Eleanor (9 page)

“I knifed the sucker!” he yelled. “Let's get out of here. I killed him.”

Dwight dropped his hand to his side and felt the end of the knife sticking out under his ribs. There was no blood, and the sensation was more curious than painful. One of the kids pulled out a flashlight and shone it on Dwight. The black handle looked like a firm shadow poking out of his orange vest. Dwight could not see the silver blade. If any of it was not in his body, it was hidden in the coat.

The boys stampeded for the truck. Dwight watched them clamber onboard. The truck engine coughed awake and filled the lane with cold red lights.

With his left hand, Dwight reached around his body, wrapped his fingers around the knife handle, and pulled. He felt the blade fight to stay in, a sucking magnetic-like resistance, like the head of a deer tick. Then all at once it released with a sloppy gasp. Immediately the spot where it had been turned red and wet with blood. Dwight watched it spread and run down his pants. The strangeness of the thing confused him and his legs threatened to buckle under him.

The blue Dodge spun around, spat gravel, and raced past Dwight in a cloud of freezing dust before turning down the highway and disappearing. Holding the blood soaked knife limply in his hand, Dwight watched it go.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T
he school office called Eleanor's home the day after Halloween to report her absence. Tabitha explained that Eleanor was home with the flu.

When David came by the house on Saturday, Tabitha answered the door while Eleanor hid in the loft.

“She's just not feeling well, David,” she said. She didn't offer to let him in. The house was in disarray, Eleanor being sick and all.

“Is it bad?”

“She spends half the day on the toilet,” Tabitha said. Up in her loft, Eleanor's jaw dropped. She hid her head under a pillow and grunted from embarrassment.

“Oh,” said David. “If there's anything I can do.”

“Thanks, dear, but no,” Tabitha said. “I hope you had a good Halloween.”

“It was—interesting,” he said.

Eleanor watched him walk up the street from behind the blinds in her room.

“Mom!” she yelled when she was sure he was gone. “How could you?”

“It's the truth, isn't it?” she called back.

Monday, Eleanor was back in school. She arrived nearly an hour early, having given herself plenty of time to make the walk. Though she was feeling better, she wasn't entirely her old self and didn't want to be late. Winter had come to Jamesford and the snow that had fallen over the weekend promised to hang around until spring.

Eleanor dropped a note at the office, a signed letter from Tabitha explaining her absence due to sickness, and wandered toward Mrs. Hart's class.

She was wary. She didn't know what to expect but knew things would be different somehow. She longed to talk to David, to learn what she'd missed, but she had to be careful.

The door was locked. She'd never known it to be locked before. The window into the classroom was covered with a motivational poster on the other side encouraging her to “read for a lifetime of delight.” She heard whispers inside. She pressed her ear to the door and listened. There were low voices, a sliding chair, and papers rustling, and then a book moved. A zip. More whispers. Steps. Then she smelled them. It was a mingling of scents, perfume, cologne, sweat, and chalk dust. Over the strange mix of scents she heard the sound of feeding, a frenzied lapping, heavy breathing. Kissing. It confused her for a moment, but only for a moment before her imagination fitted the pieces and she looked for a place to hide.

She'd taken two steps toward the next classroom when the door opened behind her, and a flushed Mr. Curtz walked out of Mrs. Hart's classroom. He adjusted his tie with both hands, saw Eleanor, and walked swiftly away. Eleanor peeked into the room as Mrs. Hart straightened her blouse. Her look of surprise confirmed Eleanor's suspicions. That look disappeared and turned to anger.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped. “School doesn't start for another hour.”

“Um,” Eleanor said. “I thought maybe I'd pick up my homework.”

“I'll give it to you after class,” she said. “Close the door. It's drafty.”

“Can I come in?” she asked.

“If you must,” Mrs. Hart said. “I've got some grading to do. Sit down and be quiet.”

Eleanor shuffled to her usual seat back in the corner. She grabbed the first book she touched in her backpack and read over a math chapter.

Mrs. Hart snorted and shuffled papers. She cast sidelong accusatory gazes at Eleanor for twenty minutes before finally snatching her purse and storming out of the room as if she were late for a plane.

