Compromised (4 page)

“Probably,” Shelly agrees. But I don't like the tone in her voice. That I've-heard-it-all-before-know-it-all tone. One, two, three, four, sniffle. She blows her nose and wipes her watery eyes. She's pretty leaky.

We sit in silence for a while. A bell rings and kids shuffle down the hall past our room.

“Ready for dinner?” Shelly asks. “You can sit with us, if you want.”

“Sure.” I follow them out the door. The hallway fills with other teenagers. Abandoned. Orphans.

I feel relieved knowing that I'm not one of them—Spam.

I just need to wait it out for a while. Do my time. Thanks to Dad.

W
e walk into the cafeteria, and I head to where Nicole is sitting. Shelly grabs my elbow and veers me to the next table. We scoot onto the benches, leaving Shelly a spot on the end. She can't fit between the bench and the table. The cafeteria fills up. A couple of young kids run and give Nicole a hug, but nobody sits with her.

And I think about all of those first days I had at new schools during lunch sitting alone in the cafeteria hoping my sandwich looked like everyone else's. I wonder if that feeling ever goes away.

“Um, do you want to eat here?” I ask Nicole. “With us?”

Our table goes silent and Nicole looks at me. “Why would I want to do some dumb-ass thing like that?”

There's a collective exhale at the table. Then everybody starts to eat, heavy plastic forks clanging on the plastic tray. They talk about their days—like this is the most normal place in the world. Finally Shelly introduces me. Nobody's asked, though. We're just all stuck—in transit—homeless. Children of the state. Shelly says, “It gets easier, okay?”

I nod. “We're brood parasites.” I say it a little too loud.

A couple of kids look up from their dinner trays. Jess rolls her eyes and mutters, “Shit. Here we go.”

Nicole raises an eyebrow and faces us, saddling the bench. “I've gotta hear this.”

“Um. You know. It's when the biological mother leaves her eggs in the nest of another and splits. So all the biological mother has to do is conceive and not worry about the actual parenting. The brown-headed cowbird has two hundred and twenty-one known hosts; it can even lay eggs the same color as the unsuspecting host. Sometimes the host doesn't even realize it's raising the young of another.”

Nicole shakes her head. “Fucking name-that-useless-science-fact. Do you have a name for that?”

“Brood parasitism,” I repeat.

“Not that. I mean the academic bulimia that you spew. Jesus.” Nicole picks up her tray and walks by me.
She whispers, “You're not gonna last.”

I feel my face get hot. The table is quiet.
Why
, I want to ask.

Shelly pats my hand.

“Hey, Jess knows all about that parasite thing,” some kid with black greasy hair and acne says, elbowing the guy next to him. He talks too loud, like that's going to erase Nicole's words. “You never told us about the nice family that got your little”—he sneers at Jess—“parasite.” The two of them snicker.

“Fuck you, Keith,” Jess says.

Keith and his friend laugh. Shelly leans into me. “Jess just got back from City of Refuge. She doesn't talk much about it. Gave the baby up. She's been pretty cranky since—”

“Shut up, Shelly. Like anybody really needs you to do the ongoing commentary here. Brainiac can probably pick up on a few things without you spelling them out for her.”

“I just—” Shelly starts to say.

“Christ.” Jess stands up and leaves, banging her tray on the kitchen counter. The rest of us finish our dinner in silence, then return to our rooms.

Ten o'clock: lights-out. A sliver of light beams across
the ceiling whenever the motion detector goes on outside. I listen to Shelly's snores, Jess's crying, and Nicole's silence. It's as if she doesn't even breathe. I listen to the other sounds of Kids Place—the shuffle of security guards pacing up and down the halls, the ticks of clocks, one of the faucets leaking. I don't know if I'll ever fall asleep again.

Unfortunately, I do.

“Get up.” A clammy hand covers my mouth. “Now.” Somebody drags me off the bed. Piercing pain shoots up my legs when my feet hit the cold linoleum floor. “Hurry up,” he whispers.

Two guys and a girl pull me out into the hallway. They drag me through the kitchen, out into the alleyway. I rub my arms in the chill night air.

“What the?” I say.

“Shut up,” the girl snaps. “Parasite,” she sneers. “What the fuck.”

I think my scientific method for surviving orphanhood should probably include not opening my mouth. Not speaking. That's probably a better approach to this situation.

The girl nods at the guys and they throw me in the Dumpster. The hinges creak before the metal lid slams in
a clamor. I listen as a latch clicks into place.

Blackness envelopes me. I jerk my knees to my chest and flick a monstrous cockroach off my neck. I retch and tremble, pounding on the lid of the Dumpster. “Please! Please!” I scream between gags. “Please let me out.”

“Let's go,” the girl says.

I pound on the Dumpster. “Please. Please,” I whimper.

“What? No Animal Planet fact?” she asks. “Snot-nosed bitch.”

