Eight Keys (14 page)

I paid attention to what Amanda did the next day.

She squashed my lunch (not a surprise).

She never waited for anyone; people caught up with her. Sometimes, Kate and Lindsay looked panicky when they thought she was heading off without them. That was funny.

She didn’t raise her hand in any class we had together, but she did reply when Mr. Fleming asked her a question. She said, “What makes you think I would know?” What a stellar, polite student. Just what every teacher must dream of. He made her go to the principal’s.

When we had a quiz in language arts, she went to the bathroom and skipped it. Mrs. Wakefield accepted her blank paper into the pile, but I bet she’d give it a zero—I’d watch when we got them back.

In gym, we played volleyball. She wouldn’t even touch the ball when it came to her. The sporty girls looked annoyed, but no one said anything.

And it wasn’t just me and Franklin she called names. I counted at least five other people. Not one did anything back to her.

She seemed completely rotten, but in control. She had started that control on day one by showing that she could be mean to people. No one had the courage to stand up to her, so she could have anything she wanted. She held everyone else in place, beneath her. I was pretty sure that Amanda didn’t have any more to her than I already knew.

Franklin, determined to hate Amanda, didn’t exactly understand what I wanted to learn, but was willing to help. “The problem is,” he whispered to me when we were partners in social studies last period, “that you already know what she’s like at school. If you really wanted to learn something about her, you’d have to be with her somewhere else.”

I nodded. I’d have to do some better sleuthing.

The next day Caroline picked me to be her draft-editing partner in language arts. We had to swap rough drafts, read them, and give each other suggestions.

Caroline likes to get her work done, so I made sure we finished before I started a conversation. I also made sure that Amanda couldn’t hear us.

“What’s going on after school today?” I asked.

“Do you want to hang out?”

“No, I was just wondering what was up. Are … you know … people doing anything?”

“What people?”

“You know, Amanda, Kate, Lindsay …”

“Not today. Amanda gets picked up by her brother a couple days a week and no one hangs out on those days.”

“I didn’t know she had a brother. I’ve never seen her get picked up.”

“She has him meet her on the other side of the soccer field at the lower parking lot.”

I knew the place. A grove of trees and a couple rocks that kids used as benches.

“So what are you doing after school?” Caroline asked me.

“Just getting picked up.”

It wasn’t really a lie; if I stayed to spy on Amanda, I’d eventually have to call home to get a ride.

After last period, I told Franklin I wasn’t going home on the bus. At our locker, Amanda quickly got her things and slammed the door.

“See ya, Scabular.”

I opened the locker and grabbed a couple of books, hoping they were the right ones, and crammed them into my backpack. Then I scooted after her, careful to stay a good distance behind as she left the building.

The soccer field was more challenging because it was a big open space. I decided not to follow Amanda and ran along the school grounds in the other direction instead. I lost sight of her, but when I came out at the lower parking lot, she was waiting there. I stayed hidden in the trees.

It felt mean, spying. But what I wanted to know wasn’t
bad. I was looking for another side of her. Maybe if I saw a side of her that was nice, things would be different at school. Maybe she wouldn’t be so hateable.

Amanda sat on a rock bench, tugging her jean skirt down so her legs wouldn’t touch the cold stone. Her jacket didn’t seem warm enough, because she waited with her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Maybe her feet were cold, too, because she was tapping them even though no one was around to admire her shoes.

Eventually a car full of teenage boys pulled up. Amanda stood, straightened her skirt, and adjusted her backpack on her shoulders.

“Hurry up!” the driver called. Her brother. He had hair in his eyes and a sleepy expression. Jake and Alec looked a lot nicer than he did.

One of the boys in the back was hanging out the window smoking a cigarette. As Amanda approached, he blew smoke at her. “Want one?”

“No,” Amanda said. It sounded like she was trying to make the “no” strong, like she was a little afraid of him.

“Your sister’s an infant,” the boy called to the driver.

“She won’t tell on you, don’t worry,” Amanda’s brother said back. “She’s a—”

He called her something that I knew I wouldn’t be repeating in front of Aunt Bessie, or even Franklin, for that matter. As the boy in the back slid over to make room for Amanda, he called her something even worse.

Amanda looked small. She slammed the car door and her brother started to drive away.

I felt a sinking in my stomach. I didn’t know if Amanda had a nice side or not, but she definitely had a scared side. She had to be with people who treated her badly. I knew what that felt like, thanks to her.

Then my stomach dropped another full roller-coaster-ride level: as the car drove away, Amanda saw me, hiding behind a tree and watching her. Her mouth fell open, but closed quickly into a smirk as she narrowed her eyes at me.

She was saying,
You’re dead meat. Big-time
.

“Do you have any … enemies?” I asked Leonard.

“Well, let’s see,” he said thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “Rehl’s Hardware, across town. Does that count?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Does Rehl’s Hardware bother you every day you come to work? And make it so you’re afraid to come in? And so that you can’t fall asleep at night just thinking about the morning?”

He thought some more. “Just a couple weeks ago, a guy came in with a receipt for a hammer he’d bought here and a sales ad for the same hammer at Rehl’s, and he wanted to know why my hammer cost forty-nine cents more and could he have his forty-nine cents back?”

“Did you give it to him?”

“Yep.”

“And that’s the worst of it?”

“Pretty much. There’s enough people in this town for two hardware stores, so I stay in business, Rehl’s stays in business … things seem okay.”

I was quiet, sitting on the counter. What would Amanda do to me tomorrow?

“What’s the matter, Cricket?” Leonard asked. “Have you made an enemy?”

“No.” I hadn’t done anything wrong, so I hadn’t made her my enemy. She’d picked me out. But this afternoon I’d made things one hundred times worse. Even though I’d seen her a little scared, I was even more scared of her. I was terrified.

