Eleanor (21 page)

“I'm a witness, and I'll tell you that Barbara Pennon is flat out wrong,” added David. “Eleanor tried to help, and this is how she's treated?”

“We're just making inquiries,” said Miss Lamb.

“Why don't you talk to Robby Guide or Aubrey Ingram?” asked David. “No, better yet, how about we go talk to the news vans outside. We'll tell them the truth. That Eleanor Anders is an unsung hero who tried to save the town from an incompetent lunch lady and is now being made a scapegoat.”

“Calm down, Mr. Venn,” said Mr. Poulson.

“No, you calm down. This town is run on rumors, and it's about time someone put the record straight. Eleanor Anders is a shy girl who won't stick up for herself. She's an easy target for lies and repeated lies. Well, I'm sick of it. Take your damn rumors and put them to the test. We'll tell our side, and you tell yours. Let's get some fresh air in here.”

The table fell silent.

“What do you say, Mr. Curtz?” asked Tabitha. “Should we let in some air?”

The principal cleared his throat. “Though his manners may be lacking, Mr. Venn has a point. Every school has someone the other students pick on and gossip about. I'm afraid to say that Miss Anders may be ours.”

“That's why she poisoned the food,” said Miss Church. “Because she was bullied. It proves my case.”

“It proves nothing,” said Mr. Curtz. “It only means that it's easy for people to blame her for their own mistakes and project their own failures on this timid girl.”

“Why didn't you eat the stew, Miss Church?” asked Tabitha.

“I wasn't hungry,” she said.

“It's your signature dish,” said Tabitha.

“I wasn't hungry,” said Miss Church bitterly. “I know what you're implying. Several of my cooks are out sick right now, I'll have you know.”

“Should have listened to Eleanor,” said David.

“Calm down, everyone,” said Mr. Gomez pounding his fist on the table. “Come to order.”

Everyone fell silent, but the air was thick with tension and dirty looks.

“Let's adjourn,” he said. “Mrs. Anders, Eleanor, David, Sheriff Hannon will take you home.”

“I think I'll walk,” said David. “I feel an interview coming on.”

Mr. Gomez smiled. “Let's not do anything hasty,” he said. “Let's get all the facts before doing anything hasty.”

“Are you telling us we can't talk to the press?” he asked.

“No, of course not. Do as you like,” he said, glancing at his compatriots. “I'm asking you not to. Give the committee a chance to look at the facts first. No need to blacken anyone's eyes yet.”

“How long will that take?”

“Not long,” said Mr. Gomez. “I have to report to the governor tonight.”

“If we hear our names spoken unflatteringly anywhere,” Tabitha said, “we will sue.”

“Are you threatening us?” asked Mr. Poulson.

“I'm asking you,” said Tabitha.

Outside, the sheriff threaded through the reporters rushing to point cameras into the car windows. The cruiser pushed through the throng and out onto the street with the lights flashing.

“Where do you live, David?” asked the sheriff once on the highway. “I'll drop you off.”

“Maybe David can come to our place,” said Eleanor. “Stay for lunch, maybe. There's still time for the park.”

David beamed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

T
here was no mention of any of them in the final press release. The incident was blamed on bad meat and poor kitchen procedures. The entire kitchen staff was quietly fired and a retired health inspector was hired to replace Miss Church.

School resumed the next week, but the halls were all but empty. It was important to show that the problem had passed, so even with only a fraction of the students able to attend, school resumed. Mr. Blake was out on sick leave, in the hospital actually, and Mrs. Hart had to excuse herself at least once an hour to visit the lavatory. Mr. Graham soldiered on and never spoke a word about it. He lectured as if he had a full class but suspended labs. Eleanor knew that the faculty had been put on notice to adjust curriculum so ailing students could keep up at home. Mr. Curtz promised that “this unfortunate event would not endanger anyone's education or graduation.” The school board had taken out a full page in the paper to say just that.

March became silent reading and worksheet month. In driver's education, Eleanor passed off her driving hours in a week since there was only one other student in the class. She'd get her temporary before her birthday and have her unrestricted license six months to the day afterward. She and Mr. McDonnell, the driver's ed teacher, and Carston Weeks spent every Tuesday and Thursday puttering around the streets of Jamesford looking for interesting places to turn. Finally, they'd drive to Cowboy Bob's and have coffee and a donut, Mr. McDonnell's treat. Mr. McDonnell would fix them up with snacks and then disappear into the adults-only section where he'd smoke cigarettes like they were going to be banned. The kids didn't mind. It was better than watching vehicular safety scare videos.

