Quaking (12 page)

“I’m not a rabbi.”

“But you are—”What is Quaker for rabbi? Un-Minister? Chief Fox? “—the Alpha Quaker.”

Sam shakes his head and laughs. “Alpha Quaker?” His whole stomach is shaking.

“I am not joking!” He is so annoying. “What are you going to do if that guy comes back again?”

“Probably the same thing I’m already doing.”

“Which is?”

“Hold him in the Light.”

“Excuse me? Is that like holding his feet to the fire?”

Sam chuckles.“No, it’s, well, it’s like praying for him.” He stops smiling and clutches his bracelet. “And for his son.”

I shake my head. “I still think you are playing with fire.” He turns and looks at me. His voice is quiet but unyielding. “Sometimes you have to face the fire, Matt.”

I shake my head and look away. That is where I differ with the George Foxes and Tom Foxes and Sam Foxes. It is unwise and unnecessary to stick your neck out like that. Speaking out loud. In public. You will not find me in that position. Not in a million years.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

L
ate that night I wake up because someone is playing a guitar downstairs.And singing. It cannot possibly be Sam because this man’s voice is actually in tune, and it is definitely not Jessica. Finally, I realize it must be the radio or a CD. It could not be the TV. Although they have a small one in the kitchen, it is only decorative. They never turn it on.

I get up and creep quietly to the top of the stairs. I am not trying to spy. But the singer sounds soft and serious, especially in a dark, quiet house.

I sit on the top step and listen for a while. The brown carpet is thin and does not provide much padding, but at least it is warmer than no carpet. I pull my nightshirt around me and lean against the stairwell wall.

Music drifts up from the kitchen. The refrain is ripping at my gut.

He is saying that I am lonely and lost and I wonder how he knows. And he says to follow my heart. But I have no heart. So how do I know where to go?

I get up to go back to bed because I cannot stand to hear him say it one more time. I stand there for a few moments, though, because the strange singer has some kind of hold over me. It is as if he is singing directly to me. I shudder, because it is a spooky thought.

And then the singer stops. I hear a Sam sigh and the wheely stool sliding across the kitchen floor, then heavy footsteps to the living room.

After I hear the creak of their bed, I wait a few minutes and tiptoe down to the kitchen. By the light from the computer screen, I see some CDs on the kitchen table. They are all by the same singer, John McCutcheon. I have never heard of him. Probably because he is an old guy. He must not be a total fart, however, because he does have pierced ears. Otherwise, he looks like someone’s father. But a nice one.

I pick one up and look at the titles of the songs. My throat hurts when I read the one called “Follow the Light.”

Others sound funny. I open up the CD and read the lyrics from some of the songs and they are hysterical. Or very true. Like “New Kid in School”—“The first day is a hundred hours long” and “Everything I do I know is wrong.”

I notice something shiny by the computer. I put the CD lyrics down and step over to the light. It is a large bracelet and I realize it must be the one Sam wears. I pick it up. It is made partly of chain links with a large, rectangular metal piece that stretches across the middle, joining the chains. On the metal rectangle is engraved PVT. JOSEPH L. FOX. Underneath his name is a date, 7-1-72. I stare at it for a full minute before I figure out what it is.

I drop the bracelet on the floor like it has burned me. It falls with a clatter and I scramble to pick it up, as if picking it up faster will erase the noise it made. But I knock the wheely stool, sending it crashing into the fridge and bouncing off again. When I grab it to stop it from moving, I lose my balance and stumble over it, sending both the stool and me crashing to the floor.

“Shit!” I say, not quietly enough.

Sam is in the doorway in red sweatpants and a blue Superman T-shirt. I imagine Jessica gave it to him.

“Um, hi,” I say, from my spot on the floor.

I hear Jessica’s sleepy voice. “Sam, is everything okay?”

“Yes, honey. I’ll be there in a minute. Just getting a drink.” He bends down and reaches his arm out, to help me up, I suppose. But then he sees the bracelet on the floor and picks it up instead.

