Unforgettable

by Loretta Ellsworth

  “We’ll move, Baxter. We’ll move far away from here if that’s what you want,” she said into my shirt.

  “Mr. Green!” The man shouts my name and I’m back in the dean’s office. How long has he been talking? How long have I zoned out this time?

  “I just wanted to get my book,” I say.

  “Then why’d you tackle me?” the older kid asks. He has on an orange-and-black letter jacket. “I didn’t have your book.”

  “You pushed me.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Enough!” The dean has a thick neck. His face is red from yelling and his necktie is so tight it looks as though it’s cutting off the air supply to his brain. “The disciplinary action for fighting in school is suspension.”

  “But I wasn’t fighting,” the other guy objects. “I was on my way to football practice when he jumped us for no reason. Ask Zach Mennen. He saw it. Honest, Mr. Jackson. Coach Smalley is going to be mad if I’m late.”

  “I was attempting to retrieve my book,” I say through gritted teeth.

  Mr. Jackson leans back against his desk. His face relaxes; his composure returns. “Scott, you go ahead to practice. I’ll deal with you later.”

  Scott jumps up and sprints past me; a blur of orange and black. Right before he goes out the door, he turns and grins. I’m left with Tank Voice staring down at me.

  The room is silent. I study the walls decorated with orange and black tigers, ones with sharp fangs dripping blood. Is it meant to scare students? Outside his office is the sound of laughter and voices that meld together; one voice sounds like a rectangle, another sounds like a poached egg.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say. “Why did he get to go and I’m stuck here with you?”

  Mr. Jackson puts up his hand. “As your dean, Mr. Green, I see that I should have met with you before. You obviously don’t understand the rules and regulations of our school.”

  He stands. He’s tall and solid, the type of guy who looks like he played football when he was younger. I decide he’s against me from the start.

  “I understand the rules and regulations. Does your football star understand them?”

  “You’re out of line.”

  “No, I’m pissed.”

  “You can be pissed in detention.”

  Mr. Jackson picks up a thick pamphlet from his desk. “I want this year to be a good one for you, but you’re starting off on the wrong foot. Since you’re new, I won’t suspend you. This time. However, make no mistake, if it happens again, you’ll receive the maximum penalty.”

  Tank Voice shakes his head and hands me the pamphlet. “I’m giving you a week’s detention, starting today. You’ll use that time to learn every single rule and regulation of Madison High School. All one hundred and twenty-five pages. And next week, you will report back to me to answer questions about those rules and regulations.”

  Mr. Jackson stares down at me as though he’s given me the worst punishment anyone could imagine.

  I put my head down and hide a smirk.

  Tank Voice claps his hands together. “That will be all, Mr. Green.”

  When It’s Okay to Cheat

  It’s three o’clock and I’m supposed to be heading to meet Bob Schraan, the media guy, to show me how to use the camera. Instead I’m going to detention. It’s not fair.

  On my way to the room, I spot my book. It’s crammed next to a locker, spread facedown. I pick it up and brush it off. The cover looks as though it’s been smashed in a car door, but at least no pages are missing.

  Room 121 is on the first floor, near the senior lockers. Luckily, no seniors are around. Upperclassmen are such jerks.

  “Hey,” Eddie calls out. He’s standing at an open locker two doors down from the detention room. “You on your way to meet Bob? I’ll show you where he hangs out.”

  “Um, sorry. I can’t meet him today. Something came up.” I glance at the door to the detention room.

  Eddie’s eyes shift from me to the door. “Detention? You? What’d you do, forget your homework too many times?”

  “I knocked some guys down.”

  Eddie’s eyes widen. “That was you? I heard someone made a flying leap into the defensive end of the football squad. You got a lot of nerve, kid.”

  Detention doesn’t seem so bad now. At least Eddie is impressed.

  “ ’Course, you’re gonna need a bodyguard from now on to make it through the halls without getting killed. The football team is tight with one another.”

