On the Edge of Tomorrow, page 17
Roman
I packed my bags, and headed out the door, ignoring the calls I got from my father. He wouldn’t miss me, I was sure of it. No one would look for me. My dad hadn’t wanted me from the very beginning. I was glad to be out of that house.
I caught a bus to the Warner’s Cemetery and walked to my mother’s grave. Moss grew on the sides of the black cement of the grave. There were pink flowers planted over her gravesite. I smiled at the thought of her picking flowers. This would be the last time I saw my mother’s grave in a long time. I leaned over, choking back tears, and hugged the grave. I didn’t care if anyone saw.
I walked next to Sade’s grave. There was still dirt on top because she had only been buried a short time. I laid the letter I wrote to her under a statute of a little angel, so that the wind wouldn’t carry it away. I planted a kiss on top of her grave, and walked away, before I began sobbing.
I caught the bus leaving town, and I never wanted to come back. I didn’t know where I was going, but I had nothing to lose. Family, friends, love, nothing mattered anymore.
Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me.
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
WE ARE IN English. Eighth grade.
Casey’s favorite thing to do is pick on me about my arms. She’s been doing this for a few years, since middle school started, so it doesn’t bother me as much, but I wish she’d stop. “Good doggie.” She pats the thick blonde hair on my forearms, snickering. When you’ve known people for a while, even if they hate you, there is a strange kind of intimacy that you would not expect. Often, a note will come from another table, a missive from one of her cronies.
Taylor wants to know if you’ve tried laser.
No, have you? I scribble quickly, slipping the note back to its source. Casey’s face disappears into her cold mask. She has a temper; I’ve seen it in gym—she doesn’t like to lose. She is close to flying into a rage. This is when things get more interesting. When she feels she took a hit, she’ll usually assert her power in some other way.
“Miss Armstrong?” She raises her hand, calling our teacher in her best suck-up voice. Casey and her crowd either brown-nose this easily manipulated teacher or are cruel to her, no in-betweens.
“Miss Armstrong, I’d love to share my free-write this week. I didn’t use the prompt.”
We are in the midst of “writing workshop” where we can write for twenty minutes, either using a prompt—today we are given, “Love is like…”—or we can choose to just write on our own. I love writing workshop—well, I love it when everyone is actually quiet, and I can drift off into my own imagination. Miss Armstrong loves—I mean she practically froths at the mouth—when we share our writing.
“That’s nice, Casey! Does anyone mind taking a break in their writing to listen?”
Miss A can be so pathetically clueless. Of course everyone is excited to stop.
“Mine is called ‘Hair,’ Casey says, smirking and glancing quickly at Taylor for support.
Hair
It’s everywhere
Kids laugh—Casey smiles.
Even on some derrieres
Room really laughs. Miss A flushes and begins to speak but Casey continues.
Hair
It’s soft
And comb-able
Long, like yarn
Most believe it will do no harm
But some hair
Gets in the way
If it’s on your arms
People think you’re…
“Casey!” Miss A stops her right before the punchline. It doesn’t matter, it’s had its effect. Point for Casey.
I sit frozen, accepting sympathetic stares from a few, absorbing the giggles and howls from the other beautiful people. I get a chilly feeling in my heart.
Mustering my self-respect, I raise my hand and say, “Can I share?”
Miss A looks relieved. The room hushes into silence, eager for my response.
Love is like
Sharp shards of ice
Reaching down from
Rooftops
Falling, crashing in the night
Waking us from sleep
The drowsy dullness
The painless lull of sleep
Crickets.
It’s hard to argue with good, or at least sincere, writing. It always shuts them up. My face flushes from the exposure of reading my work; Miss A’s cheeks are red, and her eyes are blurry with tears. She’s such a sap.
Finally, the bell rings. I stand and gather my stuff, hoping to leave well before or well after Casey and her minions. Before I know it, she’s standing at my elbow.
