what they’re worth. Mr. Stanley keeps looking over here like I’m going to make a run for it and I suppose I could, but where would I go? Home to Richard? Here’s the thing Mr. Stanley doesn’t get about me: I don’t mind school. Mary Sellers, Tommy Bucksmith, Luanne Kibley and all them can pretend to love it all they want in front of the teachers, but I hear them in the lunchroom talkin’ trash about it. I like everything about school—except for the other kids, a’course. I like getting out of the house all day long. It’s like a field trip every single day.
“Caroline!”
Mr. Stanley’s voice is louder than I’ve ever heard it.
“Yes, sir?”
“The bell rang five minutes ago. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”
“Yes, sir.” I swear I didn’t even hear the bell ring. I’m the only one left in the classroom. Just before I get through the door his gravelly voice throws words at me: “Remember, after school.”
“Yes, sir.”
Emma’s going to have to wait for me. I bet Momma won’t even notice we’re not home on time. She don’t care. To tell you the truth, I bet she’s glad to have us out of the house as we are to be gone. She’s got to manage her piles and I reckon she can do it a whole lot better with some peace and quiet. All day she sits there folding letters into three sections, stacking them in tall towers until the envelopes all have the address stickers on them and then she stuffs those with the letters. We’re not allowed to read what the letters say; Momma’s sure we’ll crinkle the paper and she’ll get fired. I don’t care what they say, anyway, since Momma looks so bored doing all this it cain’t be interesting. Momma’s so smart she didn’t even have to go interview for the job. She answered an ad in the newspaper about working from home, making you a ton of money. They liked her so much on the phone the job was hers, they said. Emma and me try to figure out why it is we haven’t seen the ton of money they promised Momma, but I think it’s babyish to think a truck is going to pull up to the back of your house and unload bagfuls of cash like a bread truck delivering to the grocery store. Emma’s still waiting for the truck.
“You’re late, Caroline.” Miss Hall looks about as happy with me as Mr. Stanley did. “That’s the third time this week.” She made a little mark next to my name in the book on her desk.
I don’t ever set out to be late but my mind sometimes takes a detour. Like when I write with another kind of handwriting. I know which way the letter k is supposed to face but then, whammo!—there it is backward. And usually when there’s a backward k, it’s in the other handwriting I surprise myself with; it almost looks like I could be in Emma’s class with this handwriting. It’s really shaky and big and, like I said, the letters are sometimes mixed up. But most of the time I keep my brain focused on what I have right in front of me. Not today, I guess. Momma won’t even know to look at the line on my report card that says I been tardy for classes. If she did see it she probably wouldn’t care.
“What’s the matter, Scary? You forget how to tie your shoelaces, you little baby?” Mary Sellers started this nickname, Scary Carrie. They all point at my hair, which is funny since it’s not half as tangled up as Emma’s, but they point anyway. My shoes have been bothering me all day. I hate it when you tie one side kind of tight and the other side doesn’t match it. These are saddle shoes that look like my Momma could’ve worn them back when she was my age. That’s how come I have them, she saw them at the store last year and practically started crying right there in front of Mr. Franks, who insists on sliding our feet into shoes with that metal shoehorn instead of letting us wriggle our heels into them, the way we do the rest of the time. What does he think anyway? That we use shoehorns every single day? The shoes are mostly white with a saddle of black across the middle and down the sides. That’s how come they’re called saddle shoes. The toes are rounded so you have plenty of room to grow, which is a good thing since Momma said she spent so much on these shoes that we wouldn’t be able to get me new ones for a while. No one at my school wears saddle shoes. They’re just another weapon Mary Sellers can use in her war against Scary Carrie. She calls them “domino shoes.” I tell myself I don’t care. And I don’t. Really. I don’t.
TWO
We’re moving and I’m not speaking to Momma on account of it. I don’t want to leave but she says we have to. And Emma’s on her side. She doesn’t like it here, either. Last night Momma got fed up and said she’d just take Emma with her and I could stay here and live on my own, but when I said “fine” she sent me to my room, so I don’t think I’m going to get to stay here by myself. Eight-year-old kids shouldn’t be living in big old houses by themselves, anyway, but still … I don’t want to go. Richard says he’s moving on and moving up. He’s been saying that a lot lately. He got a new job across the state so we have to go with him, I guess, even though some of us don’t want to move on or up, thank you very much. Momma says it’ll be a fresh start. But starts are only fresh for grown-ups. Third grade was never fresh for me, and even after a whole school year I’m waiting for it to stop being a start altogether.
Thanks to the stupid Washroom Plan I’ve been getting picked on more than ever in school. My teacher, Miss Hall, says I talk out of turn and that’s just been an open invitation to Patty Lettigo. On the playground at recess she hollers at me, calling me a space cadet. The other kids laugh because to them that’s what it looks like, I suppose. What’s really happening is that I’m thinking of things I have to remember to tell Emma after school lets out and the next thing I know I’m saying them out loud. I don’t set out to talk out loud, it just ends up that way.
“And that’s why we use long division,” Mr. Stanley is saying, “so we can figure out how many little numbers make up whatever big number is under the line here. Who can tell me how many times nine goes into eighteen?”
Outside, the buds on the tree branches look like tiny knobs on a television. I wonder what kind of show a tree would want to watch. Nothing involving a saw, I bet.
“Miss Parker?” Mr. Stanley’s voice reaches out to my head and turns it toward the front of the room but I’m still thinking about Tree TV. “Can you tell us?”
“What, Daddy?”
Oh, my dear Lord—what did I just say? What did I just say? Maybe I thought it but didn’t say it out loud.
“Class, quiet down,” Mr. Stanley is saying to all the kids around me who’re laughing and pointing at me like I’ve just climbed off of a spaceship. “Class, please,” he’s saying, but no one’s quieting down one bit.
This ringing in my ears makes it sound like the class-room is one big glass jar—the voices echoing from side to side in my brain.
Mary Sellers snorts her little snorty laugh that always sounds like it’s going to turn into hiccups. My face is on fire.
“All right, class, that’s enough,” Mr. Stanley finally says, but I cain’t see his face because I’m just looking down at my desktop, tracing the carved “EMB was here” that’s in the corner. Who was EMB? I wonder about this every single day. EMB could have been a boy, but I like to think she was a girl, brave enough to dig lines in her desk when no one was looking. EMB. Maybe she died and this is the only evidence that she lived, but her parents don’t know it and every night they cry themselves to sleep wishing they had just one thing with her initials on it and here it is, right under my fingernail, which, I now notice, is packed with dirt so it looks brown. If I knew who EMB was I could let them know it’s here, this last piece of her. Then they could sleep at night.
“Caroline, please see me after class,” Mr. Stanley sighs. “Tommy, what is eighteen divided by nine?” And the class is back to normal for everyone else but me. By recess, I’ll once again be the laughingstock of the school.
Emma is the only one who understands me talking out of turn since she does it, too, sometimes, but when she does