The Whole Stupid Way We Are

by N. Griffin

Dinah follows more slowly.

  Maybe she should have said that they looked nice, his parents, like maybe they had been out to a supper. From up on the church porch, couldn’t you imagine that was possible?

  Or maybe not something romantic. Mr. Gilbert is seventeen years older than Skint’s mother. Maybe something old-fashioned, like a gentleman out with his ward? Ugh. That sounds kind of skeevy, actually, and besides, Dinah’s whole point is to distract him from his parents. Think, she tells herself. Be fun for the car ride.

  On the whole, it would be much better to be confronting an Analog Ellen.

  The falling snow is illuminated in the headlights, the music from the radio tinny. Skint’s mother doesn’t say hello when Skint opens the door, or even take a moment to look askance at Dinah’s stripy skirt. She’s facing forward, ready to go.

  Skint glances in at his mother, then at his dad.

  “Hi, Dad,” he says. “Shouldn’t you buckle up?”

  Mr. Gilbert doesn’t answer. Dinah hesitates, holding the door. Skint’s father is startling in his thinness, skin petal-fine over his skull. His bones are like a bird’s.

  “Dad,” Skint repeats. “Your seat belt.”

  “Your seat belt, Thomas,” Skint’s mother echoes. “He wants you to fasten your seat belt.”

  Mr. Gilbert starts.

  “He’s fine, Skint,” says Ellen shortly. “It’s a three-minute ride. Just get in. Get in, Dinah. Let’s go.”

  They get in. Skint, scarlet-cheeked, looks straight ahead as they drive and thumps his thighs in time to the music. Dinah twists her fingers into interesting shapes and looks at the back of Mr. Gilbert’s head. Silver hairs slicked down, Mr. Gilbert is silent, unmoving.

  “How are you, Mr. Gilbert?” she asks.

  “I wonder about it,” says Mr. Gilbert. His voice is thin as a reed. “I wonder if it’s true to who we really are.”

  Dinah hesitates. “What do you wonder about?” she asks.

  Mr. Gilbert says nothing.

  Skint stops drumming and looks at her.

  “Sorry,” says Dinah. “I thought he was talking to me.”

  Skint furrows his brow. He looks at his dad.

  “Dad?” he says.

  “It’s turning a blind eye,” Mr. Gilbert says. “Unethical in the extreme.”

  “A blind eye to what?” Dinah asks. “What did somebody do, Mr. Gilbert?”

  “Dinah,” says Ellen irritatedly.

  What? Wouldn’t it be rude of her to just assume that Mr. Gilbert isn’t making sense? Dinah turns to Skint but he is looking at Ellen, reflected in the rearview mirror. Ellen is using the mirror to look sharply at Dinah. Then she narrows her eyes at Skint.

  Mr. Gilbert bows his head. He does not speak again.

  Skint glances at Dinah for a moment, then shifts his gaze to the window. He beats his thighs double time.

  Say something to make it better, Dinah orders herself. But she can’t think what. She racks her brains the whole way home but the rest of the ride is silent except for Skint’s drumming on his thighs, faster and faster and faster.

  Dinah missed Skint unbearably after he moved away when they were small, and was overjoyed at his unexpected return in sixth grade. He was so skinny when he came back, though. Bleak-eyed and old. His breath was terrible, too. Dinah wondered if he ever ate or brushed his teeth. Didn’t anybody make him?

  “Have some toaster cake,” she said one day soon after his return, splitting her own in two, but he shook his head no. “How about a mint?” she offered, tackling the other problem.

  “Okay,” he said and took the mint. He didn’t look any more cheerful, though. What else could she do?

  She stood up and brushed off her hands. She rested the fingertips of her left hand on her left thumbtip, and Handcreature, thus formed, peered at Skint with beaky interest.

  “Do you still like rock candy?” Dinah asked Skint. “Does your dad still keep bags of it in his pockets?”

  Skint’s face went in.

  Handcreature drew back.

  Dinah cursed herself; she was dumb, dumb, dumb! Why did she have to mention Mr. Gilbert? He was the whole reason the Gilberts were back in Maine in the first place, and it was not for anything nice or because they missed it here so much, but because Mr. Gilbert was not well. “Beginnings of dementia,” said Mrs. Beach. “Early onset; tragic.”

