Chapter 8 2004
I stared at the line of glowing light beneath the door, waiting for the inferno of hellfire to burst through and consume me.
I was alone and very scared. I told myself that what the school’s nurse, Nurse Jackson, had said meant nothing, but as I lay in bed wriggling the tooth that had been knocked loose by the dodgeball, the curse she’d cast replayed in an endless loop in my head.
“Marked by the devil himself,” she’d muttered as she used a damp cloth to blot the blood from my split lip.
She was a plain woman with a turned-up nose, sagging eyes, and a poof of dull yellow hair.
She lifted my chin to examine the cut and in a normal voice said, “It looks like the bleeding’s stopped. ”
“Thank you,” I said through my swollen lip.
She tossed the washcloth into a bin. “Your mother’s got some nerve, sending you here.”
I didn’t know what she meant, but knowing it was impolite not to respond to adults, I answered, “It’s where my family’s always gone to school.”
She scoffed. “Exactly. Your grandfather could have pulled his stunt anywhere, but he chose to hurt people he knew and who trusted him. And now your mother sends you here, like it’s no big deal, like all is forgiven and we’ve forgotten what you’ve done.”
It was becoming clear that there were people at the school who didn’t like my family.
Which was strange since I’d always thought of my family as good.
There were college buildings with our name on them, along with wings of hospitals and various scholarships and foundations.
When Mother was home, we went to church on Sundays, and when the offering plate was passed, I was always proud when she gave large bills like twenties and hundreds rather than coins or single dollars like most of those around us.
There was an entire album in the study filled with newspaper clippings about Mother and her generosity, along with awards and plaques that lined the shelves and walls of her office.
Nurse Jackson peeled off the blue rubber gloves she’d been wearing and, her back to me, said very quietly, “May the corrosion of greed find them and eat their flesh like fire.” Then I watched as she made the sign of the cross, touching her fingertips to her lips at the beginning and end.
She told me I could go, and I ran from her office, terrified.
Ms. Michaels stopped me in the hall. “There’s been a change.”
Her gaze stuck on my nevus, then flicked to my swollen lip, then flicked back to my nevus, and her nose crinkled in distaste. I looked down at the floor between us.
“It’s been decided that you should have a room to yourself. Isn’t that nice?”
It wasn’t nice. It was one more awful thing to add to the long list of awful things that had happened since I’d arrived. Clearly Heddy had called her mom as she’d said she was going to, which was the reason I was being moved.
Ms. Michaels led me down the hall to a windowless room that appeared to have been a closet at one time. It had stained rubberlike floors and a low ceiling, and was so crammed with the dresser, desk, and bed there was barely a foot to turn around.
Ms. Michaels left, and I climbed beneath the covers and, for a long time, thought of Boodo.
It was Tuesday, which meant it was taco night at Blue House.
The dining table would be spread with taco shells, chicken, pork, beans, rice, and every topping you could imagine.
My stomach grumbled angrily, but when the dinner bell sounded, I made no move to heed its call.
The day had been so awful that, even if the fires of greed didn’t come for me, I was thinking I might never leave the room again.
The blow from the dodgeball had sent me sprawling backward to the floor.
Coach Lee had hurried over and helped me sit up. My head spun, and I could taste the blood from my split lip in my mouth.
“Let’s get you to the nurse,” she said and helped me to my feet by my elbow.
“Nice panties!” someone yelled.
“Ooh-ooh! Aah-ah!” Heddy hooted, imitating a monkey.
Only then did I realize my shorts had fallen down. Coach Lee, realizing it as well, released my arm and pulled them up, but it was too late. The entire school had seen my Curious George underwear, the ones Boodo and I bought to give me courage and remind me of home.
The humiliation was far worse than the pain of the bloody lip.
Which was why I did not go to dinner. Instead, painfully hungry, I curled on my narrow, lonely bed, staring at the glowing light beneath the door, waiting for Nurse Jackson’s curse to come true, thinking about taco night at Blue House and praying.
I did not pray to God or Allah, but to Boodo.
It seemed the more practical thing to do, since she was the one who had always fixed things for me in the past. I prayed that she would realize the trouble I was in and figure out a way to help me go home.