Текст книги "The Spider Ring"

Автор книги: Andrew Harwell

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Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 8 страниц)

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

PART TWO

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

PART THREE

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

THE EIGHT RINGS OF ANANSI

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

Maria had never much cared for spiders.

That was the difference between her and Grandma Esme. Esme loved spiders – strangely so. She had pictures of them on everything, from plates and cups to dresses and socks. She had a spider-shaped ring that she never took off – “a gift from an old friend” was all she would say about it. And she wouldn’t let Maria or her little brother, Rafi, kill a real spider in her presence. “You never harm a spider,” she’d said more than once, “because trust me, children, a spider never forgets.”

Grandma Esme’s love of spiders wasn’t the only strange thing about her. She wore black, silky shawls patterned with stars and planets. She could stand on her head during her morning yoga, even though she had to be at least seventy years old. She owned a collection of fancy whistles, left over from the days when she wasn’t Grandma Esme but Esmerelda the Magnificent, the world’s tamest lion tamer, at least according to her stories.

She also wore glasses, just like Maria. And just like Maria, she preferred reading to the outdoors.

So while Maria disliked anything with more than four legs – especially spiders – she absolutely loved her grandma Esme. Her mom and her brother thought Esme was weird. Maria thought she was, well, magnificent.

It was not unusual for Maria to ask, as she did one Friday morning in February, “Mom, can I go to Grandma Esme’s house after school?”

Her mother was buried from the waist up in the fridge, scrounging for things to pack for lunch. Now she peeked out at Maria and frowned.

“Again?” she said. “I don’t know, mija. I feel like I haven’t seen you all week.”

“I promise I’ll be home before dinner. I’ll even be here before you get home from work.”

Maria’s mother was a ranger at Falling Waters, a park that came all the way up to their backyard. On Fridays, it was so busy with the arrival of weekend campers that Maria’s mother had to get to work early and stay even later. While she drove Maria and Rafi to school the rest of the week, on Fridays, they had to ride the bus.

“Can you take your brother with you?” Maria’s mother asked her now.

“Take me where?” Rafi asked through a yawn as he stepped into the kitchen. He was wearing the same camo fishing vest he wore every day, and his mess of curly brown hair was particularly unruly.

“To your grandmother’s house. I won’t be home until after five, so I need you two to stick together.”

“I’m almost eleven,” Rafi said. “I can take care of myself.”

Maria snorted. Just last week, she’d caught him trying to cook a hot dog over the open flame of their stove.

“Plus, I was going to ask if I could go home with Rob after school. His dad said he’d take us fishing in his lake.”

Rob McCormick was Rafi’s best friend. Unlike the Lopez family, the McCormicks were rich. Instead of living in a small house in a neighborhood where all the small houses looked the same, the McCormicks had fifteen acres of land, including their own lake. Instead of shopping at the secondhand store, they got all their clothes brand-new at the mall.

Another big difference was that Rob’s father was alive. He took the boys fishing. It was easy to see why Rafi liked spending time with them.

Maria’s mother sighed. “All right,” she said. “Maria, you can go to Grandma Esme’s, and, Rafi, you can go over to Rob’s. But I expect you both to be home in time for dinner. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” they said.

“And, Maria, honey, go change your shirt. You’ve got a hole in your sleeve.”

Maria looked down and realized her mom was right. Her favorite shirt, a button-up top with a pattern her grandmother had called “paisley,” now had a nickel-sized hole where the left sleeve met the shoulder. She must have ripped it putting it on this morning. She’d have to sew a patch over the hole like she’d done with her jeans and her book bag. She even had a spare purple star that might be a good match. But she hardly had time for that now. The bus was going to be here any minute.

She ran back to her room and threw on the first T-shirt she touched. When she returned, her brother was standing at the front door with their lunches, motioning for her to hurry.

“C’mon, or we’ll have to walk,” he said.

“Bye, Mom!” Maria called as she ran out the door.

She was in such a rush, she hadn’t noticed the spiders that had built webs overnight in the hallway outside her room. Nor had she noticed the cluster of spiders that now hung from the awning above her front door, watching her as she sprinted to catch the bus. And she certainly hadn’t noticed the man in the black silk suit who’d been pretending to check the mailbox across the street.

Maria hadn’t noticed any of these things. But all of them, waiting, had noticed Maria.

It was going to be a very long day at school.

Maria had a quiz in math, an oral report in social studies, and a solar-system drill in science, all in the same day. But before any of those, she had to survive honors English.