“I was just looking at it. And I dropped it. Sorry.” I set the stool upright.

He is staring at the bracelet, rubbing his thumb over the name and date as if trying to wipe some dirt away, even though it is shiny. Sighing, he creaks himself down on the stool, still staring at the bracelet. He looks so serious and sad, I say “sorry” again.

His head pops up like he has heard me for the first time. “Oh. That’s okay. What are you doing on the floor?”

“I . . . I heard that music earlier and I was looking at the CDs and—”

“John McCutcheon. He’s my favorite artist. Quaker, too.”

A Quaker? This is not my image of a Quaker. I stare at Sam. “Are you sure? He has pierced ears, for God’s sake.”

Sam nods. “Yup.”

“And he—he’s
funny,
for God’s sake.”

Sam smiles. “Yup.”

“And he—” and then I realize the Quaker connection. “And he sings antiwar songs.”

Sam loses his smile and stares at the bracelet. “For God’s sake.”

I look at the floor for a while, then I watch Sam, who is still staring at his bracelet.

“Is that . . . someone related to you?”

He nods. “My dad’s MIA bracelet. He was a medic in Vietnam. My mom wore it until she died.Then I inherited it.”

“Is the date . . . is that the date he died?”

“No. It’s the date he went missing in action.”

Missing in action? What does that mean? Was he ever found? I try to remember what Jessica said about Sam losing his father but all I remember is tuning her out. I make a mental note to start listening to what Jessica says. It could be useful.

I look at Sam, thinking to ask him more, but I stop when I see his glistening eyes. I think maybe he is going to cry. I want to tell him I am sorry but it sounds so inane. Sorry that your dad got killed or tortured halfway around the world for God knows what reason. Sorry that you lost your dad, who probably actually loved you, when you were just a little kid. Sorry you had to grow up without your dad. Sorry your whole life got screwed by having to be a grown-up before you had a chance to be a kid. Sorry.

Now I see that Sam is looking at me. “Well, honey, I shouldn’t keep you up any longer.You have to get your sleep so you’ll be alert for school.” He tries to smile, but it looks sad. “I don’t want you blaming me when you don’t get into the college of your choice—except I hope you choose one close to home. Of course, we’ll come visit wherever it is, but it’d be nice if it weren’t too far.”

I look down at the floor. That depends on how far you consider Canada to be.

“In fact, I’d like it if you stayed here during college, but Jessica says that you’ll probably want to go off to college. That’s part of the college experience.”

They have actually talked about this? I thought people only planned for their kid’s college in commercials or, at the very least, when they actually had kids. I steal a look at him to see if he is serious.

He shrugs. “Okay, you can go wherever you want. I can tell you agree with Jessica. I should’ve known. Just not too far away, all right?”

I feel like I am in some strange movie, only I am the stand-in actress and no one has given me the script. “I—I will think about it.”

“That’s my girl.”

I tell myself I will look into cheap flights to Canada. Then I tell myself to stop being so stupid. Surely, Sam and Jessica will lose interest before then.

I look up and Sam is leaning over, extending his hand.

Slowly, I reach and his huge, warm hand envelops mine. How can it feel so soft and so strong at the same time? He pulls me up, holding my hand and squeezing it gently, even after I am standing.

“Good night, Matt. See you in the morning.”

“Good night.”

He is still holding the bracelet of death as he wobbles away, looking like an overgrown kid in Superman pajamas.

I pick up the CD lyrics and look at them one more time.

My throat is closing and my eyes are getting like Sam’s, so I criticize the song’s meter, throw the lyrics on the table, and run.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

T
he Dead Marine photo is still hanging up in World Civ. I cannot stand to see it. So I scribble on my desk instead. Mr. Warhead is pacing up and down my row, lingering as he turns at my desk. I can feel his heat. “It always surprises me when girls can’t see the importance of helping oppressed girls in other countries. Sure, it’s okay for you here, but what about women around the world? Think of what they have to go through. Don’t you owe them anything?”