Carston was a smart boy, a kid who'd never bothered Eleanor. She knew he was an excellent student, particularly in art and mathematics. Before they were alone in driver's education, they'd never spoken a word to each other over their entire school careers. Out of boredom, they became acquaintances and shared pleasant small talk and did homework together in the hours at the truck stop. When they were done, Eleanor would often read and Carston would sketch.

One afternoon as they were climbing back into the school sedan, Eleanor noticed a sketch Carston had done of her at the table.

“May I see it?” she asked.

“It's not good,” he said. “It's fanciful. Not a real portrait.”

“I'd still like to look,” she said. He handed her his pad.

He'd captured her face, the one she saw in the mirrors anyway. He'd put her face on a contorting cloud.

“What does it mean?”

“It's nothing,” he said embarrassed. “I try to think what people remind me of. Like Russell Liddle, he reminds me of a dull spike. Mr. McDonnell reminds me of a road. You remind me of a cloud.”

“Why?”

“I don't know,” he said taking the pad back. “Kinda far away I guess.”

The quiet, lazy, spring school days were made perfect since she and David were friends again. She hadn't gone to the park with David after the hearing, but instead they'd all stayed home and played cards, discussing the witch trial they'd all just endured. Eleanor found the time easy and familiar. She allowed herself to laugh and joke. David stayed for dinner and left only after dark when Tabitha had fallen asleep on the couch.

When back in school, David walked Eleanor home every night and went shopping with her on the weekends. He took her to a movie and on a hike. Eleanor braced herself for the conversation, for the questions and accusations, but they never came. He never broached any question that Eleanor feared, never even gave her a chance to open such a conversation.

Then one Saturday late in March, David took Eleanor on a long hike. They followed Carter Creek up the canyon and found a pond of newly hatched tadpoles. “You can eat those you know,” Eleanor said, remembering a previous conversation about frogs. “If you're hungry enough.”

“I hope we're never that hungry,” he said. He rolled up his pants and waded in. He scooped up a handful of the wiggling things and showed them to Eleanor.

“They're neat,” he said.

“I think so, too,” said Eleanor.

Eleanor waded in beside him and it was only a matter of time before they got in a water fight. Eleanor took the worst of it, but David evened it out by diving in. Laughing and teasing, they climbed out of the pond dripping with spring runoff.

“I know a place,” David said. He took Eleanor's hand and led her up the embankment. He followed a half-invisible trail through a tangle. Eleanor could smell deer and raccoon and house cat. Brave house cat.

Suddenly they broke through the brush and into a small round clearing. Tufts of grass were bent down where a deer had slept just the day before. Another trail led to the north, but otherwise it was like a little room with a ceiling open to the warm Wyoming sunshine. David took off his shirt and wrung it out. He hung it on a branch and then they lay on their backs in the grass to watch clouds.

“That one looks like a turtle,” he said.

“A turtle eating a snake,” she corrected him.

“No, it has a long tongue.”

She watched it morph into a blob and then change into a fair approximation of a fish. She remembered Carston's drawing of her and felt uneasy.

“I've been dying to show you this place since I found it,” David said.

“It's nice. How did you find it?”

“Honestly? I needed a place to think. I ran out of the house and along the river. I heard some fishermen and ducked into those bushes. Best shortcut I ever took.”

“Why'd you need to think?” asked Eleanor, nibbling on a piece of grass shoot. They lay at a narrow angle to each other, their heads inches away, their faces turned to the sky.

“Stuff,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

“No, I'll tell you,” he said. “I was missing you. That's all.”

She left it at that. They lay in the sunshine for an hour, picking out cloud shapes and drying off. Eleanor would identify the sounds in the forest. She didn't know the names of all the birds, but she could tell David what they looked like and some of their habits. David told her about how Wendy had become a real pill, and her mother was overcompensating. “If Dad were home, he'd do better,” he said.

“When's he coming back?” Eleanor asked.

“We don't know,” he said. “Mom thinks it good that he's gone.”

“Why?”

“Money maybe. Maybe stress,” he said. “He wasn't happy at home.”

Eleanor could sense a melancholy in his voice. He'd tell her more if she asked, but she didn't. Everyone's allowed some secret pain.

“How's your cat?” Eleanor asked instead.

“Odin? How do you know about him?”

“I can smell him on you.”

“Hard to keep anything from you,” he laughed. “He's great. Do you remember that one-eyed kitten you showed me last fall? It's him. I went back and got him. Nobody seemed to mind.”

“Why'd you take him?” Eleanor asked. “There were better kittens.”

“No there weren't,” he said.

“I mean kittens who have both eyes. Normal.”

“Normal's overrated,” he said. “I wanted Odin.”

