Only Child(63)

“Ewwwwwwwww!” “Groooooooooss!” all my friends in my class were saying.

“All right, honey, all right. Don’t worry about it, it happens,” Miss Russell said to me, but she also had an “Ew” look on her face.

A few more throw-up Whooshes came out—mostly on the floor—and then I was done.

“Are you feeling better?” Miss Russell petted my back.

I couldn’t talk. There was throw-up still in my throat and up my nose. It felt burny, and I felt like I wanted to cry.

“Nicholas, take Zach to the nurse’s office, please,” Miss Russell said. “I’ll clean this up. Zach, don’t worry about it.”

Nicholas looked at me like I looked really gross, but he walked to the nurse with me anyway. The nurse helped me wipe everything off and she called Mommy. I wasn’t happy that I threw up everywhere and everyone watched me, but I was happy that Mommy was coming to pick me up. Nicholas went back to class, and I sat on the nurse’s bed and waited for Mommy. I could smell the throw-up on my clothes, and it was starting to make me feel sick again.

A fifth grader that I knew from McKinley walked in, and when he saw me, he threw his arm over his mouth. “Oh my God, it smells so bad in here,” he said very loud.

“All right, Michael, pipe down,” the nurse told him. “Why are you here?”

But the boy Michael didn’t give an answer to the nurse. He was still talking to me in a loud voice: “Ew, is that puke on your shirt?” A few other boys came into the nurse’s office to see why he was talking so loud, and they all stared at me and covered their noses with their arms.

“Hey, aren’t you Andy’s brother?” another fifth-grade boy said to me.

I didn’t say anything back.

“All right, boys, if you’re not here for the nurse, get out of the office.” The security guard Dave came up behind the boys, and a few of them started to leave. But Michael and a couple other boys stayed.

“Hey, isn’t Andy’s mom the one who’s on TV all the time now?” Michael said to the boy next to him.

“Yeah. My mom said it’s not right how she’s talking about Charlie,” the other boy said, and I started to feel the mad feeling in my stomach. I wanted to tell Michael and the other boy to stop talking about Mommy, but I couldn’t open my mouth to talk. I was being stupid scared again.

“She’s trying to get famous or something,” Michael said, and then he looked at me and put his hands up. “No offense, kid.”

That’s when the mad feeling made my whole body get tight. Michael and the other boy were still talking to me about Mommy, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying anymore, because my heart was pounding loud in my ears and it was all I could hear. Mad tears were on my face, and Michael was making a face at me like “Ohhhhh, he’s crying,” and that’s when I went crazy.

I don’t even remember what happened exactly, only that I heard myself yell, “Stop talking about my mom!” and then I was on top of Michael, and then somebody pulled me off of him. When I looked down, Michael was on the floor and he was holding his mouth, and I could see blood on his fingers.

Somebody was holding me tight from behind, and I was still trying to kick my legs to reach Michael. I wanted to beat him up, and he was a lot bigger than me, but the mad feeling gave me super strength. Just the person holding me was stronger. I turned around and it was a man I didn’t know. He was talking to me, but my ears were still full with my loud heart pounding.

Then I saw Daddy come in the nurse’s office and say something to the man who was holding me tight, and he gave me to Daddy and Daddy sat down on the floor and put me on his lap.

“OK, all right. That’s good, settle down.” Daddy was talking in my ear, and I was starting to hear what he was saying.

“Let go of me,” I yelled at Daddy. “Let go of me, let go of me!”

“OK, I will let go, but you have to stop hitting and kicking, OK?”

The nurse was next to Michael. She helped him get up and made him sit on the bed. Michael was crying and holding his lip, and more blood was on his hands.

Daddy got up to talk to the man who was holding me earlier.

“I apologize, Mr….,” Daddy said, and the man reached out his hand and they did handshakes.

“Martinez. Lukas Martinez. I’m the assistant principal here at Warden.”

“Jim Taylor,” Daddy said. “I apologize for my son’s behavior….”

I got up from the floor and walked out of the nurse’s office and to the front door. I opened the door and walked outside.

“Zach!” I heard Daddy calling behind me. “Wait, Zach!” But I kept walking. I saw Daddy’s car was parked in front of the school, and I walked in that direction. Daddy came up from behind me and opened the door and helped me get in. I was cold because my clothes were still all wet from the throw-up and from when the nurse tried to clean it off with a wet towel. I started shaking a lot from the coldness. Daddy got in the front seat and he sat there for a while.

“Wow, what a clusterfuck,” he said, and started the car.

When we walked in the house, Mommy and Mimi were waiting for me, and they made a big fuss when they saw me and Mommy took me upstairs for a shower. I was still shaking when I was standing under the hot shower water. I was still mad. Mad at Michael and the other boy, and mad at Mommy and Daddy. I stayed in the shower for a long time, and after a while the shaking stopped and the mad feeling went away. I pretended like the shower water was washing it off and I was watching it disappear in the drain.