I squeezed my index and middle fingers with my left hand. “Just that I saw it. But nobody cares there, and you said that in Jamaica —”
“That isn’t the point,” she said. “I’m dropping you off at Nana’s. She’s off work today. I need to go back to the library, and I just can’t deal with you right now.”
“We only live one street over from her. If anything happens I can call her and she can come over. Please don’t make me go over there.”
“You not wanting to go to Nana’s just makes me want to leave you there even more. Put on your seat belt.”
* * *
• • •
Before my mother dropped me off at Nana’s front door, she instructed me to tell my grandmother what I’d said about the pig’s head.
“And I’ll know if you don’t,” she’d said.
Telling Nana what I’d told my friends and the kids at school was easy: it was what came after that made me run into the guestroom and collapse on the bed, my face buried in one of the floral pillows that had been placed perfectly against the headboard. The door was closed, but I could hear my grandmother calling all the right people in the neighbourhood to tell them about what I’d done.
“She a bright-eye likkle pickney,” she said to Rochelle’s great-aunt. “I tell her say, ‘Yuh make yuh sail too big fi yuh boat, yuh sail will capsize yuh!’ She always make up story them, from when she was small! No way her mother let her slice up a pig, my daughter nuh crazy!”
Of course my friends’ mothers told them all about it, and of course none of them was surprised. And when I ran into the group on my way to the 7-Eleven, they acted as much.
“Hey, Kara,” said Jordan, sucking on a rocket popsicle.
“We were gonna see if we could get into the school and run up to the roof,” said Rochelle. “Wanna come?”
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
“I told you she’d say no, Chelle,” said Anita, smirking as she walked past me, knocking her shoulder into mine. “She’s too scared.”
* * *
After my mother’s visit I’d been afraid Ms. Gold would tell the class I’d been lying, but two days later I was still being asked about Hanover. I ended up repeating details rather than adding new ones; forgetting to lean in close at certain points and yell at others; not bothering to whisper to inspire shivers or to widen my eyes to elicit gasps. At recess, I leaned against the trunk of the giant willow tree that sprouted from a patch of dirt dug into the pavement, watching some boys play Cops and Robbers while a group of girls played Mail Man, Mail Man, their legs stretched painfully wide in near-splits. After a few minutes, I saw Anna Mae walking up to me, her French braids tied together with a lavender ribbon that criss-crossed in and out. She leaned next to me.
“I never see you alone,” she said.
Her voice was softer than I’d expected. Too soft for a kitten-killer.
“Just feel like sitting out.”
“You’re standing.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said.
We stood together for a while in a silence that I found unusual but not uncomfortable. It even felt peaceful. It was a silence that gave me the opportunity to settle into myself, to hear myself breathe and think.
I looked at Anna Mae in her purple corduroy overalls and noticed for the first time that her skin was a sort of greyish-cream and that her eyes were green. She pushed her hands deep into her pockets and slowly raised her head so that the back of it rested against the trunk and some of the bark chipped off into her hair. I felt no desire to think of a crazy anecdote for her to listen to, no need to twist myself into a new identity. I just felt like talking to her.
“It must’ve sucked watching kittens die.”
“I was six the first time. I threw up,” she said.
I stood there and imagined what it would be like to watch a kitten, barely bigger than a grown-up’s hand, get dunked and held under water.
“I didn’t do it, you know,” I said. “Kill a pig? Made it all up.”
She smiled. “That’s okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The bell rang, and I could hear the collective groan of kids mid-game — they’d have to wait till lunchtime to pick up where they’d left off, and there’d no doubt be shouts for do-overs and clean slates. Anna Mae and I walked quietly together to the nearest school doors, side-stepping a tennis ball rolling its way down to the fences, completely abandoned by the boys who’d been playing Red Ass ten minutes earlier.
Snow Day
At the end of third period just before lunch, Principal Carrington declared the afternoon a snow day and told us all to go home. Outside, the streets were dusted like powdered sugar and the snowbanks around the sidewalks were tiny white-and-grey mounds that reached only as high as my ankles, but we were told that a little after midday, easterly winds would be blowing through the city. We were told that the gusts would threaten to rip trees out from the concrete, and would bring with them the type of snow you wish for at Christmas. The type of snow that whites out the blueness of the sky; that forces cars to crawl inch by inch on the highway because whiteness is all anyone can see. And Principal Carrington was kicking us out before we could be trapped inside to wreak havoc on her school.
“Aww yeah!” My class started to howl. Even I joined the others when they banged their fists on the desks. I was in Extended French, and all of my classes today were with Mme. Rizzoli. I would’ve wished for an earthquake to get out of spending even one more minute trying to translate my thoughts into another language.
“SNOW DAY! SNOW DAY! SNOW DAY!” we chanted.
“Taisez-vous!” Mme. Rizzoli snapped, putting her hands on her hips. “You are all eighth-graders, act like it!”
We pressed our smiling lips together and our shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Snow day. Snow day. Snow day,” we whispered.
“J’ai dit taisez-vous!”
Principal Carrington was still talking, her voice garbled by the PA system. “Those of you who have younger siblings in the school and those of you whose parents checked off ‘Stay at school in the event of a weather emergency,’ please report to the office. The rest of you get home safely.”
Mme. Rizzoli turned away from the PA and faced the front of the room. “Okay — everyone walk, I repeat, walk to your lockers and collect your things. À demain.”
“À demain,” we repeated.