Nightwitch

by Ken Douglas

  When Brad, who sat in the seat closest to the door, turned and handed her a stack of tests, she kept one and handed the others back.

  “ Let me copy off you,” Brad whispered.

  “ No,” she whispered back into his squinty eyes.

  “ You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

  “ I don’t care.” She knew there was no way Brad would mess with her. He might be a bully and enjoy picking on younger and smaller kids, but if he picked on a girl, even his bully friends would have nothing to do with him. She was safe from any of his threats. She knew it and he knew it.

  “ You’ll care if I kick shit out of your boyfriend.”

  “ I don’t have a boyfriend.” She wished Miss Sadler would look over and see them talking. She usually never missed anything. But she was sitting at her desk, staring off into space.

  “ Farty Arty,” Brad said with a snicker barely above a whisper.

  “ He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “ I’ll kick shit out of him anyway.”

  “ Okay.”

  “ What?”

  “ Okay, you can copy.” She felt defeated. There was no way she was going to Disneyland now, not a chance. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t do it in front of Brad. He’d laugh at her.

  She looked down at the test sheet and read the first question. Damn, she thought, and it’s so easy.

  The capital of New York is.

  She hesitated before writing down, New York City, the wrong answer. She looked over at Miss Sadler, who was still lost in her own little world, probably dreaming about Mr. Chase and his bookstore. Then with a guilty quiver, she turned her paper around. There were only twenty questions on the test. She wrote the wrong answer for every one of them and Brad copied them all.

  “ Time’s up,” Miss Sadler said, “trade them across.”

  Everybody traded papers with the person across from them.

  “ Now hand them back.”

  Everybody handed their new test paper to the kid behind them and the kid in the last seat took his to the one in the front of the row. Miss Sadler liked passing the papers around that way, so you could never tell who would be grading your paper.

  “ Anyone know the answer to the first question?” Miss Sadler asked. A bevy of hands shot up, but Miss Sadler looked over at Carolina and there was no mistaking the look. She was looking right at her, not any of the other kids, just her. Almost like she expected Carolina’s hands to be folded in her lap. She half smiled, then she turned away.

  “ Can you tell me the answer, Art?” His hand wasn’t up either. It never was, but that didn’t seem to matter to Miss Sadler.

  He answered the question, “Albany.”

  “ Correct.”

  Brad Peters turned around, eyes blazing. “You gave me the wrong answer.” He sounded like a snake when he whispered, and she pictured him like that, big and thick, hanging from a giant tree, mean and waiting, with black snake eyes that you could see right through.

  “ I didn’t know,” she said. “I missed it too.”

  “ Yeah.” He turned away from her.

  His head started shaking five minutes later, when the tests were handed back, and he saw that he’d missed all twenty. He turned around and pasted her with his beady, dark snake eyes.

  “ Let me see your paper.” His face was so red she thought he was going to hit her then and there. She knew for sure she’d done a stupid thing, giving him all the wrong answers, but there was no way she was going to let him bully her, even if it meant failing the test and not going to Disneyland with her mother. Because she knew if she let him get away with it once, it would never end.

  “ I didn’t do so good.” She showed him her paper with the red check mark next to every answer. She bit her lower lip, feeling bad about failing the test, but secretly satisfied that Brad had.

  “ You are one stupid girl. I should have known better than to copy from you. Shit.” He turned away as the class was passing the papers forward to be collected by Miss Sadler. She watched the back of his head till the shade of his ears turned from red back to pale white. He was used to failing tests, but still he had been one mad, mad bully.

  For the next half hour Miss Sadler talked about the animals that lived on the African plain. She had been raised in Kenya and she loved talking about it, but Carolina was only half listening. She bit her lip more and fought back tears. She wasn’t going to Disneyland with her mother. Now they would never get to talk things out. They would never be like they were. They would grow farther apart, instead of closer. And it was all Brad Peters’ fault. She hated him as much as she hated her mother’s boyfriends.

