Left Out

by Tim Green

  “It’s easier to let things go.”

  Genevieve shook her head violently. “You’ve got to fight sometimes, Landon. Fight people like Katy. Fight on the football field.”

  “That again?” Landon turned away.

  Genevieve caught him. “You said Jonathan Wagner’s going to be at practice sometime soon. What are you gonna do? Offer him water?”

  “Maybe I’m just happy being on the team. Ever think of that?”

  “No, Landon. Not the way you love football. No way.”

  Landon shook himself free from her. “We’re catching fireflies, Genevieve. Let’s just do that.”

  He turned his back on her, searching the yard, until he sensed her movement. Genevieve went into high gear. She might have been doing a dance routine, darting here and there, scooping, snatching, spinning, filling her jar. Landon watched her for a minute. Three, four, now five fireflies blinked inside their glass prison.

  “Like it’s so easy,” he said to himself.

  The solitary lightning bug flashed in his jar, but not as brightly as before.

  Landon unscrewed the lid and let it go.

  48

  Sunday morning, Landon’s mother was back to herself.

  Gone were the bags under her eyes and the weary frown. She stood straight and moved about the stove like she had springs in her joints.

  Bacon snapped beneath her spatula, filling the kitchen with a delicious smell. She was chattering at Landon’s father, who presided over the toaster, waiting and watching patiently, butter knife in hand. Landon didn’t know what she was saying, but when she realized he was there, she turned with the spatula in hand and beamed at him. “Good morning, sunshine.”

  “Hi, Mom.” Landon sat down at the table at a place where someone had laid out placemats, plates, juice glasses, and silverware wrapped in checkered cloth napkins.

  “Ready for a big day?” she asked.

  Landon had had a big day yesterday, and this morning he’d woken with excitement. His joy melted instantly, however, at the thought of Jonathan Wagner visiting practice only to see that his “man” was a powder puff. Landon’s mind was stuck on that, and he wasn’t thinking about today.

  “What are we doing?” he asked.

  “Well, school starts Tuesday and you and Genevieve both have games every weekend after this, so I thought we should do something special.”

  His mom turned to quickly shuffle the bacon and then looked back at him. “New York City. We’re taking in the city. Uptown. Downtown. Soho. The Statue of Liberty. Empire State Building. A carriage ride in Central Park, maybe the zoo. Dinner at the Jekyll and Hyde Club.”

  “The what?” Landon unrolled the silverware and put the napkin in his lap.

  “It’s a haunted restaurant.” Landon’s mom made a scary face and turned her free hand into a claw. “Ghouls and mummies and such waiting on tables. Talking gargoyles.”

  Landon’s father waved at him from the toaster. “Death by Chocolate. That’s for dessert.”

  Genevieve appeared. “What dessert?”

  “We’re going to New York City to see everything,” Landon said, teasing his mom.

  “What?” Genevieve stared. “I’ve got Megan coming over to swim.”

  “Genevieve,” their mom said, “it’s Labor Day weekend. We’re having a little family getaway, spending the night in New York. I’ve got us hotel rooms. There are fireworks on the Brooklyn Bridge after dinner.”

  Genevieve threw her arms in the air. “You don’t just announce a family getaway on the morning of the getaway, Mom.”

  Their mom shrugged. “Well, I didn’t know about it until now. I got up this morning at five and thought, yes, a family getaway to the greatest city in the world.”

  “Mom, this is important.” Genevieve looked like she was begging.

  “What’s important?” their mom snorted. “Taking a swim?”

  Genevieve gave Landon a knowing look. “Yes, Mom. It is.”

  “Not on my watch, young lady. Family first.” Landon’s mom pointed the spatula at his sister, and he saw that look on his mother’s face, the one that said everyone better be careful. His father literally ducked down before buttering another slice of toast.

  Landon’s eyes went to his sister. He knew she could bite back, and he hoped she wouldn’t now.

  Genevieve’s lips had a little wrestling match, good and bad fighting for control. Finally, she exhaled. “Fine.”

  The tension melted away, and Landon took a breath.