“Nice going, Shakespeare. Miss A is in love with you! Aren’t you psyched?” I shrug, disregarding this classic Casey-ism, and proceed to my next, and thankfully, Casey-free class.
IT’S MORNING. I saunter to the bus stop, carrying my usual to-go cup of Irish breakfast tea (my mother’s favorite) loaded with Splenda, feeling tired from staying up late reading. I’m wearing my Smiths tee shirt, a loose black zip-up hoodie, holey jeans and scuffed Doc Martin stomper boots. My bangs fall into my eyes and cover my face, just how I like.
I approach the morning school bus crowd. This is usually a pretty tame scene, even cool kids aren’t awake enough to get their mean on until about 10:19, or third period in our school. Outliers like me have a few hours of peace before any major confrontations. I usually stand and stare, zoning out to my 80s tunes—I scam all my dad’s music. Today, New Order’s Substance is playing on my iPod. Some days I read whatever book I’m into.
All of a sudden, this face pops up. It’s so close, it’s actually blurry. I jump out of my skin. As it backs up, I see a very white face with a shock of red hair jumping out of its head. Its mouth is moving, forcing me to take out my earbuds.
“Are you an eighth grader?” The face’s nose and eyes are scrunched up as he assesses me.
For some reason, I don’t feel like being particularly friendly to this face/kid, which is highly hypocritical on my part. But then again, I don’t feel like being overtly friendly to most people. I personally like to keep to myself, which is why I’d rather stay home with my stepmother, Geesy, and cat, Oreo, than spend my evenings at my dad’s restaurant folding napkins and making small talk with Dave the bartender.
“Um, no,” I lie, half smiling, re-inserting my earbuds.
But it’s not over.
He pulls on my sleeve. I jump again. Jeez. What is this kid’s problem? I pull my headphones off, again, and this redheaded kid, who is about a foot shorter than me, says, “I’m Brad. I just moved here. What’s your name?” He’s friendly and he smiles. Then, to make matters worse, he adds, “Uh…just wondering…are you a guy or a girl?” My mouth drops.
The other three kids at our bus stop, fifth grader Chris Herkins, and seventh graders Linda Lafferty and Dave Bulbs, look up, amazingly aware of what was said. My face flushes deep red.
I hate being a girl, which is why I dress and wear my hair the way I do. I am not the girly type, but I decide at this moment that I hate this kid, this redheaded freak, for pointing it out.
I don’t answer his question. The bus pulls up, and I get on. I can see the faint trace of a smile curling up into Dave’s cheeks as he steps aside, muttering, “Ladies first.” Brad looks hopeful that this was his answer. I can feel my face deepening in hue as I slump into my seat. This is going to be quite a day. I put my knees up on the back of the seat in front of me, curling into a kind of seated fetal position, and pretend to deaden my senses to the loud beat of music, but my ears meet only silence. My iPod is off. My aching head welcomes the silence. My stomach begins to hurt as a small force inside me is struggling to maintain damage control. He’s just a stupid kid. A stupid, short, socially clueless, redheaded, new kid.
Unfortunately, Brad isn’t done.
He emerges like a creepy child ghost at the end of my seat. He is actually attempting to sit beside me, swinging his ginormous backpack toward my seat, destabilizing his slight frame. He wobbles and almost falls over between the shifting of his backpack and the gyrations of the moving bus. His face is part shock at almost falling over, part anticipation. If I wasn’t so pissed, I would think it was funny. I shut him down by swinging my own book-laden backpack onto the empty part of the seat. He hesitates, unsure of my meaning, then disappears into the back of the bus. Let the snakes get him.
Inhaling the scent of vinyl, tinged with our bus driver’s body odor, a warm tear surprises me. I keep my tears to myself. I vowed a long time ago public tears would never happen again, ever since Sue Fitzgibbons got her kicks punching me in the shoulder every time I wouldn’t do what she commanded in fifth grade, the year my mom died. Even then, I was done with letting them bug me. So much for vows.
