Contaminated (20 page)

She cries and cries. I want to comfort her the way I did my mom earlier, but my reservoir of comfort is all used up. I’m tired, too. And cold. And hungry. My body aches and I’m exhausted.

“Fine,” I mutter, pushing the bike a few steps. “I’m leaving you. Stay there, I don’t care.”

I think she’ll get up and run after me, but all I hear is the sound of her crying getting farther away as I push. I’m almost to the point where I can get back on and ride for a while longer. I feel bad that I left her there, so I turn.

Opal’s standing in the middle of the street, stomping her feet. She’s throwing a full-on temper tantrum. I can hear her but the dark is falling so fast, I can’t really see more than the outline of her jacket.

Sometimes, when Opal really gets going, the best thing to do is just let her go. Once in the mall, when she was about three, she threw herself down on the floor and screamed so loud, security had to come and escort us out. I thought my mom would be mad, or embarrassed, but it turns out she laughed so hard, she nearly peed her pants. She said it was because she must be the worst mother ever, and the only way for her to get over her failure was to see the humor in it.

Opal’s called me the best sister ever, but I don’t feel like it now. Maybe I should try to find the humor in it. I haven’t felt like laughing in a while, but it bubbles up and out of me like water from a well. Like from the springs all over the neighborhood that gave it the name. I laugh and I laugh and
I laugh some more as I walk toward her. By the time I get to her, Opal’s stopped screaming.

Her face is tear streaked. “Stop laughing at me!”

She flails, hitting out, but I hold her off easily enough. “Oh, stop it! Stop it, Opal!”

She bursts into more sobs. “I just want to go hoooooooome!”

“Then shake your moneymaker.” I manage not to yell, but I don’t laugh again. “Seriously, we are almost home. And then you can see Mama, and we can have subs for dinner, and you can sleep in your own bed. It’ll be awesome. And you can even sit in the carrier, and I’ll ride us both back home. Okay? C’mon, squeaker, chin up.”

She nods and follows me back to the bike. Before we’re even halfway there, I hear them. Snarling, snapping. Gobbling.

I break into a run. “Get away! Get out!”

My screaming scatters them, the pack of dogs from earlier today. How could I have been so stupid? Of course the food would attract them, poor starving things! But that doesn’t help me, help us. I run into the center of them, kicking out and waving my arms, praying I don’t get bitten.

They snap and bark, facing off with me. Opal charges them with a stick bigger than she is. She swings it, hitting one in the flank. It yelps and runs away, tail between its legs, fading into the dark.

We’re both crying, me and Opal. We don’t want to hit dogs with sticks or kick them, but it’s our food. Our dinner! Ours!

All that’s left is a few scraps. We don’t say anything about it. Opal gets in the carrier and I push off, wishing I could wake up from all this like it’s some bad dream. We’re home in another few minutes, and she gets out of the carrier without protest to push the bike up the driveway. I open the garage door and put everything inside, then open the door into the house.

That’s when the nightmare gets worse.

My mom’s gone.

THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING. IT JUST CAN’T. I pull out the flashlight, and Opal and I go from room to room, calling her name even though I know she won’t or can’t answer. This is it, she’s really gone.

The front door’s hanging open, something I didn’t notice since we came in through the garage. The wind pushes at the ashes in the fireplace, and I’m glad I didn’t leave it burning when I left her. I lean against the door frame and punch my thigh in frustration. I remember how she looked when I left the house to check the shed. Had she gone off someplace, trying to find me?

“I should’ve put the restraints on her, but I didn’t want her to be scared or uncomfortable.…” I say this under my breath, to myself, but Opal hears me.

“Mama didn’t like being locked up.”

“I know she didn’t. But … it would’ve been safer for her if I had done it.” I shine the light out into the yard, hoping
she’ll be there, but I see nothing. “If I’d made sure she was secure, she’d be here now.”

“Maybe she’ll come back.”

I hate to break her bubble of hope, but there’s no point in pretending. “I don’t know, Opal. I don’t know where she ran away to.”

“She probably didn’t run away,” Opal says with a trace of scorn. “Maybe she just got lost.”

I close the front door, but leave it unlocked, then head for the family room to build another fire. It takes a long time, even though I have dry wood and matches and leaves we gathered from around the house. By the time it’s blazing, Opal’s teeth are chattering.

We eat our bologna sandwiches in front of the fire and drink water from the faucet out of plastic cups from the local McDonald’s that closed down and hasn’t opened up again. We don’t talk much. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to say.

“Maybe she’ll come back,” Opal repeats.

Neither of us wants to sleep in our old rooms, even though that was one of the things I was looking forward to most. It’s too cold upstairs. Too dark. We’ve spent too many months falling asleep to the sound of each other’s breathing to be alone in our beds. Besides, it just feels safer, somehow, to be curled up in front of the fire on a bed of blankets I bring out of the linen closet.

I listen to Opal’s breathing slow and easy. We should be
more upset by Mom going missing than it seems we are, but the fact is, we’ve gone through it before. That time, it was the army that came to the house to check on us and found her gone. This time, nobody will come.

I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep, but when I wake because the morning sun is slanting through the high windows of the family room, I can even remember some dreams. None of them was any good. I yawn, stretch, scrub my face. I nudge Opal to get up.

My watch says it’s still early enough to get her to school and me to work. We eat the last of the bologna and wash ourselves in frigid water in the laundry sink. We find clothes in our closets upstairs—at least our bedrooms have only been ransacked a little bit. Opal’s pants are an inch too short but fit her otherwise. She’s stretched upward, longer but not wider. All my clothes are too big. It’s the first time I’ve ever needed a belt.

