The Sacrificial Daughter (6 page)

"Where the nurse's office is?" The teacher interrupted. "It's the front desk. Mrs. Daly is both the receptionist and the nurse." Jesse's mouth came open at this, which made the economics teacher smile sourly. "Budget cuts, you know."

She knew.

Despite the knowledge she would have an unexcused absence from class on her very first day—Jesse was certain Mrs. Daly would never give her a note this time—she almost enjoyed her AP world history class.

Because of her confrontation with Amanda and her brief conversation with Mr. Irving she walked in just as the late bell sounded. Again the weight of every eye sat full upon her. Twenty-three students and one tall bowling pin shaped teacher stared at her as if she was some sort of nasty specimen under a microscope.

"In the future I would appreciate it if you are in your seat when the bell sounds Miss..."

"Jesse Clarke," she answered and she noted that his eyes held no surprise, no shock. He knew exactly who she was; he only wanted her to have to say her name aloud for the rest of the class to hear...just in case any of them didn't know already.

"Take a seat, Miss Clarke." He wasn't at all pleasant sounding.

There were four empty chairs in the back of the class and one in particular caught her attention...it sat apart from the rest; just like the chair in the next room which the Ghost had taken.

Did he have this class earlier in the day, and was this his chair? Why was it pushed back...away from the others? Intrigued, she immediately went to it and slid in. This caused a stir among the students. Eyes flicked back and whispers ran about the room like a cold draft on a winter day. Even Mr. Johnson's face puckered at her choice of seats, yet he said nothing.

All of this had Jesse wondering what she had done wrong and with a growing sense of unease, she eyed the other students. Some looked back at her with anger or hate and this she was so used to it was neither here nor there to her. However, some of the kids looked back with a touch of nervousness in their bearing. One girl even seemed to shudder slightly after sneaking a peek.

What was going on?

A very unsettling thought made Jesse go stiff in her chair: perhaps the boy she thought of as the Ghost was diseased! Maybe that was why no one wanted to go near him and why his chair sat so far apart. He was probably dying of some sort of communicable sickness: a flesh eating virus, or herpes, or AIDS! 

A shiver ran up her back and she pulled her arms close into her sides afraid to touch the very desk she sat in. Surreptitiously, Jesse took a peek at the next closest desk; it appeared clean enough, so she decided to move. Yet with half the class still darting glances back at her it seemed oddly far away and she knew that moving would cause another wave of whispering and likely some cruel giggles as well. No matter, she would just have to chance it; the alternative, staying in a germ-infested chair made her want to rub her exposed arms and wash her hands with bleach.

Thinking she would be slick about it and move once Mr. Johnson turned to the blackboard, she slid her bag off the desk and pivoted in her chair. She was already to abandon the desk when her hand felt something odd. Her head came around and she stared at the wood of her desk.

ALONE

This one word, five inches long and two inches wide, was carved in a rough way, very deeply into the top of the desk. It grabbed her attention and held it; the word seemed as though it was a personal message just for her. She
was
alone, more alone than anyone had a right to be. It had been nine years since she had a proper friend, not since Cynthia White moved to New York during the fourth grade. From that point on the closest thing to a friend that she could boast about were a number of very short-lived acquaintances that died under the power of the herd mentality of small town life.

Abruptly, her self-pitying thoughts were interrupted by a mental image of the Ghost as he drifted through the halls. He had been ignored in the most dreadful fashion as if he were a true and actual spirit instead of a boy. Every eye had slid off him as though he had been visually greased. Every head had turned away at his approach. Indeed, every person looked to have been repelled in some invisible manner, much like the wrong ends of two magnets.

"Wow," the word was as quiet as death. In all her years as
the hated one
, Jesse didn't think it was possible for another human to be as lonely as she was, but now she knew better. That boy didn't even have the luxury of being loathed. He was nothing. If he died in the hall she was sure that the other kids would simply walk around his body as if her were a puddle of something unpleasant.