I AM SMART, so everything in eighth grade is pretty easy for me. If it weren’t for the obnoxious social conventions, I’d love school. I am not sure who Dave—and it would have to be Dave as he was the only beautiful person present at the bus stop—would tell about the Brad incident. He would have to care, and I have noticed he doesn’t care about much except football and pizza Friday in the cafeteria. I don’t even care that much, really. I don’t even blame him. It’s not like I’m wearing pink sparkly Uggs or anything, so I guess his confusion is warranted. I’m just embarrassed by the attention.
During study hall, I interrupt Mr. Sanchez’s newspaper reading by asking to go to the bathroom. When I enter, two girls are laughing and putting on makeup, leaning close to the mirror. They look at me for a second, but quickly go back to their business, while I skulk into a stall. I don’t really have to go to the bathroom. I just want to take a good, long look at myself in the mirror, to see myself as they see me, as he sees me, but the girls’ presence makes that impossible. Instead, I sit on the toilet and stare across at the unrecognizable view of myself reflected in the stainless steel of the sanitary napkin disposal container. In truth, this is how I want to see myself—blurry and without any particular features. Like I’m slowly disappearing, which is how I usually feel.
I ALMOST PRETEND to be sick or ask for a ride to school but know I can’t bear the small talk. At the bus stop, I make sure I stand really far away from him and that I am totally plugged in from the very start, music cranked, for real. He stays away. Once we are on the bus, he hesitates again at the end of my seat, as though he is going to score another attempt to sit with me, as though our conversation, or whatever it was the day before, made us friends.
I feel slightly uncomfortable being a loner is at lunch, but I’ve made it into a science. I bring a good book, find a place behind one of the poles in the alcove area, and try to appear busy. I either eat or go to the art room. Mrs. Carafalla always lets us come in and hang out there. We can listen to our iPods and work on painting, drawing or whatever. It’s a great refuge. On busy days there are about 10 or 15 outliers in there, choosing creativity over social alienation. Not a bad trade-off.
I am hunched over my book, eating tater tots covered in ketchup, when I sense the presence of the redheaded ghost-boy. “Can I break bread with you?” he asks with a hopeful, clueless look on his face. He holds his tray in his hands like he is offering me his grilled cheese, green beans, and fruit cup.
“Okay, Jesus.”
“Great!” He’s oblivious to my Jesus remark.
“What’re you reading?”
I hold up my book and inhale sharply.
“Have you read any of the vampire books? People love those these days, especially girls like you. I don’t get it, exactly. Although, I did go to a midnight showing of Twilight with my mom; that was fun. I felt pretty cool.”
I snort.
“I told my mom about meeting you yesterday. She says she met your mom—” he says, slightly wobbling on his lunch chair. The guy looks like he could be blown over by a gust of wind.
“Whatever. She’s not my mom,” I say sharply.
“Well, she seems nice.”
“She’s not nice.”
“Hmm. That could be true,” he says thoughtfully. “She might just need something to make her nice, you know? She might have nice potential.” He takes a big forkful of his green beans. No one eats the green beans.
“Nice potential? How Bradley Sunshine of you.”
“Hmm.” He has this way of seeming to agree, consider, and snort at the same time.
I glance hopefully at the clock. Why does so much of my time involve waiting for time’s passage?
“Look around, Brad. “I gesture to the tables spreading throughout the cafeteria. We both scan the crowd surrounding the alcove. As if on cue, a girl with too much blonde hair and bright pink lips flings a blob of chocolate pudding at the brunette across from her. “There isn’t a whole lot of nice potential going on here, so I’m not exactly hopeful about Geesy, my not-mom.”
“Hmm.” He snorts again, shrugging. It is actually kind of gross.
Silence.
He is staring at my face, possibly still not convinced of my gender.
And then I do it, just so there isn’t any confusion. I pick up my backpack and unzip the front pocket. Reaching in, I grab the pink strawberry lip gloss I got from a secret Santa in third grade. I take out a little mirror and apply it very carefully, almost too carefully, like someone who has never really done it before. I smack my lips and look him straight in the eye.
