The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,115

Give him agency. Verranna Hinckle has a lot of words like this.

“And by all means,” she adds, “keep up the talking. He understands more than you think.”

I say nothing. Verranna Hinckle is pretending to know something that she does not. For four years now, I have listened to my mother talk to Sam, telling him every day how much she loves him, what a good boy he is, that this is the way you brush your teeth, this is how you lift a spoon. Still, we get nothing. He cries when he wants something, and he stops when he gets it. That’s it.

But I suppose if my mother wants to think that he understands her words, fine. She isn’t hurting anyone, and I think that, maybe, she is the one who needs to hear them.

Three days before the student council election, Mr. Leubbe puts us in pairs so we can do sit-ups for the Presidential Fitness Exam. “You and you,” he says, pointing at Traci and then at me. We hesitate for a moment, and he slaps us on our backs—me with his left hand, Traci with his right—so hard we almost bump into each other, and tells us to get a move on.

“I’ll go first,” I say. I am the one in charge.

“That’s fine,” Traci says, her voice too friendly, too nice. She places her hands lightly on my feet and starts counting off my sit-ups in fives. Each time I come up, she smiles. I look only at her metal teeth, not at her eyes.

Travis will have a good time with this story when I tell him. He will say I had Satan binding my feet, and will examine my ankles for welts and bruises. But she’s really bothering me, still smiling at me, not looking away. I do the sit-ups more quickly, pretending that I care very much about the Presidential Fitness Exam.

She clears her throat, forces a laugh. “Remember we got in that stupid fight in fourth grade?”

I pause mid–sit-up and look right into her blue-gray eyes, her contact lenses swimming in front of them. “Yeah, Traci. I remember.”

She looks a little shaken. I am proud of this, the lowness of my voice, my ability to make her nervous. But she keeps talking, her thin lips pushed into a smile. “It was so stupid. I can’t even remember what it was about.”

I do another sit-up, and when I come up again, I stop and look at her carefully, wondering if she really believes what she is saying, if she could really be that dumb. “You made fun of my mother, the day I won the science fair.” I go back down to the mat, starting to count where she left off. “I won, and you were mad about it. You said they let me win because they felt sorry for me for being poor and not having a father.”

She looks down, at her hands on my shoes. She wears a small silver ring on one of her fingers, some kind of red jewel embedded in it. Nothing has changed. I think of her stolen clothes, still folded neatly in my bottom drawer. I’m glad they’re there.

“I’m really sorry,” she says.

I keep doing sit-ups. I don’t want her to say this to me.

“I’m really, really sorry,” she says. “I guess I was being a dumb little kid. I just didn’t know any better. I didn’t even know I was being mean.”

I give her a doubtful look. She is not counting anymore, and that’s her job. 35 Satan 36 Satan 37 Satan.

“I mean, I know I shouldn’t have said that. I wouldn’t say that to you now.” Her fingers are light on my shoes, barely touching them. “I don’t even know your mother. And I know about your brother—”

I sit up quickly enough to make her lean back, lifting her hands from my ankles.

“You still don’t know anything about anything, Traci. Don’t even talk about my brother. Don’t even bring him up.”

Mr. Leubbe blows his whistle, pointing at us from across the gym. “Troops,” he says, “settle down.”

“You don’t talk about Samuel,” I whisper. “You don’t understand anything about that. And don’t try to be nice to me. I know what you are.”

She winces, and now I can see the beginning of tears. But I don’t care. I have never done sit-ups so quickly in my life. I feel amazingly energized, unsprung. I could do sit-ups all day.

“Why do you hate me so much?” she sniffs. “I haven’t