Dark Hope (5 page)

“Come over here,” Mr. Reynolds commanded, enjoying my discomfort. “What’s the first rule of shop, class?”

“Safety first!” The class roared in unison, adding chest beating and more hooting to the din. Mr. Reynolds grinned and held out a big helmet, beckoning for me to come forward.

I shifted my backpack to one side and stepped to the middle of the semicircle. I stared at the big helmet. It looked like it belonged on a space suit from the 1950s.

“Go on, Miss Carmichael. Demonstrate proper safety technique to the class.” Mr. Reynolds thrust the helmet at me again.

“But, I just—” I looked helplessly at the door.

“C’mon, how hard can it be?” Mr. Reynolds taunted me, tossing the helmet up in the air and catching it deftly with one hand.

I reached for it and he dramatically let it go, leaving me with the helmet’s entire dead weight. It went crashing to the floor. The entire class roared with laughter as I cradled my fingers.

“Oh, is the helmet a little heavy for you?” Mr. Reynolds said solicitously. “I forgot these older models aren’t quite as lightweight. Go ahead, pick it up and put it on.”

I started to protest, but snapped my mouth shut. There was no way I was going to let him intimidate me. I dropped my backpack and bent over to retrieve the helmet. I heaved it up with both hands before trying to force it down over my head. When it got to my ears, I got stuck. I twisted and turned the thing around on my head but only succeeded in mangling my own ears.

“Ow!” I cried as someone banged it down, hard. I could barely see out of the tiny, dark window.

“Next time you might want to open up the helmet,” Mr. Reynolds said drily as he flipped up the top, exposing my head to the foul air of the shop room. “You might want to pay attention to the rest of the safety tips.”

My humiliation complete, he dismissed me. I hurried to the edge of the room, trying to be as inconspicuous as I could be with a giant tin can on top of my head.

From that inauspicious beginning, my day went downhill. The school itself was like a maze, and I was late for every class, instantly earning the ire of every teacher. It turned out that all my classes were wrong—nothing matched the schedule my mom had so carefully prepared for me. By the time the day ended, I was exhausted from having to explain myself to the endless parade of teachers who also had apparently never heard of me. In one class, there wasn’t even a desk for me; I’d had to sit on the radiator up against the wall, and I nearly burned myself.

Everywhere I went, I could feel the blatant stares of my curious classmates. I smiled politely at their questions, giving the most minimal answers while I died inside from mortification and wished a hole would open in the floor and swallow me up. I’d almost relished my escape to the bus, hoping to forget my woes in a good book, when someone plopped down uncomfortably close to me.

“New girl! What’cha reading?” Before I could even look up, grubby hands snatched away my book.

It was the same obnoxious boy. He grinned maliciously at me and tossed the book over his shoulder toward the back of the bus. “How was your first day at school?” he asked with mock sincerity. Before I could come up with a snappy comeback, he rumpled my hair like I was a kindergartner and leapt out of my seat to join his laughing friends.

I shrank into my seat and felt my hair, comforting myself with
the security of the scarf wrapped around my neck and steeling myself for the ride home.

I’d barely walked through the door after escaping the bus when there was a knock at the door. I peeked out and saw a short, trim woman with perfectly coifed blonde hair wearing a tracksuit and an apron. She held a covered tray and was rocking impatiently, a fake smile spread across her face.

Mrs. Bibeau, I realized, remembering my mother’s note. The neighbor down the street whom Mom had asked to check in on me.

I swung the door open, doing my best to paste a matching smile on my face.

“You must be Hope,” Mrs. Bibeau declared, stepping through the door uninvited. “Your mother felt so horrible about having to go on that business trip. I told her not to worry, that I’d be happy to come on over and check on you,” she continued, her voice honeyed with a drawl I didn’t quite recognize. “I had six children of my own, you know, and we had to move five times as they grew up, so I know what it’s like. I thought you might like a little snack after such a big day, so I brought you my famous deviled eggs and pineapple sandwiches.” She whipped the tea towel off the tray to reveal a stack big enough for an army. “Why don’t we go sit down in the front room?”

Without waiting for me to answer, she steered me into the formal living room and sat us down on the sofa. I could tell my mom didn’t use this room very much. The rest of the house was so neat and organized that it looked like it came out of a magazine, like no one really lived in it. But this room held my mom’s entire “overflow.” I saw Mrs. Bibeau take a mental note of the abandoned stack of Zappos and Amazon boxes, the pile of clothes set aside for charity, and the scattered piano books that surrounded Mom’s old upright.

“Mom mentioned you’d be over,” I said politely.

“Oh, it’s no trouble. I just couldn’t stand the thought of your mother worrying.” She made a small
tsk
sound as she brought her attention back to me. “Why she keeps up that crazy schedule of hers, I’ll never know. I remember when you were just a baby and she’d come home at all hours of the night. I thought she was going to drop dead one day, I truly did. Go on now,” she said without stopping for a breath, “have a sandwich.”

I realized with a jolt that Mrs. Bibeau had known us before my kidnapping. Before my parents split up. Suddenly on my guard, I picked up one of the dainty sandwiches and nibbled at it.

Mrs. Bibeau looked at me with curiosity. “We haven’t seen your father in such a long time. Tell me, how is he doing these days?”

I took my time chewing, trying to think of the right thing to say and trying to get over the odd taste of pineapple with cream cheese.

“Okay, I guess. I haven’t talked with him since I left.”