  Dinah knew what dementia was: sadness and forgetting and a long time of worsening. Skint’s dad might just be starting, but it was awful to think about. Awful for Skint and awful for Mr. Gilbert, growing strange and far away. Dinah’s chest went bleak to think of it. No wonder Skint was so solemn the whole time. So could she please quit making things worse? Could she please quit mentioning his dad?

  “The Vole picks his nose and collects the boogers on a piece of paper in his desk,” she said to distract him.

  “Who is the Vole?”

  “Oh,” said Dinah. “Avery Vaar. There’s a picture of a vole in the science book and it looks so much like him you’d be shocked. I only really call him that in my head, though.”

  “Shoot,” said Skint. “He does look exactly like a vole. That is sick, by the way, the thing about the boogers.” He shook his head.

  Handcreature did, too. She wiggled toward Skint and nipped at his neck.

  “Quit it,” said Skint, squeezing his chin to his neck against Handcreature’s pecking. But he was smiling. See? Not to worry. Dinah was good at distracting people and cheering them up. Look how she could always get her dad laughing at dinner. Look how well she could entertain her mom. Not even jokes or funny routines, most of the time. Mostly just telling about her mistakes.

  Outings, she thought firmly, and good ideas to think about. Pretending, talismans, things to do with trees.

  “Do you ever go to the Center where your mom works?” Skint asked her after school.

  “No,” said Dinah. “I hate it.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “I just do, is all. Let’s go down to the bridge.”

  “Are they mean there?”

  “No,” said Dinah. “Let’s skip stones.”

  “My dad might go there. Some days if my mom is working.”

  Dinah stopped. “I only hate it because my mother’s there all the time,” she said quickly. “And she is always more bossy to me there.”

  “Oh,” said Skint. “Not because it sucks?”

  “No,” said Dinah. “Other people like it a lot.”

  No way would she say how some of the people at the center—the most ill, the thinnest under their blankets—were so sad-eyed and lonely-boned they made her want to cry, made her want to hit someone, made her too unhappy to even breathe.

  A couple of weeks later the class showcased its science projects. Skint was the third to present.

  “Come on, Skint,” said the teacher, calling him to the front of the class. “Your report was great! Come up and give us the highlights.”

  Skint shrugged and waved his hand at the wall where his owl poster was hung. The owl loomed over a table upon which Skint had arranged a set of tiny smooth stones. Taped to the wall beside Skint’s owl was Dinah’s own project, a grisly poster of the human skeleton, blood in the bones and marrow.

  “Owls have large wings,” said Skint, “and hollow bones. That’s what makes them able to fly, even though they’re so big. They eat stones like these to help them digest.”

  What was the matter with the teacher? When Skint talked, her eyes widened and her head snapped back a little. She smiled extra big but when she spoke again, her words were chumped up, as if she were holding her breath.

  “Amazing!” she cried. But when Skint was done she didn’t make him open the floor for questions like she had with the others, and let him go back to his seat.

  Skint let out air in a sigh. Immediately Laley and Sue fanned away from him, faces twisted and heads turned to the side. The three of them looked like a letter W, with Skint the poking-up part in the middle.

  The Vo
le, two kids away from Skint, flapped his hand in front of his nose.

  “Pyew,” he said. “Old new boy stinks.”

  Jerk!

  “Avery! Stop that.”

  Skint’s face looked like nothing.

  But it was true. The smell was not like a dirty kid smell, but a smell like old eggs and sick. It was coming from high up on Skint. It was coming from his mouth.

  Dinah was four desks away but even she could smell it. How had his breath gotten even worse? What could be wrong to make that smell? Skint and toaster cakes and eyes black as ice.

  A stir of yucks and exhaled breaths, curled up noses and fanning hands, swept through the other kids. The teacher tried to quell them.

  “Kids. Kids!”

  Dinah’s chest churned. She leaned forward, around Laley, and tried to catch Skint’s eye, but he didn’t see her. His eyes were like nothing.

  Out on the playground Dinah eyed Skint.

  His jaw. Was that a swelling part? Why hadn’t she noticed before?

