Part 5 (1/2)

”I had to come early,” I said aloud, ”so I could go to the library and finish my civics paper.” I had never lied to Maureen before. I waited for her to see through my flimsy alibi.

”Oh,” she said, believing me. How could she believe me? Something inside me was jumping up and down, waving its arms, and yelling, ”It's not true, it's not true!” I looked back into my locker so she wouldn't see it. Locker doors were banging all around. ”Let's go,” she said.

”We're going to be late,” whinnied Glenna. ”You guys go ahead,” I said. ”I'll catch up in a minute.”

I kept moving things around in the bottom of my locker. Then I stood up and moved things around in the top of my locker. A large lump was in my throat, and I hoped I wouldn't have to speak to anyone. The din of the hallway quieted behind me. Cla.s.sroom doors clicked shut, sealing in the clatter and the racket, putting the lids on jars filled with bees.

I was still standing there in front of my locker. I couldn't seem to move. I studied the pictures taped inside. There was a mirror taped inside, too, and I looked into it. I tucked my hair behind my ears and put on some lip gloss. Since I still seemed to have the use of my arms, I crossed them in front of me to hold myself together. It was starting to look as if I might stand there all day when I heard footsteps approaching, footsteps with authority. I thought I should act busy, but my locker was in perfect order now, and I hesitated. The footsteps stopped a few feet away. I grabbed a book and closed the door. I saw that it was the wrong book, and I had to fumble through my combination and open the door again. Whoever it was, was still there. I s.h.i.+fted the rearview mirror and looked right into the green-shadowed, black-rimmed, blue mascaraed brown eyes of Miss Epler, the new English teacher with the crooked nose and the perfect, freshly bleached Sa.s.soon haircut.

”Are you okay, Debbie?” she asked.

I nodded. Miss Epler clip-clopped over and stood next to me. Even in platform shoes, she was shorter than I was.

”Are you sick?” she asked.

I shook my head, still looking straight ahead at the neat stack of books.

”Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

The muscles in my face were trying to seize up, a bucketful of tears was pressing against the backs of my eyes, and working their way up through my windpipe were some heaving sobs, which I knew would be loud and embarra.s.sing. I gave a tiny shrug, and one of the sobs escaped, sounding like a heavy piece of furniture being dragged across the floor.

Miss Epler put her hands on my shoulders. ”Come on,” she said. ”I have a free period.”

She gently closed my locker door and led me down the hall. She left me outside the teachers' lounge and returned in a minute with a bag of corn chips and two bottles of Squirt. ”This is probably not very nutritious,” she said, ”but there's not much choice in there.”

We sat on the front steps of the school. Miss Epler ripped open the bag of chips and started crunching, but when she noticed I wasn't eating any, she tried to m.u.f.fle her crunching. Then she stopped, licked the salt from her fingers, and took a sip of her Squirt.

”So, what's up?” she said. ”Let me guess. Boys. You had a fight with your boyfriend.”

”No,” I said. ”I don't have one.”

”Good for you, you're better off,” she said. ”I don't have one either, but that's another story. Let's see ... not a boyfriend. Hmm ... Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

I thought for a moment. ”Is slime mold an animal or a vegetable?” I asked.

”Slime mold?” she repeated. ”Your locker didn't look that bad to me. I've seen a lot worse.”

”Not my locker,” I said. ”A person.”

”Aaahhh,” she said. ”A person. Then animal, of course. But I'm pretty sure that mold is vegetable, so you need to pick a different a.n.a.logy.”

”Snake,” I said. ”No-worm.”

”Wow,” said Miss Epler. ”Does this person have any good qualities?”

”No,” I said. It felt very good to say it, but I knew it might not be completely fair. I didn't want to be fair, but in case G.o.d or anyone was listening, I added, ”Some people think she does.”

”Some people think she does,” said Miss Epler. ”That's good. Some objectivity.” She took another chip and went on. ”Now we can come back in a minute to how c.r.a.ppy this person is, but just for the sake of objectivity: What are the good qualities that some people think she has?”

This was one of those questions that English teachers like to ask, like: What three things would you take with you into the nuclear holocaust? Or, who should get off the lifeboat, you or Mahatma Gandhi? I wasn't in the mood for it right now, but with the promise of tras.h.i.+ng Glenna just ahead, I sc.r.a.ped together the few nonnegative qualities of hers that I could think of.

”She's punctual,” I said. ”And clean. And neat.”

”Hmm,” said Miss Epler. ”Punctual, clean, and neat. What else?”

I didn't feel like playing this game anymore. I said, ”She took my friend away from me. I don't like her.”

”Okay,” said Miss Epler. ”I see.”

The air was humid and heavy and crammed with the grating sounds of jackhammers, bulldozers, and cement mixers from Birdvale. They were building a 650-foot-high smokestack at the power plant, so that the fly ash would float farther away before settling to the earth and landing on someone else's town.

”You know,” said Miss Epler, ”maybe this person didn't take your friend away from you.”

”Yes, she did,” I shot back.

”Maybe partly,” she said carefully. ”But at least partly it was your friend who left. All by herself. I just think that if you're going to be angry, you should be angry at the right person.”

It was my friend who left.

All by herself.

A black pit opened inside me, and I fell in. I fell and I fell.

When I stopped falling, my face and my hands and my knees were warm and wet with tears, and the cold stone step I was sitting on was making me numb. I felt Miss Epler's hands squeezing my shoulders, and I heard her murmuring, ”It's okay, it's okay, you're going to be all right, it's okay, I mean, I know it certainly doesn't feel okay right now, but you will be okay.”

My breath was coming in jerky sobs, evening out only to collapse again. Finally, I got my breathing to calm down. In, out, in, out No loud noises. I lifted my head, and my gla.s.ses slid down to the tip of my tear-slicked nose. I dried them with my skirt, then used my sleeve to wipe my face, but I needed something else to blow my nose.

”Here,” said Miss Epler. She handed me some Kleenex. She was watching me with a concerned expression.

”It's a good thing I'm not the guidance counselor,” she said. ”The whole school would be bawling. Everyone would have to wear life jackets.

”Listen,” she said. ”It's almost time for the bell. Let's go in and wash your face.” She took me into the teachers' washroom and put wet paper towels on my face and drops of Visine in my eyes.

”This is how all the stars do it” she said. And then: ”Maybe just a little blusher,” brus.h.i.+ng some pink onto my cheeks. ”You want eye shadow? You would look stunning in lavender, but you have too much on your mind today to be fighting off advances. Let's just use a little concealer to deblotchify you.” I let her pat something around my eyes, her bracelets bangling and clacking together on her arm. She was trying to jolly me up, and her voice was calming, but when she led me to the mirror, I looked like death with rosy cheeks.

”Now, take a deep breath,” she said, ”and if anyone asks, you have hay fever. I think there's still some ragweed out there. And if there isn't, who cares, right?”

I wondered how long this hay fever season would be lasting.

We stepped out of the washroom, and the bell rang.

”Hang in there, kiddo,” said Miss Epler. She gave my arm another squeeze. ”Are you going to be okay?” I tried to smile but didn't even come close. I felt tears welling up again.

”You are,” she said. ”You are absolutely going to be okay. Okay? I'll see you sixth period.”

The wave of voices and footsteps swelled and burst through the cla.s.sroom doors into the hallway. I let myself be carried back to my locker, where I messed up the combination three times before getting it right. I slipped back into the current that was pulsing up the stairs and ejected myself into life science cla.s.s. For once I was grateful that alphabetical order kept me on the far side of the room from where Maureen and Glenna would sit.