“You wanted to prove me wrong, didn't you? Because I said he wouldn't survive.”

“Yup,” he said without hesitation.

When they were dry, David walked Eleanor home. He took her hand, and Eleanor let him. They walked in comfortable silence, smelling spring blossoms and new grass on the mountain air. On her doorstep, in the failing sun, there was a wonderfully awkward moment when something could have happened but both chickened out.

“I'll see you later,” he said. “Don't forget we have a test tomorrow.”

“I won't forget,” she said. “Bye.”

She opened the door and floated inside. Her head swam with impossible possibilities, denials, and fantasies.

She glided into the kitchen looking for her mother. She had so much to tell.

She crashed to earth at the sight of Tabitha sprawled on the bathroom floor.

“Mom!”

Tabitha was unconscious beside the toilet. The bowl was full of blood. Streaks of it ran from the rim, down the floor, and led to her mother's chin. She'd vomited it up.

“Momma,” Eleanor howled. “Momma! Wake up. Wake up.”

She lifted her mother's shoulders and set her up against the wall. She ran a faucet and washed her face with a moist towel. She couldn't think of what else to do.

“I'm okay, sweetie,” her mother rasped. “I just passed out. Never thrown up so much in my life. I must have had some of that stew.”

“Momma,” Eleanor cried. “Momma.”

Eleanor collapsed in her mother's lap and sobbed.

Tabitha opened her eyes to slits and said, “I'm sorry I scared you, cupcake. I'll be okay.”

“No, you won't,” Eleanor bawled. “You're dying. You're going to die.”

“We're all going to die.” It was her patent response.

“Don't,” she cried.

“It's okay, sweetie. I just passed out. I'm not going anywhere today. Get me to bed and make me some broth. Tell me all about your walk with David.”

“I'm going to call the doctor.”

“No,” her mother said sharply. “You're going to get me to bed, make me some broth, and tell me about your walk with David. That is what you're going to do.”

Eleanor watched her mother's face, read her eyes, and then nodded reluctantly. She finished washing Tabitha's face and helped her out of her stained clothes. She helped her into bed and put her under warm blankets.

“This is nice,” Tabitha said. “Turn on some music while you're making dinner. Something modern and upbeat.”

Eleanor made dinner and turned the music up loud enough to cover her mother's coughing.

Sunday, Eleanor didn't leave her mother's side. It was only with the most strident insistence that she returned to school Monday.

“Honey, if there was something you could do, I'd let you do it,” she said. “Go to school. Be with your friends. I'll see you when you get home.”

The student body was back. Three students and one teacher had spent time in the hospital, but luckily no one had died.

Eleanor felt her new uneasy status among the returning kids. Naturally, rumors spread like sickness, and soon everyone knew that Eleanor had somehow been involved in the food poisoning scandal.

With David back at her table, her other friends returned; Brian, Midge, and even Aubrey who'd suffered from the stew. Robby Guide stayed away. Barbara Pennon limited her royal visits to a smaller handful of tables, spending most of her time with Russell and his friends, leaving David and Eleanor alone.

As far as the stew incident went, David was an adamant champion of the truth and told everyone how Eleanor had tried to warn people about the bad food. Since Miss Church had been fired, his story was accepted. Even so, there were some who were still mad at Eleanor. They felt that she should have done more to warn them and not just saved her selected favorites from the horror they'd endured. It added to the lexicon of stories and bad rumors about Eleanor Anders.

One afternoon in gym after the other girls had dressed quickly and sped off to class, Eleanor found herself alone with Midge. Midge cleared her throat, once, then twice to get Eleanor's attention.

“Hey, Eleanor, um,” she said. “There's this rumor going around that, ah, that ah, that you're a witch.”

Eleanor sighed into her locker.

“I don't care about that,” Midge said quickly. “I think it's cool. Really, I do. Henry says it's not, but I do. I think it's cool.”

“Henry?”

“You met him. He took me to the dance.”

Eleanor remembered the full-blood Shoshone, remembered Robby's weird warning, and remembered how he'd watched her dance. In remembering it now, it occurred to Eleanor that he'd been extraordinarily rude to Midge, practically ignoring his date while studying Eleanor.

“What did Henry say?”

“He's a little backwards,” Midge said. “He believes all kinds of stuff.”

“About witches?”

“Yeah, that's maybe how you can help me,” Midge said.

“What? How?”

“Can you cast a love spell on him for me?” she said. “He's hardly talked to me since the dance, and then he only talks about you. You have David, and that's so cool. You don't need two boys. Could you help me? Could you make him love me? Or at least forget you?”