“Really?” Her eyes shone with interest as she seized upon this bit of news. “He always seemed so … close to you. So protective. I’m surprised he didn’t call you the moment you walked through the door.”

He can’t
, I thought to myself, knowing the details of the court order were best kept to myself.

When I didn’t respond, she tried again. “Billy and I were so sad when your parents split up and you moved away. Such a horrible business. But I suppose you don’t remember any of that, do you?” She leaned in, unable to hide her eagerness.

“No, ma’am,” I said stiffly. “Why don’t I get us some sweet tea?”

I jumped from the sofa and stalked off to the kitchen. I was livid. How dare she pump me for information? There was no way I was
going to give her anything to work with. Didn’t she know I wanted to keep my past where it was—safely in the past? I slammed the glasses down on the counter, making a mess as I poured. My hands shaking, I set down the pitcher and took a deep breath.

No matter what, my mother would want me to be polite, I reminded myself. After all, she’d asked Mrs. Bibeau to stop by. The neighbor was doing this as a favor.

When I turned the corner back into the front room, I spied Mrs. Bibeau peeking into boxes and tallying up Mom’s recent redecorating changes to discuss at her next bridge club. I swallowed my anger and cleared my throat, giving her time to settle back on the sofa before I came in.

I waited a grudging ten minutes while she continued to press me for more information, peppering her conversation with gossip about our neighbors. Time seemed to drag until finally she took my hints about studying and left me to my own devices, satisfied that she could give a good report to my mother and that she had gotten enough dirt to dish to make the visit worth her while.

I watched her march back up the cul-de-sac, her apron strings flying in the wind. As soon as I was sure she wasn’t coming back, I tried my mom’s cell phone, ready to bemoan my miserable day. But the phone rolled over directly to her voice mail, so I hung up. I pressed redial, pressing it over and over until I finally gave up, throwing the phone onto the sofa.

The entire day had been a study in frustration. I looked at the book I’d taken out of my backpack—a book I’d already studied two years ago at Holy Innocents—and shook my head, tossing the book aside.

“This is not what was supposed to happen,” I pouted to myself out loud. “Not at all.”

I was getting ready to recount my various injustices again when a little voice in my head rebuked me.
But nobody looked at you like a freak, did they?

I shoved my books into my book bag, sullenly acknowledging to myself that I had, indeed, been treated as normally as any new kid in school would be. It dawned on me that while I’d always stood apart at Holy Innocents, my presence had been accepted. I wasn’t ignored, nor was I constantly ridiculed and teased. After ten years, I was as much a part of the environment as the dusty chalkboards and smelly gym. At least until the incident that finally drove me to move in with Mom. How long would it take to become invisible in this school?

I sighed. Maybe things would seem better after I’d eaten dinner. I went to the extra freezer tucked away inside our pantry, thinking I’d heat something up. When I lifted the door, row after row of Trader Joe’s eggplant parmigiana stared back at me. I dug around inside, but no matter how deeply I dug, I found nothing except eggplant. I let the freezer door fall closed and turned to the pantry shelves. Similar repetitive rows of just a few items stood at military attention on the shelves.

Sheesh. I knew my mom liked structure in her life, but this was a bit much.

I left the pantry behind and walked back through the kitchen. For a second, I thought about calling my mom one last time.

She’s not here to fix things for you
. The little voice in my head admonished me as I reached for the delivery menus Mom had left behind.
You’re going to have to take care of it yourself. Just like you wanted
.

The next morning, after running the gauntlet of the bus ride, instead of going to shop class I went straight to the front office. I waved Mom’s vaunted red folder in my hand and demanded to speak with the principal.

“I can’t stay in these classes,” I asserted, causing the nice lady behind the counter to blanch. “I took some of these when I was a freshman. I can’t be stuck in them for a whole semester. My entire schedule is wrong. My mother is going to be very unhappy when she finds out, especially after all the trouble she went through to register me properly.”

“We don’t need to bother the principal with that, honey.” The lady scurried around the counter and snatched the folder from my hands. “Why don’t you take a seat here while I see what I can do?”

I parked myself on a bench inside the office and waited, proud of myself for having taken a stand. Behind me was a glass wall veiled by half-opened blinds. I could hear the voices inside. Or voice, I should say. Only one person was talking, and by the stern tone, it sounded like a serious conversation. A quick glance at the nameplate by the door informed me this was the principal’s office. I strained harder, trying to hear what had gotten someone in trouble.

The door swung open and a pimply boy in saggy pants shuffled out, trailing his backpack behind him.

“This is your last warning, Ethan,” the voice trailed out after him. “I don’t want to see you back in here for the rest of the semester.”

“I bet Ethan doesn’t want to be back, either, by the looks of it,” a low voice, smooth as honey, whispered to me conspiratorially.

I jumped in my seat. I’d been so intent on eavesdropping that I hadn’t noticed the boy sitting down by me. But now that I had noticed him, I couldn’t stop staring.

The boy sprawled out across the bench, somehow managing to fill the small space with his entire body. His outfit was odd, more California surfer boy than Georgia public school: baggy khakis bleached almost white, and a tank topped by a white linen shirt that was definitely out of season. When he shifted his position, his pants stretched across his taut thighs. Underneath all that fabric, he was lean and muscular. He didn’t have the shaggy haircut I associated with most boys my age—‘Bama Bangs, as my father always called them. His hair was clipped close, almost military in style. It was a contradiction to his laid-back attire. And he was tan. No, tan doesn’t do it justice. He was so golden he seemed to glow.