  “Oh.” The first-floor bathroom episode flashes through my mind. Those guys were probably friends of the ones I tackled. “Do you know any? Bodyguards, I mean.”

  Eddie laughs. “None that you’d want to be associated with. My advice is to maintain a low profile. Hey, just keep coming to the Environmental Club. No one even knows we exist.” He nods toward the door. “How long you in for?”

  “A week.”

  He shakes his head. “That’s not going to work. The deadline for the competition is in three weeks and we want to submit the video. You haven’t learned the equipment yet.”

  “A camcorder? How hard can it be?”

  “Harder than you think, moron. It’s a digital video recorder. We planned on you helping with the editing, too.”

  “I’ll talk to Halle tomorrow and explain.”

  “It’s not just Halle. It’s all of us. We may be a joke at school, but we take our club seriously. We want a decent video, not some lame junior-high version. You haven’t seen how people die of lung problems and cancer, and …” He stops and points a finger at me. “If you’re just in this because you’re hot for Halle Phillips, then stick to tackling football players and forget the Environmental Club.”

  Eddie’s mood changes faster than the Minnesota weather.

  My face heats up at the mention of Halle. “I want to be in the club,” I assure him.

  Eddie shifts his backpack onto his shoulder. “If you say so.” But his voice is filled with doubt. “Tell you what. I’ll get you the user manual to read in detention. It’s not the same, but it will help. Then maybe you can meet with Bob before school.”

  “Thanks.” Eddie doesn’t like me. Maybe because he thinks I’m a fake. And he’s right. I’m only in the club because of Halle. It’s not that I don’t care about the environment, but if Halle were into basketball or volleyball I’d pretend to be the biggest fan in the world just to impress her.

  I watch him walk away. What kind of stake does Eddie have in the Environmental Club? Who did he lose? He never talks about it.

  Eight other students sit in the detention room, each spaced out in a different row. They’re all guys except one girl I recognize from Science. She usually sleeps in class, and her head dips back as she struggles to stay awake now. Her science book perches half-open on her desk.

  The teacher is a heavy, gray-haired woman I don’t know. She’s knitting a pink-and-blue blanket while her eyes dart back and forth around the classroom. She flashes a menacing look at me and tells me to sit three seats behind the guy in the front row.

  “Remember, this is detention,” she says in a low voice. “Don’t cause any ruckus. You make me miss a stitch and you’ll have hell to pay. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And I’d recommend you take better care of your books,” she adds, nodding at the battered copy of Gatsby in my hand.

  It’s 2:57. I’ll call Mom for a ride and she’ll have to sign my detention form. After I got mad and left the dinner table last night, well, she’s not in the best mood. We barely spoke this morning.

  And then there’s Dink. I still haven’t told Mom he called. But right now I’m keeping Dink on the back burner of my thoughts. I have to convince Halle that I’m serious about helping her with the video. I have to make her understand that I’m not a slacker and that I’m worthy of her time and attention. And I have to finish reading Gatsby for the exam tomorrow.

  I stare down
at the worn copy. Suddenly, I can’t bring myself to open the book. It might turn out badly for Jay Gatsby, and I don’t need that kind of negative energy right now.

  Instead I look out the window. The wind is picking up. In the distance the girls’ soccer team kicks balls around the field, their ponytails flapping against their heads.

  The only sounds in the detention room are the clicking of knitting needles, random coughs, pencils scribbling across paper, and pages turning. After a sleepless night, my eyelids feel weighted down. I struggle to stay awake. When I let my guard down, the memories take over.

  Once a month on Friday afternoon, our third-grade teacher let us have “game day.” She had a long shelf filled with games; Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, checkers, Battleship. She even had a deluxe edition of Trivial Pursuit. There was a boy in my class, Jack Pelazzo, who had crooked teeth and a bad temper. I beat him at Trivial Pursuit three months before and he called me a cheater and hadn’t played me again since, but he’d done everything he could to make my life miserable. He poked me in the back when we were standing in line for lunch. He stole my pencils when I wasn’t looking. He threw the basketball and hit me in the head during Phys Ed, then pretended it was an accident.

