It’s so ridiculous, I find myself saying, “Are you kidding me?”
For several seconds I do nothing but blink. That I have red hair, of all things, would be what led me to this place feels so outrageously unfair, my sense of injustice momentarily outweighs the shock and horror of my situation.
“You were on thirty-two.”
I return to counting cards. When I finish, there are fifty-two cards stacked in front of me. “Fifty-two,” I say.
“I knew there were fifty-two. This was an exercise in obedience. I’m glad to see you’re learning to comply.”
I can’t stop myself from pointing out the obvious. “You’re pointing a gun at me.”
He smiles again. “This is the sort of redheaded feistiness I expected.”
“Maybe I’m feisty, but not all redheads are feisty.”
“So far, all of you have been feisty.”
How many have there been?
My breathing quickens. I fight to control it. No good showing weakness. Have to be strong, but these references to other victims are unnerving. I look around the cabin, searching for evidence of the other girls brought here before me.
“Keep your eyes on the cards.”
I do as I’m told.
“Now deal ’em out.”
“How many?”
“Seven for each of us.”
As I deal out cards, he picks up my phone.
“Let’s see if you have any new text messages,” Wolfman says. “Here’s one from Mom: ‘Glad to hear you got to Becca’s okay. Drive carefully, and tell her dad we said hello.’” He navigates to the next text. “This one is from Becca: ‘So sorry you’re sick. It’ll be hard to have fun without you, but we’ll try!’”
I sit at the table, frozen. No one knows I’m gone. No one is searching for me. No one has any idea I’m missing. I’m alone. I’m all alone in this.
Forty-Three Years Ago
IT’S MAY IN THE DEEP south, and the air inside the sixth-grade classroom is stifling. The girls wear thin cotton dresses; the boys are in short sleeves. In the very back a tall, husky, black-haired boy wears an old green jacket that doesn’t fit right. The jacket looks a bit like Little Joe Cartwright’s, but nobody watches Bonanza anymore. Except the boy. He watches Bonanza.
The jacket is zipped up tight, compressing his belly into a too-small space. Heat radiates from his cheeks; he can feel them throb in time with his pulse. Dark green mushroom clouds of sweat have formed under his armpits and on his back. The stains are worrisome. They might call attention to him, and the boy’s singular goal is to get through this day unnoticed.
With every sense on high alert for predators, he has nothing to spare for such trivialities as the math lesson going on at the front of the classroom.
“Jerry?”
A handful of students pivot to hear his response, but to him it feels like the entire world has turned.
“Ma’am, I didn’t have my hand up.”
“I realize that. Please order these fractions from least to greatest.”
“Ma’am, I really didn’t have my hand up.”
The teacher walks toward him. More heads turn. Perversely, she wears a long tweed skirt, but not a bead of sweat. Her pale hair, the same color as her face, is perfectly teased into a hair-sprayed helmet. Now five feet from the boy, she scrunches her drawn-on eyebrows in concern.
“Jerry, what on earth is going on? You look sick.”
“Yes, ma’am, I think I am. Can I go to the restroom?”
“You may.”
Jerry jumps up. Growth spurts have hit him hard, and he stumbles over the legs of his desk. Some of the jackals titter. It’s a headlong tumble for the door, but he’s forced to stop before he can make his escape.
“Jerry, when you come back, I want you in short sleeves! Don’t know what you’re thinking, wearing that jacket.”
He pauses. How can he agree to this?
“You hear me? Short sleeves. It’s ridiculous, you wearing that on a day like this.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
In the empty hallway the boy opens his locker, his movements frantic. He takes off his jacket; he is shirtless underneath. From the locker he pulls out a plain white T-shirt. Plain except for a handwritten message, scrawled in ballpoint pen.
I WET THE BED.
He turns the shirt inside out, which obscures the print somewhat, then puts the shirt on back to front. The tag is now beneath his neck. Grabbing it with his teeth, he tries to rip it off. The tag is stitched in tight. He puts his head into his locker, digging around for a compass, a pair of scissors, anything sharp.
He doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him until it’s too late.
“I wet the bed?”
And then giggles.
He flings his back to the wall of lockers with a mighty clang. Three girls have semicircled him. They’re seventh-grade girls. Popular girls. They giggle like seagulls ripping apart a crab.
“Is that what your shirt says?” asks the redhead. She speaks with a cold authority.
“No,” he lies.