When You Know What I Know Read online

  There’s a thump that might

  be my arm hitting

  the hallway wall,

  a shush of covers

  pulling over my head.

  The icy lake keeps on

      sucking me

         down

            down

               down

                  numbing

                      me

                  saving

                      me.

  MISSING

  Mom frowns at me,

  one hand on the vacuum handle, her other pulling the chair away from my desk.

  Why isn’t Furball in her cage?

  I don’t say anything.

  My Voice

  My Brain

  My Self

  are still

  Missing

  MISSING, ROUND TWO

  I push mashed potatoes

  round and round with my fork,

  Taylor’s sobbing

  filling my ears.

  Furball, she moans.

  I miss he-e-er, she wails.

  I don’t say that Tay

  never

  even

  played with her, I just

  smash and

  squash peas.

  Pressure on my shoulder—

  Mom looms—

  but I don’t look up.

  I know it’s not the same,

  she says, but if we don’t

  find her, maybe we can

  get another hamster.

  Maybe even a—

  Dog? Taylor cuts in,

  suddenly bright-eyed

  and breathless.

  Rabbit, Mom finishes.

  She’s not looking at Tay.

  She’s staring at me

  like she’s waiting

  for some answer.

  So I shrug

  and start stabbing

  the tofu.

  MY VOICE

  Ms. Radtke frowns

  at me because

  I’m not singing.

  Everyone can tell

  when she’s angry.

  Her voice gets all

  strained and shrieky,

  like she swallowed

  a mad cat.

  Ms. Radtke is Madtke,

  whispers into my ear.

  It’s Tilda, a popular girl

  from Class 5S who likes

  to giggle with me sometimes.

  But I don’t smile

  at this old joke I made up

  so long it seems like

  forever ago.

  I move my lips a little,

  mumble-mouthing

  random words.

  Okay, everyone grab an instrument!

  Out come:

  the hand drums

  some of the kids

  start beating the

  life out of, and

  those tinkly things whose

  chiming grates on me

  like Taylor’s nonstop babble

  when I’m in a super bad mood.

  Ms. Radtke tries

  to hand me

  a tambourine,

  this scraped-up

  tambourine,

  but my arms are

  anchored to my sides,

  and it’s all I can do

  not to snatch away

  Josh Lin’s maracas

  so he will just Shut Up!

  and Ms. Radtke keeps

  trying to give me

  that tambourine,

  shoving it at me

  as she looks away to

  tell off a drum-banger.

  And then

  right when

  all the music

  stops

  My Voice bursts out

  zero to a

  THOUSAND

  in a split second:

  I DONT WANT

  THAT

  DUMB

  TAMBOURINE!

  Tori! yells Ms. Radtke.

  Yikes, says Tilda.

  But My Voice has gone

  back into hiding.

  LIAR

  I’m hidden under covers

  and no one can get me out.

  Not Mom.

  Not breakfast.

  Not Taylor.

  Not lunch.

  But Mom slips into my room

  so quick and quiet

  I can’t even pretend

  to be invisible,

  like when I was younger

  and she and Dad were

  screaming at each other.

  Tori, her voice whispers

  close, her warm breath

  wafting over my ear.

  But something’s different

  about her presence,

  something heavy

  and focused on me,

  a planet whose

  gravity pulls me

  up to sitting.

  Tori, she says again,

  her voice cracking,

  urgent.

  Uncle Andy called today

  to say

  that he’s worried about you

  because—

  I’m frozen solid,

  can’t cover my ears

  —he says you’ve been lying

  about things,

  that you took a dollar from his wallet,

  then told him you didn’t when he asked.

  My stomach lurches, and the room

  tilts along with it.

  Mom puts a cool hand,

  gentle,

  on my chin,

  turns my face toward her.

  But I know you wouldn’t do that,

  and—a muscle twitches in her jaw—

  I’ve always been able to tell

  when Andrew’s lying.

  You’ve been so withdrawn lately,

  looking sad, not liking

  Halloween and choir…

  Will you tell me

      again

  what happened?

  TELLING, AGAIN

  My throat closes up

  and I can’t speak,

  can’t say—

  can’t say—

  IT—

  all over again.

