Peas and Carrots (10 page)

I shrug again. Down the hall, I can hear Baby singing along with his video.

“Misunderstandings happen, even in birth families. The way to prevent misunderstandings is to communicate,” Bradbrook drones on, leaning forward to meet my eyes. “If you don't want to talk to me, you can call the office and leave me a message. I want to help you make this placement work.”

I shrug a third time. “When do I see Trish?” I don't like him making me ask, but I guess only Farris knew she was just supposed to
tell me
what I needed to know. I'm gonna have to train Bradbrook.

He shifts, frowns, and reaches up to rub his neck. “I thought Mrs. Farris already went over this with you. Your mother has cut a deal with the district attorney's office in exchange for a shortened sentence. Because of threats made against her, she's in administrative segregation right now at Ironwood Vocational Center, and—”

“I know
that.
I just asked—”

“Ms. Matthews, do you understand why your placement was changed?”

I press my hands on my knee, to still my bouncing leg. I don't like him calling me “Ms. Matthews.” He sounds like the child services lady when she talked to Trish.

“Ms. Matthews?”

I push aside the roaring in my ears. “Rena said…some stuff about family.” I wave my hand. Trish had threats from my psycho father's friends, and she asked that Farris move me. So? I don't want to think about the Felon ordering a hit on Trish for testifying. Or ordering them to come after me…I slide down in my seat and rub my neck, feeling the smooth couch fabric against my jeans, knowing that I don't feel hard, tattooed fingers at my throat. I croak, “She's okay, right?”

Bradbrook licks his bottom lip and studies me. “Ms. Matthews—”

That wakes me up. “My name is
Dess.
You can call me Dessa if you want, but quit it with the ‘Ms. Matthews' crap.”

“Dessa,” Bradbrook continues, “as I said, your mother is being housed in segregation. That means she's not being held with the general population—she's by herself. She's safe and well, and waiting to testify. I'll be happy to forward any letters you send to her and will make sure you get any mail from her, but it won't be possible to resume family visits until after the trial.”

“I know.”

Baby's gone quiet. Everyone seems far away, and the silence prickles against my skin.

Bradbrook lowers his voice. “Dessa, I know this is hard. I know it has got to be stressful to be put in a new placement with strangers in a whole new county, and get a new school and a social worker in the package. But you can handle this, Dess. We're all here to help.”

Yeah, I'm sure.
“We done yet?”

“No, we're not.” Bradbrook digs in his file and comes up with a familiar blue envelope addressed in a familiar loopy handwriting. “Your maternal grandmother, Doris Matthews, has asked that I forward these—”

I make a buzzing noise. “Next. I don't talk to that beeyatch, and she don't need to talk to me. Any letter for me you get from her, shred it.”

Farris, who knows my history with Granny Doris, would never have let me get away with even pretending to call her anything, but Bradbrook's eyebrow only twitches. He clears his throat, and goes on like I haven't interrupted. “Now, I've talked with Mrs. Carter about your allowance—you'll need to tell her if you'd prefer it every week or in a lump sum once a month. The amount hasn't changed.”

Please.
I get eight bucks a week from the state. A monthly lump sum is at least halfway to being real money.

Bradbrook continues, “And we'll see if we need to adjust your clothing allowance. Headwaters has supplied your basic uniform from some overstock, which is one logo golf shirt and one phys ed uniform. But any extra sports shirts, hoodies, tracksuits, or button-downs sporting the school logo you'll need to purchase on your own.”

“Fine.”

“Laura Molloy is still your lawyer. Her number hasn't changed, and anything you need from her, you just pick up the phone, okay? You know your rights, and you have all the contact information you need?”

“Got it.” Farris asked me that, too, every single time. “Anything else?”

Bradbrook takes a deep breath and fixes me with his eyes again. “Dess, Doris Matthews—”

I bristle. “Look, Bradbrook, I
said—
”

“Ms. Matthews, lower your voice, please, and hear me out.” He raises his own voice just a little, but it's sharp enough to shut me down.

I clench my jaw and glare. He's as bad as Farris after all.