The smell of the Mr. Curtz's cologne hung heavy in the room. Mrs. Hart's smeared lipstick and tossed hair was a clear indictment that she had been making out with the school's principal. Eleanor knew both were married. Mr. Curtz had kids. Mrs. Hart's husband, a long-distance trucker, was a large man who chewed tobacco and used so much casual profanity that he was no longer allowed to visit his wife at school.

Eleanor couldn't think of anything that linked the principal and her humanities teacher together before that morning. Either it was a new thing between the two of them, or they'd been very careful. She suspected the former; she was observant and would have picked up on something as emotionally charged as an affair. Mr. Curtz was a poor deceiver. The guilty face he wore in the hall was an unmistakable broadcast of shame.

It was none of Eleanor's business. She knew many secrets. This was just another. She put it out of her mind.

Fifteen minutes later, Mrs. Hart returned with fresh makeup. After a quick survey of the room, she went to her desk. She stacked, moved, and shuffled papers with her right hand while nervously clicking a pen in her left. Once, Eleanor glanced up and caught her teacher staring at her with unabashed loathing. When their eyes met, Mrs. Hart flashed a mirthless grin and then went back to her papers and pen.

A few more minutes passed where Eleanor would not look up. She heard the telltale hiss of an aerosol air freshener. The smell of lilacs wafted by a moment later. She stifled a cough.

The rest of the students finally wandered in and flopped noisily into their seats. Eleanor kept her nose in her book and didn't notice David's approach.

“There you are, Eleanor. You okay?”

“I'm good,” she said, startled.

“Wow, you missed a lot. I've got to tell you about Halloween.”

“Take your seats, everyone,” said Mrs. Hart directly to David. “Now. The bell will ring and anyone not in their seats will be marked tardy.”

Mrs. Hart wasn't usually such a hard-case and several kids raised their eyebrows at the new rule. But she was the teacher and could make their lives hard, so everyone found their seats and waited the last three minutes for the bell to ring.

Mrs. Hart lectured for the hour, stumbling through a poor reading of a Jack London short story. Halfway through it, she set the class to silent reading and graded papers.

When the bell rang ending English, there was an exodus to the hall. They all had history next in the same room with Mrs. Hart, but a change of scenery was always welcome if only for ten minutes. Eleanor didn't usually get up during the break, but today she was the first one out of the room.

David caught up to her at the drinking fountain.

“What's up with Mrs. Hart?” he said. “She might as well as hummed it for all I got out of her reading.”

“I don't know,” she said.

“Hey, anyway. Russell hasn't been to school since Halloween. Neither has Tanner Nelson.”

“Weird,” said Eleanor.

“Yeah, I think a trucker beat them up by Jacob's Ranch. I gotta tell you what happened.” David slipped his arm around Eleanor's midriff and led her away.

“Ouch,” she said.

“Did I hurt you?”

“I'm fine,” she said. “Tender.”

He opened his locker door and used it as a screen against curious eyes.

“So, I took Wendy trick-or-treating by Jacob's Ranch, only we never got there. A bunch of guys in masks jumped out of a truck and came at us. I'm not sure, but I swear it was Russell Liddle and his gang.”

“Did they hurt you?” Though he'd pulled it away, Eleanor could still feel David's hand on her side. She was sore, but she wished David's arm was still around her.

“No, but they were going to. I was scared. Wendy is still scared. It was terrible. It's good you didn't come.”

“So what happened?”

“A good samaritan saved us. No joke. They exist. This big dude came out of nowhere and told us to leave. He said, ‘Take Wens and go.' And I did.” He faltered for a moment and bit his lip. “You know,” he said. “That was kind of weird actually. He said Wens. He called us by name.”

“Probably heard it from the boys,” said Eleanor. “So what happened? Who was the guy?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “Well, I don't know what happened to him. He was big. I think he knocked them around, and that's why Russell and Tanner haven't been to school. I bet they're covered in black eyes.”

“Seven or eight each,” Eleanor teased.

“Ha ha,” he said. “Anyway, isn't that weird?”

“What's weird?” asked Barbara. She leaned around David's locker and looked inside as if hunting for the answer in his stuff. She held her hands behind her back and pointed her chest at David. Without another word, Eleanor went back to class.

“Hey, where're you going?” David called, chasing after her.

“Miss Anders,” said Mrs. Hart. “I'd like you to stay after class today. It's about your report.”

