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Emma stands up and stretches her arms up over her head—after leaning back on them for so long I expect they’re stiff. “We better go on home before Richard gets to five.”
“You asleep, yet?” Emma whispers, knowing full well there’s no way I’m sleeping.
“No.”
“You reckon it’ll work for real?”
“It cain’t not,” I say, but inside my head I’ve been thinking it over and now I’m not so sure.
“What if he doesn’t have to go to the bathroom?” she asks.
“He’s got to go sometime,” I say. “Besides, say he doesn’t go after second period. We just scoot the plan up and do it after fourth.”
“You think?”
“It’s foolproof.”
“You’re right,” she yawns. “It’s foolproof.”
I don’t remember sleeping, but I must have because the next thing I know Momma’s calling up to us from the landing. “Rise and shine!” She sounds like she’s in a good mood, but we won’t know for sure till we get downstairs and see what’s waiting for us in the kitchen. When the cereal bowls are already out on the counter we’re home free. Sometimes, though, she says, “You got arms to reach up, don’tcha?” And other times she’s not there at all … still sleeping. Sure enough it’s a breakfast-bowl-on-the-counter morning. Phee-you. One less thing to think about today.
We ride the bus to school and there isn’t much to say about that except that Patty Lettigo (who everyone calls Patty Let-Me-Go and then runs away like she’s holding on to them too tight for real) glares at us when we walk up the aisle to the back of the bus where there’s an open two-seater. Patty Lettigo always glares. It’s her job or something.
My stomach’s in knots. Emma’s clutching her books close to her chest even after she sits down so I’m betting she’s as nervous as I am.
“Remember,” I whisper to her with my hand up to her ear just in case anyone can hear over the loud bus engine, “get the bag of Crisco from Forsyth the minute you see her at your locker and then pass it to me when I come by after homeroom.”
“Okay, okay, stop reminding me,” she hisses at me.
“I’m just saying.”
“I got it.”
But after we pass three farms and the second flashing stoplight she leans over and whispers in my ear. “Where’re we meeting up again after?”
“Jeez! We’ve been over this a million times! At the end of the hall that leads to the gym. You’re going to be the signal girl.”
“Right,” she nods, remembering. “Got it.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Sure as manure.”
I smile, thinking about how I told her that Daddy always used to say that to me. He’d rhyme the words and it made me laugh every time.
The bus lurches to the curb right in front of our school, squeaky brakes and smelly fumes. Emma hits my arm and I look to where she’s looking and sure enough it’s Sonny at the bike stand, pulling his books out of the trap that’s fixed over his back wheel.
“Here we go,” I say to no one in particular, and we head in through the front doors just in time for the first bell.
“Bye,” she calls to me, which is weird ‘cause we never say goodbye to each other at school—we just sort of walk away. But in a nice way. Yep. She’s nervous all right.
Homeroom drags by so slowly now it’s me who can feel her hair grow. Miss Fullman calls attendance and everyone’s got to add their funny little thing they say back instead of “here” like boring old me. Mary Sellers: “Is the best!” (everyone laughs—she changes this every day). Liam Naughton: “Yell-oh!” (laughs). Darryl Becksdale: “Who?” (not so many laughs, but still better than “here”). The list goes slowly while Miss Fullman gives everyone the evil eye and says, “People. That’s enough now, people,” and waits for the laughter to die down before she calls the next one on the list.
The second bell rings almost as loud as my heart is beating. It just occurred to me that this whole thing is riding on me. I cain’t chicken out now. I just cain’t. Forsyth would never speak to me again.
First period goes by even slower than homeroom did, but the good thing is we’re right on track. Forsyth passed a slab of Crisco wrapped in plastic to Emma, who gave it to me just like we planned. Now I’m sitting here in second period with Crisco grease in the space between the snap and zipper of my pants and my stomach. I wore a looser shirt than I normally wear for this exact reason. Planning ahead works every time.