Her need to change desks left her as her curiosity bloomed and her mind raced over reasons why a person could be so intentionally overlooked. Now that her thinking cap was on it was clear to her that the boy wasn't diseased—there would've been more precautions taken than merely just setting him slightly apart. Yet there was something about him, something distinctly unusual, but what?

She racked her brains for an answer as Mr. Johnson droned on about civil disobedience, a topic that he had declared right off the bat was not going to be on the coming final. When he did this the entire class, including Jesse, promptly tuned him out.

It wouldn't have mattered what he was talking about to Jesse, her mind was on the Ghost. Maybe the boy was a criminal? Someone dangerous.

No, that couldn't be it either. He wouldn't be in school if he was a danger to others
, her voice of reason explained.

Right. Then maybe he had some sort of mental phobia of being looked at? Her lips turned down at the thought. People were strange, it was true...but would
everybody
in the school be so helpful as to not look at him? That was so unlikely that she dumped the phobia angle in a flash.

Eventually, after discarding every possible reason for the shabby treatment of the Ghost, including him being a secret agent, or him having such horrid bad breath as to cause immediate vomiting if one strayed too close, Jesse gave up. In her mind there wasn't anything that would justify such cruel behavior.

With the class half over, she took to day dreaming about the boy while running her finger along the rough edge of the carved out word. How someone as cute as the Ghost could be ignored by the girls of the school was just beyond her...

"Crap," she hissed out the word. A splinter had slid up beneath her fingernail and lodged there. The pain for such a small thing was intense and it hurt as much coming out as it did going in. Sucking on her wounded finger, she took a closer look at the carven word. The once tan wood of the desk had been stained a blue-black which suggested the Ghost had used a pen to carve with, and this brought up the question: How long would it take someone to do this? Months?

Had the Ghost started engraving the word
ALONE
on his first day as a senior? And were there more desks like this all over the school? She could picture a much smaller version of the Ghost as a freshman, sitting in the back of a classroom, scraping at the wood, day after day...alone.

She shook her head, saddened by the fact that she had found a person more deserving of pity than herself. It was then she made another discovery. There were more, much smaller, carvings running down the edge of the desk:

S.B.

G.M.J.

J.O.

R. M.- K. M.- N.M.-?

M.C.

Another mystery. They were likely the initials of people the Ghost knew. Actual friends of his perhaps? Maybe people he could talk to outside of school? Possibly they were even the initials of his past...or present girlfriends. This last thought brought out a little
humph
sound from her throat.

No, not girlfriends. Any boy that would carve out the word
ALONE
like that wouldn't have a string of girlfriends at his beck and call. This was something else entirely, but with so little information at her disposal there was no way she could guess at it. Instead she decided to simply ask the source.

Taking a piece of paper from her notebook, she wrote:

Hello,

My name is Jesse Clarke. I'm the girl who tapped you on the shoulder in the lunch-line. I don't mean to be pushy, but I don't really know anyone here at Ashton High and I could use a friend. You seem to be in the same boat. Would you like to sit together at lunch tomorrow? You could tell me all about the wonders of the town of Ashton and for the other 59 minutes, you can tell me something about yourself, ha-ha. Hopefully I will see you then.

Jesse

She grimaced slightly at the ha-ha part, but kept it in anyways. The boy looked like he could use even that pathetic touch of humor. Making sure that no one was looking, she slipped the paper deep into the desk.

Next she took out her pencil and with slow movements, so as not to draw attention to herself, she traced a faint circle around the word
ALONE
and then left a fine line from it leading to the initials. Here she wrote
J.C.-in desk
.

She contemplated adding a heart under her initials, but didn't, since it would just look so desperate on her part. Though in fact she was desperate. Dreadfully so. Embarrassingly so.

The closest Jesse had ever come to a kiss in her entire life came during a fight with a boy named Mike Cuflin two years before. Their faces had inadvertently smashed together and her lips had swelled to twice their normal size. He had also copped a free feel getting up off of her. It was the high point of her dating history.

Still, the Ghost was likely just as desperate...maybe even more so. From books and movies, as well as what she overheard…when nobody had a clue that she was lurking about, Jesse knew that boys had needs. Maybe the idea of her and the Ghost weren't so farfetched after all.

