“I don’t—umm—I don’t know. I can’t remember—umm—that far back,” I said.
“Son,” he said, tilting his head to the side a bit, “you look pale. Are you alright?”
“Must be something I—umm—ate. Is it okay if I—umm—go?”
He squinted, “Well, I guess so,” he said, and stood up. I stood, as well. He walked to the little wall and pulled the gate open for me. “I’d be much obliged if you’d let me know if you’re going to leave town, alright?” I nodded and walked out the door.
I had almost reached home before I realized that I didn’t feel ill so much as shocked and afraid; it dawned on me that same moment what he meant when he said that last bit. I stopped walking, and my knees went weak, again. I sat down on the grass, not bothering to look at where I was. I knew the sheriff considered me a suspect.
TWENTY-TWO
My mother was cooking something. The second I opened the door, I could smell it. It was familiar, but the name wouldn’t come to the surface. I walked straight upstairs, though. My knees were still shaking some.
The springs of the mattress groaned under me as I lay down. I kicked my shoes off, and put my arm over my eyes, and rested for a moment. I wanted to leave; just pack my things into my bag and turn in the return-trip portion of my ticket. After all, the sheriff hadn’t charged me with anything—I could still leave. ‘But then, what about Susan?’ some part of me asked, ‘what are you going to tell her?’ I didn’t have to go home, though; Sarah had asked me to come stay with her for a bit. I had told my boss that I didn’t know how long I’d be gone. I could go stay with her and then tell her no to let anyone know I was there—disappear for a while.
‘They always run,’ some part of me said. It was right, too. Someone who runs immediately looks suspicious in ever movie where there’s a murder.
I stopped breathing. That’s right, some part of me said, murder. If the Sheriff was asking questions like that, then he knows more than what they released in the press conference. He thinks that maybe the boy was murdered. When I thought the boy, it was in the sheriff’s voice.
The possibility that something terrible had happened to Randy had always lurked in the back of my mind, like a shadow. I hadn’t ever focused on it. Even the last few days, when I knew on some gut level that the bones they found were Randy’s, I didn’t think about how they might have gotten there. I’d been busy with other things. It felt the same as the day I’d found out he’d disappeared.
I hadn’t been with him, that day. I’d made it a point to always try to be at his bus stop to walk him to his house, even though it wasn’t that far from the stop. I had a bike, so I got home a lot faster than he did. ‘Why didn’t you ever offer him a ride?’ some part of me asked, and I ignored it, like anyone would. I had asked myself the same question, even then. Maybe that’s what made the whole thing even more horrible. The day that Randy had disappeared, I hadn’t been with him because I’d gone looking for him. I was going to offer him a ride home on my bike.
I’d been sitting in my desk, ready for the bell. Mrs. Granford hated kids who did that. She always said “I dismiss you, not that bell.” She was old, and had warts. The only kid in the class who liked her was Veronica Ball. She was the only kid in the whole class that Mrs. Granford would smile at. She would always show her old, faded teeth whenever she said “Ball” during roll call.
I had already packed everything into my bag, and it looked like I was going to get away with out her noticing. I wanted to get down to Randy’s classroom door so I could say “Hey, why don’t you ride home with me, today?” I was excited about it, and nervous, too. The last two days, though, I had decided that I didn’t like the idea of him riding that bus. Again, who can say why kids think what they think, but I was determined that he wasn’t going to ride that bus, anymore. I watched the red hand wind around, ticking off the seconds, when I noticed that the class had gone quiet. I looked from the clock to find everyone staring at me.
“Well?” Mrs. Granford said. I turned my head toward the blackboard, and saw that she’d written out a list of words.
“Ma’m?” I asked. The class erupted into a fit of snickering. She frowned, and folded her arms.
“Which word will you be defining for us tomorrow, Mr. Kendall?” she said. She always did that; called people mister or misses and their last name. I’d seen a man do that in a war film my father liked—something about some place called Iwo Jima. I thought of her, sometimes, as one of those men; always yelling at someone without ever really knowing them.
I glanced at the word list. The vocabulary words; she would take the five hardest of the ten, then ask five of us to write one down. We would have to look them up that night, and come in with the definitions (and she wanted all of them, no matter how many) the next day. I was looking for whichever was the smallest word when the bell rang. I smiled quickly, grabbed my book bag and started to stand. The rest of the kids, all except Veronica Ball, began to do the same.
“I wish I knew where all of you think that you’re going,” she said, loudly. “Mr. Kendall has yet to tell us which of these words he will be defining for us tomorrow. Until he does that, we will go nowhere.”
Everyone slowly sank back down into their chairs. I was in a hurry, so I picked one. “Ennui,” I said. I pronounced it “En You eye”.
“The word,” she began, “is pronounced ‘on we’. It is a French word which we have adopted for use in English. Kindly try again, Mr. Kendall,” she said. I could see everyone staring at either the door or me.
“’on we’,” I said.
“Class?” she said, arms still folded, and glanced around at them.
“’on we’” came the murmur. This time, though, everyone was staring at me.
“Again,” she said. Outside the door, we could hear the raised voices and scuffling feet of people rushing to get to busses or the bike rack.
“’on we’,” everyone said.
“Very good,” she replied, picking up the chalk, and next to the list of words, she wrote a number. “Everyone kindly write down this page number,” she said, and the room erupted in groans. “We will be talking about this page in your history book tomorrow. Please come to class having already read it.” I could tell that everyone in the room, except Veronica, decided to try to remember the number. We all stood up from our seats. “What an odd method of writing down a page number. Mr. Hicks,” she said, calling on Andy. He jumped, and for a moment his nervous shaking got worse. Secretly, I think she liked making him jump. “Mr. Hicks, can you tell me what page number it is I have assigned for you to have read by tomorrow?” she stood in front of the number, so that none of us could see it.
I could tell I wasn’t the only one who was thinking the number very loudly, trying to get it to him. “Umm—uh—thirty five?” he asked. I closed my eyes. I heard Veronica laugh.
“Veronica Ball, can you help Mr. Hicks?” Mrs. Granford asked.
“It’s page fifty three,” Veronica said, making a show of having written the number down on her still-open notebook.
“Very good. Now,” she said, and we all knew that there was a lecture coming, “Perhaps I am unaware of your powers of retention, or perhaps they merely slipped for a moment? In any case, if your obviously impressive eidetic memory can slip even just this once, then perhaps you should have some sort of back up plan, don’t you think? It seems to me that you have a notebook. I have seen it, I think, am I correct?” she asked.
He was already pulling it out of his backpack, and the rest of us did the same. “Yes, ma’m,” he said.