Granny Doris taught me to sew and to look after myself, yeah, but she is an evil racist crone. She wouldn't take Baby and me last time Trish got popped. She told Farris no, Farris said, but I didn't believe her. I was
sure
she would take me, sure Farris just didn't let her know how much I needed her. I ran away from that nice foster lady they put me with, sneaked on a city bus with another family, walked, ran, and ran some more. I got all the way to Rosedale before I knew there wasn't anywhere for me to go.

She wasn't too old to take us. She just didn't want Baby. She said she told Farris that
I
could stay but not him. I shouted a lot, broke dishes and stuff, and bailed out of there that night, after she called the cops on me.

I haven't talked to that evil old lady since.

Bradbrook is still going. “…she told me that Mrs. Matthews has sent a letter care of the Department of Children and Families and Children's Services every month for the past four
years.
It seems to me that she is determined to reach you, Ms. Matthews—Dess. Now, it's our job to look out for your best interests—”

I snort.

“—and we
are
the Department of Children and Families. Family is important, Dess. The state will
not
relinquish you to her care, and you don't have to see Mrs. Matthews in person at any time. However, refusing to speak with her or accept her letters—”

“Shred them,” I repeat, arms crossed. “I don't have to talk to her, and Ms. Molloy said nobody can make me.”

Bradbrook, brow furrowed, drags his teeth over his lip. “Ms. Matthews—”

“I've got rights,” I remind him, my voice rising. “You can't make me.”

“No one can make you,” he confirms, but he looks tired.

I don't bother walking him to the door. Instead, I stay in the front room, on the fancy couch, alone except for a patch of sun that slides down the wall to the carpet.

A letter—every month? Still? When Farris told me I was getting mail, I told her to shred it ages ago. Granny Doris kept writing? Curiosity pulses through my thoughts, and I give my head a quick shake.
No.
So what, the hag can write. She may have been okay once, but Baby and me don't need no racists in our family. We're fine without all of that.

“Shred it,” I mutter again, and hug my arms around myself.

She didn't want us then, and it's too late now.
Too late.

Two weeks later, in her second-period class, Hope took the sheet of paper Mr. Cochrane handed her and grimaced. She hated pop quizzes, and one of Cochrane's one-minute “multiple-guess” quizzes at the start of a new unit was the
worst.

“No talking, please. Leave your quiz facedown until I say go,” Mr. Cochrane said, dropping another sheet of paper on the desk to her left.

Hope fidgeted in her front-row seat as Mr. Cochrane, in his usual suspender-and-bow-tie combo, continued around the room. Surreptitiously she peeked out of the corner of her eye at Dess, who sat at the other end of the front row, five seats to the right. Usually Dess made sure to sit anywhere but in Hope's row. Her presence today itched along Hope's nerves like a rash. She couldn't stop looking at her.

Ms. Aiello had moved Dess around a couple of times as teachers had given her various tests. She had settled into three classes with Hope—chorus on Tuesdays and Thursdays, biology fourth period—and now it looked as if she'd be in Hope's American history and governance class, too, which sucked.

Mr. Cochrane had circled back to the front. He reached into his desk drawer and took out a miniature timer. Its red sand sparkled in its tiny base. “All right, folks, you have sixty seconds. Go.”

Blocking out the automatic squeals of
One minute?,
she flipped the paper over and skimmed it rapidly, her heart pumping competitively. There was only one question, with a list of possible answers.
What are the Five Freedoms of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution?

Oh…crap. This was fourth-grade stuff, but she couldn't remember it.
Crap.

She gnawed on her bottom lip. Okay. She could do this. Those four paintings by Norman Rockwell were called
Four Freedoms.
Unfortunately, all she could remember was that one of them showed people eating Thanksgiving dinner.

Crap, crap, crap.

Around the room tense silence flowed, and pencils checked boxes. Hope's head turned slightly. Dess had just flipped her paper over and set down her pencil.

Hope straightened indignantly. No way—she couldn't be done. She was just—

“About thirty seconds left,” Mr. Cochrane said.

Head down, Hope started checking boxes. Freedom of Speech? That sounded right. Freedom of…Listening? Um…Freedom of the Press? Oh, she knew that one for sure. Freedom of Education? Freedom of Petition?

“Sand's gone,” Mr. Cochrane announced. “Pencils down.”

