Sliding On The Edge (10 page)

The Troll slides me a glance
and a grin.
What does she want? Good
grief, go away.

The bell ends my captivity in history,
but Pollard wants more of me today, so I gather my books and
shuffle to his desk.

He looks up from his seat and smiles.
“How about a mini-review, Miss Stone?

I think it would do us both good to go
over today’s lesson.”

I shrug and shift my books to my hip.
He breaks a pencil.

“
What was today’s lesson?”
he asks, staring at the two pieces of yellow #2 in each
hand.

“
Industrial Revolution,” I
reply.

He nods.

“
And what are the main
points I made today?”

“
Children suffered. Some
people organized the National Child Labor Committee in 1904. They
wanted to stop the abuse of young workers. By 1907, about two
million little kids worked and didn’t go to school. In 1912, Taft
created the Children’s Bureau. He gave a woman named Julia Lathrop
the job as head of the bureau.” I shift my books to my other
hip.

Pollard Nix tosses the two pieces of
pencil so they popped into the air. Without saying anything, he
shoves his chair away from his desk and stands. He walks to the
door, stops, and faces me. “And just think what more you could tell
me, Miss Stone, if you’d remained awake?”

“
There was more?”

He slams the door so hard, the picture
of George Washington tilts left.

I wait for the seismic activity to
settle, and then I walk out into the hall—smack into The
Troll.

“
So?” she asks.

I shake my head and walk to my locker.
She trails after me. “I didn’t want you to get in trouble. That’s
why I . . . you know, warned you.”

I spin the combination on my locker
then turn around. “Look. I think it’s grand of you to, like, help
me out. Really. But I don’t need your help. Put that in your notes.
Do not help Shawna. She don’t want it! Okay?” I grab my books for
English and dump history in their place. When I turn to leave,
she’s still standing at my side.

“
You always need a
friend.”

Now I do one of Kay’s long
blinks that screams fed up.
Go take a
bath, okay?
I think it, but I don’t say
it.
Why even bother?
I push past her and head to English.

Mrs. Heady is not giving us an essay
today. What, is she like, sick? Alzheimer’s erase her lesson plan?
The Troll takes her seat and doesn’t look at me. We have achieved
separation, Houston. But I’m not in the greatest mood after Pollard
Nix and his inquisition. I’m so not going to make it through this
year.

Now Mrs. Heady is lecturing and
writing and lecturing. I’m about over the top with learning, so I
doodle until Monster’s face stares up at me. He’s beginning to look
handsome. At least his clothes don’t rip apart to reveal their
inside secrets. And he’s very patient. There’s a lot to like about
him. If he just didn’t pick on me when I’m down, we’d get along
better.

“
Shawna?” It’s Mrs.
Heady.

I look up and stare into the
faces of half the class turned in my direction.
And they want what?
I crush Monster’s
face into a ball and wait.
Someone make a
move already, ‘cause it’s not going to be me.

“
Say, ‘it’s about death,’”
The Troll whispers from behind her book.

I close my eyes and say, “it’s about
death,” but it comes out sounding like it’s about a pile of crap.
When I open my eyes, Mrs. Heady is writing ‘death’ on the board.
What has that to do with anything? I glance at The Troll, who nods
and turns her book so I can read the title of the poem the class is
discussing.

“
Is there another metaphor
that you found?” Mrs. Heady asks.

“
The carriage,” The Troll
answers.

“
Excellent,” Mrs. Heady says
while she writes that on the board as well.

I cradle my forehead in both hands and
do my best to look like I’m studying the textbook. I read that poem
and I hated it. That poet didn’t know squat about waiting for
death. It’s not that way. The bell rings and I’m out of my seat,
hurling Monster into the trash and shoving my way out the
door.

Chapter 19

Kay

Kay woke to one of those bright
October mornings. The sun slanted across the earth and washed it in
a golden light that signaled the end of California’s Indian Summer.
It was the kind of day when Kay loved to take the gray out for a
long ride, sit under a tree, and watch the creek slide past. But,
yesterday, when Robby Green had called, asking her to come in, he’d
sounded urgent. She’d agreed to meet with him at ten this
morning.

By a little after ten, she sat in the
principal’s office across from Shawna’s English teacher, Mrs.
Heady. Robby sat at the end of the small conference table. Both
wore expressions a lot like people sitting in the family section at
a funeral.

“
We’re very concerned, Kay.”
His voice sounded tight like his throat was cinching down on his
words.

Kay folded her hands in
front of her on the table.
Here it comes,
she thought. What has Shawna done, said?

“
Have you seen anything that
might signal Shawna is depressed enough to have thoughts of …” he
cleared his throat, “…suicide?” Robby Green spoke the word softly,
but it struck her like a blow across the face.

If she’d been standing, Kay knew she
would be holding onto something to keep from falling. Yes, he’d
sounded serious when he called her yesterday, but she’d come ready
to talk about Shawna’s language or her antisocial behavior, not
suicide!

She shook her head. No. She’d never
suspected anything like that. Was she blind? Stupid? Naïve? How can
a sixty-four-year-old woman be naïve? Wait. What makes him jump to
the idea of suicide when he’s dealing with a sixteen-year-old whose
emotions roller-coaster hourly?

“
Of course, we can’t be
sure,” he continued, “but, ahem . . . well, Shawna’s essays . . .
are—” he signaled to Mrs. Heady.