Bzzzzzzz. Second period is over and as we file out of the room I bump into two desks because I’m concentrating on my heart, which is beating in my chest like a bird flapping its wings against a cage, trying to get free. Oh, Lord, please help me carry this out.
Out in the hallway in front of the gym Forsyth is standing in front of the boys’ washroom like she should be but I cain’t see Emma over the heads of the other kids in the hallway. I didn’t think about how tough it’d be to see her in the crowd! Oh, God. Oh, God. Emma? Where are you?
And then she appears—standing in between Betsy Rut-ledge and Collie McGrath, talking to Perry Gibson and … there it is … she scratches her chin! That means Sonny’s asked for the key and is about to head to the washroom. I whip around to see Forsyth shaking her head to someone who’s trying to go in but then turns away after she whispers to him. Just like we planned, Forsyth is telling anyone who wants to use the washroom—who isn’t Sonny, of course—it’s “out of order.” We practiced it dozens of times before we left the Phillipses’ last night.
There’s no time to waste. I push past people I barely recognize because I’m so nervous and feel up under my shirt for the packet of Crisco. In front of the boys’ washroom I look over my shoulder quickly just to make sure Sonny’s not right behind me. The coast is clear so I rush past Forsyth, who’s mouthing something to me and waving her arms around, but I push through the door to the boys’ washroom so I can carry out our plan.
Oh. My. Lord.
I hear the door shut behind me and rest my eyes on not one, not two, not three, even, but about twenty—twenty—boys! Boys from every grade. Boys standing with their backs to the door. Boys facing the wall. Boys with their pants practically down to their ankles. Boys combing their hair. Boys leaning against the tiled wall. Boys in every nook and cranny of this washroom!
“Lookee-lou, it’s Scary Carrie,” a hollow voice bounces off the tiled walls and mixes into all the laughing that breaks out like firecrackers on the Fourth of July.
Everything happens so fast I cain’t even tell you what I said or how I got out of there. I just know that as I fly out the door I see Sonny, smiling and sauntering up to the door without a care in the world.
The girls’ washroom is right next door but I want to get as far away from here as I possibly can. So I run. I run down the hall, past Emma, who’s looking at me weird, past Mr. Stanley, past a million laughing kids I never want to see ever again, and out the double metal doors that lead to freedom. They can arrest me if they want, but I’m not going back into that school. I hear the door slam behind me and soon Emma’s beside me on the second step of the rickety old bleachers by the baseball diamond.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Forsyth,” I sob, “Forsyth …” It’s all I can manage to say. I’m crying too hard. I’m the laughingstock of the school.
“Forsyth what? What happened?”
Then it comes back to me … oh, Lord! Forsyth’s lips moving. Her arms swishing back and forth like windshield wipers. She was trying to warn me. She was trying to warn me.
I wish I could disappear.
“It’ll be okay,” Emma says. “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay. You’ll see. It’ll all be okay.” Her hand rubs circles in the middle of my back.
“How?” I sniffle. “How will it be okay now?”
But she’s quiet so I know she was just trying to make me feel better.
“If anyone makes fun of you I’ll beat ‘em up, that’s how.”
“You cain’t beat up the whole school. And that’s who’s going to make fun of me.” I wipe my runny nose on my sleeve.
“We’ll think of something,” she says, “but we better go on back. Mr. Streng’s going to be after us if we cut out altogether. Come on.”
The halls are empty when we go back through the double doors—everyone’s in third period, I reckon. After my eyes adjust, I head toward my locker and Emma pads alongside me. Even in echoey halls she doesn’t make any noise.
“Here’s what you do when third period’s over.” She hurries up to in front of me so she can face me. “You pretend you’re deaf so when anyone says anything—or even laughs at you—it doesn’t make a lick of difference. Just pretend you can’t hear a thing.”
What she doesn’t realize is I’ve been trying this all my life. It never works.