I grit my teeth and squirm in my seat. Of course I care what they go through. For example, I would rather they not be in the middle of a war zone. Being injured or killed.

“Yeah, I’m doing what I can,” the Rat says. “I’m signing up.”

Mr. Warhead is at the front of the row and he nods. “You’ll get your chance soon enough.”

“Maybe sooner,” the Rat answers, under his breath.

“It’s good to see that some of our young people care,” Mr. Warhead says.

I let out my breath. Too loudly. It is not a snort, not a cough, not even a sigh, but just a slight sound. Of disgust. And it is all the Rat needs.

He turns slowly in his seat. I sink behind the boy in front of me, but suddenly my shield ducks down to get something out of his backpack and I am exposed. Staring straight at the Rat.

“Chicken-shit,” he breathes.

My stomach churns. Loudly. And I cannot stop it. I think of Meeting. I imagine the Quaker Cloak around me again and I imagine that the Rat’s eyes cannot penetrate the Quaker Cloak.

All day I manage to avoid the Rat and I think I am protected by the Quaker Cloak, even when I get on the bus. It is a stupid and dangerous mistake.

Without warning, the Rat has my backpack in his grimy paws. I feel like the Cloak, and a part of me, have been ripped away.

I start to shake. It is the only thing I know how to do. I do not know how to retrieve my backpack from the Rat when I must avoid him at all costs.

“Here, dude!” He throws my backpack across several seats to one of his Vermin.

The catcher laughs. “Whose is it?”

“Ma-til-da’s!” The Rat laughs at the sound of my name.

When it gets thrown back to the Rat, he tosses it to the other side of the bus.

Hands and greasy heads seem to pop up all over as my backpack is hurled around the Bus from Hell.

“Let’s look inside,” the Rat says, and I think I will throw up.

The LifeSavers! They cannot take my LifeSavers! My arms fly up in the air before I can hold them back down again.

But the Rat notices. He has my backpack. “What’s in here, huh?” He unzips the main compartment and I shudder. I try not to look. I try to block it all out. My eyes are clouding over. I hear the noise of many people on the bus, not just the Vermin. They are laughing and talking. How can so much noise be so empty?

I see my math problems flying through the air. I see an apple. Also mine.

“Ooooh, look, a secret com-part-ment!” The Rat draws out the word, stretching out my agony.

I do not know if I can stop the tears. I cannot stop the squeak.

“Hey, Matilda the chicken-shit is trying to talk! What is it, huh? The secret compartment?” He puts his hand on the zipper, shaking it, grinning. “What’s in here that’s so important?”

I say the first word that pops into my head. The only thing that might stop a fourteen-year-old boy. But my jaw is stiff and I whisper the word so softly, so as not to squeak again, or cry, that I cannot even hear my own voice.

Suddenly, his face is beside me. “Speak up, moron!” he yells in my ear. The entire side of my body prickles into goose bumps and I shrink away.

I whisper it again.

“What?”

I turn and look at him. His face is all blurry. I can smell his rancid breath.

“Tampons,” I hiss.

He drops my backpack on the floor.

“What did she say?” one of his Vermin asks.

“Nothing! She’s a mute, remember?”

“Toss it here, then!”

“Nah, she’s a freak. There’s nothing in there I want to touch.”

The Rat is in his seat, laughing with his Vermin, so I quickly bend down and grab my backpack, clutching it to me, as I rock back and forth.

The next stop is mine and I stumble out into the falling snow. Its whiteness covers the dirt and the slush and the gray. Its blanket deadens the world’s sounds, sucking the cries out of babies’ mouths. But it can never soften the fear or the pain.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

J
essica does not ask if I am okay after school. Even though I am shivering. And sweating. And about to throw up. She is too giggly and pink-faced about her own news. “Guess what? Sam got a job!”

I am still reeling from the Rat, but the significance of what she says finally hits me. “You mean, he did not have one already?”

“Well, he was doing community service.”

“Community service?” My knees start to buckle so I sit on the floor, still clutching my backpack, and narrowly miss the Blob. “To pay for what?”