Authors: Susan Vaught
“It’s okay, Sunshine,” Mr. Watson says, and he keeps standing at her desk and she stares at the floor and keeps her fist around her necklace, a golden locket she never opens,
her cheeks red as pain and cinnamon and she wants him to go away. She wants him to go away but he doesn’t, and now I’m wanting to make him go away and I know Drip wants to make him go away, too. People just don’t understand how hard it is for Sunshine.
Make him move, you stupid coward
, Bastard mutters.
Don’t, don’t, don’t
, sings Whiner.
The No-Names are still stuck on
Freak, freak, freak
.
You enable your friend
. That’s not one of my wah-wah voices. That’s what one of my doctors told me, one of the ones who gives me my fuzzy pills and asks about my life and my friends and I tell him about Drip and Sunshine. I see him once every three months when stuff is good and he gets letters from my school and the colonel talks to him and so does the captain, so he always knows what’s going on, or at least he thinks he does.
You enable her and you help keep her sick
. And I say okay but I’m not doing anything different because Drip and Sunshine and me we’ve got secrets we won’t tell anybody, even him or our parents or you or anybody else. We’ve got promises to each other and nobody can make us break them.
Don’t talk for her
, the doctor insists. And I say okay because okay’s a good word and it’s easy and the doctor moves on and Sunshine’s still safe and nothing has to change.
Later, after school, we’re walking through “bus alley,” a narrow sidewalk between the two rows of buses that pick people up, past all the long buses, heading toward the
short bus way up in front, and nobody looks at us. Most people our age ride with friends or have their own cars, but our parents haven’t let us get licenses yet. Drip would run right up somebody’s tailpipe and Sunshine would be too scared to turn on the car. I’m not sure I could drive, either, but sometimes I want to try.
You can’t drive, you idiot, you stupid, worthless piece of trash. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t. Maybe you could? I think you could. No, you can’t.
Can you guess which voices said which things? Yeah. Bastard, then Whiner, then the No-Names. They always seem to go in order, then all at once, like one big run-on bunch of yammer. I usually don’t bother paying attention to who says what. It’s distracting, especially when it’s bad. It’s not bad right now, though.
“I want to go see
Lands of Eridor
when it comes out,” Drip says. “Can you go with me Saturday, Freak?”
I yawn because the last class, American History, made me too sleepy for words. “The colonel won’t let me. My doctors say no fantasy movies.”
“You get to read fantasy books,” Sunshine says. Her hair looks blue black in the warm afternoon light. There’s the slightest breeze with a hint of cool and fall and colored leaves, and I can almost see those yellows and reds and oranges in the depths of Sunshine’s dark eyes.
I shrug, trying not to trip over my feet as I gaze into her eyes. “Movies are different, I guess.”
“Ask the captain,” Drip says. “That’s what I say. We can go during the week.”
He’s got a point. The captain’s a lot less uptight than the colonel. Usually.
“Hey, pretty girl.” The voice comes from behind us, and we all three wince and walk faster, because it’s Roland, and if it’s Roland, then Linden’s not far behind him. They used to ride the short bus before they got cars, so they know where to look for us.
“Pretty girl,” Roland calls again, and we don’t stop and we’re not planning to stop, but Linden Green steps out from between the last long bus and our short bus, and he’s sort of smiling and then he waves, so we stop.
Green, Green, just plain mean
. That’s the rhyme I made for him once when I was getting a little more nuts than usual. He’s seventeen and officially in tenth grade, though in alphabet-land we’re really “ungraded” and all together, ninth and tenth and eleventh and even twelfth, the last grade, like Sunshine, Drip, and me. Roland’s taller than Sunshine and me, and he’s got a lot more muscle than me and Drip. The way his dark eyes always look too bright with anger, and the way he keeps his dyed-black hair styled and the stupid look on his face, he could pass for a mobster extra, you know, the muscle thug who breaks fingers for fun and pleasure.
“Roland wants a word,” Linden says.
You’re stupid to give in to him, you coward, you piece of
junk. Green, Green, just plain mean. He’ll break your fingers. He’ll break your nose. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t….
All the voices, all running together. No point in naming them now.