She smiled.

"Miss Clarke, could you please tell me what it is about African-Americans being denied the right to vote, that could possibly make you smile?" Mr. Johnson said in a voice that carried to the back of the room easily.

"Uh..."

"That's what I thought you'd say." Mr. Johnson said in reply to the bewildered little sound that slipped from Jesse's mouth. "If you aren't going to pay attention in class then you will just have to learn at home. See me after the bell so we can discuss the topic of your five page essay that you will hand in tomorrow."

The titters of her classmates drowned out her weak reply of, "Yes sir." The rest of the class was over with quickly and Jesse was sure she knew what was coming. Mr. Johnson would dither about in an attempt to make her late for her final class and this he did, though he wasn't quite so effective at being an ass as he thought he was.

She stood by his desk with a bored expression as he pretended to contemplate what her assignment was going to be. Slowly he flipped through pages of a textbook and said, "Maybe...maybe...maybe."

Jesse only rolled her eyes as the minutes ticked away. She took to staring at the clutter on the History teacher's desk. There was a tiny replica of a cannon from some yester-year war. Facing it was a four-inch tall cavalryman standing up in his stirrups and brandishing a saber. Mostly, however, the desk was simply a place where papers of every sort came to spawn. The top of his desk was layered like leaves on a forest floor, while from the drawers papers poked and peeked and slipped from every crack.

"How...bout...we just go with five pages on..." he spoke slowly, drawing it out. "On Rosa Parks."

"Huh?" Her mind was not on his words, but rather on a picture that she had just noticed amidst the disorder. It showed a smiling thirteen-year-old blonde boy, posing with a tremendous pumpkin in his scrawny arms. Jesse knew the boy was thirteen by doing simple math. At the top of the picture, in gold lettering, were the words:

Gregory Matthew Johnson 1993-2006

Was this his son? Suddenly she found that she was unable to be too angry at the history teacher. "Rosa Parks? Sure I can do five pages. That's no problem." The words came out sounding almost as though she would be doing him a favor by writing the essay. This caused Mr. Johnson to look up at her, but she didn't notice her eyes hadn't strayed from the picture.

He looked at it also and said in a voice that would be the kindest that she heard that day, "You better get going. You don't want to be late."

Jesse made it to her last class on time, beating the bell for the first time that day, yet she did it only by seconds. Before she knew what was happening her AP Biology teacher began barking out directions to the class concerning their current lab assignment, only he was going so fast that he sound like auctioneer. An auctioneer speaking a foreign language.

Jesse's head spun with how quick everything was suddenly moving in the room. She didn't even know what table she was supposed to be sitting at, and who, if anybody was going to be her lab partner. Kids seemed to be everywhere. Some milled about chatting; others shot about in hurry, criss-crossing the room gathering supplies as if time was against them.

"Mr... uh...," Jesse consulted her schedule quickly. "Mr. Daniels...excuse me?"

The class had only just started, but the man was already in a sweat. He had a wide mouth with large down turned lips; his over-all impression reminded Jesse of a toad.

"Yes, what do you... oh, Clarke, right?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes that's right. Can you tell me where I should be? All the tables are so...full." Oddly enough, just at that moment the chaos of the room seemed to dissipate and milling teens all looked to have found their seats. Now she could see that there was an empty table right in the front of the class and a table in the back corner at which sat a solitary figure.

A very cute, apple-cheeked solitary figure.

Mr. Daniels considered her question, looking around the room. His eyes passed over the lonesome boy in the back. "I'm sorry, but everyone seems to be paired up already. You had better just take this desk." They were at the front of the room and he gestured to the empty table at her elbow.

"But..." she hesitated for just a second, uncertain. Should she ask about the boy? Mr. Daniels seemed nice enough, maybe he would explain to her why there was so much strange behavior associated with the Ghost? "Why is that..." Too late. She had hesitated a second too long and before she knew it, he was on the other side of the class and she was just standing there with her mouth open.

