Sliding On The Edge (9 page)

I could write about me. I close my
eyes and think about the next paragraph. Something like,

If I told the truth about
what my mom does for a living, I’d be in Juvie and she’d be in
jail. My mom’s a gambler and sometimes a pickpocket when she’s down
on her luck, so, as anyone can see, if I’d told the truth to the
police when they came to visit a few months ago, I wouldn’t be
sitting here now, trying to defend my preference for
lying.

No. I don’t want to write that. Let’s
keep this essay impersonal.

Think about the
politicians and how none of them would be elected if they told the
truth. “I’m going to raise taxes the first chance I get.” “I’m
declaring war as soon as I can make up an excuse.” Would these
truthful candidates win? I don’t think so.

I reread the four
paragraphs.

Not really good. I need a way more
interesting question to write about if I’m going to bend my brain
and be brilliant on paper. I lean back and twirl my pen. If I shake
it up, maybe some punchy idea will flow out in the ink. A quote,
maybe. That’s one thing I always surprise people with. They can
tell me something, and it’s in and out of my head in a snap, but
let me read it somewhere, and it sticks there like glue.

So what quotes do I know about
lying?

Even Mark Twain wrote in
one of his letters to a friend, “I would rather tell seven lies
than make one explanation.” Well, I agree with Mr. Twain. I know
people would rather hear something they like than something they
don’t. I know that sometimes the truth causes more damage than it
does good, and sometimes it’s more trouble to explain than to
lie
.

Ta da! The summary
conclusion, and it’s a wrap
. I look up at
the clock. I still have ten minutes before Mrs. Heady collects the
papers, so I open the textbook she handed me on my way in and start
the reading assignment written on the board. It doesn’t take long
to lose myself in the story for tomorrow’s discussion, so I don’t
see Mrs. Heady until she’s hovering over me.

“
And what are you doing?”
she asks, leaning over and whispering in my ear.

I want to say something like, “Eating
cookie dough. What do you think?” “Reading,” I say, telling the
truth.

“
You’ve finished your
essay?”

I nod and hand her my paper. She’s on
her way to the front of the room when she stops with her back to
me. If she’d been a car, she would have skidded and spun out. She
brings my paper closer to her face, cranks her head side to side
like she’s trying to rid her neck of a nasty crick, and then turns
to look at me over her shoulder.

I shrug and lower my eyes to the Aesop
Fable about a boy and a wolf.

Chapter 17

Shawna

I survive my first week in Sweet River
High and wake up to Sunday quiet. On Sundays the ranch is a whole
different world. Instead of whistling his horses to him, Kenny
Fargo sits on the front porch with his feet propped on the rail,
reading the paper. Kay doesn’t stomp down the back steps and toward
the barn, either. She spends the day in her office. Even Buster
isn’t up and doing his weekday job. There’s no nipping at the sheep
to keep them out of the garden; instead he stretches out in a sunny
patch like funky yard art.

Kay comes out of the kitchen with a
mug of coffee in her hand, and passes me as I’m looking out the
window at rural America, wondering why I ever got on that bus
leaving Vegas.

“
There’s toast and cereal on
the table, Shawna. I’ve got paperwork to do,” she says before
closing her office door behind her.

Sunday is about as exciting as having
a conversation with one of Kay’s sheep. I almost miss not being
dragged out to the barn.

I eat breakfast, read the back of the
cereal box, and time how long I can hold my breath. I know all
about nightmares, but Sunday is a double nightmare. I push myself
away from the table, grab an apple, and cut it into chunks. Time to
do something. Anything!

When I walk past the barn, two Sunday
boys are working. One is cleaning stalls and another is in the tack
room, working on a saddle. The one using my favorite rake gets my
attention. I love how his jeans hug his butt. He turns and catches
me staring.

“
Hi.” He smiles and waves at
me.

I don’t want any cozy communication
with him, so I shrug and look away.

When he goes back to raking, I notice
he digs the rake in a little deeper. And I’m thinking he needles
pretty easy, and that should be fun when I’m bored around this
place. But then there are those jeans. I wander over to the fence
to scope out Drunk Floyd’s place. The old man isn’t outside. I wait
to see if he might pop out of his barn or come out from behind one
of those big oaks on the other side of his shack.

When I’m pretty sure Drunk Floyd is
sleeping it off somewhere, I climb the fence and work my way around
the block foundation where it’s clear this place went up in flames.
Inside the knee-high walls, charcoal chunks lie scattered among the
weeds, sprouting around the junk—an oven door, a sink, a bucket. A
limp vine has a strangle hold on some rusty mattress springs, and
gophers are mining the ground from side to side.

I go slow and quiet over to the black
horse. He keeps his head down, but he eyes me with every step I
take toward him. I get within three feet before he flattens his
ears and backs off. I take the chunks of apple out of the napkin
and hold them in my palm. He shakes his head and plows the ground
with his front hoof, but he doesn’t come closer. I sit down,
keeping my hand out. Still, he doesn’t move toward me. I know he
wants this apple the way he dips his head, but he keeps five feet
of space between us, watching.

“
I’m a little tired of this,
black horse. Either you come over here or I eat this damned
apple.”

He swishes his tail and eyes
me.

“
Okay, I’m lying down. The
apple’s yours, but you gotta make the move.” I stretch out and put
the apple on my stomach.

The sun is hot and the weeds
prickle my back and my legs. I wonder what creepy Tuan is up to
right now? And Mom. What’s she doing? I think about her dark hair
and the way it used to shine after she washed it and let it dry in
the hot desert sun. When I squint my eyes real hard, I can see her
face—the plummy red she painted on her lips before she went out,
her eyes and the thick matted lashes she coated until they turned
into dark fringe. The way . . .
Stop!

