Amalee (7 page)

“I deserve it,” I said. There was silence, broken only by my dad turning an oversize page in his room.

“Amalee, you could have killed her!” Phyllis exclaimed. “Please tell me it was an accident.”

“It was,” was all I could say.

John liked to say, “Merciful God,” but right now, I was grateful to Merciful Phyllis. She relaxed a little, as if I'd given her enough information, when I knew she wanted more of an explanation.

“How can I keep this from Dad?” I asked.

Phyllis shuffled the papers back into the envelope. “Here it is. I came up with a plan. I called him from the office today. He's going to sign a form saying that I can give you permission to do things. Dr. Nurstrom will sign it, too. Your dad thinks this is about permission slips to go to the city with your class and stuff like that. You can stay with Carolyn while you're being suspended. She's at home applying for jobs next week.”

“What jobs?” I asked.

“Haven't you heard? Carolyn wants to work at a gardening store. I don't know what happened here last Friday, but she got very excited about planting things and landscaping and medicinal herbs. She keeps on saying she knows this will make people happy.”

I couldn't help smiling a little.

“I can drive you home after detention most days of the week,” Phyllis continued. “Usually, I stay late at school anyway.”

“That's really nice of you, Phyllis.”

“I'm more worried about this legal thing,” she said. My stomach sank. “But you know what? Here's the good news, kiddo. I met with the nurse today, and she gave me some information. She said she overheard you saying it was an accident, and she confirmed that Lenore didn't even have a concussion. Things could be worse. Also, I met Lenore's mom once. She brought in a late permission slip. She was perfectly nice.”

After what she'd said about my dad? Yeah, right. I wished I could ask Phyllis about how Mrs. Nielson found out, but then I'd have to tell her everything.

“You really have to tell me what happened,” Phyllis repeated.

What was there to tell? I pushed, and she fell.

I had to finish the week at school. I would fail if I missed two whole weeks.

If it got really bad, I'd hide backstage and listen to the gym classes killing each other at dodgeball.

I almost left after English. Lenore's neck brace was attaching her head to her body, or at least that's how it looked. When she first saw me, she seemed frightened, pointing at me with a trembling finger.

“I'm really sorry, Lenore,” I said.

“My lawyer said you'd say that,” she pouted.

“I brought you some cake and lemonade, with a straw.” I put them on her desk. “Do you need anything? Pen or pencil?”

This is what I knew:
Don't make a bad situation
worse.
I'd prepared myself in the morning, bringing extra things for Lenore.

“It'll be hard to eat cake,” said Lenore, obviously wanting some. “Where do you eat your lunch, anyway?”

I hated to lie again, but there was no way she could find out my hiding place, especially now that the secret was out about my dad. “We don't eat at the same time, remember? A few of the A-team kids eat with the C kids because we're all in the same music class.”

Lenore watched as if all the words were buzzing out of my mouth. She was clearly confused. “That's right,” she murmured.

I looked around and saw Ellen and Hally staring at me with disgust. “Don't talk to me, okay?” said Ellen.

I looked away. Their April Fool's Day joke was so cruel. But they hadn't pushed anyone down the stairs.

I just told myself to keep surviving.

I was prepared for the kids, but not for Ms. Severance. She wouldn't look at me, even when she handed out some photocopies.

I said, “Thank you,” but she said nothing.

I had an unusual thought then. It was a thought that was sticking up for me.

If Ms. Severance read about me in a book, she would
have sympathy for me. We'd already read about a person who shot his best friend, and about an evil king, and a woman who locked her child in a closet. After the class was through saying that each of them should die a terrible death, she'd always smile, hold up a finger, and say, “Now, put yourself in this person's shoes.”

I had used her words with people inside and outside of books. Ellen had dyslexia. She was always embarrassed when the tutor took her out of class. I knew that was part of the reason she'd stolen my books. She liked to watch other people squirm the way she did. When I put myself in her shoes, I wasn't as angry at her. I felt sorrier for her.

Lenore had started wearing a bra in the fourth grade. I knew she felt like a freak. Her mother always made her wear thin white blouses, too, so everyone could see her bras. Everyone could snap her bra strap and run away. She wasn't the only one this happened to, but she didn't seem to notice this. She thought she had to force people to be friends with her. She never let people choose to be her friend, because she was sure they wouldn't.

Was I worse than everyone else? Was I so atrocious that even Ms. Severance refused to walk in my shoes?

I lifted up my chin and looked at Ms. Severance. She caught my eye, and I didn't look away. She lost her place
in a sentence.
Good
, I thought,
if you have a place in your heart for killers and haters, I have to believe you have a place for someone as awful as me.