I’m glad Opal’s not dragging her feet or complaining. She’s quiet, though. Her eyes are shadowed. I wish I could do or say something that will make all of this better, but she surprises me with another of her ninja hugs. “I’m glad we came back here, Velvet.” I ruffle her hair. She’s growing so tall, it won’t be long before she’s my height. “Me, too.”

“Don’t worry about Mama. She’s okay.” I swallow hard at that. “I hope you’re right, Opal.”

She shrugs. “I am.”

She sounds so confident, I wish I could simply believe her. Instead, I tickle her until she’s laughing so hard, I have to laugh, too. The sound echoes through this big house, and it almost sounds like it used to when we all lived here together. A family.

“C’mon. I have to get you to school. Dress extra warm.”

We bundle up. She squeezes into the bike carrier. The ride today seems easier, even with my muscles sore from yesterday. I think it’s because it’s daylight, or that I had a surprisingly decent night’s sleep. Or I’m getting stronger. Or the ride to the highway is mostly downhill. Whatever it is, we get to the highway in less time than I thought.

Traffic’s heavier today. I have to be careful. There is no bike path, and we don’t have helmets, not that a helmet would help too much if a truck hits us. I can’t really let myself think about that. I just have to pedal, stay to the side of the road.

I’m in a sweat by the time we get to the gas station, just another half a mile to Opal’s school. My heart’s racing, not from pedaling but from the constant
whish-whirr
of cars and trucks passing us close enough to blow my hair into tangles. My hands hurt from gripping the handles. Still, the trip is better on bike than foot, and I get her to school just as the buses are pulling away after dropping off the other kids.

I walk her into her classroom, where she points out the girl who eats her scabs, then I head over to the office to see Mr. Benedict. He looks surprised to see me. I catch a
glimpse of my reflection in the window, and no wonder. I’m windblown and red cheeked, probably glistening with sweat, too.

“I was wondering if you could tell me about the bus,” I say.

“How did you get here this morning?”

“I rode my bike. But it would really be better if she could ride the bus like the other kids, Mr. Benedict.”

He takes me into his office. The secretaries look at us curiously as we pass, but I lose sight of their faces when he closes the door. Mr. Benedict sighs and takes a seat. He doesn’t offer me a chair.

“Velvet, this is a difficult situation.”

“I know it is.” My words come out a little too clipped to be talking to an adult. The principal. I’m hovering on the edge of disrespect.

But his words are just that—words. I’m the one who’s living them. Me and Opal, and all the other kids whose lives have been torn apart like this.

“There’s been some discussion about the bus routes—”

“The bus still goes by our neighborhood. I’ve seen it. Just not into it, I get it, but she can stand at the front of the entrance—”

“Have you considered that maybe it’s not the best place for you and Opal and your … mother …? All the way out there? You were living in assisted housing, perhaps you should—”

“They made us leave.” I bite out each word like it’s made
of sticky candy, making my teeth and jaw hurt to chew. “We have no other place.”

“But surely other assisted housing—”

“Waiting lists. Mr. Benedict, we’ve been through this already. There are waiting lists for apartments, and even if we got approved, it would be for me and Opal. Not our mom.”

Who wandered off in the dark and is still missing. Maybe for good, this time. “That’s our house out there.”

“Is it?” He gives me a solemn look. “Still?”

I know he’s talking about mortgage payments, the freeze on accounts, that sort of thing. “Until someone makes us move out, it’s ours. My parents had money, Mr. Benedict. It’s not like they were behind on their payments. Whatever the banks decide at some point is when we’ll figure it out. For right now that’s our house.”

I have no idea if I’m right, but I mean what I said. It’s ours until someone comes along and makes us move out. It’s the only thing we have left.

“Your sister’s been having some trouble in school,” he says flatly.

“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” I tell him. “Like what? She does her homework. Her tests are good, I know because I have to sign them.”

“Not with her schoolwork. It’s behavioral.”

He hasn’t offered, but I take a seat, anyway. “So? Like what?”

“She’s a disruption to the other kids.” Mr. Benedict sighs
again. He sighs a lot, like the weight of the world is pressing down on him.

I find it hard to believe. “Opal’s not disruptive, unless she’s talking too much.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s that the other kids know she’s a … well, about your parents. There’s been some teasing. She’s overreacted to it.”

I think I’m getting the picture. “She won’t put up with stuff like that. Are you saying you expect her to?”

“No. Of course not.” Yet his small smile says he actually does. “And she’s not the only student who’s lost a parent to this tragedy—”

“I’m sure she’s not!”

“But she is the only one in this school who’s lost both. There’s been a rumor that your family all consumed the water. That Opal, herself, might be …”

“Contaminated?” The word tastes dirty, twists my lips. “Are you kidding me?”

Mr. Benedict shakes his head. “I’m sorry, but no. I wish I were.”

“What are you going to do about it?” I demand.

He seems surprised by my tone, which has gone quiet and steady. I’m furious. He knows it.

“We’ve been considering removing her from class. For her own sake,” he adds hastily at the look on my face.

I stand and put my hands on his desk. “Are you telling me you’re going to kick her out of school?”

“Just her class. Not kick her out. Place her in a better learning environment …”

“With who? Bad kids? Troublemakers? Learning-disabled kids?”

His expression is my answer. “There’s been a severe cut in our funding, Velvet.”

“Let me get this straight. My sister’s being bullied and teased about something she can’t help and is probably the worst thing that will ever happen to her in her whole life—something worse than you can probably imagine or any of those little brats in her class. And your response, instead of, I don’t know, educating them or maybe just disciplining them, is to put her in a different class?”

“Where she’ll be better equipped to handle the learning experience.”

That’s double-talk, as far as I’m concerned. I lean forward. “What makes you think the kids in that class will be any nicer to her?”