Double Dutch (2 page)

“That's everyone. Let's get started.” Miss Benson began by passing out several typed pages that had come from the school office. “Put the brush away, Yolanda. Your hair looks fine.” Without pausing to make sure Yolanda did as she was told, Miss Benson continued: “As you know, class, the state proficiency test is coming up soon. It's extremely important for you as eighth graders because it will determine if you go on to ninth grade. We've been practicing and preparing all year for this, and I know you're ready—I'm confident you'll all do fine. Take these information forms home to your parents and bring them back signed on Monday. The test is next month. Are there any questions? Yes, Randy?”

“What if I fail?”

“You're not going to fail. You're the biggest, smartest thing in here!” Miss Benson said, laughing.

“I think so too. And the best-looking, too! I just wanted to hear you say it!”

“Sit down, Randy.”

Delia loved the way Randy always made class fun. He
joked around and teased all the teachers. But he always made good grades—straight A's.

“Miss Benson?”

“Yes, Yolanda?” Miss Benson sighed. Delia could tell this was not what the teacher had planned for today's class. But Delia didn't care; anything that stalled real academic work was fine with her.

“I can't take the test,” Yolanda began as she stuffed the brush into her book bag and took out a small mirror to check the results.

“Why not?”

“I read an article that said excessive testing causes blood clots in the brain. I can't afford to risk my health for a stupid test. I am a champion Double Dutch jumper, you know.”

“I'll pay for your hospitalization,” Miss Benson zapped back at her.

She's learning,
Delia thought. Delia asked no questions. She looked at the forms, found the line marked with an X for the parental signature, and expertly signed her mother's name on the information sheet. She had memorized both of her parents' signatures long ago. Then she stuffed the forms into her book bag.

The rest of the class asked lots of questions, mostly to delay the start of the lesson. Miss Benson tried to answer every one, seemingly unaware of their delaying tactics. Finally she said, “Okay, that's enough on that. Class, get out your notebooks. Let's get started.”

Tabu and Titan glared at her in a stony silence from the back of the room. They did not move, and Miss Benson said nothing to them. She looked as if she was trying to pretend
that they weren't there. But they never took their eyes off the teacher. It seemed to Delia that they weren't watching Miss Benson to learn but were checking her out for something more sinister. She seemed to be uncomfortable with their hard, unflinching stares, and she made a big deal of passing out books and checking book cards. Delia noticed that she looked everywhere except at the twins in the back of the room. But they never stopped watching her.

Delia turned her attention from Tabu and Titan to the new book that the teacher was introducing. The old familiar feeling of dread filled her stomach as Miss Benson began the lesson. Delia took out her notebook and pretended to take notes, but what she wrote was in handwriting so tiny that no one could see what she was writing. But even with a magnifying glass no one could have read what Delia had written. It was all tiny scribble.

They were starting a book called
Lord of the Flies
—something about kids in a jungle, she figured from the picture on the front.
I've got to see if there's a videotape of this,
Delia thought. She flipped through the pages and sighed as line after incomprehensible line of gray text stared back at her. She recognized many of the words—the shorter ones, and the words that were easy to identify or memorize. But sometimes even those danced around the page like unruly children. Sometimes an easy word like “boy” looked like “yob.” And sometimes it looked like the whole page was written in Martian. She sighed, frowned, and listened carefully to every word Miss Benson was saying. She had an excellent memory and could sometimes tell the teacher word for word what had been said in class the day before. But Delia couldn't read.

R
ANDY WAS THINKING OF
D
ELIA AS HE LET HIMSELF INTO
the small apartment he shared with his father. Delia seemed to have it all together, he thought—she was smart, pretty, and never made a fool of herself in class like he did sometimes.

A skinny gray cat stretched and jumped off the kitchen table, where she knew she shouldn't have been sleeping. Randy ignored the cat, tossed his book bag on the floor, took off his shoes and socks, and walked around barefoot on the cool floor. He loved to walk barefoot, and since there was no one there except the cat to complain about his stinky feet, he allowed himself to do as he pleased.

Randy had just turned fourteen, and he already stood over six feet tall. He carried his two hundred pounds with ease, but he stayed hungry. Large meals seemed to last only a few minutes before he was starving again. School lunches were a joke to Randy's huge appetite. His father had told him once, “Boy, you're just like that gas-guzzling truck I got-can't keep either one of you filled up!”

Randy fixed himself five bologna sandwiches, using the last of the bread, even the ends, and started to pour a glass of milk. He looked at the glass, shook his head, then put it back in the cupboard and drank directly from the carton.
He noticed that the carton was nearly empty. He found two large bags of potato chips and three Twinkies in another cupboard and took his snack to the next room to watch TV. He stretched out on the sofa, idly flicking the remote control while he gobbled his food. He paused at one of the afternoon talk shows. The announcer was saying, “We now return to ‘Teens Who Terrify'!” Randy had seen many talk shows like this. The host would interview parents who couldn't handle their impossible teenagers, who were unbelievably rude or vicious or dangerous. Today a twelve-year-old dressed like a twenty-five-year-old stripper was cursing at her mother, every other word bleeped out by the TV station. The mother, who did not even try to correct the behavior, simply sat there and cried. “Kid needs her butt kicked,” Randy said to the cat. Another young girl, dressed in an outfit her mother said she wore to school-a skimpy tank top and a skirt that was short enough to be called underwear—pranced around the stage as if she was proud of what she was wearing. Her mother wept also. “This couldn't be real—they've gotta be actors. Where do they get this stuff?” Randy complained to the cat, who had her eyes on what was left of Randy's bologna sandwiches.

