Eight Keys Part 16

"What's wrong?" Uncle Hugh smoothed the loose hair off my forehead.

I started crying again. Uncle Hugh held me, just like I had been holding Ava.

a a a "Every day for three months someone at school has tried to ruin your lunch?"

We were all at the dinner table, with Ava asleep in her carrier seat on the floor. Bow-tie mac-and-cheese, pork chops, peas, applesauce. But no one had touched the food.

"Yep."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Aunt Bessie said.

I shrugged.

"Where does this happen?" Uncle Hugh asked. "In the cafeteria?"

"In our locker."

"Why don't you just not leave your lunch there? Or get a hard plastic lunch box?"

"Well, one, there's just as much chance of it getting squished if I carry it around or keep it in my backpack all day.

"Two, I have a right to be able to keep things safely in my locker.

"Three, because I don't want to have a baby lunch box.

"And four, if someone really wants to wreck your food, they can just open the lunch box."

"That's true." Uncle Hugh got a cold cream soda and handed it to me. "You do have a right to use your own locker. You know what to do when someone isn't treating you well at school, right?"

Punch? Kick? Bite?

"Tell a grown-up," I answered.

Aunt Bessie nodded. "You can always tell a grown-up."

"You can't," I said. "Then you get in more trouble with the other kids. It isn't cool."

"There are more important things," Uncle Hugh said. "Like being able to eat your lunch. Like feeling safe and comfortable at school every day."

How do you explain to your uncle that being cool and feeling safe and comfortable at school were really the same thing?

"Besides, I told a teacher a couple times, and she didn't really care."

"Well, why didn't you tell us?"

"I didn't want to talk about Amanda at home. I try not to think about Amanda at home."

"I just don't understand why you didn't tell us," Uncle Hugh said.

I didn't say anything. Why would I be expected to talk about something that made me look like such a loser? Why would I want to bring that feeling home?

"Please eat some dinner." Aunt Bessie picked up her fork. "You haven't had enough to eat today. You might feel better."

I cut off a tiny bite of pork chop, moved the meat to my mouth, and chewed it.

The phone rang and Annie answered.

"Hang on a minute, okay?" She covered the mouthpiece. "Elise, honey, it's Caroline. Do you want to talk to her?"

I shook my head. Why did Caroline help me and then go sit with Amanda? How could she be friends with both of us?

Annie spoke into the phone again. "Elise is at dinner right now. She'll see you at school tomorrow, okay? a Goodbye."

"If you're not taking phone calls," Aunt Bessie said, "are you taking mail?"

"I never get mail."

"You did today." She went to the mail pile, fished out an envelope, and set it in front of me. There was no return name or address, and mine were taped on in newspaper-cutout letters. The postmark said California.

"Who would send me mail? I don't even know anyone in California."

I slid my fingers under the paper to tear open the flap. No note. I tipped the envelope. A metallic clunk sounded as a key hit the table.

We all stared at it.

Aunt Bessie picked up her fork. "Eat everything on your plate, and then try out the key, if you want. Don't forget your homework. Tomorrow will be easier if you get it done."

I nodded and managed to eat my dinner.

The room behind the door matched the one about me and Dad. There was a book on the floor with a note on top and photos on the walla"of a growing boy, and then of a mana"Uncle Hugh.

The note said, UNDERSTAND THOSE YOU LOVE. I picked up the book.

I took the book to Mom's comfy chair and curled up.

Uncle Hugh had been twelve years older than Dad. That's a lot older. The first pages of the book were Dad's earliest memories of Uncle Hugh. Uncle Hugh took good care of his brothers, but in a way that was sort of silly and fun. Like the time Dad learned to swim because Uncle Hugh just threw him in the lake. Dad floundered until Hugh went in to get him. After that, Dad wasn't afraid of the water anymore, because he had been underneath and nothing bad had happened. When Uncle Hugh found that Dad had been downstairs in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve and unwrapped all the presents, he stayed up for hours rewrapping everything. And when Uncle Hugh took both of his brothers camping, Dad got so afraid that there might be bears that Uncle Hugh let him cuddle up in his own sleeping bag with him for the night.

The entries started to be more about Hugh on his own.

Uncle Hugh had grown up with a boy named Joshua who was his best friend. They were in a band together in high school, and were going to enlist in the army together, but then Uncle Hugh decided to go to college instead. Joshua enlisted and ended up being killed. A little piece of Hugh was missing after that.