In the morning, on the bus, Franklin said, “Lise? Lise? Lise?”

“What?” I jumped.

“What’s the matter?”

“I … I couldn’t do my math homework last night. I forgot my math book.”

Franklin nodded. He took out his own math book, a binder, and a sheet of paper. He fished a pencil out of his constellations pencil case.

“Here.” He handed everything to me.

I could have hugged him. But instead, I whispered what was really wrong: “Amanda’s going to kill me.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “She can’t really. It’s against the law.”

Franklin is too literal sometimes. There were loads of other ways your life could end in middle school.

• • •

Amanda was at our locker. I said, “Good morning.”

“Good morning, buttwipe.” She slammed the door and left.

I hesitated before putting my lunch up on the locker shelf. She hadn’t hung around to smash it.

The morning went okay. Thanks to Franklin, I didn’t get in trouble for not having my math homework. Amanda ignored me.

But at lunch, she and her friends giggled in my direction and headed straight for the cafeteria. That put a funny feeling in my stomach. I walked toward my locker.

On the floor in front of our locker was a big mess. My peanut butter and jelly sandwich was there, smeared across the ground in streaks of purple and brown. And on top of the gooey heap was one of my extra gym sneakers. A piece of paper stuck out of the sneaker, the words visible from several feet away: SCAB SANDWICH.

For a minute, I couldn’t think about anything but the hand-clapping song:
So she made me a scab sandwich … mustard on top … eagle eyeballs … and camel snot …

Then I heard people around me start to laugh. My red face gave away that the sandwich was mine.

“Elise? Elise?”

Caroline.

“I—I need to clean my sneaker,” I stammered. I reached down and freed it from the sticky sandwich. I flipped it
over to see all the grooves filled with goop. I crumpled the note.

In the bathroom, I wet a paper towel and carefully wiped out the rubber ridges of my sneaker.

Caroline came into the bathroom and washed peanut butter off her hands. She must have cleaned up the sandwich. That made me want to cry or hug her, but I concentrated on not being upset. I couldn’t open my mouth, because the lump in my throat was growing bigger and bigger and carrying me dangerously closer to crying.

“Has … anything like this … happened before?” Caroline asked.

I still couldn’t speak, but I nodded. She looked confused as she thought about my answer.

I left the bathroom ahead of her and went to the school-lunch line. I handed over a five-dollar bill and got a tray of soggy veggies, a small pizza with more dry sauce than cheese, and a chocolate pudding cup. I brought the tray to the table where Franklin was sitting.

“Elise!” he said. “You’re late. Why do you have school lunch?”

I still couldn’t talk. I tore off a bit of pizza and put it into my mouth, chewing carefully.

“What happened?” Franklin asked.

I didn’t answer. I watched Caroline walk into the cafeteria, head over to the table with Amanda and her friends, and sit down.

I Wonder Whether Grown-Ups Understand at All

When I got home, Ava was the only person I wanted to be with. She was the perfect size for holding. She couldn’t ask me what was wrong or whether school had been good. She didn’t react to the fact that I was crying as I held her against me. Babies cry all the time. Crying must not seem like a big deal to them. And she couldn’t offer advice, so I wouldn’t have to explain why the advice wouldn’t work. Or admit that it was good advice and find the courage to go through with it. She just let me feel sad until I was done crying.

Annie came into the room.

“Elise?” she asked. “Um, Cricket, honey?”

I didn’t answer. She left and came back with Uncle Hugh. Annie gently lifted Ava from me. The baby made a noise, but Annie shushed her and pressed a pacifier past her lips.

“What’s wrong?” Uncle Hugh smoothed the loose hair off my forehead.

I started crying again. Uncle Hugh held me, just like I had been holding Ava.

• • •

“Every day for three months someone at school has tried to ruin your lunch?”

We were all at the dinner table, with Ava asleep in her carrier seat on the floor. Bow-tie mac-and-cheese, pork chops, peas, applesauce. But no one had touched the food.

“Yep.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Aunt Bessie said.

I shrugged.

“Where does this happen?” Uncle Hugh asked. “In the cafeteria?”

“In our locker.”

“Why don’t you just not leave your lunch there? Or get a hard plastic lunch box?”

“Well, one, there’s just as much chance of it getting squished if I carry it around or keep it in my backpack all day.

“Two, I have a right to be able to keep things safely in my locker.

“Three, because I don’t want to have a baby lunch box.

“And four, if someone really wants to wreck your food, they can just open the lunch box.”

“That’s true.” Uncle Hugh got a cold cream soda and handed it to me. “You do have a right to use your own locker. You know what to do when someone isn’t treating you well at school, right?”

Punch? Kick? Bite?

“Tell a grown-up,” I answered.

Aunt Bessie nodded. “You can always tell a grown-up.”

“You
can’t
,” I said. “Then you get in more trouble with the other kids. It isn’t cool.”

“There are more important things,” Uncle Hugh said. “Like being able to eat your lunch. Like feeling safe and comfortable at school every day.”

How do you explain to your uncle that being cool and feeling safe and comfortable at school were really the same thing?

“Besides, I told a teacher a couple times, and she didn’t really care.”

“Well, why didn’t you tell
us
?”

“I didn’t want to talk about Amanda at home. I try not to
think
about Amanda at home.”

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell us,” Uncle Hugh said.

I didn’t say anything. Why would I be expected to talk about something that made me look like such a loser? Why would I want to bring that feeling home?

“Please eat some dinner.” Aunt Bessie picked up her fork. “You haven’t had enough to eat today. You might feel better.”

I cut off a tiny bite of pork chop, moved the meat to my mouth, and chewed it.