  “The last couple weeks have been hard for everyone.” Their mother’s face softened. She turned and lifted the bacon out onto a bed of paper towels covering a platter. Beside the bacon rested another platter heaped with steaming scrambled eggs. She turned off the burner, slid a hand under each platter, and headed for the table. “This is a chance for us to reconnect as a total family. And do something fun. People come from all over the world to see the sights in New York City. We’d be fools not to take them in when they’re right here under our noses.”

  Landon’s dad delivered his platter of toast, and everyone joined Landon, sitting at the table. Landon piled eggs and bacon onto his plate, got a piece of toast to help shovel, and dug in. He couldn’t help focusing on his food, until he realized his mom was talking to Genevieve about the trip and he thought he heard Megan’s name.

  “I think it would be fun,” his mom was saying.

  Landon looked at Genevieve, who went for her phone on the table and began to text. “I’ll ask her. I don’t know if she can, but asking her makes canceling not so bad.”

  “Ask who what?” Landon took a swig of orange juice from his glass.

  “Megan.” Genevieve hit the Send button. “Mom said she can come with us.”

  Landon choked on his juice.

  49

  The trip to the city was fun. Landon had no idea something so simple and nice could cause yet another problem for him, but it did. A picture was taken after their dinner at Jekyll and Hyde by a man with a tightly trimmed beard on the Bow Bridge in Central Park. It was the five of them—Landon’s family plus Megan—all crowded together, arms around one another, smiling, with the water and the incredible Central Park West skyline behind them. Genevieve had posted it on Instagram, a quaint family portrait plus a friend. #CentralPark.

  By Monday evening, someone—and everyone seemed to know it was Katy Buford—had taken the image, cropped it so that Landon and Megan were standing together without anyone else in the picture, and added the caption, Beauty and the Beast #Truelove?

  They couldn’t pin it on Katy directly because the post was on a site called ChitChat Bronxville, a horrid little cesspool on the internet where people in the small town could spew nasty rumors about one another without having to leave their fingerprints behind. It was a site where the posts were anonymous.

  The picture and ensuing nasty comments had also revived Landon’s 3P nickname, along with lots of other speculation about what he and Megan were up to and how she really mustn’t have minded him seeing her changing after all. Landon read over Genevieve’s shoulder in a state of shock until their mother took the phone to see for herself.

  Landon’s mother sat at the head of the kitchen table. With the look of a person about to jump out of an airplane, she started to read. Her lips moved and a frown dragged the corners of her mouth down. She began to tremble with rage. “It’s vicious. It should be illegal.”

  Landon’s father shrugged and made the mistake of observing, “It’s free speech.”

  His mother’s eyes cut Landon’s father to the quick.

  “But it shouldn’t be,” he added, hardly missing a beat.

  “Well,” his mom said, snapping the phone off, “we won’t read it and we won’t think about it. We’re not going to validate this disgusting site by acknowledging that it’s even there. That’s what everyone should do. Would you read some nasty comment on the inside of a bathroom stall and then post it to discuss with people? That’s all this is.”<
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  Landon had never seen Genevieve so defeated. She raised her head and spoke in a low voice Landon could barely make out. “Everyone else is seeing it and talking about it too. Everyone’s saying to check out ChitChat Bronxville.”

  “Was there a site like this in Cleveland?” their mother asked. “A ChitChat Cleveland?”

  “Things always start in New York or LA and bleed toward the middle of the country,” Genevieve said. “So, no. I’d never heard of ChitChat until now, but Megan told me everyone here knows about it.”

  “And how is she?” Their mom puckered her lips for a moment. “Megan?”

  Genevieve shrugged. “Upset, Mom. No good deed goes unpunished.”

  “What does that mean?” Their mom’s back stiffened. “What good deed? Enjoying a getaway with us in the city? How is that a good deed?”

  “Just . . .” Genevieve took a quick glance at Landon and then looked down at the kitchen table in front of her. She made a small, tight fist and banged it down. “Nothing.”

