Her normally nasal tone was flattened with an unexpected coolness.
“Ms. Diamond, then, I don’t care.”
Laverne took a moment to adjust her hem before deliberately attacking the buttons, one after another. When she was fully sealed, she raised her chin proudly. I felt a twinge of distress at the smug set of her lips.
“I’m afraid you can’t speak to either of them,” she declared. “They have been removed.”
There was motion behind her. In the office, a row of adults were exiting the principal’s office, unfurling scarves and pulling gloves from pockets. Neither Simmons nor Diamond was among them.
“Why?” I asked Laverne.
“Inappropriate relations,” she enunciated with relish. “Ms. Diamond should have known better. Mr. Simmons is a married man, after all. And on school grounds, no less.”
Laverne’s wink informed me that what she said next was just between friends. “Mr. Simmons,” she whispered, “really should’ve done something about those scratches on my car.”
I saw again the FAT BITCH scraped into metal. In a roundabout way, I had been responsible for that, and now that was responsible for this. Everything, how the world toppled like dominoes, it was all my fault.
Movement in the office caught my attention. There was one adult among the group not draped in winter clothes, someone who in fact was accepting curt handshakes from each of them in turn. When I saw who it was, everything fell revoltingly into place: an interim principal had to be appointed, someone with a reliable and distinguished tenure, someone who knew the ropes and was unafraid of tightening them.
“Mr. Gottschalk will make a fine principal,” Laverne purred, patting me on the damp arm. “I bet he’d meet with you right now.”
I ran. Past Laverne, through students, across the spot on the lawn where months ago Celeste had slapped me. I was on the sidewalk, my lungs scorching, before I heard the shout.
“Kid! Kid! Hey, kid!”
Harnett was behind the wheel of his idling truck, leaning over the passenger seat to yell from the lowered window. I drew to a halt, sucking in icy air with each gasp. Snow spun in dizzying loops.
He gestured impatiently. “Get in.”
I stopped several feet from the truck. Gray air mushroomed from my lips.
“The hell you doing?” He smacked the seat. “Forget it. Tell me about it on the way.”
I was shaking my head and hadn’t realized it at first; I thought it was a trick of the swirling snow.
Harnett scrabbled through the junk in the front seat and came up with an envelope. “This is from Knox. There’s a relocation in West Virginia. It’s a ten-hour drive and we’re already late.”
The snow burned as it dissolved against my wet skin. My head continued its mechanical refusal.
“I told you about these. Kid, relocations are one in a million.” He threw up his hands. “Why are you just standing there?”
At that moment he finally began to take it in: the wet hair, the lack of any winter clothing, the biology text dangling from one pale hand, the blank look of rage fixed upon my shivering face. He dropped the envelope. His expression sharpened and with each uptick of his anger I felt an ebb in my own, as if he were drawing it from me and taking it upon himself. For an instant I tried to keep what was mine—he did this to me, after all; it was his fault I stank so bad that I had ended up in the locker room shower. But at last I let it go, let all of them go: Boris, Foley, Laverne, Simmons, Diamond. The departure of such a group made Harnett my sole protector. My father, the Garbageman, Bloughton’s outlaw, here at the Congress of Freaks, armed with sharp tools and an accelerating anger—blood would spill from school windows and dribble down stairs unless I prevented it.
The truck door handle was icy, the seat stiff. I tossed the biology text to the floor, picked up the envelope, and studied each palsied squiggle. Droplets from my hand smeared the ink; my vision was similarly blurred. The engine coughed and the wipers began pushing snow. Knox had been right. It was going to be a brutal winter.
1.
SOMETIMES THE DEAD STAND in the way of progress. Perpetual-care funds are mismanaged, cemeteries change hands or become orphaned, state or government agencies rezone the land for new purpose, or private owners simply do with the property what they wish—and often what they wish for is money. New condo buildings. A bigger Walmart. So the decision is made. The