With a spurt of frustration, Hope checked one last box and flipped her paper over.

“Give your paper to the person on your left,” Mr. Cochrane instructed, adding, “and those of you on the left, take your papers all the way down to the end. You know the drill.”

With a sick feeling in her stomach, Hope accepted the paper from Wynn Reiber, the girl next to her. Wishing she'd had time to change the last answer on her own sheet, she reluctantly dragged herself from her seat and slowly moved across the front of the room to hand her paper to…Dess.

Dess looked at Hope as she dropped the quiz on her desk. She pulled out her red pencil, and Hope looked away.

Crap.
Hope knew she hadn't done well—and now Dess would know, too.

It doesn't matter,
Hope thought as she slumped back into her seat. Dess thought she was dumb already. Last night after dinner, they had been watching
Jeopardy!
with Dad in the family room, and when the clue was
They're not onion rings, but THIS seafood appetizer,
she'd shouted, “What are shrimp?”

“What are calamari?” Dad and Dess had answered in unison.

“The clue is ‘rings,' ” Dess explained superciliously. “Calamari is in rings—get it?”

Hope, who wouldn't eat anything that even smelled as if it might have been
near
fish, just shrugged sullenly. Her uncle Peter liked popcorn shrimp, which is why she'd thought of it—popcorn was a snack, like an onion ring, right? Hope knew zip about fancy seafood, and right now she knew zip about the Five Freedoms, too. That same tide of prickling self-consciousness she'd felt last night washed over her whole body and threatened to drown her.

“Freedom of Religion—raise your hand if you've got a check mark.”

Most of the class dutifully raised their hands, and Mr. Cochrane counted aloud the number who agreed and wrote it on the board. “Freedom of Listening,” he continued, and counted the students again. He worked his way through the list, down to Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Shopping, which obviously wasn't a real freedom, because if it was, you'd have to have Freedom of Money—and when they'd deconstructed the Declaration of Independence two weeks ago, Mr. Cochrane had pointed out how only the
pursuit
of happiness was considered a human right, not actually
being
happy.

As it turned out, Freedom of Listening was an
implied
freedom, tagged on to Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Education wasn't even
in
the Bill of Rights but something from the Convention on Human Rights, which didn't have anything to do with the First Amendment, either. Kalista argued that
technically
Freedom of Shopping could be about all people being free to shop anywhere they wanted. Mr. Cochrane said that
technically
the question had been about the First Amendment, and since the quiz wasn't about amending the First Amendment, Kalista was going to have to accept that she was wrong.

At least Mr. Cochrane always asked them to mark only the answers that were correct. It wasn't nearly as bad as checking off all the ones that were wrong.

When it was time to return the quizzes, instead of getting up to give Hope her paper, Dess passed it across the row. Kalista, sitting next to Dess, looked at Hope's paper and laughed. Kalista passed it to Marcel Thomas, who didn't even glance at it. Marcel passed it to Grayson Cho, who snickered, looked down the row at Hope, and laughed again. Grayson passed it to Wynn, and Hope cringed as Wynn fiddled nervously with her hearing aid, barely meeting Hope's eyes. Dess had put big red frowning dog faces and
No!
and
Bad Girl!
next to the two answers that were wrong.

That little troll-faced bimbette!
Hope leaned forward so Dess could see her face and
glared.

Down the row, Wynn, Grayson, Marcel, and Kalista all leaned forward and looked over at Dess…who wasn't even paying any attention. Finally, the feeling of so many curious eyes made her lift her head. Instead of looking embarrassed or apologetic, as Hope thought she should, Dess raised her eyebrows and jutted out her chin aggressively. “What?” she said out loud.

Mr. Cochrane, who had just told them to open their social studies textbooks, looked up. “Miss Matthews? Did you have a question?” he asked.

“Nope,” Dess replied, smirking.

Hope muttered under her breath. When Mr. Cochrane glanced her way, she simply held up her paper. Mr. Cochrane frowned first at Wynn. Then, realizing who had marked Hope's paper, he looked to the right. “Miss Matthews, next time, please follow directions for the marking,” he said, calm as always, but Hope felt a zing of self-righteous satisfaction.