  “Skint?” she asked. “Is something wrong in your mouth?”

  Skint looked shocked. Then he looked angry. His knuckles were purple and dry.

  The playground was bordered on three sides with forest. The evergreens, with their snow-clumped branches, were like kings in ermine-trimmed robes. The other kids shrieked beneath them.

  “I’m sorry,” said Dinah. Skint looked angry enough to do punching. But she couldn’t help herself. His jaw looked wrong, distended. “Does it hurt?”

  She lifted her mitten to his cheek.

  Skint reared back his head, unspeaking. Dinah paused, her hand still; Skint’s eyes on her face.

  He opened his mouth.

  Oh, no; no; oh, no, please, no.

  One of Skint’s molars was crumbled and gray, the flesh around it shredded with rot. The stink was awful.

  Dinah’s mittened fingers touched his chin and her eyes filled up with tears.

  “It must hurt a lot.” Her own jaw throbbed, and she put her other hand on top of it.

  Skint shrugged.

  “What are they doing about it?” Dinah asked.

  Skint shrugged again.

  “Does your mom know?”

  Skint still didn’t say anything. Dinah’s chest seized; how could his mom not know?

  “Don’t worry,” she said. Her brain churned. Oh, why wasn’t she a magical dentist with unhurting powers? “I’ll help you. I’ll help. My mom’ll know what to do. I’ll help. Don’t worry. I’ll help.”

  “Your mom?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Dinah. “I’ll ask her today.”

  Skint hesitated.

  “Don’t worry,” said Dinah. “I won’t say anything bad.”

  “Okay,” said Skint slowly. “If you think she’ll know what to do.”

  “She’s good with this kind of thing,” said Dinah. “I’ll talk to her today.”

  “At the Center?”

  “Probably when she gets home,” said Dinah, mindful of not delving into things that made him think of his dad. “Don’t worry. She’ll know what to do.”

  “Okay,” said Skint. “Okay. It’s only because my mom is busy,” he added suddenly.

  A boy named Harlan, the Vole’s particular friend, ran past. “Rotmouth and the Flake!” he cried.

  “It’s the title of a manga he likes, I think,” Dinah said hurriedly, watching Skint’s face.

  “Not one I’ve ever seen,” said Skint, “and I’m kind of a connoisseur.” He flicked her forehead with his finger. “You weirdo.”

  Handcreature snatched his finger and refused to let go.

  I will punch anyone who is mean to Skint, Dinah vowed. She’d like to, anyway, and so many of them deserved it.

  The treetops bent toward them under the weight of the snow.

  “Open wider. Wider, I said!”

  Dinah and Skint were alone in the cubby room the next day. They were skipping gym.

  Skint moaned and waved his hands about.

  “What?” Dinah stepped back.

  Skint closed his mouth and massaged his jaw.

  “That’s as wide as I can do,” he said.

  “Well, we need room for you to bite on this.” Dinah flourished a wad of brown paper towel, filched from the girls’ room at lunch. It was damp and smelled like turpentine. Dinah had soaked it in bourbon brought from home.

  More like stolen than brought, she supposed, but not really stolen; it couldn’t be stolen if it was for helping. Although her mother didn’t exactly know she’d taken it.

  She popped the paper towel into Skint’s mouth.

  “It’s what’s good for a tooth,” she explained. “My mother says. Bite down. Hold it. Hold it! Like that.”

  “Alcohol?” said Skint thickly around the awful-smelling wad. His eyes were watering. “I’ll smell like a drunk! I’ll get suspended!”

  “No, you won’t!” cried Dinah. “Because of Part Two of my plan! We flush the paper towel, and then you rinse, and then after that we do cloves.”

  “Cloves?” “Yes,” said Dinah, and opened her palm. Three brown, screw-shaped buds rolled across it. It was oil of cloves that was supposed to be good for teeth, according to Mrs. Beach. But there wasn’t any of that in the pantry. Dinah hoped that chomping on these would work just as well. Wouldn’t the oil get squeezed out as he chewed?

  She rubbed the buds and held them up for Skint to sniff. They smelled lovely, like Christmas, like incense in church.