“Caroline, you knew this stuff backward and forward yesterday.” Mr. Stanley’s mouth is all twisted up, like it’s fed up with talking to me altogether. “What I wonder is how on earth you could completely forget multiplication.”
Am I supposed to answer him?
“Young lady? Young lady, I’m talking to you.”
“Yes, sir?”
“If you forgot to do your homework, say so. But don’t give me this little act like you think I don’t know what you’re up to. I’ll see you after school.”
When on earth did we learn multiplication? I swear I have no idea how an x between two numbers is supposed to change what they’re worth. Mr. Stanley keeps looking over here like I’m going to make a run for it and I suppose I could, but where would I go? Home to Richard? Here’s the thing Mr. Stanley doesn’t get about me: I don’t mind school. Mary Sellers, Tommy Bucksmith, Luanne Kibley and all them can pretend to love it all they want in front of the teachers, but I hear them in the lunchroom talkin’ trash about it. I like everything about school—except for the other kids, a’course. I like getting out of the house all day long. It’s like a field trip every single day.
“Caroline!”
Mr. Stanley’s voice is louder than I’ve ever heard it.
“Yes, sir?”
“The bell rang five minutes ago. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”
“Yes, sir.” I swear I didn’t even hear the bell ring. I’m the only one left in the classroom. Just before I get through the door his gravelly voice throws words at me: “Remember, after school.”
“Yes, sir.”
Emma’s going to have to wait for me. I bet Momma won’t even notice we’re not home on time. She don’t care. To tell you the truth, I bet she’s glad to have us out of the house as we are to be gone. She’s got to manage her piles and I reckon she can do it a whole lot better with some peace and quiet. All day she sits there folding letters into three sections, stacking them in tall towers until the envelopes all have the address stickers on them and then she stuffs those with the letters. We’re not allowed to read what the letters say; Momma’s sure we’ll crinkle the paper and she’ll get fired. I don’t care what they say, anyway, since Momma looks so bored doing all this it cain’t be interesting. Momma’s so smart she didn’t even have to go interview for the job. She answered an ad in the newspaper about working from home, making you a ton of money. They liked her so much on the phone the job was hers, they said. Emma and me try to figure out why it is we haven’t seen the ton of money they promised Momma, but I think it’s babyish to think a truck is going to pull up to the back of your house and unload bagfuls of cash like a bread truck delivering to the grocery store. Emma’s still waiting for the truck.
“You’re late, Caroline.” Miss Hall looks about as happy with me as Mr. Stanley did. “That’s the third time this week.” She made a little mark next to my name in the book on her desk.
I don’t ever set out to be late but my mind sometimes takes a detour. Like when I write with another kind of handwriting. I know which way the letter k is supposed to face but then, whammo!—there it is backward. And usually when there’s a backward k, it’s in the other handwriting I surprise myself with; it almost looks like I could be in Emma’s class with this handwriting. It’s really shaky and big and, like I said, the letters are sometimes mixed up. But most of the time I keep my brain focused on what I have right in front of me. Not today, I guess. Momma won’t even know to look at the line on my report card that says I been tardy for classes. If she did see it she probably wouldn’t care.
“What’s the matter, Scary? You forget how to tie your shoelaces, you little baby?” Mary Sellers started this nickname, Scary Carrie. They all point at my hair, which is funny since it’s not half as tangled up as Emma’s, but they point anyway. My shoes have been bothering me all day. I hate it when you tie one side kind of tight and the other side doesn’t match it. These are saddle shoes that look like my Momma could’ve worn them back when she was my age. That’s how come I have them, she saw them at the store last year and practically started crying right there in front of Mr. Franks, who insists on sliding our feet into shoes with that metal shoehorn instead of letting us wriggle our heels into them, the way we do the rest of the time. What does he think anyway? That we use shoehorns every single day? The shoes are mostly white with a saddle of black across the middle and down the sides. That’s how come they’re called saddle shoes. The toes are rounded so you have plenty of room to grow, which is a good thing since Momma said she spent so much on these shoes that we wouldn’t be able to get me new ones for a while. No one at my school wears saddle shoes. They’re just another weapon Mary Sellers can use in her war against Scary Carrie. She calls them “domino shoes.” I tell myself I don’t care. And I don’t. Really. I don’t.