Drip cracks his knuckles because he’s nervous, then has to drag out his tissues and blow his nose. I wish I had to blow my nose. I wish I could do something, because I hate stuff like this. Sunshine’s already shaking, and I want to take her hand, but that won’t help us with Roland.
He comes around to stand next to Linden, and he’s not looking at Drip or me, just Sunshine. She’s not looking at him, even though lots of girls do. Roland has charcoal hair and clear blue eyes. He’s the kind of guy who would be handsome if he weren’t evil. No, seriously. It’s not that I’m crazy, okay yeah, I know, I
am
crazy, but so is he. In a different way. Roland is a whole different alphabet, and I wish he didn’t have to spell himself out near me or Drip or especially Sunshine.
“Pretty girl,” he says to her with that too-gentle tone he always uses, trying to get to her, to get her to notice him and look at him and I’m afraid one day he’ll be talking to her like that as he hammers bamboo shoots under her fingernails and tsk-tsks and tells her she made him do it.
Sunshine doesn’t lift her head. Her right hand drifts up and grabs her locket.
Roland has probably memorized the part in her hair by now, because that’s all she ever does, show him the top
of her head while she squeezes her locket as if it can cast spells to make him go away.
“I just want to talk to you,” Roland says. “Maybe grab a burger? Would that be so bad, pretty girl?”
Say something, you chicken. Don’t let him scare her like this. Tell him to quit. Tell him she doesn’t belong to him. Chicken, chicken, chicken. He’s scaring her. He’s not really scaring her. Maybe you’re not a chicken …
Roland takes a step closer to Sunshine, and if he lifts his arm, he’ll touch her, and here in bus alley it’s so narrow and cramped we can’t go sideways. We can’t go forward because of the bad alphabets, and if we run, they’ll catch us.
“Give us a break,” Drip mutters, because he can mutter and get away with it sometimes because he’s got big brothers and the bad alphabets know that.
“Stay out of this, Dripmeister,” Roland says.
“Dripmeister the Stretch. Stretch the Drip.” Linden sounds like my voices, but he’s not, even though he might as well be.
Sunshine just stares at the ground and shakes. She lets go of her locket. Her fingers flutter toward mine and I really, really want to hold her hand but I like my teeth and I’m scared of getting my nose snapped and Bastard’s right, I really am a total coward.
“Just a burger, pretty girl.” Roland is trying to sound charming. He might be succeeding. Maybe other people
don’t see him as the kind of guy that’ll make an evil empire with minions one day. Maybe that’s just me and the wonked-out way I think, which gets worse when I’m nervous and I’m getting nervous now.
Sunshine doesn’t think Roland is charming.
Hold her hand
, all my voices say at the same time, only Bastard calls me lots of names in the middle of it.
“Hey, you!” The shout comes from behind me and Drip and Sunshine, and it scares us, and we all jump, but then I realize it’s her brother, Eli Patton.
On any other day, at any other moment, that might be its own problem. Eli’s nineteen, the oldest kid in the school, and he’s only five foot six, but that gives him sawed-off-runt syndrome really bad, and it’s worse because he looks like a mug shot. He can’t help it. That’s how he’s built, square and short with bristly coffee-colored hair, big ears, and a perpetually pissed-off expression. He’s even got tattoos on his fingers,
PAIN
on his left hand and
HOPE
on his right. He got them during the two years he spent in juvenile for assault and battery.
Linden gets all puffed up and swaggery as Eli jogs up the bus alley and pushes between Sunshine and me. Eli ignores him and focuses on Roland with a growly, snarly “You buggin’ my sister again? Because I know you’re not.”
All of this just makes Sunshine shake harder but I still don’t have the guts to take her hand as Eli and Roland glare at each other and Linden does a lot of trash talking but keeps his distance.
Coward. You should hate yourself. Girly-man, girly-man, girly-man. Are you really a man? You’re not really a girl. Maybe you are …
All the voices, all at once. It doesn’t even matter who says what.
And maybe because there’s an actual felon involved, our lazy driver, Mr. Poke—that’s his name, not making it up, I swear—finally comes down from the short bus and starts hollering about the principal and the police and detention, and Roland and Linden give Eli a last set of not-so-friendly gestures and melt off between the long buses.
