by Karen Hesse
8
“Shoot!”
I dropped that rock like it was a hot potato and refused to look back at Brody again.
Hannie was still dragging the trash bag along the ground.
“Get that bag off the ground, Hannie,” I said. “Look what you’re doing to it. You’ve got a hole worried in it so big, that unicorn’s gonna fall out and get lost. Come on! Hurry up, will you? The crossing guard won’t be there all day. I swear, you are the slowest…”
I tried ignoring that sad face of hers and pried her hand off my sweater for the umpty-dozenth time.
“Unicorn heavy, Mags,” she whimpered.
“Then you shouldn’t have asked to bring it in the first place … and you shouldn’t have said you’d carry it by yourself.”
I squinted toward the highway, trying to figure out who the crossing guard was this morning. I liked it when Mrs. Clinton crossed us. Hannie was scared of her, but she was just right in my book. She was bigger than a barn. Not even a stream of cars on the highway would mess with her.
“Use two hands to carry that bag, for crying out loud,” I said, feeling angry at everyone in the world. “Can’t you use your head sometimes, Hannie?”
I was so angry and I didn’t even know why. I just knew it was all tied up with Hannie and Mooch and that scumball Brody Lawson.
The road roared in front of me with rush-hour traffic. It wasn’t even Mrs. Clinton crossing today. It was crummy Mr. Bumbaugh, and him no bigger than Mama in her bare feet.
I hate that highway.
Mr. Bumbaugh got Hannie and me halfway across to the grass strip and then left us there to bring Brody over. I felt pulled apart, with the traffic tearing behind me in one direction and tugging the front of me in the other. We were later than ever this morning; nearly everyone was already out on the playground, waiting for school to start. I promised myself that when Mr. Bumbaugh held up traffic in the other direction, I would not run across in front of everyone. Running showed you were scared.
“Mags?” I felt Hannie pulling at the bottom of my sweater.
I turned around to look at her and found Brody Lawson’s ugly face staring straight at me.
I pried Hannie’s fingers off my sweater. It’s bad enough she sticks to me like a sorry old shadow. I don’t need her clinging on to me in the middle of that stinking highway in front of the whole school.
I scowled down at her and wished she’d just stay there, stuck in the middle of that road forever, and never bother me again. I felt my insides shivering and I wrapped my arms tight around my chest, so Brody wouldn’t see I was scared.
Hannie was crying real soft, but I couldn’t give in to her. Not with Brody standing there. She got louder, so that kids on the playground were starting to look up.
“All right!” I yelled.
Hannie jumped. I grabbed for her to keep her from stumbling back into the traffic behind her.
“Give that bag to me,” I said. “I’ll carry it.”
I don’t think she wanted to hand it over anymore, but she did what I told her for once. I could feel Brody behind me, burning holes in the back of my head with his narrow little eyes.
Some magic, I thought, holding the bag full of unicorn and feeling the ground shiver under my feet.
Mr. Bumbaugh held up his stop sign, stopping the traffic in the other direction. He waved us across.
I ran, even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t. I ran, with the bag full of unicorn bumping against my legs, until I felt the dirt and grass of the school yard under my feet.
9
I left Hannie off at her classroom. She reached for the bag with the unicorn, but I wouldn’t give it to her. I wanted to show the unicorn to Alice and Patty Jo first, before I handed it over to Hannie and let her wreck it.
“I’ll give it to you later,” I said.
Hannie was still crying.
I felt worse than sour milk on an empty stomach, but Alice and Patty Jo were heading in from the playground toward the bathroom, just like they always did first thing in the morning, to put on their makeup and do their hair.
Today, in my penguin sweater, I felt good enough to be in there with them.
I ducked into the girls’ lavatory and started fooling with my hair, when Alice and Patty Jo pushed their way in. They came in talking about a television show they’d seen last night, and I sort of pretended like I was listening and that I agreed with whatever it was they were saying. We didn’t own a television, not since our old one died on us last year.
My heart was pounding as I waited for them to notice me.
