_*_ 65 _*_
When the announcement came, Ms. Rogak was reading the scene where Athena tells the Dawn to show up late so Odysseus can enjoy a long night with his wife.
“This is a lockdown,” said the principal’s voice. “Anyone in the hall must find a room now. Staff please follow all lockdown drill procedures.”
Ms. Rogak rolled her eyes, closed her book, then locked the door and pulled down the blind to cover the window. By the time she got back to her desk, we all had our phones out, trying to connect with the outside world, just to make sure. I texted Finn first, Gracie second.
There was a 99.99 percent chance this was another drill, but we’d all seen security camera footage of armed lunatics and small bloody bodies on stretchers being raced across playgrounds. Memorials of soggy teddy bears and dead flowers. Sobbing friends. Catatonic parents. Graves. Even with a 99.99 percent chance, it felt like I’d just stuck a fork into an electric socket and someone had turned the power on.
“It’s a prank,” said Brandon Something. “Someone called in a threat to get out of a test.”
Threat
“Wish they’d done it earlier,” a guy on the far side of the room said. “They would have canceled school and I’d still be in bed.”
“Quiet,” Ms. Rogak said.
Gracie texted me back; she knew nothing. Finn didn’t answer.
I thought I heard a siren. My heart thumped hard. Was it headed for the school? I couldn’t tell.
Assess
The door was the only entrance. In theory, we could escape out the windows, except that we’d need a crowbar to break the thick glass, and we’d have to survive a three-story fall. I texted Finn again:
what’s going on?
???
Still no answer. The siren had stopped.
“What if it’s real?” a girl asked.
“Don’t get worked up, it’s just a drill,” said Ms. Rogak.
Jonas Delaney, sitting in front of me, gnawed on his thumbnail like he hadn’t eaten in days.
BANG!
The sharp noise in the hall made everyone hit the floor. I curled into a ball next to Jonas.
“It’s okay,” said Ms. Rogak, “it’s okay, um, but let’s stay on the ground for a minute. Okay? Stay quiet.”
My adrenaline screamed, rocketing me into hyperawareness, senses cranked to the max. Time fattened and slowed down so much that each second lasted for an hour. I could smell Jonas’s sweat, the mold growing in the old books on the shelves, the dry-erase markers at the board. I could feel the hum of the building under me, the air moving through the heating ducts, the electric current that tied the rooms together, the Wi-Fi signal pulsing in the air.
Jonas rocked back and forth, his lips pressed together, his eyes squeezed shut. I replayed that noise over and over. The more I thought about it, the less it sounded like a gunshot.
BANG!
The second noise made Jonas shake, but I was convinced.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered to him. “It’s not a gun. That’s some idiot kicking a locker, trying to freak us out.”
“Shhh,” he warned.
Static burst from the loudspeaker. “All clear,” the principal’s voice announced. “That was much better than last month. Thank you.”
Ms. Rogak stormed to the door muttering about suspending the chucklehead in the hall. The room held silent for a second after she left, then exploded into nervous laughter and loud conversation. A girl showed her shaking hands to her friends. Brandon Something joked about who had been afraid and who had been cool. I crawled back into my chair, pulled up my hood, and tried very hard not to puke. Jonas stayed on the floor.
“Dude!” Brandon shouted at him. “Get up.” He walked over and nudged Jonas with his foot.
Jonas rolled and leaned against the front of Ms. Rogak’s desk, his knees tucked tightly under his chin and his head down. I smelled it then. Unfortunately, so did Brandon.
“He pissed himself!” Brandon’s face lit up with horror and delight. “He literally pissed himself!”
Jonas wrapped his arms over his head as Brandon and his trolls laughed. A couple of girls said, “Eww!” The rest of the class looked away. Jonas was a quiet freak, not a zombie. The horde would not protect him. They’d stand by and watch the culling.
“Get up.” Brandon pulled on Jonas’s arm.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of my seat. “Leave him alone.”
“Shut up.” He grabbed Jonas by the shirt and hauled him to his feet so everyone could see the soaked crotch of his jeans. “The Urinator, ladies and gentlemen!”
Jonas thrashed, trying to break free.