I listen, horrified, as they walk away. “Don't panic,” I whisper. “Don't panic. Panicking is not rational. I'm just in a Dumpster. I'm okay. There's space. Somebody will find me in the morning.” I squeeze my eyes shut and pretend I'm somewhere else—like that apartment we had in downtown Sacramento. It smelled like sewer and garbage and had tons of roaches. But I make the mistake of opening my eyes for just a second and feel the wave of terror build up inside me.

So I begin to scream. And scream. And pound on the Dumpster. My chest feels tight; I gasp for breath until every bit of air in my body is squeezed out of my chest, and as hard as I try to gulp air, nothing enters. I don't remember passing out. When I wake up, I'm being pulled out of the
Dumpster and dropped on the pavement. Jess and Shelly stand over me.

“Welcome to Kids Place,” Jess says. “You really pissed off the wrong people today. The Triad doesn't usually come down this hard this soon.”

“C'mon.” Shelly lets me lean on her and leads me to our room.

Nicole is lying in bed. “Looks like you were the dove tonight, Jeops. Gotta watch that territorialism. Maybe you should pee around your bed.” She rolls on her side.

I spend the rest of the night trembling, waiting for them to come again. I'm the new Kids Place prey.

A
t breakfast the girl is wearing my clothes. My favorite sweater and jeans. The jeans are as soft as flannel, almost worn through the knees. And I've had that sweater since before we moved to Reno. It was the only thing I took with me from New Mexico. Rosa, our next-door neighbor, gave it to me the day we left.

It's just a sweater, I tell myself. But for some reason it feels like more.

“It's just a stupid sweater,” I mutter.

The girl looks up at me and smirks. Like she knows.

I look around. Lots of girls have pieces of me. Sweatshirts, pants, a belt. Even Jess has a scarf of mine, and Shelly's trying to hide her socks. Nobody looks me
in the eyes. I'm see-through—a glasswing butterfly. Last night my life was spread around, leaving me with nothing.

I smell like Kids Place soap—kind of detergenty lemon. Cheap. I smooth out the stiff clothes Kids Place gave me—a boxy pair of khaki pants and too-big sweatshirt. They probably don't use fabric softener or anything. The clothes smell like plastic.

I go to the room and rifle through the drawers looking for a piece of me. Anything me.

Jess comes back in from the bathroom, my scarf wrapped around her neck. I stare at her.

“Get over it, Maya.” She wraps the scarf around again. “It's just the initiation thing the Triad does. You're obviously new. Just don't
act
so new. It's like you walk around here looking at everybody like we're from the zoo. Brood parasites. God.”

I open my mouth to protest but nothing comes out. Don't speak, I think. Just don't speak. I've become one of those lab rats, trying to make my way through the maze to find the cheese. I'm not the scientist but the experiment. My stomach cramps and I fight back the tears.

Jess shrugs. “That's nothing compared to what you'll
see in some of the foster families. Better get a backbone.” She clears her throat and laughs. “Actually, a vertebra.” She looks over at me. “You think you're the only one who knows how to read around here.” She leaves the room.

Shelly comes over. “We've gotta wear the stuff. All of us are, um. Well, we've gotta wear it. You have to understand.”

I nod. It's a brilliant crime. I watch as all my clothes walk by the room in some in-your-face kind of parade and do everything I can to keep from crying. Stay rational. Come up with a hypothesis. They're just stupid clothes.

I look over at Nicole. She doesn't have anything of mine on. She looks at me—the only one who looks me in the eye all morning. “They have no code,” she says.

“Huh?” I ask.

She walks by, swinging her backpack over her bony shoulders. “Those animals—the ones that follow each other and all commit suicide together—what're they called?”

“Lemmings,” I say. But I don't bother to tell her the suicide part is a myth.
Keep mouth shut,
I think.

“Yeah. Lemmings.” She leaves the room.

Maybe she's wearing a pair of my underwear. Why would she be different from anybody else?

The next few days I just go through the motions. At school I watch everybody walk down the hall as if nothing has changed in the world. For them it hasn't. Or maybe it has. But who knows? It's like each person in this world is totally alone. I think knowing that humans are the most social animals makes everything even lonelier.

If there is a God, he must be a scientist and we're lab rats. I look up. What if the sky is the lens of God's monocle? And nighttime is the blink of His eye? “The data has been compromised!” I want to shout.

But there's no God. Dad taught me that.

I look down the hallway and watch as life unfolds: Kids group together according to attire and hairstyle; they cluster together for protection, only separating to go to their respective classes. Occasionally, the species mingle. Like when they have to do book reports together. Survival. Nothing more. Then they revert back to the safety of their groups—their own likenesses.

The social committee is in a huff about the Halloween dance since Principal Kinne won't approve the Playboy Bunny party idea. Apparently having a bunch of libidinous
teenage guys dressed in silk bathrobes ogling girls with bunny costumes is “inappropriate.” Go figure.

