Before, After, and Somebody In Between (15 page)

I jerk away, sickened by the touch of the cold metal, remembering what I heard that awful night—
right through the chest, poor thing.
Ripping bullets. Exploding glass. Bubby sleeping with his sock monkey, lashes fluttering in his sleep… “I can’t. I can’t shoot it!”

“You ain’t gotta shoot it. Just stick it in his face.” He pushes it at me again, and this time I take it with quivering fingers. “Remember what you told me a while back? How you’d never let anybody beat up on you?”

Yes. I remember the conversation. And I’m ashamed of it now.

“Be cool.” Jerome touches my sleeve and then lets his hand fall away, looking about as embarrassed as I feel. A second later he’s gone.

I set the gun on my dresser. How weird it looks, lying there on
top of a colorful pile of hair scrunchies, between my copy of
Romeo and Juliet
and my Algebra II workbook. I look at it for a long time, then take a deep breath, reach over, and pick it back up.

This time it’s easier, and the longer I hold the gun, the less I’m afraid. I rotate it cautiously around in my hands, then flop back on my bed and rest it on my stomach, enjoying the weight, the certainty of safety.

For the first time in my life, I have power.

I have control.

And not a single drop of fear.

Well, one thing’s for sure—forget about Wayne. I have a much better idea what I can do with this gun… like take it to school tomorrow, jam it up Chardonnay’s nose, and tell her once and for all to stay the fuck out of my life. The idea makes me giggle, but then I’m crying at the same time, making weird, pathetic sounds.

I wish I’d told Jerome he could stay and keep me company. I could tell him I’m sorry, that I know he’s sad about Bubby, and that I’m not really as self-centered as he thinks I am.

But now I’m just glad I didn’t tell him about the money.

24

I have to go to school.

I have to face Chardonnay.

Then I remember the gun.

As soon as I pick it up, the panic disappears and I feel calm, almost high in a supernatural way. I remember her message—
Next time I see you, get ready to die, bitch!
—and I answer her out loud, “Ha! Nice try.” You, Blubber Butt, are in for one big honkin’ surprise.

I dress fast, stuff the gun into the pocket of my warmest hoody, and screech to a halt by Momma’s bedroom door. Still locked, and not a sound to be heard. My hand stops in midair before I can knock. I could be dead right now and she’d never even know it. Instead, I give the bottom of the door a hard kick and slouch out to the kitchen. No sign of Wayne. Could this be my lucky day?

Instead of waiting for Jerome, I head off to school alone. If he knows I’m bringing the gun, he might try to stop me. My mind feels oddly blank as I stare down at my feet in my filthy
secondhand Reeboks, putting one in front of the other, then the other, then the other. If I try to form a single thought, my skull might burst into splinters. Keep walking, Martha. Keep walking, keep walking…

And then my brain cranks back to life as soon as I hit the school grounds. Hello! Metal detectors? Instant expulsion?

Best-case scenario: a nasty blurb on my high school transcript.

Worst-case scenario: ten to twenty years in maximum security.

Oh, God. It’s true. I’m officially insane.

Uneasy, I glance around, pull the gun out of my pocket, and ditch it in a mound of snow piled up high against the building. What the hell was I thinking? Heart whamming against my ribs, I linger outside as long as I can, then slink into homeroom where Chardonnay’s jaw drops like a trapdoor. Obviously she figured I’d never show my face here again. How I wish I could’ve made her day.

Miss Fuchs jumps on me immediately. “You’re late, Martha. And Mr. Johnson wants to see you after the bell.”

I’ll just bet he does, and this time I won’t let him bully me. I’ll say I’m going to the newspapers, to the TV stations, and I’m getting me a lawyer, and—

But halfway down the hall, Chardonnay’s breath flames the back of my head. “Sure hope you kissed your momma good-bye this morning.”

Okay, not a problem. There’s a gazillion people around, right? But Chardonnay keeps her voice low, growling in my ear that if I don’t keep quiet, I’ll be picking my kidneys up off the floor. She’s not joking, either, because I feel something sharp poking into my backbone. She forces me into a one-eighty toward the
nearest stairwell while a gang of tough, sniggering homegirls hem us together. Funny how I never noticed Chardonnay has friends of her own.