TWO
We’re moving and I’m not speaking to Momma on account of it. I don’t want to leave but she says we have to. And Emma’s on her side. She doesn’t like it here, either. Last night Momma got fed up and said she’d just take Emma with her and I could stay here and live on my own, but when I said “fine” she sent me to my room, so I don’t think I’m going to get to stay here by myself. Eight-year-old kids shouldn’t be living in big old houses by themselves, anyway, but still … I don’t want to go. Richard says he’s moving on and moving up. He’s been saying that a lot lately. He got a new job across the state so we have to go with him, I guess, even though some of us don’t want to move on or up, thank you very much. Momma says it’ll be a fresh start. But starts are only fresh for grown-ups. Third grade was never fresh for me, and even after a whole school year I’m waiting for it to stop being a start altogether.
Thanks to the stupid Washroom Plan I’ve been getting picked on more than ever in school. My teacher, Miss Hall, says I talk out of turn and that’s just been an open invitation to Patty Lettigo. On the playground at recess she hollers at me, calling me a space cadet. The other kids laugh because to them that’s what it looks like, I suppose. What’s really happening is that I’m thinking of things I have to remember to tell Emma after school lets out and the next thing I know I’m saying them out loud. I don’t set out to talk out loud, it just ends up that way.
“And that’s why we use long division,” Mr. Stanley is saying, “so we can figure out how many little numbers make up whatever big number is under the line here. Who can tell me how many times nine goes into eighteen?”
Outside, the buds on the tree branches look like tiny knobs on a television. I wonder what kind of show a tree would want to watch. Nothing involving a saw, I bet.
“Miss Parker?” Mr. Stanley’s voice reaches out to my head and turns it toward the front of the room but I’m still thinking about Tree TV. “Can you tell us?”
“What, Daddy?”
Oh, my dear Lord—what did I just say? What did I just say? Maybe I thought it but didn’t say it out loud.
“Class, quiet down,” Mr. Stanley is saying to all the kids around me who’re laughing and pointing at me like I’ve just climbed off of a spaceship. “Class, please,” he’s saying, but no one’s quieting down one bit.
This ringing in my ears makes it sound like the class-room is one big glass jar—the voices echoing from side to side in my brain.
Mary Sellers snorts her little snorty laugh that always sounds like it’s going to turn into hiccups. My face is on fire.
“All right, class, that’s enough,” Mr. Stanley finally says, but I cain’t see his face because I’m just looking down at my desktop, tracing the carved “EMB was here” that’s in the corner. Who was EMB? I wonder about this every single day. EMB could have been a boy, but I like to think she was a girl, brave enough to dig lines in her desk when no one was looking. EMB. Maybe she died and this is the only evidence that she lived, but her parents don’t know it and every night they cry themselves to sleep wishing they had just one thing with her initials on it and here it is, right under my fingernail, which, I now notice, is packed with dirt so it looks brown. If I knew who EMB was I could let them know it’s here, this last piece of her. Then they could sleep at night.
“Caroline, please see me after class,” Mr. Stanley sighs. “Tommy, what is eighteen divided by nine?” And the class is back to normal for everyone else but me. By recess, I’ll once again be the laughingstock of the school.
Emma is the only one who understands me talking out of turn since she does it, too, sometimes, but when she does it no one picks on her because they know she’ll beat them up after school if they do. Plus she’s pretty, and pretty girls never get into trouble with the other kids. The boys all like them and the girls want to be their friend. So Emma’s got it made. Me, on the other, well I guess I’ll be getting a whole new life out in western North Carolina.