Honors English was Maria’s least favorite class. Not because she didn’t like reading or writing, either. Once, in a diary her dad had given her for her birthday, she’d written that she wanted to grow up to be a travel reporter, and have adventures like Agatha, her favorite character from a book. No, the reason Maria hated honors English was that Claire McCormick was in it, too.

Claire was Rob’s older sister, but she was as mean as her little brother was nice. While Rafi and Rob were practically inseparable, Maria and Claire couldn’t be further from friends. Claire always made fun of Maria’s thrift-shop clothes, her vintage glasses, and the fact that she was smart. Maria always said that Claire had followers instead of friends.

Maria stayed out of Claire’s way whenever she could, but she couldn’t avoid her in honors English. Thanks to the cruel twist of fate known as alphabetical order, Claire sat directly behind Maria, whispering nasty comments whenever Ms. Wainscott wasn’t paying attention. Today, Claire was using the time before the bell to brag about her thirteenth birthday party, to which Maria was not invited. Looking around, Maria got the feeling she was the only person in her class who wasn’t.

“We’re going to put a platform over the pool to make a dance floor,” Claire said. “I’m already working on the perfect playlist.”

“That sounds awesome,” said Mark Spitzer, the only boy on both the soccer team and the math club.

“You always make the best playlists,” added Tina Brown, whose parents owned a restaurant Maria’s family couldn’t afford even on special occasions.

It seemed like everyone in seventh grade was in a contest to see who could kiss up to Claire the most. Everyone except Maria and her best friend, Derek – who, unfortunately for Maria, did not take honors English.

No one was mean to Derek, though. Everyone liked Derek because he made people laugh, even teachers. When it came to Maria, who couldn’t even make her own mom or brother laugh, people found it easier to side with Claire. It’s not like Maria really cared all that much. Grandma Esme said that all the most interesting people were misunderstood during their lifetimes.

“Oh my gosh, Maria, is that food on your shirt?”

Maria tried to look over her shoulder at the back of her T-shirt, the one she’d grabbed quickly while getting ready that morning. In the edge of her vision, there appeared to be a mustard stain – probably from when she’d helped Rafi make the hot dogs. Her face flushed with embarrassment as Tina and Mark and the rest of the kids around her snickered. Whatever Grandma Esme said, a lifetime was a long time to be misunderstood.

“You should just put another patch over it,” Claire said. “Or maybe a piece of duct tape? I’m sure the janitor has a spare roll you could borrow.”

“Wait, Claire, I think you have something on your face,” Maria said hotly. “Oh, no, sorry, that is your face.”

Claire scowled and opened her mouth like she was about to snap back, but thankfully the bell rang, and Ms. Wainscott stepped in from the hall.

“All right, class,” she said. “Let’s see how well you’ve been studying your vocab this week. That’s right – pop quiz. It won’t require any talking, thank you. You’ll just need one sheet of paper and a pen.”

Why had Maria thought her day couldn’t get any worse? She was starting to think someone was out to get her.

At lunch, Maria sat down and immediately pulled out her notes for her oral report, reading over them for the hundredth time. She was so nervous she felt like she had spiders in her stomach. She hated having to stand up in front of the class for anything.

Derek slid into the seat across from her, flipping his shaggy black hair, which was always falling in his eyes. He twirled a pen from one finger to the next.

“Oh, right,” he said. “I forgot we had those reports next period.”

“Please tell me you’ve got something prepared,” Maria said. In truth, she envied the way he could approach everything so calmly. He always said that if something made you nervous, it just meant that you were thinking about it too hard.

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m going to do mine on my dad’s shop.”

Maria rolled her eyes.

“What?” Derek said. “It’s full of local history. That shop has been in my family for, like, seventy-five years.”

Derek’s dad owned a store called Vic’s Antiques. Derek always said he wished they’d change the name, since Vic referred to his great-grandfather, who’d passed away before Derek was even born. But Maria thought that made it the perfect name for an antique shop, especially one as full of the past as Vic’s Antiques. There were all kinds of knickknacks and oddities there. Like the seashell bracelet Maria was currently wearing, which had cost only three dollars after Derek’s dad gave her the family discount.

“Hey, do you want to come visit Grandma Esme with me after school?” Maria said. Derek was one of the few people besides her who thought her grandmother was cool, not weird.