Neurons exploding, I drop into a hard crouch. Chardonnay kicks me in the head as she trips over my shoulders, and
bam!
Together we roll down the last couple of steps. Whatever she was holding skids across the tiles, and I snatch it up in a move that’d make James Bond proud. An X-ACTO knife, huh? Probably swiped it from the art room. Bet old Blubber Butt never took an art class in her life.

The breath oomphs out of her as I jump onto her stomach, noting with satisfaction how her stooges scatter. Still, she manages to gasp, “Get off me, bitch!”

I guess it’s the word “bitch” that makes me want to hurt her. First I hold the blade up to make sure she sees it, then I touch it lightly to her zit-ravaged cheek. I’m panting so hard and so fast that my breath fills my ears, along with the
Fight! Fight! Fight!
chants that echo off the walls.

“You ain’t gonna do it.” But she’s swiveling her eyes like a cow in a slaughterhouse. “Girl, get real. I wasn’t gonna cut you. What’s wrong with you? You can’t take a joke no more?”

Ha, some joke. I hold the blade steady, puckering her cheek. She crumples into a blubbering bag of terror, and I can smell her fear—but instead of strength and power, I feel nothing but numbness.

“Why?” It’s all I can think of to say.

“Please don’t cut me, please don’t cut me…”

I move the blade one millimeter closer, but it’s like watching somebody else’s hand, like it doesn’t belong to me at all. “Just tell me why you keep
doing
this to me.”

“Martha!” Well, well, if it isn’t old Mr. Johnson. “Put that
thing down! What do you think you’re doing?” Huffing and puffing even harder than me.

“Not—until—she—tells—me—why.”

“Martha?” Mr. Hopewell. Man, the whole damn faculty must have shown up for this. So where were they two minutes ago when Chardonnay was about to gut me like a fish? “Martha? Come on, baby. You don’t want to do this.”

“Don’t tell me what I want! You have no idea.”

I sense him moving, and hope he doesn’t grab for the knife. “You got to think about this, baby. Think before you do anything. Please.”

Baby, huh? Funny, he’d never dare call me that in class. I shift my weight, remembering how many times I’ve seen this same scene on TV. Keep ‘em talking. Distract ‘em. Do anything you can do till the SWAT team shows up.

Chardonnay squeezes her eyes shut and starts sniveling again, only this time she’s saying, “Get up, get up! You sittin’ on my baby! C’mon, girl, be real. Don’t hurt my baby, ple-ease.” The palm of her hand taps my thigh. Just taps, taps, taps it, a gentle drum beat—the first time she’s ever touched me without causing serious pain.

That’s when the numbness lifts and all my feeling surges back. The mind-blowing pain behind my burning eyes. The floor, hard and cold under my knees. The hill of flesh heaving under my butt. The evil, oily sensation of the knife in my hand. And the lightest weight of Mr. Hopewell’s fingertips on my shoulder.

“I just want her to stop,” I whisper.

“This isn’t,” Mr. Hopewell says, just as softly, “the way to do it.”

Oh, Momma. Momma, where are you?

“She’s not worth it, baby. She’s not worth it at all.”

Chardonnay’s eyes fly open, watching in disbelief as Mr. Hopewell snakes a slow hand around my wrist. He must’ve figured I’d never really hurt her. Otherwise, why would he take that chance?

I let him pry open my fingers and take away the knife.

25

Click, click, click
on the keyboard:
Martha Georgine Kowalski, age fourteen years and nine months, five feet four inches, one hundred and nineteen pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, no distinguishing marks or obvious deformities.

Flash!
Mug shot.

Squish,
roll,
squish,
roll ten times. My fingertips are caked with black ink by the time they finish immortalizing me in their system with all the other “juvenile offenders.”

One blue flannel shirt with a missing button, one red T-shirt, bleach stains duly noted, one pair of blue jeans with a ripped knee, one pair of stinky socks, one pair of beat-up nylon Reeboks, a pair of pink flowered underpants minus half the elastic, one plain white bra with a safety pin in the strap. No money, jewelry, keys, trinkets, or anything else that speaks of a real life.

I get to keep my underpants, but not the bra, on the off-chance I might try to do myself in. Ha! As if this whole ordeal isn’t humiliating enough, why would I hang myself in a public building with some raggedy, stretched out, hand-me-down bra?