  Like the poison of a snakebite, the realization that Megan being nice to him was nothing more than charity seeped deeper and deeper into Landon’s bloodstream, filling his body, and paralyzing it with pain. He sat for a minute, and then he staggered up from his chair and headed for the stairs. He heard his mother call to him gently, but he kept going.

  As he climbed, each step brought with it the shred of a memory from the past two days: the cinnamon smell of Megan’s hair next to him in the carriage ride through Central Park, the touch of her warm fingertips on the back of his hand to draw his attention to the sunset from atop the Empire State Building, the sound of her shriek when a ghoul popped up behind her chair at the Jekyll and Hyde Club, the sparkle of fireworks in those glassy blue eyes, the feel of her shoulder bones beneath his arm as he wrapped it around her for the picture that was causing all the problems.

  And tomorrow?

  Landon kicked his bedroom door shut and lay down.

  Tomorrow was school, a disaster in and of itself. He’d asked himself before how anything could be worse than the first day of school at Bronxville. He knew now that it could be worse.

  It would be so much worse.

  50

  Landon woke with a headache and butterflies in his stomach, but knew that with his mom, if there wasn’t any vomit or temperature, you were going to school. His mom was a fanatic about school attendance.

  “Ninety percent of success is just showing up,” she’d say.

  So he did his thing in the bathroom, tugged on the khaki shorts and new strawberry-colored Izod shirt his mom had laid out for him, and clomped down the stairs. His dad sat bent over his computer in the great room. Landon waved as he passed into the kitchen, but his father was lost in his writing. Landon’s mom was speaking to him, but he didn’t hear a thing. He read her lips.

  “Where are your ears, Landon?”

  He shook his head, thought he might actually throw up from nerves, and returned to his bedroom for the ears. When he got back, Genevieve was at the table, halfway through her pancakes, and looking worried herself.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” She put her fork down and cleared her plate. “Let’s do this, okay?”

  Landon forced a chuckle. “That’s a little dramatic. We’re not going into battle, Genevieve.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you’re not.”

  Landon picked at his own pancakes, cleared his plate from the table, and went to say good-bye to his dad. Landon had to tap his father three times before his fingers stopped dancing on the keyboard. He looked up, blinking. “Oh, hey, buddy. Wow. In a zone. Ready for school?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Hey.” His dad put his hands on Landon’s shoulders. He nodded toward his computer before looking deep into Landon’s eyes. “Nodnal is fighting the dragon right now. That’s the scene I’m on. His hair and eyebrows have been roasted off his head. He’s bleeding from his nose and his sword is broken. The dragon is crashing down on top of him, and do you know what’s gonna happen?”

  Landon watched his father’s eyebrow creep up into an arch on his forehead.

  “He’s gonna be crushed?” Landon didn’t see how it could go any other way.

  His father’s lips quivered into a small smile. “No, Landon. Nodnal dives to the ground with his sword like this.”

  Landon’s dad gripped the handle of his pretend sword, one hand on top of the other like a baseball bat. “The broken sword is straight up, like a post. The dragon comes down with all his weight and impales his heart, just a nick, on the jagged tip. On reflexes alone, the dragon jumps up and away, trips, falls flat on his back . . . and dies.”

  Landon simply stared. After a few moments, he said, “This is real life, Dad.”

  “I know it is.” His father mussed Landon’s hair. “But happy endings abound. Where do you think happy endings came from, buddy? Real life. Go get yourself one.”

  Landon’s dad turned back toward his screen and went to work.

  Landon walked out the door. Genevieve was waiting for him in the driveway. She wore a short Abercrombie dress with a matching dark blue ribbon to hold back her thick hair from her face.

  Landon took a deep breath and let it loose. “Ready?”

  “Not yet.” Genevieve shook her head. “Mom said for us to wait. She’s going with us before she goes to the train station.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  Genevieve bit her lip. “Yup. She better not do anything crazy.”

  Their mom came out of the garage, heading their way with her briefcase strap over her shoulder. Her mouth was stretched as thin as a paper cut. “Okay, kids. First day of school in Bronxville. Thought I’d have a little chat with the principal. Ready?”