“Sorry, can’t,” he said, now twirling the pen so fast it was hard to tell which fingers he was using. “I promised my mom I’d help clean up the house before my great-aunt Luellen gets here.”

“I forgot that she was coming this weekend. Well, I’ll tell Grandma Esme you say hi.”

“Yeah, thanks. You know I’d rather spend time at Grandma E.’s house than mine any day. Especially now, since I get the feeling from my mom that Aunt Luellen can be a little scary.”

“Why is she here?”

“I’m not really sure. Dad said it was something about visiting an old friend, but I don’t know who, because she’s never lived in Florida before. She lives up in New York with the rest of the Overton side of the family.”

“Weird,” Maria said. “But I’m sure she’s harmless.”

“Fingers crossed,” Derek said, stopping the pen mid-twirl in between his crossed fingers. “By the way,” he said, “I heard you told Claire McCormick her face was ugly.”

“Is that what’s going around?” Maria smirked. “Well, I didn’t use those words exactly, but I was definitely thinking them.”

“Be careful around her,” Derek warned. “That girl is frightening when she’s mad.”

“Claire McCormick doesn’t scare me,” Maria replied.

But she couldn’t look Derek in the eye as she said it. He always knew when she wasn’t telling the truth.

When the bus let Maria off at the end of Spinneret Street, she felt, as she always did, like she was stepping back in time. The houses on this street were some of the oldest in the city, although at this point they looked more run-down than historical. Still, Grandma Esme’s house was like Grandma Esme – it had character. From the uneven wooden pillars holding up the front-porch roof to the stained-glass windows depicting the sun and the moon, the house was almost like a personal museum.

Maria loved it.

She knocked three times using the big brass knocker, then waited for the sound of her grandma coming to the door. After two whole minutes of nothing, she tried the handle. The door was unlocked.

“Grandma? Are you awake?” Maria called, stepping inside.

Something was wrong. That was immediately clear. The house was always a bit of a mess, but once you knew the pattern to the chaos (and the location of all the secret shelves and drawers), you could find anything you wanted without much trouble. Today, there was no pattern. It looked like a tornado had swept over a yard sale right here in the living room.

“Grandma?” Maria called more urgently.

“Who is it? Maria, is that you?”

Maria exhaled. Grandma Esme appeared in the doorway that led back to the kitchen, her black hair disheveled, her cat-eye glasses askew. She was clutching one of her silver whistles to her chest, and she had a light in her eyes like she’d just seen her own ghost.

“Yes, it’s me, Grandma. Remember? I said I was coming over on Friday?”

“Oh,” Esme said, but she still didn’t smile. “Is it Friday already?”

“It is,” Maria said patiently. She motioned to the heap of odds and ends piled on the living room carpet. “Did you lose something, Grandma? Do you want some help finding it?”

“What? Oh, no, dear. I mean, yes. Yes, I want your help. No, I haven’t lost anything.”

Maria walked over to her grandmother and held her hand. Sometimes, when Grandma Esme was feeling forgetful, you just needed to spend a quiet moment with her before the memories came back.

Grandma Esme looked down at their hands. Her eye lingered on her black spider ring, which always seemed to catch the light just right.

“It’s the spiders,” Esme said. “The spiders have returned.”

“Which spiders? Do you mean real spiders?”

“Yes, real spiders,” Grandma Esme said. “Very real. Too real.”

Maria led Esme to the living room couch, guiding her around a few stray books and records along the way. Esme sat down and took a deep breath. This seemed to help.

“I’m so sorry, dear,” Esme said. “I don’t know where my head is. I suppose I must have lost track of the time.”

“That’s okay, Grandma. It’s been a very long week.”

“You too, huh? Is everything okay at school?”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Maria said. She wasn’t about to trouble her grandmother with Claire McCormick’s nonsense.

“And where is our friend Derek today?”

“He had to help his mom clean. He said to tell you hello.”

“Well, hello, Derek,” Grandma Esme said, which made Maria smile.

“So what do you want to do today, Grandma? Do you want me to read to you?”

“A story would be nice,” Grandma Esme said. “Nothing too scary, though. Not with the day I’m having.”

Maria looked at the pile on the floor behind her, scanning the books that had been scattered about, hoping there might be one she hadn’t read before.