He watched as more parents reported how their children beat them or stole from them or stayed out all weekend getting drunk. “Unbelievable,” Randy muttered. “This is so fake!” The cat had decided to join him on the sofa.

“Our next guests,” the host announced with pumped-up excitement, using that phony, oily voice that only TV announcers use, “are twins who terrify their whole neighborhood!” Randy reached for the remote, figuring that even reruns of
Barney
were better than this, but suddenly the
camera was focused on the unsmiling faces of Tabu and Titan Tolliver.

Randy jumped up, knocked over the carton of milk onto the floor, dropped the rest of his last sandwich, and ran to the telephone. The cat pounced on the sandwich and the spilled milk while Randy frantically dialed Yolanda's number.

“Yolanda!” Randy said breathlessly. “Turn on Channel Twelve! Quick!”

“I already have it on. I was on three-way with Charlene and Delia, and we're all looking at it! I'll call you back! I'm taping it!”

Randy turned the volume up loud and sat back on the couch, stunned. These weren't actors—these were real people. From his school. From his third-bell English class. “Unbelievable!” he muttered again, but this time it was for a completely different reason.

The commercial ended, and Mrs. Tolliver, the twins' mother, a thin, tired-looking woman, showed pictures of them as three-year-olds—identically chubby little boys staring at the camera with faint smiles. The TV camera then focused on Tabu and Titan as teenagers, dressed in their usual black, looking defiant and uncaring. Randy listened in amazed silence.

HOST:
So tell me, Mrs. Tolliver, how long have you been having problems with these two young men of yours?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
Well, Preston, I think it started when they were born. I didn't even know I was carrying twins.
They were preemies—really tiny and sickly at birth. I went into labor early, and they were born at home. By the time I was able to get to the hospital, both babies needed oxygen. Maybe they missed something important those first few minutes of life. Maybe it's my fault.

HOST:
Let's not place any blame here, Mrs. Tolliver. What happened next?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
I took them home, but it was a struggle just to find enough food for them. My husband had been laid off, and we couldn't pay the rent. We moved around a lot. It was awful.

HOST:
How did they act as infants? How did they react to others when they were kids?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
They were scrawny little things, but they were happy babies, I guess. Seemed like they just focused on each other and left me out, though. They cried when they were hungry, and sometimes that was pretty often. I feel so bad. I loved my babies—I didn't want to be a bad mother, but I never felt I was giving them what they needed. When they got old enough, and I found me a job, I sent them to day care. I figured maybe they needed socialization. They didn't seem to like anything or anybody but each other.

HOST:
Did day care help?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
Not really. The teachers complained
that they refused to play with the other children—only with each other. Plus, sometimes they would hit other children, and the teachers said they broke toys on purpose. I had to take them out. I don't think it was their fault, though.

HOST:
What do you mean—not their fault?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
They couldn't cope with their father's death. How do you explain to three-year-olds that their daddy is dead?

HOST:
Did you ever seek professional help for them?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
I didn't have money for that.

HOST:
How did their father die?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
In a storm. I don't want to talk about it. Look, I work hard and I've tried to do my best for my boys. But I guess I'm failing.

HOST:
Don't cry, now. We're going to see if we can get you some help. What happened when the boys got to kindergarten?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
I moved from Minnesota to California when they were five. But it was all the same stuff. Even worse. I moved around quite a bit, trying to find work for me and a place they could be happy at, a place where they could just be kids. But it just got worse. I've moved to seven states in seven years. Maybe that's the
problem. We just moved to Ohio, and so far there's been no real incidents, at least that I know of.

TABU:
That's 'cause you don't know everything.

TITAN:
Some stuff you don't need to know.

HOST:
Let's talk to these young men. Your names are rather unusual. I don't think I've ever met anyone with names that are so . . . strong.

TITAN:
Our daddy named us.

TABU:
He wanted us to be tough.

MRS. TOLLIVER:
Maybe things would have turned out differently if their father had lived.

HOST:
Are you aware of the pain you've caused your mother?

TABU AND TITAN:
So what?

HOST:
So she's your mother, and she obviously loves you very much, and your behavior hurts her—deeply.

TABU AND TITAN:
Oh, well.

HOST:
I notice you answered together. Do you often do that?

TABU AND TITAN:
Yeah.

HOST:
You say there are things your mother doesn't know about. Things like what?

TABU:
We're always getting blamed for stuff, whether we did it or not.

TITAN:
So we just decided to make it come true. Just wait and see.

HOST:
I don't understand. Can you help our TV audience understand what you mean? What you say is very disturbing and rather frightening.

TABU:
Isn't that why you've got us on this show?

HOST:
No, we're here to try and help you, and your mother.

TITAN:
Don't need no help. Just watch out. Leave us alone and nobody gets hurt.

HOST:
What do you mean?

TABU:
Don't mean nothin'. Stuff happens.

HOST:
Are you just saying these things because you're on TV? Or are they real threats? These days, statements like yours have to be taken very seriously.

TABU:
We ain't threatened nobody. We're on TV because our mother told us she'd pay us if we showed up.

TITAN:
And 'cause can't nobody beat us, so who cares?

HOST:
Is this true, Mrs. Tolliver? Did you bribe them to come on the show?

MRS. TOLLIVER:
I, I, didn't know what else to do. I need help. The producers told me I could maybe get some psychological help for my boys if I got them to come on the show. I'd do anything to save my boys.

TABU:
Save us?

TITAN:
From what?