  The word “chat” told them that their mom was ready for a fight. Landon and Genevieve exchanged a look.

  She was already past them, headed directly for the middle school.

  51

  Landon and Genevieve sat reluctantly with their mom, staring at Mr. Sanders, who sprouted hair from his head like weeds in a garden. As if to compensate for the hair, his suit was shiny-new, his black-and-blue-striped tie crisply knotted. The principal greeted Landon’s mother like an old friend. He said that after all the calls and emails, he felt he knew her.

  “Mrs. Dorch, at our last teachers’ meeting we discussed Landon’s hearing. I emphasized that he needs to read lips to fully understand, and everyone is on board. We want Landon to feel welcome.” The principal grinned widely and raised his eyebrows.

  Landon’s mother said, “Thank you, Mr. Sanders, but we’re not here about that.”

  Then she proceeded to explain the situation.

  Now Mr. Sanders wore a look of serious concern. “I told you on the phone, we have a no-tolerance bullying policy, Mrs. Dorch, and I meant it.”

  His mom seemed to accept that just fine. “I run fifty offices across the globe. Trust me, I know that even the best leader cannot be responsible for every move her team makes. And I know there are outside forces . . . the internet. Social media.”

  Mr. Sanders winced at the words. “But we try and educate our students. I assure you.”

  “Right. But I’m here because this internet bullying is real. It’s anonymous, but it’s not imagined. It’s not hypothetical. All you have to do is check out ChitChat Bronxville if you don’t believe me. If you do believe me, don’t check it out, because looking at those things validates them, don’t you think?”

  “I see what you’re saying.” Mr. Sanders started clicking his pen.

  “We can’t prove any direct accusation because it is all anonymous, but we can bet this came from a student in their grade.” She looked at Landon and Genevieve. The smoldering anger in her eyes made Landon’s mouth dry.

  “Be alert, is all I’m asking, Mr. Sanders,” Landon’s mom said. “Talk to my kids’ teachers. Make them aware. Landon will never say a word, but Genevieve is apt to go ballistic.”

  Mr. Sanders s
topped clicking his pen. He glanced at Genevieve, who gave him a wan smile.

  “Get what I’m saying?” Landon’s mom asked.

  Mr. Sanders cleared his throat and said, “We have another teacher meeting this afternoon. I promise we’ll discuss this.”

  “Great!” Landon’s mom popped up. “I’m off to work. Thanks so much for your time, Mr. Sanders.”

  Their mom gave them each a kiss on the cheek and then gave Mr. Sanders’s hand a feisty little shake before disappearing out the door. Genevieve wasn’t waiting around. She was in a different homeroom than Landon, one that was on the other side of the school. She was halfway out the door when Landon turned to the principal. “Sorry, Mr. Sanders.”

  Mr. Sanders circled his desk and put a hand on Landon’s shoulder. “Don’t be sorry. I wish every mom cared that much about her kids. You can’t begin to imagine . . .”

  Landon nodded, even though he wasn’t quite sure he understood. “See you.”

  “See you, Landon. And Landon, don’t worry about any of this.”

  Landon nodded again and turned and left the office, plunging into the sea of hostility, hoping for even a scrap of something that could help him stay afloat.

  Landon walked into Room 114, and there it was.

  A life jacket.

  52

  Brett jumped out of his chair, slapped his hand into Landon’s and pulled him into a teammate hug, thumping him on the back. “Landon, come sit here.” He motioned to the seat next to him. “I saved you a seat.”

  Landon didn’t need anything else. He didn’t scan the room from the corners of his eyes. He didn’t worry about people dipping their heads together to whisper. He was saved.

  His friend was wearing a Rashad Jennings Giants jersey and matching gym shorts.

  “Dude, put your stuff down and get your schedule.” Brett pointed at the desk where Landon rested his backpack. “Let’s see how many classes we have together. Schedules are on Mrs. Rigling’s desk.”

  Landon retrieved his schedule and got a smiling wink from Mrs. Rigling. Things were looking up. He returned to his desk and sat down. Brett grabbed the schedule from his hand and placed it down next to his own.