A piece of yellowed paper caught her eye, buried beneath a glass flower vase that had been etched with spiderwebs. Maria carefully moved the vase and picked up the paper. It looked like an old movie poster, with a painting of a man in a billowy black cape and a woman in a star-speckled shawl, her hand disappearing into the mane of a lion that was as big as a horse. The lion was smiling, and its smile revealed four very sharp teeth. Big, blocky letters proclaimed THE AMAZING ARTURO AND ESMERELDA THE MAGNIFICENT: A DAZZLING DOUBLE ACT OF MAGIC AND DARING! So Grandma Esme’s stories were true after all.

“Grandma, was this really you?” Maria asked, handing her grandmother the poster and pointing.

Esme adjusted her glasses and squinted, and it was like her eyes finally came into focus. Maria knew that look. The memories were back. “Ah, yes, Maria, that was really me. Arturo and I were childhood friends, you know, connected at the hip. A bit like you and Derek, though perhaps not as well-behaved. Of the three of us, Arturo was the true performer. Cocoa and I were just along for the ride.”

“Cocoa?” Maria laughed. “Was that the lion’s name?”

“It was. I gave him the choice of a few names, and that was his favorite.”

Esme was smiling, but she looked wistful, too. Maria knew a little about her grandmother’s childhood from her mom – that she’d been born in Europe, and had traveled the world after being forced to leave her family – but even her mom didn’t know that much. Maria’s dad had never talked about it back when he was alive.

Maria read the small print at the bottom of the poster. It looked like her grandmother’s double act had been part of the Rimbaud Brothers traveling circus. A circus, the poster said, that had toured Europe seventy years ago. That couldn’t be right … could it? There was no way her grandmother was that old. Her hair hadn’t even begun to turn gray, for one thing.

“Arturo gave me this ring, you know,” Esme said. “I wear it in his memory.”

“What happened to him?” Maria asked.

Esme’s eyes grew wide and wild. She worried the silver whistle in her hand, as if she were trying to polish it with her fingers.

“The other spiders,” she whispered. “The other spiders got him. And they are after me, too, Maria. They are after my ring.”

Maria’s throat squeezed shut, like it had during her oral report that afternoon. It wasn’t uncommon for Grandma Esme to sound paranoid. She’d often warned Maria about “lurking enemies” and the best ways to stay hidden, and Maria had always assumed these warnings were leftover relics from her mysterious childhood. Maybe Esme’s own parents had used those same words when Esme had been forced to leave them. But Grandma Esme had never gone so far as to suggest that the lurking enemies were spiders. In fact, she’d always told Maria that the spiders were her friends.

“Grandma, I think maybe we’d better take an afternoon nap —”

“No, listen to me, Maria. I am not tired, I am not joking, and I most certainly am not confused.” She held out the whistle in her hand and shook it. “Do you see this? Do you? There is a reason I used this whistle to speak with Cocoa, when other lion tamers spoke with their whips. You cannot truly command a lion, Maria. You can give, and you can ask, and you can earn his respect. The lion tamer who uses a whip may find it easier to make an obedient animal, but he will never make a friend. And only a friend will help you in the end.”

“I don’t understand, Grandma. Are we talking about Derek?”

“The spiders, Maria! We are talking about the spiders. People with gifts like ours must always choose between doing what is right and what is easy. You must promise me that will you do what is right.”

Maria wanted to ask, “What gifts do I have?”

But Esme had said “promise me” in a voice so commanding it was scary. So Maria said, “I promise,” and left it at that.

Esme nodded, her mouth a resolute line.

“Good.” She slipped the whistle into her pocket and took another deep breath. Then she smiled. “Now, if you could just help me find my kettle in all this rubble, we can have a cup of tea and enjoy that story.”

Maria left to walk home at half past four, allowing herself more time than she needed before it got dark. The rest of her visit had been calm enough, with no more strange warnings and Grandma Esme in good humor. They’d picked mint leaves from Esme’s garden for the tea, and then Maria had read aloud from a book of fairy tales – a story about a princess who, with the help of woodland creatures, defeats an evil shadow queen. Finally, they’d listened to old records on Esme’s gramophone.

But through it all, Maria couldn’t shake the image of her grandmother’s haunted eyes as she claimed that the spiders were out to get her, warning Maria of the choice that lay ahead.

For the first time in Maria’s life, believing in stories felt like a dangerous thing.

The weekend went by as weekends normally did, with Rafi outside collecting rocks and insects from the creek, and Maria inside, tucked into her window seat with a book.

Her mother used to beg her to spend more time out in the sun, but she finally stopped after Maria pointed out that she never tried to make Rafi come in and read.