I didn’t wait long.
“Oh, Maggie,” Patty Jo said, turning to take a closer look at me. She’d rinsed her short brown hair with something that made it look blond under the bathroom light. Mama would surely kill me if I ever colored my hair. But Patty Jo always did things like that. “I love your sweater. Where’d you get it? I want one just like it.”
“You like it?” I asked, grinning at my skinny self in the bathroom mirror. I didn’t want to say anything stupid, so I was afraid to say anything at all. Alice wasn’t looking any too pleased about my being there.
“It—it’s a real special sweater,” I said, forcing myself to say something. “One of a kind.”
I am so stupid! Why did I say something like that? How did I know it was one of a kind? Just ’cause I never saw one before didn’t mean there weren’t hundreds just like it. I was sure Alice would catch me up in a lie.
Alice just rolled her eyes up in her head. She was shorter than Patty Jo and had long brown hair she’d curled on some sort of iron. Her face was round as a clock, with a nose stuck up in the middle of it hardly bigger than the end of my thumb. “What do you mean, one of a kind?” she asked. “Somebody make that sweater for you or something?”
I tried to keep my breathing even. At least Alice hadn’t seen someone else wearing the sweater or seen it in a store somewhere.
“Sort of,” I said. “It’s got to do with what’s in this bag here.”
I pointed to the plastic trash bag. My hand was shaking, and I pulled it back close to my side before Patty Jo and Alice could notice. What if they laughed in my face when I told them about the unicorn?
“Oh, disgusting,” said Alice. “You got the sweater out of a mangy old trash bag?”
“No!” I said. My voice didn’t even sound like it belonged to me. It was high and shaky. “I didn’t get the sweater out of the bag. What’s in the bag got me the sweater.”
“Shoot,” Alice said. “I always knew you’d turn crazy in the head like your sister someday.”
“Hannie is not crazy in the head,” I said. “I’m not either. There’s something magic in this bag. I can prove it.”
“Sure,” Alice said, turning away and ignoring me.
“I want to see, Maggie,” Patty Jo said, her dark eyes curious. “What is it? What you got in the bag? Don’t you even want to see, Alice?”
“All right,” Alice said, turning back. “Let’s see what you got in there.”
My hands shook as I tried undoing the knot on the bag, and I ended up tearing a huge hole in it. I reached in and pulled the unicorn out, stuffing what was left of that sorry piece of plastic into the wastebasket.
“Ohhh,” Patty Jo said. “Isn’t it cute?”
“It’s nothing but a stuffed animal for babies,” said Alice.
“It’s a unicorn,” I said. “And it’s magic.”
Alice looked bored. “Sure,” she said. “And I’m Tinkerbell.”
“How do you know it’s magic?” Patty Jo asked.
“I didn’t have this sweater yesterday,” I said. I explained about Hannie and the unicorn and making a wish.
“I just wished myself some new clothes, and there they were.”
“Well, what else did you wish for?” Patty Jo asked.
I told her about Moochie wishing for something to eat.
“So what you gonna wish for next?” Alice asked.
&n
bsp; “Don’t know,” I said. “Got any ideas?” I had a feeling that would get them.
“You mean you’d wish something for us?” Patty Jo asked.
“I might,” I said, trying to ignore that choked-up feeling I get when I’m not being too honest.
“You’re sooo lucky,” Patty Jo said. “Everybody in school’s gonna want that unicorn.”
Alice put on her lipstick in the bathroom mirror. “That sweater is cute,” she said.
I couldn’t believe it. For Alice that was like saying “Let’s be best friends.” Thank you, unicorn, I thought.
Patty Jo reached out and stroked the unicorn like it was something alive. “I believe it is magic,” she said. “Even you look different this morning, Maggie. Doesn’t Maggie look different this morning?” Patty Jo asked Alice.
I didn’t give Alice a chance to answer. “I sure feel different,” I said. Being with Alice and Patty Jo like that, I really did feel different.
“Can I try your sweater on sometime?” Patty Jo asked.