“Really,” I said. “Let him go.”
Brandon sneered. As he shoved me backward, I grabbed ahold of his wrist and pulled him off balance. This allowed to Jonas break free. He sprinted for the open door and disappeared down the hall.
Then Brandon came for me.
Action
* * *
Hours later, after letting the nurse check me out and meeting with Ms. Benedetti and the vice principal and talking to Dad and turning down the chance to go home early, Finn found me at my locker.
“I just heard what happened,” he said, panting. “Are you okay? Oh my God, did he do this?” His fingertips hovered above the swollen bruise on my cheek.
I pulled away from him. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? Some douche bag tried to beat you up.” “He pushed me, I pushed him, we both fell down. Rogak
walked in before it got serious.”
“I heard you kicked his ass.”
“It lasted two seconds.”
“I heard he’s suspended.”
“I guess.” I closed my locker. “I feel bad for Jonas.” “Yeah,” Finn said. “He’s a good guy.”
We stood there, my backpack on the ground between
us, staring over each other’s shoulders. The loudspeaker announced that boys soccer practice had been canceled and requested that the owner of a white Camry move their car from the fire lane or it would be towed.
“You didn’t get in trouble at all?” he asked.
“I didn’t start it.”
“Doesn’t mean they’d pay attention to that.”
“True enough, but they did, this time.”
He picked up my backpack, but I pulled it out of his
hands. “I got it,” I said.
“You’re mad at me.”
I shrugged, too tired to think about anything. “I had my phone turned off,” he said. “I didn’t see your
text.”
“I don’t want to miss the bus.”
“You could stay,” he said. “Hang by the pool or in the
library, then I could drive you home when practice is over.”
Down the hall a locker slammed. The noise made me flinch.
“You’re not okay.” Finn took hold of the bottom edge of my hoodie. “Can we forget about that stupid argument this morning?”
“Seems like it happened years ago.”
“The warped perception of time is a hallmark of trauma,” he said. “I’ve counseled a lot of superheroes. They all struggle with it.”
“Oh, really?” My hand dropped to touch his.
“Superheroes can be a pain in the balls,” he said. “Always acting tough, pretending nothing hurts.”
“What do you do with them?”
“Most of them go to a llama farm in New Mexico to meditate and spin wool. I don’t dare send you there.” He tugged gently, pulling me closer. “You’d scare the llamas.”
“You defame me, sir,” I said. “I am a kind and gentle friend of llamas.”
“You still mad at me?”
“A little.” I laid my cheek against his. “Mostly, I’m confused.”
_*_ 66 _*_
While Trish washed the dishes after dinner, I sat on the couch and killed hordes of attacking zombies with a double-barreled shotgun. Dad sat next to me, passed out. I could barely hear the sweet, wet sound of exploding heads between his snoring, the irritating tick-tock of the cuckoo clock, and Trish whistling in the kitchen like a demented mockingbird. She’d gotten a temp job on the pediatric floor, but wasn’t showing any signs of looking for an apartment. As far as I could tell, she really was sleeping in Gramma’s bedroom. (Thank all the gods.)
I turned up the volume on the television, chambered another round, and pulled the trigger, taking out three zombies with one blast.
Along with tacky clothes and cheap makeup, Trish had smuggled shards of my past in her suitcase: the way hair ribbons felt on my shoulders, the name of the girl next door at Fort Hood, the taste of pimento-cheese sandwiches, the sound of tennis balls being served into the net, and Trish telling me to toss her another one. I’d hear her voice as I was waking up and I’d open my eyes expecting to be in third grade. I’d catch the murmur of them talking when I was in the shower and it was the summer between fourth and fifth grades, only I didn’t take showers then, I took baths. And then I’d have to find my science notebook or remember the word for “bathing suit” in Chinese and I’d be seventeen again and confused.
Every time I stepped out of the house, I looked up, expecting to see a bomb or a meteor hurtling toward us. It was just a matter of time.
More zombies clawed their way out of the ground while I was waiting for my health status to turn green. I paused the game and stared at the screen, trying to find an escape. My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn’t think I would make it.
Trish walked into the living room, zipping up her jacket. “I’m going to the grocery store. Do you need anything?”