  “You’ll bite down on these,” she told him, “with your other teeth. It helps the pain, and also then you won’t smell like liquor.” The cloves would also help with the overall mouth stink, Dinah hoped, but she didn’t say that part out loud. The kids would call him Spice Mouth now, or maybe even Lovely Breath.

  Dinah scanned Skint’s brow.

  “What did your mom say when you told her about me?” he asked thickly around the wad.

  “I was wily,” said Dinah. “I didn’t name names. I told her I was writing a story with a character with a toothache. I didn’t give you away.”

  Skint’s face fell.

  “What?” Dinah asked anxiously. “Does the bourbon taste awful?”

  “No,” said Skint. His eyes were bleak again.

  “Behold,” said Dinah frantically, flinging her arms about. “Waves of unhurting beam from my mighty hands! Flee, pain, from this tortured head!” She flung and made magical vanishing noises until Skint’s eyes crinkled up smiling.

  “Dope,” he said. “Freak. Weirdo.”

  Plan from there on out: Keep up with the bourbon. At the same time, play. Point out how good Skint is at drawing as well as science.

  After a few days Dinah decided to lay off with the cloves. The buds were so pointy and hard and she couldn’t bear the thought of them poking into Skint’s flesh. But now there was no cover for the bourbon stink, and that’s what tore it. In no time the plan was discovered.

  Skint, bourbon, teacher, yelling.

  “Consequences!” said the teacher, and also the principal. Skint was suspended.

  “I’m sorry!” Sobbing Dinah. “Please let me confess!”

  “I’ll hate you if you do. Don’t be dumb. Shut up. You tried.”

  But Dinah was sick with failure. What kind of friend was she? What kind of moron helper? Skint already with hurting teeth, already with his dad. She’d only made things a thousand times worse.

  Be better. Be better! Work and work and be the best friend in the world. Make it so he never has to think about a single sad thing, not his dad or his teeth or anything bad. Make him happy and glad and happy and glad, every day, all the days, the rest of his life.

  Suspension wasn’t the only consequence for Skint. A social worker showed up at his house. Ellen was white and tight and boiling with anger. Nothing happened after that visit, though, so Skint guessed the social worker decided he was being well cared for after all. He didn’t tell Dinah about it. He didn’t tell a soul. And he never told about how he got
the bourbon.

  Walter’s performance ended hours ago, but Dinah is still up and in the kitchen when Mr. Beach finally comes in from his choir rehearsal.

  “I am very glad it is vacation next week,” he says, slumping into a chair. Mr. Beach is the music teacher at a middle school in the next town over, so he has the nine days home as well. “It will be a challenging week of rehearsals and I am not sure I could tolerate a lot of children on top of it all.”

  “I am glad, too,” says Dinah.

  “It is too bad you hate that school so much,” says her father.

  “I don’t care that I do,” says Dinah.

  “This is a difficult town,” says her father, “in which to grow up unusual.” He rubs his eyes in their sockets. “The donkey was wonderful?” he asks.

  “Better than wonderful,” says Dinah. “Perfect.”

  “I am jealous, of course. One could not say that anything about my own evening was perfect.” He leans back in his chair. “The dancing?” he asks. “Also perfection?”

  “Yes.” Dinah fixes him with a look. “As was the music.”

  “Yes, yes, I think you mentioned that,” says Mr. Beach hurriedly. “I’m awfully hungry; I wonder if there’s any—” He makes as if to peer round the kitchen, but Dinah traps him with her gaze.

  “Wouldn’t you like to hear a bit?”

  “No, no, that’s quite all right—”

  “It was like this.” Dinah stands up and aligns her feet like hooves.

  “No need, darling! No need at all! I caught a little snippet of it during—”

  “LA LA LA—”

  “Your brother is sleeping!”

  Dinah switches to whisper-singing. “La la la!”

  Her father sucks in his cheeks and gasps like a fish. Dinah’s singing voice is not terrible, but that is only because the word “terrible” is not large enough to describe the awful toneless blartiness she emits. Mr. Beach’s eyes roll and he sinks from his chair to the floor, twitching. Dinah stands over him, triumphant.

  His hair is thinning, she notices as he writhes, but not a lot, and none of it yet gray.

  Dinah leaves off singing.