  The bell sounded and the first recess came and it went. Then more talk of elephants and zebras. The lunch bell. She ate by herself in the cafeteria. Then more of Miss Sadler, this time math. The bell again and second recess came and was gone. Only an hour to go and Miss Sadler was droning on about family values. Carolina listened, with only half attention, until the final bell.

  She opened her desk, dropped her book, pencil and papers into to it, closed it, sighed, stuck her lower lip out, blew the hair out of her eyes and looked at the clock. Three-ten, she stood up, stretched, and with a delicate move, reached out for the backpack she had so carefully draped over the back of her chair. Then she started for the door.

  “ Carolina,” Miss Sadler called.

  “ Yes, ma’am.”

  “ I want you to stay after for a few minutes.”

  Oh no, she thought. She’d looked at the tests. I’m in trouble now. But when she looked in the teacher’s eyes she didn’t see the fire she knew Miss Sadler was capable of. “I didn’t so well, did I?” she said.

  “ Are you asking me or telling me?” Was she hearing right. Were those lips curving up into a smile.

  “ Ta, telling I guess,” Carolina stammered.

  “ I saw you showing the answers to Mr. Peters.” She always called you by your last name when she caught you doing something wrong, like passing notes, or talking when her back was turned, or not doing your homework. The fact that she called Brad by his last name and herself by her first, gave Carolina hope.

  “ I, I-” she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to lie and she didn’t want to tell. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “ What’s the capital of Nevada?” Miss Sadler shot out.

  “ Carson City,” Carolina answered without thinking.

  “ Florida?”

  “ Tallahassee.”

  “ New York?”

  “ Albany.”

  “ Just as I thought. You wrote the wrong answers on purpose. Don’t answer, I won’t make you tell.” As a teacher, she was the best Carolina had ever had. She had always been fair. She never made anyone stay after unless they really deserved it, never gave too much homework and never, ever raised her voice, even when she was mad, but it didn’t make any difference now. She’d failed the test. She wasn’t going to Disneyland. Her mother was going to be so disappointed.

  “ I’m sorry,” Carolina said. “I don’t have any excuse for what I did.”

  “ Oh, yes you do. I’m guessing that Brad made you show him the answers. I don’t know how he did it. You had to show him the answers, but you didn’t have to show him the right ones, did you?”

  “ No.” Miss Sadler was so smart.

  “ I’m also guessing he won’t ever ask to copy off of you again. That was your plan, wasn’t it?”

  “ Yes,” Carolina whispered.

  “ You get an A. Brad gets an F.”

  “ What?” Carolina said, eyes wide and heart pounding.

  “ You heard me. I’m giving you a hundred percent.”

  “ But?” She couldn’t believe it. There were such things as miracles after all.

  “ Case closed, go home.”

  Carolina turned and walked quickly to the door, fighting back tears and a smile.

  “ Carolina,” Miss Sadler called.

  She turned.

  “ Enj
oy yourself at Disneyland.”

  Carolina smiled, turned and ran down the hall and out the front door of the school, where she crashed into Arty.

  “ I’ve been waiting to carry your books,” he said, grinning wide.

  Chapter Three

  “ We’re in trouble,” Arty said, as Brad and two other kids approached. His voice moved up an octave when he talked and Carolina could tell he was frightened. It wasn’t fair that Brad could bully nice kids like Arty just because he was bigger.

  Bullies were the lowest of the low, lower than the stuff that grows under you toes. She wished she was a boy, then she’d give Brad something to think about.

  “ Brad and the Shadows,” Carolina said. Ray Harpine scowled, making both his eyebrows and lips look thinner than they were. Steve Kerr scrunched up the left side of his face so much she couldn’t see the color of his left eye. Carolina knew Ray and Steve hated being called Brad’s shadows.

  “ Shit,” Arty said under his breath, and Carolina saw his lower lip start quivering. She shivered a little herself, but it was cold and she wasn’t wearing a sweater.

