A List of Cages(4)

He’s taller than me, but not all that big—nothing like the huge blond boy he’s always with—and I thought girls liked boys who were really tall and strong. He doesn’t even act the way popular guys should act. The boys in my grade walk a certain way, almost stomping as if they’re angry, but Adam speeds everywhere like he’s running late. I’ve seen him trip over his own feet more than once, but he just smiles and keeps going.

That’s another thing. Boys don’t smile a lot. I’m not sure if they’re unhappy or if they’re just pretending to be unhappy. But Adam always looks…kind. And kind and clumsy isn’t cool. But in this school, I guess it is.

As Adam watches me expectantly, the anxiety in my stomach grows. Not knowing what to say is nothing new for me, but not knowing what to say to him feels a million times worse.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” he says.

Suddenly he lunges forward, and I leap back. He halts, looking confused, and now I’m really embarrassed. It’s Adam, and if he’s lunging forward with open arms, it’s probably just to hug me. But even so, the embarrassment and pain are all too much.

I see a split second of surprise on his face as I spin around, then I race down the hall, in the opposite direction of Dr. Whitlock’s office.

Once I’m out of Adam’s sight, I slow down so I don’t get stopped by a teacher. I take a deep breath, turning over the crumpled yellow note in my hand. Soon Dr. Whitlock will realize I’m not coming. If she tells Mr. Pearce, he’ll call Russell again, then Russell will want to know what I’ve been doing to get sent to her in the first place.

But if I do go to her office, Dr. Whitlock will stare into my eyes and ask embarrassing questions I can’t answer, and my stomach will hurt. Afterward, she might call Russell just to tell him I’m seeing her again.

I stop, sick with indecision.

There’s no good choice.

And with every passing second, it’s more likely she’s telling Mr. Pearce.

I should turn back, but I can’t seem to force my feet in that direction. At the moment, the certainty of seeing Dr. Whitlock is worse than the possibility of facing Russell. I know I won’t feel that way if it comes to it. I’ll tell myself how stupid I was to risk it. But I guess I am stupid, because I’ve already made up my mind.

I skip the English Hall, because those teachers always stand at their doors like a neighborhood watch, and I head down the Science Hall. The air is thick with a sickening chemical odor, the smell of something being dissected. At the end of the corridor, I turn the corner and freeze. Mr. Pearce is standing there, bent over his crooked cane. Whether he’s angry or just in pain I don’t know.

I duck into the alcove with the water fountains and wait. I count to sixty, then peek around the corner. He looks up, glaring right at me.

I duck back, and now I can hear the clacking of his cane. I press myself against the wall, trying not to wince out loud. Mr. Pearce and his goblin are getting closer. Clack. Clack. CLACK.

Then he limps past me, as if he has no peripheral vision at all.

I wait until he disappears from view before running past the gym into the wide-open lobby in front of the auditorium. I slip inside the theater and let the heavy door fall closed behind me.

It’s dark.

This is the scariest part of the whole journey. If I get caught, I’ll definitely be in trouble, because there’s no logical reason for me to be here. That thought spurs me to run until my toes hit the stage.

I climb the stairs, then slip behind the curtain. Back here it’s even darker, and it smells like dust and candle wax. For a moment the air seems to thicken, as if something is standing right behind me.

I hold my breath and stretch out my arms like I’m blind. I keep stumbling until my hands close over what I was looking for—the black iron ladder bolted to the wall. I climb until, finally, there’s light streaming in through the dirty attic window.

The attic is massive, with countless trunks and cardboard boxes overflowing with hats and plastic swords. In one corner there’s a giant papier-maché dragon with a glittering red eye.

The first time I came up here, I was so afraid someone might discover me any minute that I spent the whole period pacing. But then I found the passageway.

Behind the old armoire I locate the two crooked boards dangling from their nails like fence posts. I push them to one side to see the room beyond this one. In the crawl space between the attic and my secret room, the floorboards are crisscrossed, and there are a couple of feet of dark void where there is no floor at all. I have to jump.

And now I’m standing in my room. The walls and floors are much darker and smell older here. It’s empty and just big enough for me to lie down in one direction but not the other. There’s one window, round like a porthole on Elian’s ship, where I can look down at the courtyard where no one ever goes.

In my room that feeling, the one that sits at the bottom of my chest, practically disappears. I can see all four corners, and no one knows this place exists but me.

When the bell rings for lunch, I sit and pull the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an Elian Mariner book from my backpack. This story is one of my favorites. Sometimes Elian just goes on adventures, but sometimes he saves people. In this one he saves an entire planet.





WHEN I WAS a sophomore, Principal Pearce read some study on the inverse correlation between temperature and academic performance, and there was no turning back. He cranked the AC so high that even if it’s scorching out, inside we have to dress for a Siberian winter. The cafeteria’s the only room in the school that was spared his policy of Freezing Us Into Learning, so the second I walk in, I start tearing off clothes.