She nodded and let her hair fall over her face.

“I didn't hear you, Miss Anders.” The malice in her voice was clear and hard.

“Yes, ma'am,” she said and sat down. David watched her go and then looked hard at Mrs. Hart. She ignored him. The class returned.

When history class began, Mrs. Hart prefaced the lesson by saying, “I've been grading your history papers. I shouldn't have to remind you that history is not a subjective subject. It's about facts. Opinions have no place in your reports.”

The class waited uneasily for their teacher to come to a point. She didn't. Instead, she began her lesson.

“Lewis and Clark would have starved had it not been for the help they received from Native Americans along their way,” she said, reading from notes.

When the class ended, the other students left as fast as their bored bodies would carry them. Eleanor remained behind. David signaled that he'd wait for her outside.

“You wanted to see me, Mrs. Hart?” Eleanor noticed a picture of Mr. Hart on her desk. It hadn't been there that morning.

“I'm concerned about your history report,” she said.

“What about it?”

“It's not a report as much as it is an editorial,” she said. “What I wanted from you is evidence that you've paid attention in my class and learned something. What you handed in was an op-ed. Did you listen to any of my lectures? Did you read any of the material?”

“Yes, I did,” she said.

“Then how did you come away with such a negative view of the American Indians? Is your family prejudiced?”

Eleanor held her tongue.

“If you'd have stayed within the assigned reading, that would have helped.”

“I read the material and the optional stuff, too,” Eleanor said. “My facts are correct.”

“Don't talk back to me, young lady,” Mrs. Hart said sharply. “Your facts may or may not be accurate. I personally don't think they are, but I don't have the time or interest to check them. The problem is your attitude, Miss Anders.”

A year ago, Eleanor would never have dared turn in any assignment that would draw attention to herself, let alone be controversial. She'd studied mediocrity and learned to match her work with what the teachers wanted to see. Teachers taught to the test, and the students learned to the teachers. However, for this report, something had moved her to lay out a different view of American Indians than the happy, peaceful fantasy Mrs. Hart so heartily espoused. The selected readings backed Mrs. Hart's view of the noble savage, or at least didn't outright challenge it the way Eleanor had. She took the facts as she saw them, without the white-guilt, and painted a portrait of superstitious savage and opportunistic natives.

She wrote it over the weekend. It was cathartic to proclaim something about the Indians, her people, that didn't make them out to be saints. She knew them and hated them as Mrs. Hart or any of the revisionist historians could never do. They might have been a noble people, a people as good and bad as any other, but they had lanced her brother with a spear and shot her mother in the head with a rifle before cutting her father's bullet ridden body apart with bowie knives. And that was how she saw them.

Even so, Eleanor chastised herself for not just burning her pages and handing in what she knew Mrs. Hart wanted. Tabitha said that all teenagers grow rebellious, but Eleanor was no teenager. She was old, though she didn't look it. She was world-weary and wounded, though her face hid it. Maybe it was hormones driving her to recklessness. Or maybe it was David.

“Your interpretation of the material shows that you obviously didn't absorb it as I presented it,” she said. “You get a zero on the report.”

“That's a little harsh,” said David.

“Mr. Venn, eavesdropping is not tolerated. Go to Principal Curtz this instant.”

“At least give her a chance to rewrite it,” he said.

“I'll see you in detention, Mr. Venn, after you see Principal Curtz.”

“Think of the class levels, Mrs. Hart. We might fall below standard and then the school won't get its funding.”

“Two detentions, Mr. Venn,” she said. Eleanor looked at David, beseeching him to leave it alone.

“I'd like to look at her paper,” he said. “I'd like to send it to my old school and see if my honors teachers would grade it as you have.”

“At four detentions, Mr. Venn, it's a week's suspension. You have three now.”

David looked at Eleanor at last. Scowling, he withdrew into the hall.

“Don't punish David, Mrs. Hart,” begged Eleanor. “I'll take the detentions. It was my paper.”

“I don't want to appear to be unfair,” she said. Having spent some anger on David, she appeared calmer now. She even made eye contact with Eleanor. “I will let you rewrite the paper. You have been sick, after all. Have a new one to me by Wednesday.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hart,” said Eleanor, sensing she'd been dismissed. “And the detentions?”

“You and Mr. Venn will both have detention.”