  “ Hey, did I hear you right, Farty Arty. Did you say shit?” Brad tucked his hands into his Levi pockets and thrust his pelvis forward. His thing was outlined by the Levi’s and she wondered how he’d like it if she gave him a swift kick where it would really hurt.

  “ Maybe there’s hope for the mama’s boy yet.” Steve put his hands in his pockets, imitating his leader. It wasn’t for nothing that Ray and Steve were called what they were. Carolina wondered if Steve even knew how to think for himself. Ray was smart and if Brad wasn’t around he could be kind of nice. He could make other friends if he wanted. She couldn’t understand why he hung around with Brad.

  Brad hawked a big one and let the lugey fly. Carolina watched the gob of snot as it sailed through the air, milky white and snotty green. A great clump of sticky, slimy nose shit, sliding upward, like a tiny comet. The wind caught it as it reached the top of its arc and headed back toward earth, changing its path, ever so slightly.

  It landed on Arty’s tennis shoes. What were the odds? It was impossible to tell if Brad had done it on purpose. There was a lot of room for doubt. Nobody could be that good.

  “ Good one, Brad,” Ray said.

  Brad beamed, but it rang false to Carolina. Brad had just spit. It was dumb luck that it landed on Arty’s shoe.

  “ Shit, Brad, why’d you have to go and do that?” Steve sounded like a jerk to Carolina. “Now, poor Arty’s nice white shoes got slimy snot all over ’em.”

  “ I’m sorry, Arty, I wasn’t lookin’ where I was aimin’.” Brad’s face was covered in a rare smile.

  “ It’s okay, Brad. I know you didn’t mean it.” Arty said. Carolina could tell he just wanted them to go away.

  She started to speak up, but held her tongue. Her father had always told her to mind her own business and not to get involved. He believed that nice guys always finished last and that do gooders were as bad as Bible thumpers, always sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. But it was hard, because she kind of liked Arty.

  “ Come on Carolina, let’s go.” Arty attempted to lead her around the three bullies.

  “ Not so fast.” Brad ran his hand through his hair. He wore it long on the sides and tapered into a ducktail in the back, like the bikers in the fifties movies. “I want to talk to your girlfriend about the test.”

  “ Are you mad because I flunked it?” Carolina said.

  “ Yeah, I am.”

  “ You’re not half as mad as my dad’s going to be. He’ll beat the shit out of me for sure. He always does when I don’t do good.” She told the lie with a little shiver for effect.

  Brad’s scowl lit up. He flexed the muscles in his arms and rolled his shoulders. He was wearing a white tee shirt that fit close to his chest. There wasn’t any fat on his large frame. He was as big as any kid in junior high school.

  “ Good, ’cuz you deserve a lickin’.” Brad laughed. His shadows picked up on his mood and laughed with him.

  They couldn’t know she was lying. Her father wasn’t at home. She didn’t know where he was. But she had always been sharp. Her father had always said so. She was always able to say the right thing, and somehow she knew if Brad thought she was going to get a licking for failing the test, he’d let them by. He was that kind of boy, so lying to him to get themselves out of trouble didn’t seem wrong at all.

  “ We gotta go.” Arty grit his teeth and took Carolina by the hand.

  “ Step aside, boys,” Brad said, “Carolina’s got a date with Daddy and we wouldn’t wanna hold her up.” The three boys moved out of the way, laughing, and Carolina and Arty moved on down the sidewalk.

  She glanced over at Arty as he led her away. He was turning red and she couldn’t tell if it was because of Brad or if he was embarrassed to be holding her hand. Part of her wanted to let go, but another part of her liked it. She didn’t know what to do.

  They stepped off the curb to cross Fremont Avenue, when a car coming around the corner solved the problem for her. They jumped back and by the time they were up on the sidewalk, they were no longer holding hands.

  “ Here’s where I turn off,” she said, when they got to the corner of Lark Lane.

  “ Okay.” He turned a slight shade of pink.

  “ You might think I got them all wrong, but Miss Sadler made me stay after, remember?”

  “ Yeah.”