  On Friday when we were sorting through games, he picked up the deluxe edition of Trivial Pursuit and grabbed my arm. “Hey, cheater, I’ll give you a rematch and a chance to win fair and square.”

  “I already won fair and square.”

  “You afraid to play me?”

  I wasn’t about to back down, so we played again, and this time he won, but I was positive he cheated. I wondered if he stacked the cards for himself. He made such a big deal about it afterward and acted like a snob. It really made me mad. So I stayed inside the next day during recess to work on my math problems, but instead I read all the Trivial Pursuit cards.

  Jack never beat me again. At first it made me happy, but eventually I felt guilty. Jack chased me around the school yard calling me a cheater. It stung more than usual because this time I was one, sort of. I read all the answers. Having a memory that doesn’t forget felt like cheating.

  “I have something for Baxter.” Eddie’s voice thrusts through the memory. He stands just outside the classroom door. The woman with the knitting needles looks at me, sighs, and nods her head toward the door.

  I stand up, still feeling out of breath from my chase around the school yard, as though it had just happened. Eddie hands me the directions to the school video camera, a pamphlet as thick as the school rules.

  “Happy reading,” he says in a sarcastic voice. “Halle wants to start filming on Wednesday.”

  “I’ll be ready,” I say. And I will. Memorizing the directions isn’t the same as reading the answers to a game. It’s not cheating if you’re doing it to impress the girl of your dreams, is it?

  Half a Lie

  Mom dumps her purse on the table. She noisily opens the cupboard and takes out a pan, then bangs it down on the stove. She hasn’t said a single word on the way home. Her back is rigid and straight.

  “This isn’t like before,” I say.

  “No, it’s not. You used to get detention for talking back to your teacher. Now you’re getting detention for fighting.”

  “See? This is an improvement.”

  She chops an onion and sprinkles pieces in the pan. They sizzle in the oil. Mom’s cooking has improved since she started working at the restaurant; she’s making chicken stir-fry tonight. My stomach growls in anticipation.

  “School is going well,” I insist. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

  “I hope you’re right about that,” she says in a tight voice. “Because I really like it here and I don’t want to move again. Maybe you should quit the club and job so you can focus on school.”

  “It’s not a problem, Mom. I can handle it.”

  She turns back to the stove. Her shoulders loosen and she shifts her weight as she adds chopped peppers to the pan.

  I know I should go do my homework. Leave her alone and let her calm down. But she can’t take away the things that make me happy. They’re all I have. “It won’t happen again,” I say in my most convincing voice. She’s probably still mad at my reaction to her upcoming date. She’s using it against me just because I got in a little trouble.

  Mom sighs and turns around. “I’m just worried about you, Baxter. I want you to succeed at school. I don’t want anything or anyone …” Her voice trails off.

  “Anyone?” Does she know about Halle?

  She wipes her hands on a towel. “I don’t want you to freak out, but I think you should know. I spoke to Dink today.”

  My hands immediately begin to shake. “Why?” I scream. “How?”

  She reaches over to take my hand, but I pull it away. “He called. Baxter, don’t worry. I didn’t tell him where we are. He has no idea.”

  “Really? Then how did he get our phone number?”

  “I don’t know, but—”

  “I can’t believe you actually talked to him!” I pace back and forth between the refrigerator and table. My heart feels like a ticking time bomb ready to explode. My mind is racing, fighting as images of Dink press in.

  “We have to move again. Some place farther away,” I say, although I can’t imagine where that would be. Maybe the East Coast? I open the cupboards and start pulling out dishes.