At least he hadn't been purposely rude about walking away from her, which for Jesse was a first. Rather Mr. Daniels seemed all in a bother. He didn't look capable of
not
fretting. He seemed to act as though everything in the lab was made of eggshells and he repeated the words:
be careful with that
and
hold it gently, don't be so rough
, every minute or so as he scurried around the room.

As Jesse wasn't currently a threat to his lab—since she was just standing there clueless to what was going on in the class—she was ignored by the teacher. And by her classmates in general as well, which was another first for the day. They all seemed preoccupied with glass vials, syringes, and most oddly, disgusting pinky-thick earthworms. They squiggled about themselves in a plastic bucket that sat way too close to her.

Though she wasn't girly-girl squeamish about worms or spiders and things of that nature, Jesse was definitely not a fan. Feeling her throat go tight, she stepped away from the bucket and back toward the table she had been assigned to.

"Mr. Daniels?"

The teacher was shooting by in a hurry and replied, "Just a second," after he had already passed. Great.

"How bout I just sit here looking stupid," she said under her breath. With a long sigh, Jesse took a seat and as she had nothing better to do she took to observing, in the most unobtrusive manner, the other kids around her.

They were an average looking lot. It was as though she had seen them all before in other tired, dying towns. Their clothes were fading or had already faded and were worn through. Some of the kids had on clothes a size too big and were most certainly hand-me-downs, which was expected. These were the children of the parents whose town was disintegrating around them. Jobs were drying up fast in Ashton and money even faster.

For the most part she recognized their faces from her earlier classes. None did so much as smile in her direction. Glares were the order of the day...except of course from her Ghost.

"Here you go," Mr. Daniels said handing her a thick stack of papers.

"Can I ask you a question about..." As she spoke her hand came up to point at the Ghost. "That boy..."

Mr. Daniels interrupted, putting a hand over her pointing finger and gently pushing it down. "No, you may not. This is Biology class. If you have a question about science, I will most certainly answer it. But about boys...no."

"Sure, sorry." Jesse felt the pink slip into her cheeks. "About the class then...what are we doing?"

"Cellular respiration. Have you read over the lab outline yet?" he asked seeming to have forgotten that he had just handed it to her.

"No, you just gave it to me."

"Oh right. Well, you and your partner...I mean, you...look why don't you start by reading over the outline and if you have any questions I'll get back to you."

In the end she did and he didn't.

The outline might as well have been written in Latin and she couldn't make heads or tails of it. Within minutes her hand went up, but Mr. Daniels was so engrossed with a student that he didn't notice. Everyone else did however and their sniggering made her hand feel heavy and she soon dropped it in defeat.

"Let's see...Kreb cycle...C6 H12 O6 + O2 TO 6 CO2 + 6 H2O + ENERGY. Huh?" She mumbled, shaking her head at the spew of random seeming letters and numbers. What was this trying to say? The outline was filled with words that she didn't know or had never seen before: autotropes, glycolysis, respirometer...on and on.

If only she had a biology textbook, or better yet, a partner, then she could figure out what it was all about. The one takeaway that was obvious from the paperwork was that the lab was definitely a two-person job. A quick glance around showed everyone else working with another person...except again the Ghost.

For a long time Jesse watched him and never once did he glance up. He ignored with a precise equality in the fashion that he was ignored. In solitude, he worked as if there was a veil about him, so that he was virtually invisible to everyone but her. Strange...yet intriguing as well.

After a few minutes of staring, Jesse had to admit to herself that she was drawn to the Ghost. Not just physically, though he was a cutie, he was also a mystery that she couldn't rid her mind of. And more than that there was an attraction on a different level. She could feel that in some ways they were kindred spirits: she was cruelly hated, while he was ignored and clearly it was just as cruel, if not more so.

She could see no reason why she should ignore him and without the pressure of the other students, there was a chance that he wouldn't hate her. With a deep breath, Jesse grabbed up her bag and her papers and went to the back of the class. In a flash, all eyes...again except for the Ghost's...were upon her and where the students had been busy as bees only seconds before the room grew still. 

It was the longest twelve paces of her life. Each step seemed to dial down the hum and whispering of the students until at last she stood just to the boy's side. Once there the room became so quiet that Jesse could hear her own heart beating in her ears.

