girl’s got everything. But there are all kinds of handicaps, and even a bottomless pit of money doesn’t cure most of them.
I don’t know what Sabrina’s brand of problem is, but I want to run out in the rain to where she’s standing under her umbrella. Give her a banana, an oatmeal bar, hot chocolate, a hug. I want to tell her failing a test doesn’t make her a failure.
But it does. In this age, it does.
One by one, the kids approach the silver bus, hold their cards up to be scanned. There’s a ping, shrill and piercing enough to be audible from across the street and through my living room window, whenever a new card grants access to the bus. Doors swing open, the student climbs aboard, and the doors close, waiting for the next one in line. You wouldn’t think high schoolers would be so organized, but there are rules to be followed. And there are laws to enforce those rules. They’re the real Child Catchers, I think, the men and women who write the laws.
I should know. My husband is one of them.
Sabrina is last, and her lips form a weak smile at the ping and the doors and the rain-free sanctuary of the bus. She looks backward once before boarding, takes in the full length of the street, all the way up to the Greens’ house, and the smile fades. Today she’s got a silver card. Next week, who knows?
I don’t see Anne’s best friend, though, which is strange, since Judith Green is almost always the first to the bus, silver card ready to scan. It’s as if she lives and breathes for school, homework, book reports.
Davenport Silver School students, this is your final call. Davenport Silver School bus is ready to depart. Final call for Davenport Silver School.
“Call” isn’t the right word. The monotone, accentless fembot voice booming through the neighborhood should say it like it is. It should say “warning.”
When the doors slide closed, there’s still no Judith Green.
As the silver bus pulls away, a green one moves toward the empty space. Another line of cars waits in the rain, and a few of the neighborhood middle-graders tread through puddles. One jumps into a shallow pothole, spraying water everywhere, muddying up three of the kids closest to him. They only laugh—as children do.
“Freddie!” I call. “Last warning, I swear.” The second I say the word I want to take it back.
She finally comes into the living room, backpack weighing down her right shoulder, making her look more like the crippled Quasimodo than a healthy nine-year-old. Her face is old-womanly. Tired. She’s not swiping through tweets and snaps, not crunching an apple, not doing anything but staring past me, out the window, out at the waiting green bus.
“What’s the matter, hon?” I say, pulling her to me, even though I know damned well what the matter is.
“Can I be sick today?” The words come out in a shudder, staccato, a space of air between each sound. Before I can answer, Freddie’s entire body is shaking in my arms. The backpack slides to the floor with a dull thump.
“No, baby. Not today,” I tell her. “Tomorrow, maybe.” It’s a lie, of course. Illness requires verification, and even if I did manage to fake and report an elevated temperature by the six o’clock deadline tomorrow morning, a secondary check by Freddie’s school nurse wouldn’t show anything other than normal. And then Freddie would lose even more of the Q points she can’t afford to lose—the usual for the sick day, plus something extra for the failure to verify. Still, the best I can do is lie today and take it all back tomorrow. Anything to make sure she gets on the bus. “Come on, sweetie. Time to go.”
Freddie turns in the time it takes me to catch my breath. One foot kicks the backpack across the room, and it lands on Malcolm’s peace lily, the one he’s been cultivating since before we were married. She goes from sobbing to hysterical in a split second. Malcolm will not be happy when he gets home.
“I can’t go!” she says. “I can’t go. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—”