Permanent Adhesives (11 page)

“Partner,” I said, tapping Elias on the shoulder.

He looked up from his nails he was chewing on and nodded. Mrs. Gomez just told us to find groups, so we could start brainstorming on the project she assigned. We were supposed to choose a book with some literary merit and do some sort of presentation on it. I plopped into the previously occupied chair next to Elias and scooted it over a bit. We both stared forward at the chalkboard.

“Okay, this isn’t gonna work, get up,” I said to Elias. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I stood up and grabbed his arm. He obeyed and got out of his seat. I sat us down in a back corner of the classroom. “Okay, better,” I said, crossing my legs. “Let’s make it look like we’re talking about our project.”

Elias shrugged.

“What’s with the silent treatment all of a sudden? Brian and them didn’t really get to you did they?”

Elias sighed, dropping his shoulders. “Like I said, they were right.”

“Who, Brian and Reynaldo? No, don’t listen to them, they’re nubs.”

“Just leave me be.”

“C’mon, I want you to be my friend.”

Elias looked up through his hair at me and sucked on his bottom lip. He sighed like the thought of being friends with me was exasperating.

“I’m not that horrific.”

“No, no, it’s not you, you’re, you’re…” he stammered.

A large shadow crept over us interrupting Elias’ sentence. We both looked up at Mrs. Gomez. She wore a buttoned down denim shirt with her khaki skirt. She put her hands on her hips and directly looked at Elias, but talked to me. “Make sure he takes part in this project.”

“Um, okay,” I said, wondering why she would doubt his involvement.

“Fifty-fifty.”

We both nodded.

“Maybe you could do something so Elias can practice his vocal projection. This will be a great opportunity for that.”

“Ut…” Elias tried to sputter out in some sort of objection.

Mrs. Gomez left to bother some other students, and Elias rubbed his hands over his face.

“Projection?” I asked.

Elias’ face flushed red. “Stupid IEP,” he mumbled.

I’m sure I had a pretty blank look on my face because I had the slightest idea what an IEP was. Elias picked up on it and said, “Individualized Education Program.”

“What’s that?”

Elias sighed and looked at the floor. After a few seconds, he looked back up at me, but didn’t say anything.

I raised an eyebrow at him trying to elicit a response; it actually worked.

“I fall into the category of special education.”

“But you’re not.” Maybe I didn’t have a proper understanding of what special education encompassed because I immediately thought, he’s not retarded.

Elias nodded. “I now receive special services, and they fall under special education.”

“Special services?”

“Speech therapy.”

“And you say you now receive them, you did not before?”

“No, well, some time ago, like in third grade, but not since then.” He sighed and drew circles on the floor with his finger. “I actually shoulda started in kindergarten cuz supposedly I was screened then, and they wanted me to start, but we moved, and then in third grade my teacher had me screened and I started, but at the end of that school year we moved again.”

“But not since then?”

“Yeah, I dunno, the paperwork or something didn’t follow, so my therapy stopped, and my mother never acts on my best interest, so, ya know.”

“And why now then?”

“I spoke too much in class.”

“How can you speak too much in class?”

Elias sucked on his lip and looked over my shoulder at the wall. “I didn’t think to question why I stopped, ya know?” I wasn’t sure if he even heard what I asked.

I nodded. “You were only eight. Why would you?”

Elias shrugged. He seemed to be big on the shrugging. “So, well, anyways, I talked stupid and so everybody assumed I was stupid, and I didn’t like it, so I just stopped talking in class and stuck with it since then.”

“How can you just stop talking in class?”

“Well, easy actually. I’d answer with as few words as possible, and in reading and stuff, I got bad grades cuz I wouldn’t read out loud, and when I did I couldn’t pronounce a lot of words, but they just thought I couldn’t read and/or was kinda slow in some subjects and so yeah, it was like my teachers left me alone. They said I was just very soft spoken, and assumed I wasn’t that bright. And that worked well for me until a few weeks ago.”

“And that’s when you spoke too much?”

“My other English teacher caught on after a while. Cuz…” Elias stopped and looked at me with his bottom lip pouting out.

“What?”

He let out a deep breath. “It all sounds pretty pathetic, especially...”

“How is it pathetic?”

Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is the most I’ve ever talked to anyone in school before. I usually keep it pretty brief if at all.”

“That’s not pathetic.”

“It kinda is.”

I shook my head no. Then the bell rang. I was hesitant to stand up. I wanted to hear the rest of his story. “What lunch do you have?”

“Fifth.”

“Really?”

Elias nodded.

“I have fifth too. Meet me by the totem pole?”

Without him answering, the two of us stood up and went to grab our bags. Elias scratched the back of his head and then stuck his fingertip in his mouth.

“C’mon,” I said.

“Fine.”

We walked out of the classroom together and went in opposite directions down the hall. As I meandered to my next class, I was busy thinking how hard it must be not to say anything in school since you were little. Shoot, I wouldn’t be able to do it. If there’s somebody I know in one of my classes, I’m often told to shut up. Then that also meant he probably didn’t have a lot of friends because if you don’t talk, you’re almost certainly not going to have the highest friend count. That sucked. I couldn’t imagine what kind of life that would be, especially since mine kind of revolved around my friends.

*************************

I got outside pretty early. Kate and Roberto were both already out there. I saw Brian heading across the lawn towards us. “Ah man, is Brian eating with us?” I didn’t ask to be mean or anything. Brian was my friend, a kind of creepy one, but he was one. Just the day before he was screaming he wanted to kill Elias, so I wasn’t sure how Elias eating lunch with us was going to go.