So there, you skinny little heifer,
Hope thought. As much as she had hated Dess using the word, Hope found that she liked it. “Heifer” wasn't as nasty as “whore” or “bitch,” so she was only slightly insulting Dess, not tearing down a fellow sister in the feminist point of view. The word spoke to Hope. It was specific and said “young” as well as “female.” Plus, it sounded so much
worse
than plain old “cow.”

Dess just shrugged at Mr. Cochrane, as if she didn't understand what she'd done. Of course, the minute he'd turned back to the board, Dess rolled her eyes and sighed, making a big show of facing away from Hope's side of the room.

Grayson, seemingly disappointed that nothing else was going to happen, turned to Hope and shook his head. “Don't be such a baby,” he muttered. “It was just a joke.”

Mr. Cochrane cleared his throat. “Mr. Cho, since you're already chatting, I'll start with you. We have a student in our class here, Jas Singh, who wears a
patka.
Why does he wear this head covering?”

“Uh…because he feels like it?” Grayson cracked.

Grayson's stupid friends snickered. To Hope's disgust, a couple of them slapped hands. Mr. Cochrane gave them all a narrow-eyed look. “And now Miss Carter will give the class an
intelligent
answer. Pay attention, Mr. Cho. Miss Carter?”

Hope felt her face get even hotter. Of all the students in the whole room, Mr. Cochrane would have to ask
her
about Jas. She cleared her throat. “Jaswinder follows the Sikh religion. He wears his
patka
because it's part of his religion, and part of the First Amendment is that you can wear what your religion, uh, tells you to, so…?”

“Is that your answer, or is it a question?” Mr. Cochrane asked, brows raised.

Hope blurted out, “Well, it's my answer, but I don't see why. It doesn't seem like a religion should tell you how to dress. Sorry, Jas.” Hope turned in her seat and gave her classmate a mortified look.

“No, I don't have to wear a
patka,
” Jas explained. “I do it because I want to—”

“Ha! I was right!” Grayson crowed.

“—show respect to my faith.” Jas ignored Grayson. “That's why I do it.”

Hope nodded. “Basically what I said.” Though it sounded better coming from Jas.

“Thank you, Miss Carter, Mr. Singh,” Mr. Cochrane said. “So, back to the topic…”

The rest of the class was actually interesting. Mr. Cochrane talked about the historical importance of religion in Western Europe and in the brand-new colonies of the United States. Hope listened, but she was distracted, wondering what Jas thought of her answer. Should she apologize again after class? Jas had beautiful eyes, with these amazingly long, distracting lashes. Could Hope even get through an apology with that much lash going on?

“Three delegates to the Philadelphia Convention at Independence Hall in 1787 were so upset that nobody would agree to a bill of rights, they refused to sign the Constitution,” Mr. Cochrane added. “Because they were so sure that one was needed, they inspired James Madison to start work on a bill of rights when the session was over.”

1787,
Hope wrote, as if she'd been taking careful notes. She only sighed a little when Mr. Cochrane wrote a short-essay homework question on the board. He'd already given out a reading assignment at the beginning of class, and he said the short-answer essay was extra credit. The question he asked—
Would a family whose religion doesn't permit them to go to the hospital have the right to keep their sick baby at home?
—got her thinking. Hope, who knew more about sick babies than most of her classmates, thanks to Jamaira, scribbled the question on a notebook page and nodded to herself. She could use the extra credit to make up for the First Amendment quiz she'd screwed up. Perfect. She glanced over her shoulder. Now, if she could just make sure she hadn't screwed up with Jas—

“Essays should be in complete sentences. Note your sources, and, of course, spelling and grammar always count.” Mr. Cochrane raised his voice as the electronic chime that signaled the end of class rang. “Good class today, people.”

Hope shoved her books into her bag as the rush of students moved toward the front of the room. She'd just swung her bag onto her shoulder and was walking to the door when Jas, his backpack casually slung over one shoulder, fell into step next to her. Hope beamed, then looked away. Every time Jas got anywhere near her lately, she got this huge, dorky smile on her face.

“So you don't think the Sikhs should have to wear turbans?” Jas asked, turning sideways to shoulder around a girl who had stopped smack in the middle of the hallway.