Mrs. Heady leaned forward as if she
wanted to share a secret. “Mrs. Stone, I’ve spoken several times
with Mr. Green about Shawna’s withdrawal and her sullen attitude,
and the fact that I see it worsening almost daily.” She cleared her
throat, “There are adults that haven’t experienced what your
granddaughter has. I haven’t, so I sometimes don’t know how to
respond to her work.” She held out a crumpled piece of paper. “And
I don’t often retrieve things students toss into the waste basket,
but Shawna was in a darker mood than usual on Monday, and I noticed
her doodling. She wasn’t on task at all, but when I spoke to her,
she did go back to work and complete her assignment. When she left
class, she threw this away. I . . . well, I had to know what was on
this paper.”

Kay took the paper and read the
scrawled words. “Pity is for the living, envy is for the
dead.”

Kay knew that quote. She knew it too
well. She’d tortured herself with it after Nicholas died. After
Peter left. When her life wasn’t worth living anymore.

“
Monster. Monster. Just a
little longer.” The note continued.

Underneath these words, Shawna had
drawn a ghoulish face with black, pinpoint eyes and a grin filled
with razor sharp teeth. Tiny drops of blood dripped from the gaping
lips and pooled at the bottom of the paper. It was childish, except
for the ugly face. She held it away and leaned back in her chair,
suddenly drained of energy, numb all over, like her arms might feel
if she’d slept on them.

Kay let the paper fall to the table
and buried her face in her hands.

“
I’m very sorry. This is a
shock, I know. I hesitated to make such an assumption, and kept
thinking this could just be a young girl adjusting to her new life
and feeling lonely. But we can’t take a chance, especially when we
have Mrs. Heady’s observations about Shawna’s increasing withdrawal
from social contact. She has no friends, talks to no one, and she
barely participates in class. I feel we need to intervene and get
Shawna some help, and we need to do it immediately.”

Kay couldn’t respond. Her mouth seemed
full of sand, and the fears she’d struggled to push aside were
popping up like shooting-gallery ducks. What if she couldn’t handle
this troubled sixteen-year-old? What if something happened to this
girl while she was taking care of her? She wasn’t even her legal
guardian. What if she failed as a grandmother the way she had as a
mother? As a wife?

The room closed around her. She was
suffocating. She shoved her chair back, walked to the window, and
pushed it open. Leaning out, she inhaled the Indian Summer air as
though it was her last breath.

She’d learned to value her life, but
it wasn’t until she’d gone down to the mat with death that she’d
learned to truly appreciate it.

It had taken Kenny Fargo, a derelict
cowboy with more common sense than any man she’d ever met, to put
her back into balance. He’d stood in her office door that morning,
his grimy hat in his hand. Ten years ago? That long? Yes. A
half-hour before, she’d watched Peter drive off down the rutted
road for the last time.

“
So you’re gonna bail out on
us, I see.” Kenny set the crease in his hat like it was the most
important thing he had on his mind at the moment.

“
Go away!” she
shouted.

“
Sure. I can do that real
easy. What do you want me to do with the body? How about your
horses?”

She looked up at him. The skinny,
brown-toothed old devil was grinning at her. And here she was,
sitting with a shotgun propped up against the floor and aimed at
her chest. What was so funny?

“
Seems to me you ought to
have thought all that out before you settled yourself down to do
what it is you’re planning. If I was you, I’d put your wishes down
in writing and give them to me before you get on with this little
drama.”

Kay laid the gun across her desk.
“Little drama,” she repeated, slumping back in her desk chair. She
looked up at Kenny, who was leaning against the doorjamb like he’d
dropped in for a Sunday visit. “It would be little, wouldn’t
it?”

“
Afraid, so. Of course,
you’d sure have showed him, right? Well, you put down what you
want, and I’ll do it.” He pushed away from the door and took a step
back. “Oh, and you have to take the safety off if you want that gun
to fire.”

She pulled the window closed and
returned to her seat across from Robby Green. He no longer
resembled her grade school chum or the high school president she’d
sat beside and tutored through algebra. And for that she was
grateful. She could pretend they didn’t know each other as she
faced him, her privacy stripped, her fear exposed. “What do you
suggest I do?”

He reached across and put his hands
over hers. “I have several possible sources for help, and we’ll
work with you, too, so you won’t be alone dealing with this
crisis.”

“
Shawna has English next
period. Do you want me to send her here?” Mrs. Heady
asked.

“
Give Mrs. Stone and me some
time to go over options. Send her after class.” He scribbled on a
pink pad and handed Mrs. Heady the small slip of paper.

Mrs. Heady rose, came around the
table, and stopped next to Kay. “She’s such a bright girl. I know
we can help her get through this.”

Kay looked at their two
faces, so different from each other in all ways except for the
tightness around their mouths and the deep creases in their
foreheads. She could only imagine what her face must look like.
The
Titanic
had
just run into the iceberg.

Chapter 20

Shawna

“
Hey, Shawna!”

I look behind me. The Sunday Boy with
the great jeans is coming my way. Now what? I should pretend I
don’t hear him, but like a jerk I’ve made eye contact already. I
lean against my locker and watch him as he weaves his way through
students on their way to class.

He looks just like he does
every Sunday—T-shirt with rolled sleeves and the same kind of
jeans. He’s a head taller than most of the guys in the hall, and
seems older than the others in his senior class.
Is it the way he clutches his books in the crook
of his arm? The easy way he walks or looks directly into people’s
eyes when he speaks to them? What do I like about him besides the
way his clothes fit? Wait, like him? Not in this
lifetime.

“
Guess you’re in a hurry,”
he says, standing in front of me.

“
Why?”

“
You passed me like someone
late for a date. Didn’t you see me?”

“
I wasn’t looking at
anybody. I’ve got English in a couple of minutes.” I put a hard
edge on my voice like I used to when Mom came home with a
new
friend
for me
to meet.

“
You’re not easy to talk to.
Do you know that?”