  “ She said she knew I flunked on purpose, because Brad was copying. She gave me another test. An oral one.”

  “ And?”

  “ And I got them all right. She gave me a hundred percent. You know what that means?”

  “ I gotta carry your books every day for a year.”

  “ You betcha. I leave home every morning at twenty to nine. I’ll expect to see you right here at nineteen till.” She flashed him with a quick smile and she was amazed at the size of the smile he gave her back.

  When she got home she made herself a cheese and tomato sandwich. She didn’t eat meat, because she loved animals and it seemed wrong to eat them. All the other kids thought she was nuts. She had some milk and cookies when she finished. She didn’t mind milk, because animals didn’t have to die to make it.

  With her hunger satisfied, she strolled out into the living room and lay down on the couch. She was only going to close her eyes for a second or two, but it was dark when she woke up to the sounds of Mick and his street fighting band.

  She wanted to ask her mother if she’d sold any more paintings, but she was listening to the Rolling Stones in her bedroom and she knew how happy she was when she was laying down and listening to Mick sing his rocking blues.

  Sticky Fingers was her mother’s favorite CD and it was playing loud. Not loud enough to bother the neighbors, but loud enough that Carolina couldn’t turn on the TV. But it didn’t matter, Carolina was glad. Just hearing the music meant that maybe her mother was getting over the blue funk she’d been in about how poorly her last show had gone.

  When the CD was over, Carolina half expected her mother to put on Sympathy for the Devil, because that’s what she usually did after she played Sticky Fingers, but instead she came out of her room wearing a shocking pink dress. It was new. “How do you like it?” she asked, spinning around so Carolina could get the full effect.

  “ It’s nice,” she said, not meaning it. She hated the dress and what it represented. Then she said, “Do you have to go out tonight?” She hated it when her mom went out on dates and left her home alone. She hated all her mother’s new friends. The men and the women, but mostly the men. She wished her father would come back. She wanted it to be like it used to be, her father home right after work, with a kiss and hug for her, her mother with dinner on the table, her father playing with her after dinner, television with mom and dad, her mother tucking her in and telling her a bedtime story as she drifted off to sleep. Now all that was gone.

  “ Yes, I do. I’m going to dinner with
a nice man. It hasn’t been so easy on me since your father left, you know.” She pouted and fixed Carolina with a soulful stare. She looked like she might cry, and she would have fooled anyone else, but not Carolina. She was a fine actress. She should be in the movies, Carolina thought.

  “ It hasn’t been easy on me either. And what if I hear things, I mean noises, in the house, like I did last night?”

  “ Carolina, I told you that’s all in your imagination.” The phony sadness was gone now. “There are no things and no noises in this house at night, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t bring it up again.”

  “ Yes, Mother.” Now it was Carolina’s turn to put on a phony pout.

  “ And don’t, Yes Mother, me. You know I don’t like that.”

  “ Okay, Mom.”

  “ That’s better.” Her mother flounced down on the love seat and looked at her watch.

  “ Will you be back early?” Carolina asked.

  “ I’ll be back when I’m back. You’ll be fine. Just keep the doors locked and don’t let anyone in.”

  “ Okay, Mom,” Carolina said with obvious resignation. She didn’t get time to say anything else, because she was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.

  Her mother popped off the couch and almost skipped toward Carolina, kissing her on the forehead. “You be good now. I’ll try not to be too late.” Then she went out the front door and into the night. Carolina wasn’t even curious enough to peek through the curtain to see what the man looked like.

  She put her hands down on the seat and pushed herself off the couch. She had to pee. She was halfway to the bathroom when she heard the scratching noise. She stopped, smiled, reversed herself and headed toward her bedroom. This was a friendly scratching noise. Mom was gone and it was time to feed Sheila.

  “ Okay, girl, I’m coming.” She went into her bedroom, opened her bottom dresser drawer and laughed as the white ferret jumped out and scurried up onto her shoulder. It nuzzled her ear. “You always know when Mom’s not home, don’t you?” The animal’s body wiggled its yes answer.