People yelled things at me in the hall, but no one spoke to me all day, except Mrs. Donaldson, who said, “Amalee, I have a note here that says you should go to the principal at lunchtime.” The whole class turned and looked at me.

Someone said, “Good.” I felt all the hatred in the room focused on me.

Mrs. Donaldson looked like she couldn't care less about the note. She was a gorilla who had lived in the jungle for a long, long time. I stared straight ahead as she started multiplying fractions on the board.

The principal, Mr. Shapiro, told me what Phyllis had already said.

Suspension, detention. He didn't look up. Unlike Phyllis, he didn't want to hear my side of the story, even if I'd had one. He just shook his head and said, “What are things coming to, little girls beating up little girls?” I guess he understood it when little boys fought. Weren't they supposed to punch each other in the jaws and break each other's arms? Actually, I didn't know any boys who had. I was more violent than a boy! Now, who was the freak of nature?

I left Mr. Shapiro, an old, white-haired man, bent over his notes like Father Time recording the long sad history of little girls turning bad.

I didn't see Sarah. Did she go backstage during lunch again? Did she think I didn't want to see her? Maybe she didn't care.

In science, somebody left a note on my desk that said, “You are a mennis to sosiety.” Despite the really bad spelling, I cried a little, but I straightened up before anyone noticed.

Finally, there was social studies. I got there in time. Ms. Severance handed back my test. Something stood out. With a red felt-tip pen she'd written the score, 88. But then in red ballpoint pen, she'd written, “This is very good work, especially without your notes.” I knew it. I could just tell.

She'd gone back this morning and written something nice on my test. She'd put herself in my shoes.

The next day, I wondered if things would start getting better. I saw Hally in the morning.

I said, “Hi,”

She said, “Hi,” and rushed away.

I stood near Ellen at the lockers. All she said was, “I can't believe what you did,” and shook her head, as if she had been my friend once, but not now that I'd betrayed her.

“I'm sorry about it,” I said. “I really am.”

She shook her head again. “I just hope the judge believes you.” She sighed before walking away.

Lenore came in before class. I'd brought her more cake, but she said, “My lawyer says I can't talk to you.”

Ms. Severance said she'd had a migraine headache
last night, and she was still feeling “woozy.” So the day was not off to a good start.

Lenore walked down the hall with Hally and Ellen, which almost made me laugh. Ellen was so desperate to make me feel bad that she was being nice to the girl who annoyed her the most. Then I thought of Lenore telling them about my dad, and I felt clenched up again.

Some boys were behind me. Otherwise, the hall was empty. The girls had gone downstairs. Was it my imagination, or were the boys talking about me?

“Amalee can't go to jail, but her dad can.”

“What about her mom?”

“Her mom ran away. They can't find her.”

I didn't want their sympathy, but I turned and said, “My mother passed away.”

“What, did you push her down the stairs?” asked Jimmy Whitman. The other guys looked a little surprised.

“No,” I said, so shocked that I couldn't think of anything else to say. We were getting close to the stairway.

“Maybe I'll push you down the stairs, just so you know what it feels like.” Jimmy kept on going. The three boys were close behind me.

Tommy Fallon said, “C'mon, Jimmy….”

“C'mon what?” Jimmy turned on Tommy. Then, as I
got to the top of the stairs, he nudged my shoulder. I almost lost my footing.

“You're a psycho!” Jimmy shouted, racing ahead of me down the stairs with the other boys. “Loser!”

I just froze. I didn't care if I made it to math. I wasn't sure I could ever leave this spot.

I heard a voice behind me. “Are you okay?” It was Sarah Smythe.

“Yeah,” I said.

“He's awful,” she said. “He's in my art class. I saw the whole thing.”

When I was silent, she said, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell him to stop.”

I felt the beginning of tears. Was she afraid of me? Could I ask if she wanted to eat lunch backstage again?

“That's okay,” I said. “He's scary. Scary for both of us.”

“Yeah.” She looked uncomfortable, and then she said, “We'd better go to class.”

I felt like I had a remote control in my hand, and I was trying to find the button that would make my legs walk. I started down the stairs, slowly. “Yeah, let's go.” I agreed, trying to sound casual.

“Guess what? I'm going to be in a play,” she said. “I got in.”

“Bye Bye Birdie?”

“Yeah, I'm Kim,” she told me. “It's the lead.”

“Wow! That's great. Congratulations.”

