going to be okay.
Morning.
Mom yelling, “Girls, it’s almost time to go.”
I sat up, my head pounding.
Berkeley climbed out of bed, her hair messy and her eyes hollow. She hadn’t slept so well, you could tell. She stood by my bed and whispered, “Am I going with you again?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Mom came in. “What in the world? You two get dressed. We’re leaving in five minutes!”
Berkeley’s eyes fell.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. Maybe she found a day care. I’m sure she’d found a day care. “I promise.”
She nodded.
We got dressed.
We held hands.
We went to the front room.
At the table she pulled out bowls. Cheerios. Some bananas. She’d bought bananas. She was humming.
“How was yesterday,” Mom asked.
I looked at Berk. She looked at me. “It was okay,” I said.
“Good!” Mom said. Her voice was cheery and different. “Thank you so much, Sissy,” she said to me.
A pit grew in my stomach.
We ate.
Mom started singing and then she said, “Oh! I almost forgot!”
She opened the fridge. “I got you girls something.” She pulled out two trays. “Lunchables! With Capri Suns!”
I swallowed. Those things were expensive. We never got them. I wondered if the price of one Lunchable would pay for a day of day care.
~
So I took Berk to school another day. Tuesday.
And I didn’t talk to anyone the whole day. I tried to be invisible.
We didn’t get caught but we got close a few times. Like when a gym teacher or maybe just a man wearing short shorts and a whistle around his neck, when he saw me come out of the supply closet and he said, “What were you doing in there?”
At first I said nothing because I was having a heart attack. But then I said, “I got lost.”
And he said, “You got lost?”
And then I said, “I had a contagious illness so I didn’t get to come to school for a few months and now that I’m back I get confused.”
He stared at me.
“What kind of illness?”
And I said, “It’s private.”
And he said, “It’s private?”
And I said, “It’s illegal to tell you because of my healthcare rights.”
And he said,
And I said,
And he said,
And I said,
And he said, “Get to class.”
And I said, “Okay.”
Also, I didn’t meet Bart for lunch but I did eat Lunchables in the closet and talk about the Shanghai Circus.
~
I took her to school Wednesday. Mom made us do Wednesday.
My stomach was in knots the whole fat day. I said fifty-six prayers that no one would find her and we made it.
Mom worked late again.
<
br /> Me and Berk watched the the Big Apple Circus and I made us frozen pizza.
Before bed I did twenty-two contests, including a chance to win a hundred boxes of Totino’s frozen pizzas even though I had no idea where we’d put them if we won.
~
I took her to school Thursday. This time I tried to be more prepared.
I made Berkeley keep the light out in the closet but I brought her a headlamp we found at the KOA once and also I had a few old candy bars from Halloween and I told her that if she could not go to the bathroom the whole day, she could have them and she did it!
I looked for Bart in the halls but not really.
I didn’t see him.
At home, we watched Circus Oz of Australia and we ate macaroni and cheese with peas in it for energy.
Delilah came by and said, “Where’s your mom?”
And I said, “I don’t know.”
And she said, “School still going okay?”
And I said, “Fine.”
She looked at Berk who was munching on a doughnut Delilah’d brought us. “How’s the new day care.”
She stopped munching. Looked at me. Please. Please. Please.
“Fine,” she said. Picked up another doughnut. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“Well, I miss you ladies. Melody was saying she missed you all, too. Why don’t you come over after school tomorrow and watch some shows?”
They were talking about us? She and Melody. I wondered if other people in the neighborhood were, too. I wondered if that was good or bad. Should I tell her? Should I tell Melody? Would they help us or would they think bad of Mom?
I said, “Maybe we can come watch later,” and Berk said, “Do you want to be in our circus?”
I said, “Berk. Delilah doesn’t want to be in the circus.”
But Delilah, she said, “Sure I do.” Just like that. Without asking what it was or what that meant or where it would be or what the heck Berk was talking about.
Sure.
And then she had to go because The Real Housewives of Orange County was on.
Mom was late again.
~
I took Berk to school Friday.
Headlamp. Soft Batch cookies instead of candy and I had us both wear all black.
This time I did see Bart but not on purpose.
I was passing the gym on my way up to the closet after English and the door was propped open.
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