I put down the controller. “I’m coming with you.”
Trish threw out a few questions in the car, pretending that she cared about my life: did my face still hurt, was Brandon Something a bully to everyone or just me, was I going to play any sports, did I have friends. She asked about Gracie, said we should invite her for dinner one night. She asked if I had signed up for my SATs, and if I wanted her to talk to Dad about anything for me.
Blah and blah and nosy none-of-your-business blah. I didn’t show her the shortcut that would have saved us ten minutes. I texted Finn and when he didn’t answer, I pretended that he had.
* * *
At the store, I stayed a few steps behind her, waiting until she had a cart, then grabbing one for myself. In the fruit-and-vegetable section, she picked over the heads of lettuce until she found one that met her high standards of lettuceness. Then she went through the same routine choosing bananas, apples, broccoli, and cucumbers. I scanned the prices to figure out what cost the most, then piled boxes of raspberries, gourmet salad dressings, and a couple of bizarre-looking organic things grown in Central America in my cart.
In the meat department, she picked out hamburger and pork chops. I loaded up on steak and packages of buffalo sausages. I skipped the bakery and went to International Foods where I selected canned lemongrass shoots, curry-flavored almonds, and dried baby crabs, among other things.
An announcement about tasty ways to turn tuna into a terrific treat interrupted the Christmas music. Trish passed me without a word on her way to cereal and crackers.
I hit the jackpot in the fish department: lobster, shrimp, and a couple of small jars of caviar. I had about five hundred dollars’ worth of food in my cart and there were still three aisles to go.
I turned into coffee/tea/creamers and ran right into Trish’s cart.
“I’m not paying for any of that,” she said, looking over my bounty.
“I know,” I said, wanting to kick myself for having been so obvious.
She pushed past me. I followed so close behind that when she slowed down to take a box of chamomile tea off the shelf, my cart rammed into the back of her legs.
I braced myself for the explosion, but it didn’t come. She tossed the tea in her cart, quickly maneuvered around a couple of old ladies and the guy restocking the condensed milk shelves, and took a right at the end of the aisle. The old ladies slowed me down, but I found her in frozen foods, comparing labels on two kinds of burrito.
She put both burritos in her cart and closed the freezer door. “How long do you plan on acting like you’re five years old?”
Here we go.
“Until you leave,” I said. “He’s broke, you know. The house is falling apart and he can’t keep a job. He gets high now, too. There is no money for you to steal.”
“Roy told me to come,” she said. “That’s the only reason I’m here. He’s worried about you both.”
“You suck at lying,” I said. “You talked to my guidance counselor long before Roy showed up. He didn’t tell you anything.”
“Why do you think Roy visited you guys in the first place?” she asked.
A man driving an electric cart squeezed between us.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Andy started emailing me six months ago, right after you two moved here,” Trish said. “At first, it was friendly, which was more than I deserved. Around August, he started to sound desperate. Wrote some weird stuff. I forwarded the email to Roy and it bothered him, too. He was already planning the hunting trip, so he tacked on a day to stop at your house. When he told me what he saw, I quit my job.”
“Sure you did.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “I haven’t had a drink in twenty-seven months, Lee-Lee. Twenty-seven months, three weeks, and two days.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I don’t blame you for being mad at me,” she went on. “What I did was inexcusable. I am so, so sorry that I left you. It was the worst thing I ever did to another person, worse than what I did to Andy, because you were just a kid. We can’t go back and fix that. I came up here to see if I could help because I still love you. Both of you.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“I don’t think you realize how serious this is,” she said.
“You show up for a couple of days and suddenly you know everything?”
“Can you stop being childish for one minute?”
I gripped the handle of my cart.
“He’s scaring me,” she continued. “Not like he used to. I’m not afraid he’s going to hurt me. I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself and I think you are, too.”
“He was doing fine until you showed up,” I said.
“We both know that’s a lie,” she said. “When you’re ready to start dealing with the truth, you let me know.”
The desire to ram my cart into her gut and push her through the glass door into the freezer made my hands sweat. But if I did, she might see it as a “cry for help” and then she’d never leave us alone.
“The truth is, I hate you,” I said.