“I thought of you when I was auditioning on the stage. I hope it means you can still eat back there. You know, in the backstage.”

She talked about
me
eating backstage, not
us
. So I guessed that was her answer.

“Oh, don't worry about me!” I assured her.

Every time I sat down and stood up, I had to remember how to make my legs work, how to keep moving through this day. I tried not to think about my dad or kids talking to me about him.

In social studies, I hoped Ms. Severance would smile at me, but she didn't.

And with that, I decided the day had been a complete failure.

 

I was surprised when I got home. Carolyn, Joyce, Phyllis, and John were all sitting at the kitchen table.

“What the hell is going on?” Carolyn wanted to know.

If it were just Carolyn, I might have told her. She was always ready for anything.

“Carolyn!” John moaned. “She's just a kid! Don't ask questions like that! Here, Honey, I made you some orrec
chiette with pesto, and I heated up some eggplant Parmesan.” I guess John forgot I was a kid, considering his menu choice, but then he pushed a plate toward me. “Or do you want to skip right to the cookies?”

“
I'll
skip to the cookies,” Phyllis said.

I couldn't eat. “You're not eating,” Joyce observed. “Amalee, when you can't eat, it usually means that you're ashamed of something, like you feel you don't deserve to eat.”

John said, “Joyce, if you start crying, I might start, too.”

“I can't help it,” she sobbed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “This poor kid. What terrible thing could she have done that she doesn't think she deserves to eat? I'm sorry.” She got up. “I've got to get back to the office anyway. You hang in there, Amalee.” She rushed out to her car.

John got me some pasta, and he, Phyllis, and Carolyn all started picking at it with forks.

After a few minutes of silence, John said, “Well, Ama, far be it for me to pry something out of you. I'm sure whatever you did is not as bad as you think it is.” He got up to go to work and added, “You know, Phyllis and your dad had the same principal as you when they were in middle school. She says your principal is an idiot.”

“John!” Phyllis cried.

“But she can't tell you that, because now she works in his office!”

He laughed and skipped out the door.

“I don't think anyone's an idiot. That's an unkind word,” Phyllis told me and Carolyn.

“But do you like him?” Carolyn asked, not realizing, as I did, that Phyllis was trying to be a role model.

Phyllis looked at me, and then at Carolyn.

“The principal is very good at …” she started. “I mean, his intentions are …”

Wow. She couldn't even think of something nice to say about his intentions.

“He believes that obedience and order are very important.” She shot me a look, “And they
are,
of course. It's just that sometimes things are out of order and I believe — this is just me — that it's valuable to ask
why
they're out of order, rather than just forcing everything back
into
order.” She looked miserable.

Carolyn asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, here's an example,” Phyllis pressed on. “We've had budget cuts, which means when the middle school got more students, we had to hold some classes in those drafty outside rooms we rented.” I could see Phyllis starting to get upset as she explained. “Suddenly, I noticed a
lot more students going to the principal because they were always late or caught running more than once. Some of them even had skinned knees!”

Hey! Phyllis knew what I thought only the kids knew, that our school was too big for us to get anywhere on time.

She continued, “Clearly these kids were late because they didn't have time to get to class! That made me upset. You'd think Al Shapiro would poke his nose out of his office, or maybe just care enough to ask students why they were always late, but you know what his explanation was? He just thought the kids were getting lazy. I mean, it didn't even occur to him to get more information!”

Carolyn snorted. “Is he one of those guys who says that American kids are slower and fatter than they used to be?”

Phyllis groaned. “Basically, yes. He's believed that ever since I was in school, and he's only gotten worse.” Then she widened her eyes. “Oh, Amalee. He's a good man, don't get me wrong.”

“I won't tell on you,” I promised her.

“Oh, no, it's not that,” Phyllis protested. “Well, maybe it is.”

“I won't say a word,” I repeated. “But I agree with you.”

Carolyn looked at me. “So your principal doesn't understand kids, and you've got some whiner going around pretending she's going to sue you. John's right. Phyllis said all this to us, even if she won't admit it to you. That's what Phyllis said.”

“Oh, Carolyn, honestly …” Phyllis said. “Look, let's give Lenore a break. She's just a kid.”

“So is Amalee!” Carolyn shot back. “The nurse said this kid was fine, so what is this lawsuit thing about? She's threatening Amalee! Whose side are we on, anyway?”

“Maybe she feels threatened by Amalee,” Phyllis suggested quietly.

“Oh, c'mon, Phyllis, we know this was an accident,” Carolyn answered.

“Well then
she
should tell us,” Phyllis said, looking at me.