“Sure,” I said. “You could even borrow it maybe. If I’m not wearing it.”
“How you gonna keep someone from stealing that unicorn and making wishes on it themselves?” asked Alice, running her hand over the unicorn’s horn.
I thought about Moochie wanting to turn Brody into a roach last night. “The thing about unicorn magic,” I explained, “is it only works for good people wishing good things. Like if I wished something bad to happen to somebody, it just wouldn’t happen and I’d probably lose my wish for good.”
“How does the unicorn know if it’s a good wish or a bad wish?” Alice asked.
“It’s magic, Alice,” Patty Jo said. “It just knows.”
“Yeah,” I said, relieved Patty Jo was on my side. “Just like that.”
“So you’re not wishing Brody Lawson would fall off a bridge and drown?” Alice asked.
Everybody knew I hated Brody worse than cold spinach.
“I may be wishing something like that,” I said. “But I’m not wishing it on the unicorn.”
Patty Jo laughed. Alice laughed too. They were laughing the way they do with each other, but with me standing right there.
“That’s good you can’t make bad wishes on it,” said Patty Jo. “I can just think of some people I wouldn’t want making wishes on it at all. Like my sister Loma.”
“Yeah,” Alice said. “Your sister Loma would wish you off the face of the earth.”
The bell rang for school to start. I hadn’t done any work on my essay, but I’d talked to Alice and Patty Jo, and I guess that felt more important than any old stupid homework. Patty Jo, Alice, and I walked to class together, all three of us in a row, with me in my pink penguin sweater in the middle, carrying the unicorn in my arms.
“You think you could come over to my house this afternoon, Maggie?” Patty Jo asked. “You never been to my house before.”
“Sure. I might,” I answered, feeling fit to burst over being invited to Patty Jo’s.
“My mama bought chocolate cake yesterday from the bakery,” Patty Jo said, like maybe I needed some extra reason to say yes.
I thought about Moochie eating crackers. Maybe I could bring him home a piece of Patty Jo’s cake wrapped in a napkin, if I handled things just right.
10
Mrs. Fribush smiled when we walked into the room. “Don’t you look nice today, Margaret. What a pretty sweater. And is that your stuffed animal? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you bring anything from home before to share with the class.”
I wanted to crawl under my desk. She made it sound like I was a baby, bringing my blanket to school for show-and-tell or something. Brody kicked the back of my chair with his foot.
Everybody was looking at me, but only Brody was being mean. Everyone else was smiling and fussing over the unicorn. I began to wonder if it really didn’t have some sort of magic in it after all.
Mrs. Fribush finished taking attendance and looked over in my direction. “Margaret,” she said, “you may be class monitor while I walk the attendance down to the office.”
Class monitor was usually Brody’s job.… Not that he did anything—just that it was his job the same way that tunnel of concrete with the stinking water at the bottom was his ditch. “Class, I’ll be collecting your essays when I get back. Use these few minutes to check over spelling, punctuation, and grammar.”
Brody made a face at Mrs. Fribush’s back as she walked out the door.
I got my essay out, trying to think of something to say in a hurry so I could finish it and hand it in.
Nobody else was even looking at their papers.
“That unicorn Maggie’s got is magic,” Patty Jo piped up. “That’s how she got that new sweater and all. She made a wish on the unicorn and it came true.”
“So that’s what was in the trash bag,” Brody said. He stood up and put his foot down on the unicorn’s back, pushing, pushing till he’d flattened it to the floor.
“Hey, cut it out!” I said, scraping out of my chair and shoving him away.
The mark from the bottom of his sneaker stayed across the unicorn’s back.
Brody came around the front of my desk. “If you got a magic unicorn,” Brody said, “you better start wishing for more than clothes, Margaret Wade. You better wish for a short jail term for your brother. He’s in a mess of trouble at my house, and he’s gonna need a lot more than something to wear. Come to think of it, where he’s going, they give them their clothes for free. Free black-and-white-striped clothes. You think that thieving brother of yours will look good in black and white?”