The science club's suggestion of Forces of Nature has been ignored. As usual. As well as the debate team's. The social committee didn't take their Dead Presidents idea to heart.

Today when Mr. Hunter pulls out the hot chili peppers for chemistry lab, Eileen hands him a note. I'll work alone while she does worksheets. She's allergic to peppers…or something. I think Eileen should be exempt from taking science even if she's the only one who talks to me at school, text messages aside.

After school I slip into the office where all the school counselors and Beulah are sitting around Principal Kinne's conference table. I bite down on a nail. My finger still burns from the spill in chemistry. I was helping Mr. Hunter organize the lab and dropped some nasty bhut jolokia pepper oil on my hand. I had to run my fingers under water and milk, but the tingling is still there. Now my lip hurts from where I bit down on my nail. Stupid. And I ran out of milk.

This time Beulah looks gray. Not beige. She sucks in her sallow cheeks when she sees me. One of Principal Kinne's
fluorescent lights sputters and dies. We sit in the shadows while the janitor works to replace the bulb.

Beulah hands me a piece of paper. “The State of Nevada is beginning the process to terminate your father's parental rights based on the long-term deficiency of his parental duties.”

No one speaks.

The school counselors squirm in their chairs. Awkward, really. Star student. Felon father. Definitely a conversation stopper.

I look up at the picture hanging behind Principal Kinne. They wear matchy-matchy clothes—he, his wife, and three kids. Two big dogs with shiny fur lie in the shot. They all sit in front of a tree. It's fall and the leaves are bright orange, red, and yellow. The frame is engraved:
A FAMILY IS A LITTLE WORLD CREATED BY LOVE
.

I look back at the piece of paper.
Termination of parental rights.
I read the words over and try to say them. Everybody stares at me. Waiting.

In order to speak, the brain has to create an idea of what it wants to communicate to somebody else. But what am I supposed to say when there's
nothing
to say?

How could I have messed this all up? I think back to
my first plan. The money from the cache was gone. So I just thought I'd sell my things. But time. It just was too late, and now—

And now.

I need a purpose.

The words blur on the page. So we don't have the matching sweaters or the picture, but Dad is my family. I don't know if our “little world” is created by love or necessity or obligation. But it's ours. I take a big gulp of air and look up at Beulah. “You can't do this. My dad not my dad? He'll never let this happen.”

Beulah scowls. “It's not personal, Maya. This is in your best interest.”

Not personal?

Ripping my family apart?

I concentrate on a water stain on the ceiling. One of the counselors pats my shoulder. “Maya, we're so sorry,” she says. “We had no idea.”

Beulah clears her throat. “In the meantime, we'll be looking for appropriate foster-care placement.”

“What about bail?” I ask.

Beulah blushes, her cardboard face turning blotchy. “All of your assets have been seized.”

“Can't I just stay at Kids Place until Dad gets out? How long could that be, anyway?”

“We're not sure.” Beulah's face has gone back to that beige color. “And it's not realistic to wait around until he does, uh”—she coughs—“get out.” She pauses, then says, “For the time being, we believe it would be healthier to place you in a foster home.” Beulah flips through her file. “With a family.”

I think about what Jess said about freak foster families.

Family.

So now I'm going to live the two-parents-and-two-point-zero-nine-children American dream mandated by the State of Nevada. Whoopee.

“Your father has mentioned some relative, but he's pretty vague.” Beulah gnaws on her pencil.

What relative?

I sigh. I figure there has to be someone. It's not like Dad and Mom were bizarre results of asexual reproduction. Jesus, even if they were test-tube babies, some woman had to have given birth to them and some guy's lucky sperm was involved. Maybe Dad's been checking out Genealogy.com or something.

Probably not. It's not like there's WiFi in prison.

I look at everybody in the room and try to deflect their pity stares. Maybe I have a seventh cousin four times removed or something. Somewhere.

Honestly, I've never thought about other relatives. It's always just been Dad and me. But now it's just me. Just me.

The rest of the meeting passes in a blur. One of the counselors wants to make sure I'm still eligible for advanced placement classes. Wow. Great priorities there.

“Maya? Are you listening?” Mrs. Peters is definitely the nicest school counselor. She's one of those people who look distraught about the downfall of today's youth. Her hand is cupped on mine. “Maya, you don't have to go through this alone. I'm sure that Beulah will work hard to find you a good family—in this area. So you don't have to change schools. It's such a shame about your father,” she says.

I nod.

So Dad's a crook. But I didn't think anybody could say, “Hey, you're not a parent anymore. Give her back.” Kids don't come with a return policy. Do they? On a scale of
one to ten, Dad's probably a high five, sometimes six. A ton better than lots of deadbeats out there.

I've lost my home and everything in it. I'm losing Dad. And I feel like I'm becoming a blank slate—generic. I need to come up with a procedure. I sigh. At least I still have science.