The next day, when he kicked down my tower, I put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay,” I said. “I know you’re just unhappy.” Then he punched me in the eye.
After school I told Mom she was wrong. Jared was evil—he’d hit me. I waited for her to be angry, to tell me she would call his mother. Instead she said no one is evil, only unhappy, and unhappiness festers inside like a sore.
Later, as I watched Jared on the playground, playing alone or hiding under the wooden beams of the jungle gym like a real-life kindergarten troll, I’d worry, imagining festering sores under his skin where no one could see.
But I could see. I can still see, and I can feel all the sympathy Mom told me I should feel.
But that never made me any less afraid of him.
As soon as I get home, I open my trunk, and today I take out the green spiral notebook. I found it on my mother’s desk in our old house, and I grabbed it before everything we ever owned was catalogued, boxed, and stored away. Sometimes I can picture it: paintbrushes, toothbrushes, shirts, quilts, books, and musical instruments, all in boxes in the dark.
For all I know, in one of those boxes there are a hundred more spirals like this one. But this is what I have, a single notebook, sheets filled front to back until the words stop right in the middle.
I flip at random, landing on a familiar page. The first time I read it, I thought it was a list of her favorite movies. I didn’t recognize most of them, but I knew a couple were ones she really liked. But if they were her favorites, then where were all the Shirley Temple movies? She loved those. And why were war movies on the list? She hated war movies.
So if it’s not a list of favorites, and it’s not a list of least favorites, then what is it? If she wrote them down, they must be important. Maybe something happened on the day she saw each of them. Or maybe…I don’t know, but they have to mean something.
For the millionth time I wish she’d titled her lists, because the entire notebook is like this. A list of places. A list of colors. A list of songs. But no titles. No context. No way to understand what they mean.
I OPEN CHARLIE’S front door, and it’s like stepping inside a bad Western. The life-size Sylvester the Cat doll he won at the fair last spring has been hanged and disemboweled. White fluffy guts explode from its stomach as it swings from the chandelier by its jump-rope noose.
One of Charlie’s brothers flies by wearing nothing but a Superman cape. Three more kids, dressed in clothes that barely fit, are hot on his trail. One is carrying a jar of jelly, and the others are waving cap guns. I dive in between them.
Soon I’m surrounded by identical blond children. Two leap up, digging footholds into my ribs like I’m one of those climbing walls. The rest giggle and hug my legs, looking up at me with faces so dirty it’s like they’ve been cleaning chimneys. This house is basically a Charles Dickens orphanage, except the kids are happy and the villain here is completely outnumbered.
Speaking of Charlie, he’s just begun his menacing march down the stairs. The kids in my arms cling to me and bury their faces in my shoulders. The ones on the ground try to flee but don’t make it before Charlie grabs the jelly from Tomás and orders Olivier to put on some pants.
“Gotta go,” I tell the kids in my arms. They kiss my cheeks before hopping to the ground and following the other horde of children up the stairs. I don’t know how they’re growing up to be so sweet when they live under a constant reign of terror.
Charlie grabs his jacket from the dining room table, then glares at it in astonished fury. Something purple and sticky is dripping from the sleeve. I can’t help but laugh.
“Tomás!” he bellows, and even I’m scared. Several more little blond heads scatter in all directions with frightened squeals. He takes an ominous step, and I grab his arm.
“We’re gonna be late.” There’s actually no set timetable for playing laser tag and video games, but I’m trying to avoid bloodshed.
“I just bought this jacket.” Charlie takes his possessions very seriously. Money’s always tight—a side effect of having so many kids—so he works for a landscaping company, mowing and raking and hauling heavy things.
“I’m sure it’ll wash out.”
He King-Kong-roars. “I can’t wait till I graduate!”
One pale head peeks over the banister. “Us too!” A few scattered giggles are heard from the shadows. Charlie hurls his jacket on the table and stomps toward the stairs. More frightened squeals.
“Charlie. Let’s go.”
“I’m gonna freeze,” he says, which is ridiculous, since it’s gotta be sixty degrees outside.
“Poor Charlie. You want to wear my jacket?” I make a show of taking it off, and he shoves me so hard I stumble, then trip, but luckily land in a pile of Sylvester guts. “Seriously, man, one of these days you’re gonna really hurt me.”
He smiles—the thought of that boosts his mood just a little. Anything I can do to help.