“It doesn't matter if it's an accident. She is going to sue me,” I said.

They both stopped and looked at me.

“Tell us what happened,” Carolyn pressed.

“No.”

“Tell us,” she said.

“No.”

“It can't be that bad.”

“No!”

She took a breath. “When I was ten, I left my little sister in the car. My mother told me to stay with her, but I wanted a chocolate bar, so I went into the grocery store where my mother was shopping, and I bought one. It was the summer. I left the windows rolled up almost all the way, and my sister really, truly almost died. Okay? Now tell us what happened.”

Well, that was awful. Should I tell them?

Suddenly, Phyllis jumped in. “Amalee, I kicked your dad in the shins when I was twelve, because I had a crush on him and he was being mean. He had to go to the hospital. I guess I kicked him harder than I thought. I was nervous,” she added, still defending herself.

“Pretty mean,” said Carolyn.

“You almost killed your sister! For chocolate!” Phyllis protested.

“I pushed Lenore down the stairs!” I shouted, interrupting them. “She hit her head! I heard it. It was awful.”

“Aha, okay, was it on purpose?” Carolyn asked immediately.

“Of course not. I pushed her, but I didn't even do that on purpose.”

“Why did you push her?” Phyllis asked.

“Because she wanted me to sleep over at her house.”

“And?” Carolyn wanted more.

“And I'd already said I couldn't, and she wouldn't stop asking.”

“So you were annoyed, and that's why you pushed her?” Phyllis asked.

“Well, I was already upset, because Ellen and Hally had stolen my notebooks as an April Fool's joke.”

“Not funny,” Carolyn observed. “Go on.”

“And I was really upset about it, and then Lenore wouldn't leave me alone, and then she said this thing.”

I paused for a moment. I didn't want to repeat Lenore's words.

“What thing?” Phyllis asked suspiciously. “What thing did she say, Amalee?”

“This thing where she said her mom said … that I should be grateful to go over to their house since Dad is … is … dying.”

There. I told them. I started crying.

“Did she just say what I think she said?” Carolyn asked Phyllis. “It sounds like Mrs. Nielson said that David was dying, and Lenore said it to Amalee. I guess Mrs. Nielson found out somehow. I know John was at the bank last week. He might have told her,” Phyllis said, sighing.

“So, John gave her the news, but then she told her
daughter? No way!” Carolyn exclaimed. She and Phyllis were both so upset, they didn't even get up to put their arms around me, which was fine. If they hugged me, I'd have to pretend that I didn't feel so alone.

“I don't know about Mrs. Nielson, but that Lenore is a mean child!” Carolyn stormed, on the verge of tears — something I'd never seen. “Are you sure you didn't push her on purpose? I would have!”

“Look, it wasn't okay what she said,” I explained, trying to stop crying. “But I've been avoiding her all year. I've been walking around letting everyone think I don't like them and not saying anything when people are mean to people I like. I've been awful.”

“Wait a minute, Amalee,” Phyllis said, stopping me. “Are you saying you deserve what she said, because you think you're a bad kid?”

“Um, yeah. That's why I didn't want anyone to know about Dad. I knew they'd get back at me for …”

“For what?” Phyllis asked impatiently.

“For changing. I used to be nicer.”

Phyllis tried to disagree. “People won't punish you for that. Sweetheart, I don't know why Lenore would say something so mean —”

“Because she's the devil,” suggested Carolyn.

“Stop it, Carolyn! Amalee, you shouldn't expect people to be so cruel.”

“But they have been. It's true,” I explained. It was the simple truth.

“This is so upsetting,” Carolyn said. “First of all, your dad's not going to die, but we've been on pins and needles about him. I can't believe someone would make you
more
worried.” She pounded the table in exasperation. “We've been tiptoeing around, saying, ‘What about Amalee? Should we talk to Amalee? Is David going to talk to Amalee?' And this kid just waltzes in and says, ‘Do what I want you to do or I'll tease you about your sick dad.' We should have pulled you out of school. I would have given you painting lessons.”

“We've been a little worried about you,” Phyllis confessed.

I started crying again. They had been worried about me? They knew I was having a hard time, and I didn't even have to tell them. They'd been watching out for me.

For once, Carolyn talked to me as if I were more her daughter than a friend. “We're sorry, Amalee,” she said. “We're sorry that we haven't insisted on talking to you about your dad. The thing is, we don't know what to say, and we told Joyce not to get too … you know, like a therapist. But, well, I feel like a jerk. We should have insisted
that you tell us how you were feeling! We should have taken care of you better.”