The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,95
silently watching them, their faces flickering light and darkness around the room.
thirteen
RONALD REAGAN IS IN A lot of trouble.
Even when he got shot, he was making jokes, telling the doctors he hoped they were Republicans and telling Nancy sorry he forgot to duck. But now he stands in front of a blue curtain and behind too many microphones, his face white, his voice shaking.
“Listen,” he says. “We did not, did not, trade arms for hostages.”
But now it looks like maybe they did. When the reporters ask him questions about the money from Iran going to the Contras in Nicaragua, he looks like he is mad at them for asking, and also like he just remembered he left his keys locked in his car with the engine running. Oliver North is a Marine, and he says he would stand on his head if the president asked him to because that’s how much he loves this country. But nobody asked him to stand on his head. Somebody asked him to get money to the Contras in Nicaragua, even though Congress said not to, and he did it. He found a way. Maybe Ronald Reagan asked him, but maybe not. If he did, he’s in trouble.
Deena says Oliver North looks like Mel Gibson, but my mother says really, that isn’t the point. She leaves the news on when she feeds Samuel his dinner in the front room, watching reporters yell questions to Ronald Reagan as he walks from the White House to his helicopter. He waves and cups his hand over his ear like he can’t hear their questions because the helicopter is too loud, but he keeps walking, and you can tell that really, he just doesn’t want to hear them.
My mother is happy and mad about this at the same time. “Now who’s the cheater, Ronnie?” she says, eyes glittering. “Tell me who the liar is now.”
But I feel bad for Ronald Reagan. When I look at his face and hear his voice, I can see in his heart that he really is trying to be a good person. My mother says that’s because he’s an actor, but I think it’s real. When he says “God bless America,” I think he means it so much that in some ways, he is almost crazy, like maybe in his mind he sees a ray of light coming down from the sky, shining down on America and no one else, just because he loves it so much. So then he would have to lie and cheat to save Texas from the Communists, and he would still be as good as Moses, smiting down the Midianites, even the little children. It gets confusing, because that’s why he hates the Communists in the first place. Because they lie and cheat. But if America is really blessed, then it’s different for us.
I’m sure God loves people in Nicaragua, almost as much as he loves us. But it would be a bad thing if the Communists came to Texas, so maybe some of the Nicaraguans have to die to keep that from happening.
But I probably wouldn’t think that way if I lived in Nicaragua.
The reason Travis and Deena don’t get in trouble for missing so much class is because the school spent five thousand dollars on a computerized attendance system this year. The teachers said it was worth every penny, because now all they have to do is mark “absent” by your name on the slip that goes to the office, and the computer automatically calls your house. The computer called my house one day, when I really was sick. My mother, thinking it was a person she was talking to, said, “I know. She’s right here. She’s sick,” getting madder and madder before she figured out she was talking to a machine.
But Deena’s grandmother doesn’t hear very well anymore, so Deena just turns down the volume of the ringer on the phone before she leaves for school in the morning. She tested it a few times, calling from the pay phone at the Wendy’s across the street from the high school. If nobody answers the phone when the computer calls, it sends a letter right to your house, but Deena brings in the mail for her grandmother every day, so that’s not a problem, at least for now.
The attendance policy at Kerrville High says that you are allowed to miss thirteen days of each class each semester. You get thirteen sick days, no questions asked, whether you