Before she spoke, she swallowed. In the quiet of the room it was a surprising loud noise, like she was choking down a strip of tree bark. Yet despite that she greeted him with a pleasant enough, "Hello."

The Ghost didn't stir. He had been reading his lab overview and his eyes went on running over the lines as if he hadn't heard her. Behind Jesse someone snorted in muffled laughter, she forced herself not to look back. Instead she tried again.

"I'm Jesse Clarke...we met in the lunch line?"

Really they hadn't exactly, but his lack of response was killing her confidence. It would be a surprise to some that after the day she'd had that she would have any confidence left at all. In truth it was a fraction of her normal outlook. She was painfully aware of the partially covered stain on the front of her white shirt. Moreover, she knew that her "Barbie" look had suffered a serious degradation as her day had descended into hell.

In spite of all this, she knew that she was still prettier than most. Jesse was also smart and personable and had it not been for her father she could've been popular.

One more attempt, "Excuse me..."

Nothing. The boy went on reading. Now her smile was like a sputtering dying engine. It rose and fell on her lips trying to maintain itself as she stood ignored by the boy. "Excuse me..." she craned her neck around to read the top of his paper "...Excuse me Ky. Do you mind if sit here?"

He turned slightly toward her and her smile, which really did wonders for her face, lit up, though only briefly. He didn't even glance at her, instead he looked down his microscope.

Whispering, interspersed with quiet laughter began behind her, which finally killed her smile for good. Now she was angry. For some reason being snubbed by this boy made her more angry than she had been all day. Here was the one kid in school who was worse off than her yet even this loser wouldn't give her the time of day.

"What's your problem?" she demanded in a carrying voice. The room quieted at once, but Jesse didn't care. What did it matter to her if she was quiet or not? The other students could hear everything regardless if she whispered. They could see her humiliation. Her joke of a life was on display as always.

"Excuse me!" Mr. Daniels called out. He hurried forward from the other side of the room but stopped when he was still ten feet from her. "Excuse me Miss Clar... I mean..." Strangely he seemed reluctant to say her name and he ended just pointing at her and then at the table she had recently vacated. "...Uh... why don't you... come back to this table."

"Fine by me," she replied through gritted teeth. In a fury she went back to her table and flopped into her chair. Now Mr. Daniels came over to her and for once he wasn't overly concerned with his classroom.

He spoke to her, but didn't look down at her, instead he stood facing an equation-filled chalkboard, "I think you need to leave that boy alone and respect his privacy. Can you do that?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about that," she replied and meant every word. She had given him his chance and he wouldn't get another. She had given the entire school a chance and it could burn to the ground with everyone in it for all she cared.

For the remainder of the class she stewed in her anger and whenever Mr. Daniels came by she glanced at her outline. In her emotional state—a combination of hate for everyone around her and apathy for school in general—the words on the paper were simply beyond her. All she cared about was being rid of the school as fast as possible. When the final bell rang she was first out of her chair and first to the door.

"Miss Clarke," Mr. Daniels called from behind.

"Mother-pus-bucket!" she hissed under her breath. What now?

The teacher held out to her the outline on cellular respiration that she had been given. "You left your lab work on the table."

"Thanks," she said and then turned to book it out of there. He wasn't done speaking, however.

"I want you to have this read by tomorrow...I know it looks complicated, but it really isn't." She dipped her head as way of acknowledgement and turned once more...and once more he began to speak. "Oh, your text book!" He spun about and scurried to a deep cabinet.

"Oh goody," Jesse murmured, once more in sotto voce. When he withdrew his head from the enclosure in his hands was a heavy textbook. "Thanks," she said, trying to sound appreciative. Her miserable life wasn't his fault after all.

In keeping with his frantic teaching pace, he barely acknowledged her words with a smile that looked inharmonious on his toad-face. He was then back to bustling about, putting his lab back in its exact order. With a final glance at the Ghost, who was placidly putting away his lab paraphernalia, Jesse left. She had a school bus to catch...or so she thought.