Monster is combing through
the weeds and the shakes are right behind him, so I push the heels
of my hands into my eyes. Remember something else, Shawna.
Remember
Mom’s face when it turned ugly on
you. Yeah!

“
You want to be the star? Is
that it, Shawna?”

Remember that? Mom pacing
back and forth, arms crossed, jutting her chin out and staring me
down.

“
Well, you can’t be. You
hear? Me. I’m the star in this family.”

She hammered me, and all I did was put
on her red dress. The veins in her neck stuck out like they might
snap, and her lips drew back so I could see her gums.

“
All I wanted was
to—”

“
Shut up.” She pulled back
her hand and I caught it on its way to my face. I never used to
duck. I never used to stop her. That day things changed between us.
She stepped away and put her hands on both hips. “Don’t sass me.”
She grabbed the red dress out of my hand and threw it on the bed.
“And stay the hell out of my things.”

Yes, Shawna, remember when
your mother turned on you
. The shakes are
gone.

I feel something nudge my belly. I
almost jump to my feet, but I catch myself and keep very still. I
squint up at the great dark horse hovering over me, drawing the
apple chunks between his lips. His mouth brushes against my shirt.
The heat of his breath filters through to my skin.

“
Yes,” I whisper.

No
.
My heart pumps in my throat.

Get away.

Run
.

I clench my fists as he takes more of
the apple. It’s scary.

Why?
This isn’t some . . . guy.

Then why?

It’s scary because
. . . I swallow . . .
I
like it.

My throat feels as if it’s stuffed
with cotton balls as the horse’s warm puffs of breath flow across
my belly.

This is not the way to
stay safe.

Now who are you talking
to?

I’m talking to you,
girlfriend. Listen up, Shawna!

He finishes the apple and shies away.
I watch him disappear inside the barn.

I sit up, but I can’t even stand. My
bones are Jell-O. Man, this is too strange. My eyes burn, and
that’s not natural for me. A little kid, maybe. Not
Shawna.

“
Crap!” Saying that out loud
helps bring me back to normal. I push myself to my feet and swipe
my arm across my eyes.

Drunk Floyd must have come to just
about the time I swing my leg over the fence and drop back to the
other side. He staggers out his door and down his back steps toward
his car. He yanks open the door and falls in behind the wheel. The
old stick shift groans when he shoves it into reverse, and the car
rolls backwards, sort of like it has hiccups. He’s behind the shack
now so I can’t see him. I wait, expecting to hear a major crash,
but I don’t.

“
Friends don’t let friends
drive drunk,” I say to the fence post. “But what about people you
hate?”

“
Shouldn’t let them drive
either.” The voice comes from next to me, and I whip around to look
straight into Sunday Boy’s blue eyes—not two feet away from me. He
leans on the fence rail.

“
That black horse probably
was a good one a while ago. Too bad he fell into old Floyd’s hands.
Maybe you should make Floyd an offer and buy that guy.”

“
Why would I waste good
money on a beat up old horse?”

“
I dunno. Seems like you got
him tucked under your heart.”

I must look blank. Nobody in this
world talks like that.

“
That’s what my daddy says.
When you love something, it’s tucked under your heart.”

“
I don’t love one single
thing around this place,” I say, before I walk away.

“
That’s gotta be terrible
for you,” Sunday Boy calls after me.

What is he, anyway, a
damned preacher?
I scuff the dirt with my
feet. “I don’t have anything tucked anyplace.”

Chapter 18

Shawna

Pollard Nix is my history teacher.
He’s standing in front of the class, tugging at a really ugly
floral tie and looking a lot like a sausage stuffed inside his
jacket. He’s said something important, because he picks up the
chalk and turns to write on the board. When he lifts his arm, the
stitches along the back seam give way, so now the lining peeks out
from inside. It’s kind of like looking at a guy’s fly that comes
unzipped. You want to say, “Hey! It’s snowing, bud.” But instead,
some students slide glances at each other, while others pretend
Pollard Nix isn’t popping out of his clothes. I join with the last
group and write down the dates he’s scribbled on the scarred
blackboard.

Sweet River High is so far under the
hi-tech radar that I’m guessing whiteboard has never been an entry
in their dictionaries. The computer lab is the size of maybe a big
broom closet, and their computers are charity donations that the
good citizens of the community have provided. Three Apples (plain
with fat monitors) and two PCs loaded with older Windows software.
The third and newest one actually has the latest version.
Networking is not in anyone’s vocabulary, but that’s fine with me.
I’m not into being connected with anyone, so I don’t bother with
the so-called computer lab.

Pollard is making more
points . . . important ones. I’m writing—I think. But my head keeps
snapping back and waking me up, so maybe I’m actually not awake.
I’m dreaming I’m writing.
Snap
. I’m dreaming I’m meeting the
Sunday Boy.
Snap
.
I’m . . .

“
Shawna. Pssst.”

Snap
. Up comes my head again.

“
He’s coming. Wake
up.”

I look across at The Troll.

“
Nix” she hisses. “Look
out.” She buries her nose in her book and scribbles notes on the
lined paper next to it.

“
Miss Stone?”

I look up at my friend Pollard Nix and
yawn.

“
It seems I’m boring you
today,” he says.

“
No.” I’m awake now so I can
answer and sound alert. “Not today.”

“
Nice to hear. Please see me
at the end of class.” He glances at The Troll, who has filled the
entire page with . . . what? He walks back to the front of the
room, white stuffing poking out even further from his jacket seam
than the last time I looked.