Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,6

young person in the house.” The Leech smiles a smile that pulls her lips back over her gums, displaying a rainbow of food particles stuck between the teeth. “Just like having a granddaughter.”

A granddaughter to order around like a servant.

“I have to go now,” I say. “I’ll be late for school.”

Irritated, she shoos me away.

I slam the front door behind me. At least I can do that. That feels good! But only for a second, because now I have a whole day of zombie imitations ahead of me, and even though it’s only 7:30 a.m., I’m exhausted.

It’s not the easiest thing to be one of the world’s best foster kids—the cooperative one, the one who doesn’t talk back, doesn’t run away, doesn’t steal, doesn’t get pregnant, doesn’t drink or do drugs, doesn’t even get mad, doesn’t cause anyone any trouble.

4

Hunter High kids are all majoring in meanness, and they get big, fat As because it comes so naturally to them. First period, I take the long walk of shame into physics class, where Kai “Pox” Small, Hunter High’s very own shaved-head, six-foot-two-inch brick wall big-time surfer, continues the same brutal imitation of me that so amused and delighted the entire busload of kids only minutes before.

Word of my spastic meltdown also obviously made it into the inner sanctum of the faculty lounge, where things must be unbearably boring if I’m a big event. I notice our teacher, Mr. H, studying me, like I’m bubbling or changing colors, a science problem that he’s determined to puzzle out.

Question: Why did the human doormat suddenly turn into an exploding doormat?

Mr. H shuts down Pox by sliding a finger across his throat, and for that I want to kiss him. Not kiss him kiss him, because he’s married and old and shaped like the first letter of his name, short and boxy. But I do feel grateful when he deflects attention from me by putting himself into the line of fire. He launches into his science teacher comedy routine.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” he asks. “Because chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross roads.”

Right after that class, with Raymond as my combination cheerleader and bodyguard, I take another walk of shame down the interminably long corridor of lockers toward the classroom of dark, intense Mrs. H for English. Yes, she’s been married to Mr. H forever, and I guess it works for them even though I don’t get their attraction to each other. He’s so jokey, and she starts each of her classes with a poem about death or suffering or the struggle to find meaning in the meaningless nature of human existence.

When I slide into my seat, one of the Double Ds slips in a dig. “What exploded your tampon?” She asks this loud enough for everyone to hear. And to visualize. In every detail.

As degrading as the morning has been so far, I know it’s probably a breeze compared to what’s next. A return to the scene of my crime. Normally I look forward to Western Civ. It makes sense that someone like me who’s not too thrilled about the present enjoys looking backward. I can’t get enough of learning about all the ancient superstitions and what people ate, wore, and cared about. I keep thinking that in the past things must have been better than they are now, despite the lack of indoor plumbing and frozen pizza. Maybe people stuck by their friends and families and they protected and sacrificed for the kids. Maybe there was more tolerance of people who were a little different, and life was more fair. I want to believe that there used to be a time like that, because if such a time existed once, it could exist again.

Ms. Pallas keeps pointing out our similarities with the ancient world, rather than our differences. As she said in class the other day: “People eat and work, they fall in love and go to war. There’s the same day-to-day struggle for existence and night-to-night struggle with fear and uncertainty. Always has been, always will be.”

At the present moment I have my own personal struggle, which is getting through this class and then the rest of the day, and then I can go home and take a nap. I try what Raymond suggests and envision myself wearing a noise-blocking air controller headset to block out any more snotty comments from the surf crew. I imagine the headset huge and hand-knitted