When Uncle Hugh first lived alone, he got a dog and named her Sadie. Sadie went just about everywhere with him. She eventually got old and sick with tumors and Uncle Hugh had to put her to sleep.

I couldn't read any more about Uncle Hugh then. He was such a nice guy, he shouldn't have had so many sad things happen. And here he was stuck with mopey old me, the girl n.o.body liked and who couldn't do anything right.

I remembered what Aunt Bessie'd said about homework. If I did at least some of it, maybe tomorrow would be better. And while I worked I could just think about the a.s.signments.

Uncle Hugh found me sitting on the porch after I said I was leaving for school in the morning. He sat down next to me. "What are you up to, Cricket?"

"Nothing."

"Why aren't you on your way to the bus?"

I picked at the frayed end of my shoelace, where the plastic had cracked off. "I'm not ready yet."

Uncle Hugh swatted my hand away from the shoelace and retied my sneaker for me like I was a little girl. "There. Ready now?"

I shook my head.

Uncle Hugh released my sneaker. "I know it's hard to go to school when kids aren't being nice to you. I do know."

"It isn't just that," I admitted.

"Oh? What else?"

"It's not like anyone ever asked you if you wanted this. Me, I mean."

"How do you know no one asked us?"

Aunt Bessie stepped out onto the porch and handed me a brown paper bag. "You forgot this." She had taken extra care in packing my lunch nicely. She had even taken a pink marker and written, Have a happy lunch, sweet, enclosed in a heart, with a smiley face, to boot.

"Thanks, Aunt Bessie."

Uncle Hugh helped me get up.

"Remember that telling a grown-up at school could help you," he said. "That's the best option. We know you'll do the right thing."

I put on a defiant face as I approached the locker. It was my locker. I had a right to use it.

"Cute," Amanda declared when she saw my lovey lunch from Aunt Bessie. "Why don't you put your lunch up top today?"

Had a teacher spotted what had happened in the hallway yesterday? Had Caroline talked to her? Maybe that was why she went to sit with her.

"Okay," I said, willing to see if today would be different.

Amanda smiled at me as I opened my backpack and took out my math book.

"Let me put that away for you," she said. She took the heavy book from me, and set it on the top shelf. Then she slid it all the way back, catching my lunch and mashing it against the wall. She shut the locker door. "Have a good day, Scabular." She walked away.

The time had come to take action.

We Are All in Deep Dog Poo.

There are several ways to retaliate when someone squashes your lunch every day.

You can steal her lunch; fill your own lunch bag with something vile, so that when she squashes it, her stuff gets ruined; or fill her lunch bag with shaving cream.

We settled on option three.

"I don't know where we'd hide a stolen lunch. And putting something gross in your own lunch bag and letting her smash it could ruin your books," Franklin reasoned.

Eventually we had the plan all figured out.

We would go to our lockers like any other day.

Then I'd be in cla.s.s with Amanda all morning. I wouldn't even be able to go to the bathroom (Amanda needed to have me in her sight at all times, to keep her from suspecting us).

Franklin would sneak out during second period, when he didn't have cla.s.s with Amanda, make sure no one was in the hallway, and take care of everything.

And Amanda would finally know what it was like to have a ruined lunch.

a a a Aunt Bessie came into my room at bedtime. I had my knees up in front of me with my math book on them, trying to quickly finish up the problems.

"You and Franklin sure had your heads together up in that library. Working on homework?"

"Yeah," I lied.

"How did it go with your lunch today?"

"Fine."

"So you were able to enjoy your lunch? It didn't get wrecked?"

"No, it did."

Aunt Bessie sat down. "So then why is that fine? It doesn't sound fine. Did you tell a teacher?"

"I already told you teachers don't care." I finished the last problem and shut the book. Aunt Bessie took it from me and started stroking my hair.

"Telling a teacher again won't be so bad," she said. "It will make things better. You'll see. Tomorrow things will be better. There's my girl."

I let her talk and talk but didn't listen.

Our plan was not on Uncle Hugh and Aunt Bessie's List of Helpful Suggestions.

Luckily, they wouldn't find out about it.

Franklin brought the shaving cream. His mother's. It was pink and smelled like berries.

"Why didn't you bring your dad's?"

"Dad would notice it was gone. He has just one can he uses every day, but Mom has twenty-seven bottles of stuff in the bathroom. Well, now twenty-six."