Maria spent Saturday night sewing the purple star patch onto her paisley shirt. It didn’t look as good as new, but then, it hadn’t been new when Maria had bought it. Grandma Esme always said that Maria’s personal touches made her clothes better than new, but she was the only one who seemed to think so.

On Sunday, while she was cleaning her room as part of her weekly chores, Maria was alarmed to find a large cobweb blooming in the back of her closet. There didn’t appear to be any spiders left on it, so she didn’t hesitate to grab a broom and swat it down. She checked to make sure it hadn’t gotten onto any of her clothes. The last thing she needed was for Claire to find something else on her shirt the next day.

The cobweb also reminded Maria of her afternoon with her grandmother. She hoped that had been a one-time incident, but decided she had better tell her mother about it, just in case. At dinner, she said, “Mom, Grandma Esme was acting kind of strange on Friday.”

“Stranger than usual?” Rafi said, and Maria glared at him.

“Strange how?” Mom asked.

“I don’t know. She just seemed … scared. Like she really thought something was out to get her.” Maria didn’t specify that Esme had said spiders were out to get her. That felt like telling on her grandmother, somehow. And she hated to give Mom and Rafi one more reason to think Grandma Esme was crazy.

“That’s just how it is when you get to be Grandma Esme’s age,” Mom said. “Especially when it gets late in the day, and the sun goes down. Something chemical happens in your brain.”

“Like a zombie?” Rafi said.

“No, zombies eat brains,” Maria said, rolling her eyes. “Plus, the sun was still out when I was there. Mom, can you please just check on her?”

Maria’s mom scrunched her eyebrows together like she did when Maria tried to explain the plot of one of her books. It was the same look she got when she was paying the bills. Finally, she said, “Of course I will, mija. I’ll swing by her house before I pick you guys up tomorrow.”

Rafi was quick to protest. “But, Mom, Rob asked if I could come over tomorrow. They’re getting a new waterslide put in this weekend, and it’s supposed to be finished by the time school’s out.”

“Isn’t it a little cold to be swimming?”

“Nah. We were in the pool last weekend and it was fine.”

“Maybe I’d better call Rob’s father and make sure it’s okay that you keep coming over.”

“He already said it was,” Rafi whined. “He said I was welcome anytime.”

“I’ll call him after dinner,” Mom said firmly.

Maria didn’t understand how Rafi could think about waterslides when she’d just said their grandmother wasn’t doing well. Not even Derek was that carefree.

On the way back to her room, Maria discovered another large, abandoned spiderweb, this one strung up between the ceiling and the wall of the hallway. She shivered.

“Rafi!” she called. “Rafi, come look at this.”

“What is it now?”

“Have you been leaving the back door open when you go outside? This is the second spiderweb I’ve found today.”

“Well, it’s not my fault. I didn’t leave the door open. Maybe the spiders at Grandma Esme’s house rode here inside your book bag. Did you think of that?”

“Fine, be that way,” Maria said, leaving him in the hall and all but slamming the door behind her. She knew she wasn’t really that mad at her brother, but it was like her anger was getting wrapped up inside her fear, and the two were becoming a tangled black knot that filled her head. If it was a coincidence that these webs were appearing now, after what Grandma Esme had said about the spiders returning, it was the worst coincidence in the history of coincidences.

Still, Maria hoped that it was a coincidence. The spiders had no reason to be here.

Right?

When Maria got to her seat in English, Claire was already at her desk smiling brightly, as if it weren’t first thing on a Monday morning. Maria got nervous when Claire McCormick smiled. Her smile showed too many teeth, like a lion’s.

“Hey, Maria. How was your weekend?” Claire asked through that smile.

“Fine,” Maria said carefully.

“I’m so glad to hear that.” It was almost convincing.

Was it possible Claire had been the one behind the cobwebs in her house? Maybe she’d planted spiders on Rob, counting on Rob to pass them accidentally to Rafi, who had brought them into the house without realizing it. But that was ridiculous. Maria was starting to sound as paranoid as Grandma Esme. Claire wasn’t some villain in a fairy tale. She was just a girl in Maria’s English class.

As soon as the bell rang, Ms. Wainscott began passing back their vocab quizzes from Friday. When Maria got hers, she was relieved to see that she had gotten all ten of the words right. She’d almost blanked on the definition of disputatious, until finally she’d realized it looked a lot like dispute.