“Would you like to tell me what’s goin’ on, young lady?” Mr. Stanley says to me after everyone’s filed out of the room.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I say. My face still feels hot and I can’t look him in the eye even though Momma’s drilled it into us since we were weensy.
“Now, Caroline,” he says in a voice that sounds like warm doughnuts, “you’ve got a lot of potential. You’re a smart young lady. But you’ve got to apply yourself …”
Apply myself. Apply myself. If one more teacher tells me that, I’ll scream.
“… and then you can write your own ticket …” He’s saying something about college. Apparently he thinks that’s the key to the universe.
“… so you can go now, but remember what we talked about, you hear?”
“Yes, sir,” I say to him over my shoulder, bolting out of the room to my locker so I won’t be late for the next period and I won’t have to have another teacher lecture me.
“Shh, here she comes” is what I hear when I come through the door of Miss Hall’s room. Nothing like hearing that when you’re about to go somewhere you don’t want to be in the first place.
“You better sit quick, Carrie Parker,” Luanne Kibley says, “or Mommy’ll send you to your room without supper.” The class erupts like a volcano; they’ve been waiting for me.
“Did you and Daddy have a nice talk?” Mary Sellers sings to me from over the din.
“Who’s your uncle?” Tommy Bucksmith shouts. “Mr. Streng?” Mr. Streng is our principal. Everyone hates Mr. Streng except maybe Daisy, his one-eyed dachshund who sleeps on a checkered cushion in the corner of his office.
Where is Miss Hall?
The skies have turned black outside—the clouds are ready to break open with water, I can just feel it. I hope it waits till after we’ve gotten home. I know I’m just trying to come up with things to think about other than where I am right now, but can you blame me? When I’m a teacher I’ll show up to class on time, that’s for sure.
“All right, people,” Miss Hall says before she even shuts the door. “Everyone please get out your social studies workbooks and turn to page nineteen. I hope y’all remembered to read this over last night….”
I didn’t. I don’t even remember her telling us to. What else is new?
THREE
Right now I’m in our room with the ceiling that leans in like it’s protecting our beds from the sky. Our room is the best part of the house, but Richard thinks it’s the worst. I suppose I can see his point, because even though it’s only May, it’s hotter than Hades in July and the only window up here has a fan in it that only sucks the air out of the room. When Richard moved in, he stomped up through the house with the boxes from the back of his truck and told us we’d better get on up the stairs with the string that pulls them down from the ceiling. No one’s gonna build our nest for us anymore, he said, so we better start getting used to it. Ever since he called our room the nest, that’s what we call it, too. I didn’t know what was up his sleeve but I went up the stairs first, which is surprising considering how Emma’s normally the brave one. Once we were at the top he pushed the stairs back up—something he still does to this day. Because it’s summer, the hot air in the Nest hits you in the face like the cloud of smelly smoke that shoots out from behind Richard’s truck every time he pulls out from the side of the house. There’s only that one side that you cain’t stand up straight in and that’s where our bed is. Our quilt on the bed we share is patchwork and reminds me of Little House on the Prairie.
The ceiling has a lot of cobwebs and all I can think of is Charlotte and Wilbur in one of my all-time favorite stories about the pig and the spider who get to be friends. I wonder if spiders can really spell like that in their webs. And since these webs are on the high side of the ceiling that’s not where the bed is, I let them stay … until I see a spider dropping down. Emma loves it up here. She knows now that you can’t jump up and down on the bed and it only took her three bruises to figure it out. She likes to put the window fan on and talk into it really slowly, and to tell you the truth I like that, too. At first she wouldn’t go near it because she thought her hair would get pulled off her head, but now she knows to put it in a ponytail and then there’s no risk. She says things like “I hate you, Richard” and “You will die” and “Leave us alone” right into the fan, knowing he cain’t hear a thing because the fan blades chop the air into little pieces and carry her words out and away from the house. I don’t think she cares if he does hear her, anyway, since sometimes, when he lays into Momma real bad, she shouts right into it before it gets itself up to speed.
