A List of Cages(19)

I CRUTCH THROUGH the crowded cafeteria the next day, and everyone at our table makes room for me to prop up my foot. “What’s that?” Camila asks, tapping her long red fingernail on the mason jar I pulled from my backpack.

“Water.”

“Why does it look like that?”

“My mom added a few shots of herbal remedies for ligament healing,” I explain.

Camila shudders. In all fairness, it does look like a urine sample.

Charlie’s glowering his way through the crowd, then he spots me and his entire countenance becomes alarmingly cheerful.

“Oh god,” I moan as he approaches, still beaming. “Who told you?”

“Everyone told me. I just didn’t think it was possible.”

“No one thought it was possible,” Emerald adds, her blue eyes sparkly and amused.

Matt pulls up a chair and demands of Charlie, “Why are you so happy?” It’s a reasonable question. I don’t think any of us have ever seen his teeth before.

“You don’t know?” Charlie sits up straighter, obviously excited about the prospect of telling someone who doesn’t know.

“Know what?”

Charlie’s mouth opens, but before he can speak, Camila says, “Adam got an ISS.”

“Hey!” Charlie glares. “I was about to tell him.”

“Adam?” Matt looks at me like I was just arrested for double homicide. “How?”

So I tell the entire table my story about the cruel nurse, maybe exaggerating things just a little to make it funnier, but also to gain their sympathy. Now everyone is equal parts amused and angry on my behalf.

Well, except for Charlie. He’s just amused. “This is awesome.”

I try to give him a mean look, but it can’t be very convincing since I’m laughing. “It’s not awesome. It’s ridiculous.”

Somewhere during my story Jesse actually removed both earbuds, and now he’s giving me a knowing smile. “What’d your mom say?”

“What do you think?” My mom is sort of famous for making our fifth-grade teacher cry.

Charlie grins. “Can I watch her kick the nurse’s ass?”

“I hate to disappoint, but she won’t be coming. She wanted to, but—”

“You begged her not to?” Emerald accurately guesses.

“I just convinced her that it’s not a big deal.” Because it’s really not. “She’s more fight-the-system, and I’m more just-let-it-go.”

“No kidding.” Charlie stuffs four french fries into his mouth.

“Hey, I could fight the system,” I protest.

Matt puts a supportive hand on my shoulder. “We know you could, buddy.”

Everyone’s looking at me like I’m something adorable and harmless.

“I could. It’s not like I’ve never been in a fight before.”

Now they’re looking at me with perplexed suspicion. Emerald’s eyes twinkle like she suspects I’m just trying to impress everyone.

“I have. Marcus…seventh grade?”

Jesse and Charlie look at each other for a second, then burst out laughing.

“Getting smacked in the face with a Harry Potter book does not qualify as a fight,” Charlie says.

“First of all, it wasn’t just any Harry Potter book. It was Order of the Phoenix.”

Matt gasps. He knows that Order of the Phoenix is the longest and most potentially dangerous of all the Harry Potter books when used as a weapon.

“Still not a fight,” Charlie insists. “Now maybe, if you’d hit him back…”

It honestly never occurred to me to hit him back. I remember standing there in stunned pain, then feeling even more shocked when Marcus collapsed and started crying and writhing around on the floor. “I couldn’t. He was having a mental breakdown or something.”

“Why’d he hit you, anyway?” Matt asks.

“I know,” Charlie says eagerly. “I saw the whole thing. We were in the middle of Math class, and Marcus was trying to do his worksheet or something, and he just snapped because Adam wouldn’t stop talking.”

Now all the guys at our table are laughing hysterically, and the girls look like they want to join in but are trying to leave me some dignity.

“You don’t know how much that sucked for me. My mom went insane.”

This only makes them laugh harder.

It really did suck. When she picked me up from school that day, I still had an ice pack on my cheek, and she went ballistic. I tried to appeal to her social worker side, but it was like she’d had no professional training at all. She pulled me back into the school, then got even more irate when the principal wouldn’t promise immediate retribution. When it comes to me, she can get embarrassingly mafia-esque.

“I’m serious,” I say, pretending not to be as amused as they are. “She still has plans for that kid. She says she’s just biding her time.”

Jesse takes a breath from laughing. “Dude, your mom is awesome.”





WHEN I GET to Child Development on Thursday, Jared is smashing his fists into the backpack beneath his desk like it’s an arcade punching bag. I get the usual rush of fear/sympathy, but at the same time I feel a strange wave of contentment as I take in the room. It’s a nursery. Babies are everywhere—lying on the floor, leaning against purses. Mine is safe under my arm as I find my seat in the back. I set him on the desktop, and look at his wide brown eyes and small smile.