“You okay?” Eli asks Sunshine, and she doesn’t look at him, but she nods. His Dumbo ears flush a dark red, and he touches her on the shoulders, just barely touches her like a brother checking on his sister, but she flinches like he’s scalding her, so he stops and says he’s sorry, then, “Karl will be here in a second to take me to the probation officer. Want us to give you a ride?”
Sunshine shakes her head so hard I’m surprised her brain doesn’t fall out her right ear.
“Okay, okay,” Eli says, sounding sorry but also a little pissed, which is pretty normal for him. “I’m just—you know. Covering the bases and making sure everything looks okay. Don’t get stressed.”
Covering the bases. Making everything look okay
. That’s me echoing what Eli said, not my voices. Because that’s what we’re always doing, right? People with problems like mine
and Sunshine’s and Drip’s. We have to cover the bases. We have to make everything look okay.
“Let’s move,” Mr. Poke says.
“Everything will be fine,” Eli tells Sunshine as he gets out of our way, then he says something about Karl leaving town as soon as he drops Eli off and Eli picking up dinner after his meeting, and Sunshine doesn’t say anything.
Sunshine barely gives Eli a glance as the three of us cover ground in a hurry, jogging up the bus steps, then heading to our assigned seats at the back.
Yes, we have assigned seats. It’s a short-bus thing.
I realize I’m breathing heavy, and Drip’s blowing a lot of snot, and Sunshine’s just sitting in her very back seat not looking at either of us.
“Sorry,” I tell her, and I think I’m meaning about not holding her hand but she probably thinks I’m meaning about Roland bugging her again.
She shrugs and does a little shake with her head, which is Sunshine for
No big deal, just give me a minute.
Drip and I glance at each other, then out the bus window. We see Eli getting into his and Sunshine’s stepfather’s car. It’s a newer model, but still big and gas hungry and shiny black. As for Karl—Mr. Franks—he’s got thin sandy-brown hair and a mustache and lines around his eyes. I don’t like Mr. Franks, but I don’t want to think about that because it doesn’t really matter who I like or don’t like, so I shift my attention back to Sunshine.
Her china-white skin’s getting a little color to it, at the neck and ears and chin, which is all I can see of the front of her, the way she’s bent over, but that’s good. It’s normal for her. She’s coming back to us an inch at a time, like she always does. Her fingers tap against her golden locket like she’s counting. It’s small, not any bigger than the pad of her thumb, and the etchings have been worn smooth from where she rubs it so much. I’ve never asked her what’s in it because it seemed wrong. She’ll tell me if she ever wants to.
Sometimes I wonder, though.
The short bus starts up like it always does, except on really cold days, and it leads the bus wagon-train away from the high school.
Drip and Sunshine and me, we stay pretty quiet on the bus, which has kids from other alphabet classes, the kind for people who stay like little kids in their heads forever, so they’re noisy, several of them, hooting and laughing and talking to Mr. Poke. About half an hour later, we get off the bus on Slide Street, also known as Apartment Avenue because of all the apartment complexes built like hives and warrens into the hillsides.
For a while, as we walk up the hill, we talk about homework and what we’re having for dinner and what we’re going to do about Roland if he won’t leave Sunshine alone, but that’s all we ever manage—talking about it. We never
do
anything, because we’re alphabets and
alphabets are disorganized, and besides, nobody listens to us anyway.
Then Drip heads north toward the upper-scale Crestview duplexes where he lives, and Sunshine heads south toward Hilltop (her town house complex has a pool), and I walk straight across the street, covering the hundred or so yards to the entrance to the decent Skymont apartments where I live with the captain.
I’m home by four thirty. Drip hits his front door by four thirty-three.
And somewhere between “Bye, Jason” and five o’clock, Sunshine Patton disappears from the face of the earth.
If bad stuff happens to the people you care about, you’ll know. If bad stuff happens to the person you care about more than anything else in the universe, you’ll definitely know. It’s always that way in books, right? But what I’m thinking when the captain gets home around five fifteen like he always does is I’m crazy hungry and he’s gonna make mac and cheese like he always does and I like mac and cheese but I’m tired of it and …
Stupid, you’re so stupid and ungrateful
, and,
Mac and cheese if you please, mac and cheese if you please
, and,
Maybe he will, maybe he won’t, maybe he will, maybe he won’t
.