“He said his fifth period teacher isn’t here today and there’s like some hundred year old sub, so he felt it was an appropriate time to ditch that class,” Kate said, filling me in, then shrugging.

“Elias is meeting up with us for lunch.”

“Oh, uh, well, I’ll help keep the peace,” Kate volunteered.

Brian slowly sauntered up with a grin spreading across his face. “Molly, you look ravishing this afternoon.”

I ignored Brian. “Roberto, you said Elias is in your history class, right?”

“Yeah,” Roberto said, pulling down the sides of his beanie to cover his ears.

“Have you ever heard him talk in class?”

“You know, I actually don’t think so.”

“He told me he doesn’t really talk in class. How does one get away with that?” I asked.

“He does sit behind somebody massively large,” Roberto said.

“You know what,” Kate said, twirling a braid. “I think Friday night was the first time I ever really heard him talk.”

Brian crinkled up his nose. “Why are we talking about Elias Bickler again?”

I slapped Brian in the shoulder. “Will you be nice? Geesh.”

“Elias!” Kate shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. He was coming out of the set of doors near the totem pole. “Over here!”

He looked up and headed in our direction. I heard Brian let out a sigh. Elias hesitated for a moment before walking over. He then continued forward and gave a little wave as he approached.

“Come to Taco Mel’s with us?” I asked him, unsure if he’d want to go to lunch with me if my friends were in attendance.

Elias bit the corner of his lip.

“C’mon dude,” Kate said, grabbing his wrist. Kate started walking away, but Elias didn’t budge, but that didn’t stop her. She yanked on his arm making him run a step forward. After that he just let her pull him along.

*************************

We were all seated at a series of three small tables with cracked, linoleum tops with bright purple trim. Elias sat across from me next to Kate, who sat next to Roberto. Brian was to my right, almost too close.

“So, about what you were saying earlier?” I asked.

Elias drew back his head and fervently shook it.

“What were you two talking about?” Brian asked, while shoving a nacho chip into his mouth.

“Nothing,” I answered, totally understanding why Elias was anti our class conversation. I felt a bit like a jerk for bringing it up in front of everybody.

“No, nope, nope, if Elias wants to join our posse here, there’s no secret keeping,” Kate said.

“One, it was a private conversation and two, we do not have a posse. I think some level of cool would actually have to be involved to have one.”

“Molly, you’re a bitch. Did you guys just all catch that? She said we’re not cool. Hate to inform you Molly, but we’re tragically hip. Also, we need to know about all private conversations.”

I tipped my head to the side looking at Kate. “Wait, isn’t tragically hip a negative thing in a way?”

“Is it?” Kate asked.

“Yes, I would prefer that you remove tragically from the hip. I’m just naturally hip, so it’s not tragic,” Roberto said.

Kate snorted. “You’re such a dork Roberto.” She then turned towards Elias. “So, what were you two talking about? Was it about going on a date or something?”

“No,” Elias said, almost too defensively in my opinion.

“I thought we were all becoming friends and such. You hung with Roberto and me all Sunday. We helped you out.”

Elias shook his head and Kate licked her finger and stuck it in his ear.

“Ahhh, fine,” Elias quietly muttered, giving in. “We were talking ‘bout how I talk like a demented four year old, and how I am now considered special ed.”

I pouted my lips at Elias. “You don’t sound like a demented four year old.”

“Now that I’m actually hearing him talk, he really does,” Brian said with a laugh.

I smacked Brian in the back of the head. “Stop being a jerk, or I will kick you out of our posse.”

“You better be nice Brian. Look at Elias’s face. It still looks like crap,” Kate said, pointing at Elias’ head. “No offense dude.”

Elias shrugged.

Kate looked at Brian. “She just might go ape shit on your ass.”

“I’ll be nice,” Brian said, looking into his nachos.

“How are you special ed.? You don’t seem retarded,” Kate said, studying Elias as if checking for signs of being developmentally disabled. “Our school doesn’t even have special ed. does it?” Our school really didn’t, not in the sense most think of special education. We were what you call a selective enrollment school, so pretty much, you had to pass a test or have the grades to get in.

“There was that kid last year, in the wheelchair, remember?” Roberto said.

“He just couldn’t walk, so he wasn’t like special ed., like in special ed. kinda special ed., ya know?” Kate said, waving around a burrito.

“Can we stop using the term special ed. so much?” Elias quietly requested. “Just because one is labeled a special education student does not mean they are developmentally disabled.”

“What?” Kate asked too loudly. She had no volume control. You usually always knew when she was around. “Developmentally disabled?”

“Retarded,” Elias softly said, it sounded more like he said
wedawded
though.

Kate bit her lip and raised an eyebrow, not sure at what he said exactly.

Elias sighed and pulled out his phone. He typed something in and a second later Kate’s phone buzzed.

“Oh, retarded,” she said, reading the message Elias sent her.

I shook my head. Kate had no tact.

“So how do you fit in?” Kate asked.

“I we...I we…,” Elias started.

Brian wrinkled his nose and raised an eyebrow.

Elias stopped attempting what he was trying to say, pulled out his phone, and typed a text. Kate’s phone buzzed.

“He receives special services,” Kate said, holding up her phone, so we could see the text, like we weren’t going to believe what it said or something.

“That sounds kinda pervy,” Brian said. “Do you get like school allotted lap dances?”

Elias smiled. “I wish.”

Kate elbowed Elias. “Perv, is it for your speech?”