  And then—

  oh then—

  she looks right into

  my eyes,

  and she—

  my Mom, Mommy, Mama—

  she sees the words

  written there.

  She finally SEES.

  And she makes a noise,

  a gulped sob,

  like she’s the one

  strangling

  instead of me.

  ALIEN

  Even when I don’t see

  Her anymore,

  That Face from right after,

  I still don’t look

  the same.

  I look

  in the mirror

  and I think,

  Who’s That?

  Now I look at

  my arm—

  not in the mirror,

  right on me,

  right at it.

  And I still think,

  Who’s That?

  And it’s like a night

  a few years ago.

  I’d walked into my

  parents’ room

  (back when Dad

  still lived with us)

  because I’d had a

  nightmare.

  But then I didn’t

  wake them up.

  They looked so different

  lying there,

  not like themselves.

  All waxy and still,

  not smiling or frowning,

  just blank-faced.

  And then I got all freaked out

  and remembered

  a body-snatcher movie

  and figured


  that might have happened

  to Mom and Dad.

  So I scooted on back

  to my room

  real fast

  because the monsters

  in there

  were less scary

  than my alien parents.

  So yeah,

  my arm’s like that.

  And I keep pinching it,

  but it’s like the pain’s

  not connected to

  the pinch.

  Like my arm’s not

  connected to my

  body.

  Or maybe,

  my whole body

  is taken over,

  and my mind has the

  hurt on Earth,

  but my body’s

  back on the home planet

  with the alien

  who’s taken it over.

  NOO!!!

  Nononononononononono-

  -nononononononononono!

  I don’t want my teacher to know.

  I don’t want anyone to know.

  Mr. Jenkins left a message, Tori.

  You should have told me

  you were having trouble

  at school, honey.

  I need to call him back right away.

  Outbursts, failing tests:

  he wants to know

  What

  is going on.

  Mom, no!

  No way!

  No meeting!

  I’m not going!

  Fine, Mom snaps.

  Then her lips relax.

  I’ll just tell him, Tori.

  You don’t have to be there.

  She comes toward me,

  arms open,

  but I leap away.

  No!

  What? What are you talking about?

  Tay pipes up,

  eyes still glued to

  her Pokémon movie.

  Shut up! I shout.

  Tay, go to your room, says Mom.

  What’d I do? asks Taylor.

  I need to talk to Tori, says Mom.

  But Taylor’s already gone

  SLAMMING

  her way out

  of the kitchen (like she does

  so we know how mad she is).

  Well, so what? She has

  NOTHING

  to be mad about.

  Mom!!!!! I screech. Mommy!

  And I stomp wild all over—

  You can’t-can’t-can’t-can’t!—

  like that little two-year-old

  from across the street

  who Mom always calls

  a real handful.

  But she says we have

  to tell Mr. Jenkins.

  What do you want me to do, Tori?

  Her eyes plead with me.

  But I refuse to answer.

  And her eyes shift,

  determined now.

  She goes into her bedroom and

  I can hear her voice low in there,

  Telling him.

  Telling him

  all about me.

  So now I can’t go to school tomorrow.

  THE NEXT MORNING

  Wake up, sweetie, c’mon.

  The sheet strips off from the

  bare skin of my arms and legs and I

  wrap my arms tight around my chest.

  He doesn’t know much, Tori.

  Just the very basics, no details.

  He was very nice about it.

  And he knows you’re embarrassed,

  so he won’t talk to you about it

  unless you bring it up.

  What?! She told him I’m embarrassed?!

  Mom tries to roll me over but I

  stick my face in the pillow instead,

  smother myself in its mushy

  sweatiness from the night.

  Tori, you can’t let this

  ruin your education.

  You have your whole life

  ahead of you, sweetie.

  With every wheedling

  word,

  I stuff my face farther

  down,

  down into the soft damp.

  You don’t want to end up like me, right?

  (Stuff)

  Stuck with Mr. Hadley for a boss,

  (Stuff)

  and no way to get a better job?

  Her tone’s light

  but this is

  NOT FUNNY.