  Mom turns off the stove. “Stop it! We don’t have to move. It isn’t like that. He was calling from California. He’s on probation so he can’t leave the state. He can’t even leave the city. And there’s no reason for him to come here, anyway.”

  I glare at her. “You know how I feel about him.”

  Mom starts crying. I hate it when she cries; it always makes me feel guilty. “You’re not the only one he hurt, Baxter.”

  I grit my teeth. “Then why would you want to talk to him?”

  Mom puts her hands together like she’s praying. “Before, I was so angry that all I wanted to do was forget Dink existed. But I’ve had more time to think. And when he called I realized that I needed to talk to him in order to put the past behind me once and for all.”

  She takes a yellow cup out of my hand and sniffs. “I’m not going to say I don’t have feelings for him. I probably always will. But I’m not stupid. No matter what he says, I’ll never, ever get back together with him. And he understands that. So we don’t have to move. Okay?”

  I let out a long breath. “I don’t think he wants to get back together with you, Mom. He wants to get at me.”

  She shakes her head. “No. He kept talking about how bad he feels for what he did to you. How he wishes he could just talk to you and explain. That doesn’t sound like someone who wants revenge.”

  It sounds exactly like Dink. Mom has no idea how manipulative he can be. She needs to know. I have to tell her. “But he does want revenge.”

  “For what? Talking to the police and testifying against him? You were a child. You were just twelve years old. You didn’t understand what was going on.”

  “Not for that. He wants revenge because he … he thinks I stole his money.”

  “What money?” Mom’s voice jumps two octaves.

  “Money he had hidden in his desk. He thinks I stole sixty-five thousand, three hundred fifty-eight dollars and ninety-seven cents.”

  I reach out to catch the cup as it falls from her hand, but I miss. It hits the floor, shattering into hundreds of tiny yellow pieces that fly across the green tile, and I can’t help but think that they look like pieces of shredded daffodils.

  How Confrontation Leads to Lying

  If I tell her I have the money she’ll think I’m the worst son ever. I take out a broom and start sweeping up pieces of glass. Mom grabs the handle.

  “What do you mean he thinks you stole money from him? Why would he think that?”

  “Because he’s Dink. Because he’s a jerk.”

  “No,” she shakes her head. “He never said anything to me about it. He didn’t have that kind of mo
ney.”

  “He did.”

  “How do you know how much money it was?” Her voice is accusatory.

  I hate lying. But I’ve kept this secret so long that I can’t tell Mom the whole truth now. “I saw it. In an envelope in his desk.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? What did you do with it?”

  My heart is racing. The words come out in a rush. “I didn’t want to get in trouble. I wasn’t supposed to be looking in his desk, so I left it there.”

  “So where did it go?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Oh my God.” Mom looks like she’s just been slapped in the face. She obviously didn’t know that Dink was squirreling away money. Mom wrings her hands and takes my place pacing the kitchen. If she’s this upset, how would she react if she knew the money is in my closet in the guitar case right now?

  “Maybe the police found it. Maybe he turned it over to them,” she says more to herself than to me. But her eyes are full of doubt.

  “The man never had money to help pay rent,” she mumbles in an angry voice. “How did I let myself get into that mess? Why did I put up with him?”

  My question exactly.

  She bites down on her lip. “Why does Dink think you took it?”

  More lies. It’s like a house on stilts, but the stilts are made of cheap wood that will eventually split apart and the whole house will come tumbling down. I’m still not good at lying, and as I spit out the words now I can feel a drop of sweat slide down the side of my face. “Because I gave the police the papers with the numbers I wrote. I took it out of that same envelope.”

  She closes her eyes and rubs the bridge of her nose. “Are you sure Dink thinks you took his money? Maybe you misunderstood.”

  She looks tired. If she has a migraine now, it’s going to get a whole lot worse.

  “He talked to me at the trial, Mom. At the end. He said, ‘I know you took something from me. You have my money, don’t you?’ Remember that?”

  She shakes her head. “No.”