He snorts again. I stand and head toward the art room.
I walk fast. Feeling embarrassed, I wipe the back of my hand against my mouth and exit the cafeteria.
The stain of the lip gloss remains on my lips for seventh period. I can’t get it off. Of course, Casey notices it right away. “What’s this? Makeup, bro?” she says with a smirk.
Ignoring her, I open my notebook and begin copying the notes Mrs. A always leaves on the board. Today’s lesson: “Show Not Tell Writing Strategies.” Once everyone arrives, the room settles into silence. Casey copies hers quickly and begins drawing. I sneak a peek and see little cartoons in the margins of her notebook. They are all boy-like heads with pink, red and sometimes purple mouths. I watch her from the corner of my eye as she energetically exchanges gels pens from her exhaustive pencil case collection. At the end of the year, these pens will be left behind on the hall floor to be picked up and thrown away by janitors, or saved by poverty stricken teachers for next year. Jeez, if she put as much energy into being nice as drawing caricatures of me she would be a saint. Miss A is walking around the mostly quiet classroom, taking attendance and making sure we are doing what we were supposed to be doing. You have to keep your eye on eighth graders at all times.
Suddenly, the door swings open and my pal Brad walks in, not looking particularly guilty for his tardiness. He doesn’t hand Miss A. a pass—he just sits down, looking around innocently and drumming his thin, pale fingers on the desk. Miss A walks over and leans closer to his face. Brad begins whispering, giving her what is probably his trademark pathetic look. Miss A falls for it and walks away, smiling. I raise my eyebrows and shake my head. Whatever. He continues sitting, smiling, drumming, staring. He doesn’t know he is supposed to copy the notes. Clearly, he is not particularly sensitive to social cues.
We’ve learned “Show Not Tell” in writing a million times. Why don’t teachers talk to one another? Don’t they get that most of us are bored out of our skulls? They repeat themselves over and over all day. I feel like I haven’t learned anything new in years in English.
Our next activity is to write a plain sentence. Then we all have to get up, mill around the room while Miss A plays Lady Ga Ga’s “Just Dance”—it is apparently her only CD—and find a partner. I usually do bona fide milling. Most people just make a bee-line to get to their BFFs. After everything shakes out, everyone has to pair up to rewrite their partner’s sentence using “Show Not Tell Strategies.” Of course, Brad and I are left together.
I sigh and sit down at a nearby table. He hands me his index card, which is strangely tattered, wrinkled and grotesquely damp. What’s wrong with this kid? It reads: The puppets danced. His handwriting is an almost indecipherable chicken scratch. “Oh, boy,” I say, exhaling.
“What’s yours?” he says.
The girl fumed.
“Okay!” he says exuberantly. “I got it!”
If there is an exact opposite of emotion, I am feeling it.
He grabs my card and goes to work. So do I.
The puppets stood, their wooden feet and hands tapping the table, forced into revelry by their master, their faces locked in wooden smiles as they jolted and jarred to a strange, unknown melody. I push it across the table.
He stares, frowning. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him do that.
He hands me my card.
The girl glared; her gray-green eyes crackling with golden thoughts.
I flush, feeling self-conscious. Next, we are supposed to underline the strategies and discuss how successful each person was with their sentence and give tips as to extra things we might add.
“You made mine spooky,” he says.
“Well, puppets are pretty creepy.”
“No, they’re not,” he says emphatically. I resist the childish desire to say, “Are too!” This must be what it’s like to have a sibling. Instead, I chose an ambiguous shrug as my response.
“Puppets are fun. You can do whatever you want. You can bring them to life. You can make stuff up. But, you did use the strategies. Maybe you could have added what the music was or what it sounded like.”
“Yeah,” I say, standing, throwing my pencil down in a move that feels oddly Casey-esque. Brad stares at my hand as I crumple my index card, throw it in the waste can and walk back to my desk. Mission accomplished.