  Then—

  You don’t want the bad stuff to win, right, sweetie?

  I bolt upright.

  I just mean—Mom looks a little scared.

  She tucks her head back, blinks a lot.

  I mean you can’t

  let it win—

  you won’t!

  She says this last

  part like a cheerleader:

  Go-get-’em, Tori!

  But I glare at her, fierce,

  so she knows.

  Knows how much I hate her.

  Laser-beam it from my eyes

  so she can

  feel it, not just see it.

  Yank my robe off my desk chair.

  Make for the bathroom.

  SLAM!

  the door good and hard

  so she knows she is

  Shut

  Out.

  SCHOOL

  I slip into Class 5J

  shoot straight

  past a smiling Rhea

  to my cubby

  shove my things in

  spear my jacket

  on its big fat hook.

  And there’s Mr. Jenkins.

  Hello, Tori. Welcome to class,

  he says,

  which is what he always

  says, but

  it’s still hard to look up at him,

  so I stare down at his scuffed black

  dress shoes,

  his face

  there in my mind

  staring at me

  as if he knows.

  Because he does.

  And later when Ms. Radtke

  comes to get us for music,

  I hear them whisper and

  I’m sure it’s me

  they’re glancing over at

  while we get our notebooks,

  while we line up.

  And in the hall

  as my class

  jumbles its way

  to music,

  Ms. Radtke has

  a word with

  the gym teacher

  right next door.

  Their eyes go all

  directions at once,

  but I can tell they are

  looking only at

  Me.

  And I’m sure they all

  Know.

  LITTLE FISH

  We went to Oakdale Pond today

  to feed the fish.

  Because it is Sunday,

  and that’s what we do on Sundays

  ever since Dad left.

  In the summer and early fall,

  it’s our special family time.

  Even now.

  I crumpled my baggie

  of crumbs, squeezed

  it, rolled it, first in one

  palm, then the other.

  The plastic slipped and

  slid against itself until my crumbs

  were little grains of nothing.

  I held the baggie up to my eye.

  I could see through my crumbs,

  now too tiny to feed even

  the smallest hungry little fish.

  And there were Mom and Taylor

  on the other side of the plastic.

  Wavy and unreal,

  like they were underwater.

  Tori! You ruined your crumbs! Mom said.

  Then she bit her lip.

  Have some of mine.

  Hey, no fair. Give me some too, said my sister

  in her most irritating Taylor whine.

  But Mom didn’t even hear her.

  I was already staring into the water,


  and it took too much effort to

  lift my head back up.

  I threw some of Mom’s bread crumbs down

  into a group of the little white fish

  who never gobble them fast enough.

  But, of course,

  one of the giant orange ones

  barreled through and

  the crumb-dots disappeared

  before I could blink.

  It’s not like I could do anything about it.

  I was up here, and they were way down there.

  THE FIRST TIME

  Mom asks me

  her voice stum-

  bling, Did he

  do this—did he

  touch you

  before?

  I shake my head.

  No.

  Her chest collapses

  back to normal,

  her shoulders unhunch.

  She is relieved.

  I don’t tell her that

  I got a funny feeling

  sometimes,

  maybe the whole

  last year.

  A feeling like

  something was

  different

  in how he looked

  at me,

  in the way

  his touch

  felt.

  I don’t tell her that

  I kinda liked it.

  That difference.

  Like I was fun to be around.

  Like I was growing up.

  And now

  that grown-up feeling

  in my tummy

  twists and turns

  and wrings out

  my insides.

  And I feel like

  a stupid kid.

  Who should have known.

  THE PHONE CALL

  I walk into the kitchen and

  Mom’s yelling and

  pacing around.

  No, you can’t talk to her!

  Mom screams into her phone.

  Who was THAT? Tay asks when

  Mom’s done with the call,

  still holding her phone,

  staring at it like

  she doesn’t know what

  to do with it.

  Grandma, Mom says.

  She finally sets the phone

  down on the counter.

  Tay and I look at each other.

  Grandma?

  GRANDMA

  Mom sits me down later

  and explains

  something that can’t really

  be explained.