“Wow, Maria, you’re so smart. I wish I was as smart as you,” Claire said, looking over Maria’s shoulder. The sarcasm in Claire’s voice was slick and dark, like oil. Everyone laughed as if Claire had said something clever. Maria’s hand went self-consciously to the purple star on her sleeve, like maybe she could hide it before Claire noticed that, too.

“I told you not to mess with her,” Derek said at lunch. He’d already finished his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and now he passed a big silver dollar back and forth between his hands. At times, it vanished from sight completely.

“She started it,” Maria said, shrugging. She stared down into the beefaroni and orange slices that lay untouched on her tray. It was kind of sickening how they were almost the same color. “I keep thinking I just need to be mean right back. Let her see how it feels.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a fantastic idea.” Somehow Derek managed to sound kind even when he was teasing her – the opposite of Claire, who sounded mean even when she gave Maria a compliment. “Just talk to Ms. What’s-Her-Name about it. I’m sure if she knew, she’d at least put Claire in a different seat.”

For Derek, every problem in the world could be solved by talking it out. But Maria wasn’t Derek. As she’d tried to explain, if she told on Claire, Claire would just get back at her in other ways, likely much worse than her usual teasing.

“So how is your aunt?” Maria asked, very much wanting to change the subject.

“Great-aunt. And fine,” Derek said. “I mean, you can tell she’s from New York. She’s very fancy and she never, ever laughs, not even when my dad did that thing where he acts like he’s going to shake your hand and then pulls a coin out of your ear. But she’s nice enough. She liked it when I showed her the shop.”

“Oh, I almost forgot – Grandma Esme says hello.”

“Hello, Grandma Esme,” Derek replied, which was exactly the right response.

“I found this old poster that proves all her circus stories are true. It showed her and the lion, just like she always says.”

“Wow, really? I bet my dad would love to have that for the shop.”

“Well, he can’t have it – it’s Grandma Esme’s.” This came out more forceful than Maria meant it to. Derek’s eyes widened, and he stopped passing the coin, but the thing about Derek was that he never took anything personally.

“My bad. You know I just meant it sounds cool, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry,” Maria said. “Grandma Esme was just a little out of it on Friday, so I’ve been a little out of it since. This thing with Claire definitely isn’t helping.”

“Does this help?” Derek asked, cupping his hands as if he were holding them over a fire. Maria didn’t understand what he was doing at first, until suddenly she realized the silver dollar was in her hands, impossibly.

“How did you do that?” Maria asked, amazed.

Derek grinned.

“You really want to know how I did it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s easy,” Derek said. He leaned in like he was going to whisper the answer in her ear. Always the performer, just like his dad.

“The secret,” he told her, “is practice.”

When Maria went to get her books at the end of the day, there was a terrible surprise waiting for her at her locker. She didn’t see it at first because there was a crowd of people in the way. She figured they must be waiting for that eighth-grade girl Kim Thomas, who seemed to have even more fans than Claire. But no, she realized. They were staring at her locker, on which duct tape, stickers, and even a few cloth patches had been plastered so thick she couldn’t see an inch of the gray metal beneath.

Her face burned as she pushed through the crowd and tried to peel the junk off. No one was rude enough to laugh at her. But none of them moved to help her, either.

Of course this had been Claire’s doing – the duct tape alone was all it took to know that – but Maria would have a hard time proving it to her teachers.

It took Maria so long to collect her things, she was sure her mother would be outside worrying when she got to the pick-up area. But not only was her mom not outside, she didn’t arrive after five or fifteen minutes, either.

Soon, Maria was one of only a handful of students left waiting for their parents. The other kids all looked like they were used to this. One boy had pulled out a deck of cards, and he and his friends were settling down to play without anyone having to explain the rules. But Maria’s mother always arrived on time. The fact that she wasn’t here could only mean something bad.

Just as Maria was thinking she should either walk home or else call her mom from the front office, the school secretary, Ms. Vinita, came shuffling outside. Her eyes darted around frantically until they landed on Maria.

“Oh, honey,” she said, hurrying over with her arms outstretched. Maria could almost predict what was going to come next, word for word, as if she’d heard it all in a dream. She let Ms. Vinita hug her, knowing that it was as much for the older woman to feel better as it was for Maria. “I’m so sorry,” Ms. Vinita said, and the words sounded odd in her gruff voice, which more often could be heard doling out tardies and unexcused absences. “It’s your grandmother. She’s – well, she’s … Your mother is still there. At her house. She wondered if you would feel okay to walk there by yourself.”