Everyone was listening.
I wanted to put my foot on his face and flatten him like he’d flattened the unicorn, but I was too embarrassed to move.
Alice pushed up against Brody. “Why don’t you just shut up,” she said. “You’re always blowing off at Maggie about something.”
“I’m not just blowing,” Brody said. “Her brother is a thief. You remember he was stealing before? Well, now he’s at it again. You should have heard my mama yesterday afternoon when she found a whole box of Twinkies missing. I bet he stole that unicorn from somewhere too.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Brody Lawson,” I said.
“Heck I don’t! Your brother’s a dirty little thief. The lot of you are nothing but trash. My daddy said so. He said he ought to call someone and have that rusty tin trailer of yours towed away—with all you inside it.”
I sat frozen in my seat. Kids started hissing all around me, saying how this was missing from their yard and that was missing from their room, and how maybe Moochie was behind all of it. Moochie would have needed a freight car to take everything he was accused of taking.
“He’s been coming up to our house and stealing from us since he could walk,” Brody said, getting everyone worked up, looking all around the room with those narrow eyes of his. “But yesterday he went too far, that’s what my mama said, he went too far taking a whole brand-new box of Twinkies, and my daddy’s going to—”
“What!” I cried. I felt like I was going to explode. “What’s he going to do?”
“My daddy’s going to see you pay for all the trouble you’ve caused,” Brody said. “You’re going to have to move away and never come back. And you’ll never see your brother again, ’cause my daddy’s going to see he gets locked up in prison for the rest of his life.”
Alice snorted. “What world you living in, Brody? They don’t put little kids in prison.”
“Ever hear of the juvenile home, Alice? Huh?” Brody stuck his narrow little eyes up close to Alice. “That’s worse than real prison. They chain those kids under porches. That’s a fact. But that’s nothing compared to what they’re gonna do to Maggie’s sister. She’s going to a place for retards, and they’ll never let her out. And her mama’s going to jail for leaving her children alone all hours of the night and day. My mama says people go to jail a long time for that.”
“Chil
dren,” Mrs. Fribush said, coming through the classroom door. “What’s going on in here?”
All the kids who had been staring at Brody swiveled back around in their seats, folded their hands, and looked straight ahead. “Nothing, Mizz Fribush.” Mrs. Fribush glared at Brody as he slinked back to his seat.
But as soon as she looked away, Brody poked me with his ruler. “You just wait and see,” he whispered.
I couldn’t see anything but black, buzzing like bees in front of my eyes. I clamped my jaw shut to keep from crying.
“I’ll be doing you a favor,” hissed Brody. “You’ll be rid of your stupid family once and for all.”
“Margaret,” Mrs. Fribush said. “Will you collect the essays, please?”
I scraped my chair back and grabbed my half-finished essay in my fist, but instead of collecting the other papers, I ran out of the classroom and flew down the hall to the girls’ lavatory, where I knew even Brody wouldn’t dare follow me.
I hated him. I hated him for saying those things. And I hated it most ’cause he was right. My brother was a thief. And my sister, she wasn’t just slow. She’d never catch up, never. And my mama … where was she when we needed her? Other mamas were always around, why not mine?
I was sick and tired of trying to hold everything together, of cleaning and cooking and minding Hannie and Mooch. I pushed my fists into my eyes, trying to make the tears stay back.
Stupid, stupid essay. I ripped it into tiny little bits and dumped them into the wastebasket on top of the plastic bag I’d pulled the unicorn from less than an hour ago.
I hated that unicorn. We should have left it where it was, Hannie and I. We should have just walked past Newell’s field and pretended like we’d never seen it. The unicorn did grant wishes, but not the way I wanted it to. It made people notice me all right, but they noticed all the terrible things about me. And it made me see myself too, really see myself and my family. No wonder people didn’t want anything to do with us.
I swiped at my cheeks with the backs of my hands. I hoped somebody would take that lousy unicorn while I was in the bathroom, take it so I’d never have to see it again.