No, I’m not in a cell, just in a very small room, but I feel like a hamster trapped in a shoe box. If only I knew how to chew my way out.

When I hear the jingling of keys and the clank of a lock, I stare at the door in half-relief, half-dread, knowing it
has
to be Momma, ready to bust me out of here—but no, it’s that social worker with the ratty dreads, Zelda Broussard.

“Where’s my mom?” I demand.

Zelda ignores my question, makes herself at home in an orange plastic chair, and without beating around the bush, asks for my side of the story. So far she’s the only one who seems to want to hear it.

“Well,” she says when I finish my rant, “as things now stand, there is one thing working in your favor. Your music teacher told the police you were defending yourself, and that the weapon belonged to that other girl—Chantilly?”

“Chardonnay,” I spit out.

“Well, thank God you didn’t hurt her.”

No, thank God I left that gun outside. One quick bullet versus one dinky little art knife? Yes, it’s true. I could’ve killed old Blubber Butt.

My body shivers as the truth sinks in. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to turn me in?”

“I can’t promise you anything, Martha,” she answers, crossing her chunky legs.

Not the answer I wanted, but I confess anyway. “I took one of Wayne’s guns to school.”

“You what?”

“I didn’t take it inside, I swear. I left it in the snow.”

“Where? Exactly where?”

I tell her where, and she mumbles some not-very-professional words as she whips open her cell and commands one of her minions to get back to Jefferson High and start shoveling through the snow. She listens for a minute before flipping the phone shut, and I brace myself for the worst: somebody already found it, and somebody’s dead. What else could make her look at me with that odd, strained expression?

Instead, she says carefully, “Martha. Your mother was taken to the hospital this morning.”

I blink. “Why?”

“A drug overdose.”

“What?” Oh, God. Why didn’t I
check
on her this morning?

“It’s okay. She’s going to be fine, but—Martha, how long has your mother had a drug problem?”

“She doesn’t,” I say weakly. “She drinks, that’s all. Well, she does take pills sometimes,” I add, remembering the stash of brown bottles. “But she’s not, like, this crazy drug addict, okay? You know, with needles and stuff.” I don’t mention the pot.

“Well, she had a lot of narcotics in her system. She will be in the hospital for a while, and hopefully, after that, we can get her into a good rehab center. But what this means is,” she continues, “even if the judge does decide in your favor, I’m afraid you will not be able to go back home.”

I pick at the hem of my shirt, flinging the word “judge” to the back of my mind. “Can I go see her?”

She gestures widely at the room. “Well, hardly. In case you haven’t put two and two together, this is a jail you’re in, not the Holiday Inn.”

“Hey, this is not my fault! I told them, over and over, that something bad was going to happen, and they all blew me off!”

“Who blew you off?”

“My counselor, the teachers…that idiot principal. The whole school, okay? I never would’ve touched her if I didn’t think she was gonna kill me.”

“Martha, if you had trouble with this girl in the past, maybe you should have—”

“Don’t tell me what I should’ve done!” I shout. “You don’t fucking know anything.”

Zelda’s cold gray eyes connect with mine like a magnet. “Don’t curse at me. Trust me, it will not get you out of here any faster.”

Pissed off—and embarrassed—I stomp to the window, a dirty glass square with crisscrossed wires, and cover my face because my head is
pound
-ing and
pound
-ing! “Forget it. You don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“You don’t have a clue what it feels like.”

“What
what
feels like, Martha?”

I punch the window with a tight fist. “When somebody wants to kill you!” I scream. I punch it harder a second time, but you can’t break this kind of glass. Not like Jerome’s window, where one good slam from Aunt Gloria can crack it down the middle. Where a single bullet can make it spray like a billion shards of razor-sharp snowflakes.

“Martha.” And then louder, “Martha!”

“What?” My breath fogs the glass.

“You’re right,” she says, softer now. “I don’t know what that feels like. And no, I don’t know everything that happened. But I am here for you now, hmm? I can help you now.”

The fight drains out of me like air out of a punctured tire. “No, you can’t. It’s too late.”

“No, it’s not too late, and this is not the end of the world. I think the most they will charge you with is disorderly conduct.”

“That’s good, right?” I mumble through my fingers.

“Very good.”

“So, like, this judge—when do I get to see him?”