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Unfair-Chapter 110: Crashing Down
🕑 Added 2022-12-11 17:45:29 +0000 UTCChapter 110: Crashing Down
Time slowed down as I felt the thin bones and cartilage pop beneath my knuckles as my wild swing connected with its target. All around me screams of shock and panic rang out through the air. Heavy running footsteps thundered on the ground too late and the tiniest flecks of blood splattered onto my wrist.
If I were a better liar, I’d tell you how I felt a terrible happiness, or a sense of numb peace knowing I’d sealed my fate on my own terms, or some other self-justifying bullshit. There was none of that in the then and there; only the unchecked rage of a full blown tantrum; the cathartic release of a pressure that had been building and building for weeks on end until it finally popped like a cork from a bottle of sparkling wine.
I had my reasons of course. I had plenty of them. But for those few glorious moments between the reason that preceded it and the terror that followed, I had only raw red righteous anger pumping through my veins. No future. No past. No regrets. No fears. No anticipation. No pain. No tears. Just red.
All of that would come later and very very soon after the popping and crunching, but in that moment, I had no such thing weighing me down or rippling out from that moment. Such reflections would only come in the micro-seconds after my fist was reeling back for a second swing.
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“Do you wanna play dollies, or racecars?” Ivy asked me at the independent play center.
“Neither,” I said.
We were both on our knees on the carpet next to Beouf’s kidney table, restlessly rifling through the toy selection while being careful not to make too much of a mess. We’d have to clean up anything we spilled once centers rotated again and couldn’t make so much noise that it would disturb anyone not specifically paying attention to us.
“What about both?” Ivy offered. “The dollies are too big to ride in the cars, but we could have them sit on top of the roofs or something.
“So you want to pretend that the dollies are Amazons and the cars belong to Littles?”
“Yeah!” Ivy smiled, then frowned. “I mean, no! Little cars are not toys.” She didn’t fully believe what she was saying, but she was trying to be polite. The stroller Janet pushed me around in was bigger than the scooter I used to take to work.
“No thanks, Ivy.” I said. “Good effort, though.” Ivy looked briefly crestfallen but busied herself playing with a dollhouse.
My eyes scanned the toy shelf, and I felt a sour taste settle in the back of my mouth. The play center was probably my least favorite of the morning activity rotations. Being right next to Beouf’s kidney table, it didn’t have the privacy of the reading nook, and it lacked the direction and pretense of the puzzle table or the attention of either Amazon. The options were to select a toy to entertain yourself for a few minutes, and thus take ownership of that playtime, or to sit and sulk.
Boredom could be a powerful motivator. I’d spent more time than I cared to recognize sitting there every day and fiddling with plastic stacking rings, or playing chicken with a jack-in-the-box set to pop before the weasel, just so I could have something to do. Beouf and Zoge were masterful at creating scenarios where giving in and accepting perpetual infancy felt like common sense, but at the end of the day sometimes all that was really needed were toys and time. Trap someone in diapers for long enough and they’ll wet their pants. Give someone nothing to do but fiddle with useless pieces of plastic, and they’ll play.
I wasn’t even an hour removed from my confrontation with Billy, so I was still stewing in it and quietly imagining scenarios where I knocked his block off. The sense of injustice for Ivy that I’d been feeling was only compounded by my own personal outrage that my hard one authority was being challenged again; publicly this time.
It’s not like either of us were in an environment where we could work out and build muscle, but genetics and youth were kinder to Billy. He was a more natural athlete than me and I wouldn’t want to arm wrestler or race him. He was no Bert Braun though; and lacked the grit that years of manual labor had built on top of my father-in-law’s frame. That and he was cockier, besides.
I popped my pacifier in my mouth and sucked on it, drawing comfort from the fantasy at punching the kid in the throat. All the padding that his diaper provided wouldn’t protect him from a swift kick in the balls; and he did love to spread his legs. I frowned and immediately spat the pacifier out, the rubber tasting of cognitive dissonance.
Beating Billy’s ass, even if it were probable, would only get me suspended or worse. Fighting, being a clear and present danger to other students, was an easy way to get expelled. Getting expelled for violence wouldn’t just banish me from one of the few familiar places I had left to me; it’d guarantee me a ticket to New Beginnings. I couldn’t imagine a daycare would want to accept me unless I’d been properly ‘rehabilitated’.
Ivy’s looked back from her doll house, her eyes starting to get red puffy again. “Did I do something wrong?” she whispered. “I’m sorry I hugged you.” What happened at Circle Time was still eating at her, too. It was strange, but that made me feel better about my decision to stand up for her. Ivy wasn’t nearly as mindfucked as I’d let myself believe. Not everything rolled off her back so easily.
I gently shook my head and tried to replicate my best adult-talking-to-a-crying-kid voice. “Nuh-uh,” I whispered. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” I quickly added, “Next time, maybe ask, but I’m not mad. I would have said ‘yes’.”
The Little Yamatoan spread her arms wide. “Can I have one now?”
Goodness help me…. “Sure.”
On our knees, on the carpet, Ivy and I shuffled forward and wrapped our arms gently around each other. “Thank you,” Ivy said.
“Awwwwwww!”
I let go of Ivy and backed away like I’d been caught doing something indecent. Over at the puzzle table, Mandy and Shauna were cradling their faces in their hands, and gushing like they’d seen a puppy and a bunny rabbit making friends. Right next to us at the kidney table, Tommy and Jesse were snickering behind their hands right next to us.
“Keep working, everyone,” Beouf said. “You should only be worried about what is going on at your center.”
Annie and Sandra Lynn were similarly redirected with a gentle tapping on Zoge’s desk. I only caught a flash of the former’s worried frown and the latter’s silly grin before I was treated to the back of their heads once more. Over by the reading nook, two beanbags jiggled as Chaz and Billy buried themselves and yucked it up.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked, face starting to boil. “Remember that story you told me this weekend? Why haven’t you told anybody else about it?”
Ivy sat back on her heels and seemed to consider it. “I don’t want to.”
“Don’t want to, or not allowed to?” I asked.
“Don’t want to.”
My hand reached sideways out of habit and I grabbed a large toy dump truck off the bottom row. I tilted the dump body up and down, trying to pour some of the anxious, angry energy I was feeling into the yellow mound of metal and rubber. “Why not?”
“That would make me different,” she said. “More different,” she corrected herself. “I’m a baby, but not Adopted.” She leaned over and put a doll inside the truck’s dump bin, setting it with its arms draped over the side like it was lounging. “My Mommy is the same Mommy I’ve always had.” She leaned back and sat down on her bottom, spreading her legs. Even though she was still wearing those white tights, she fluffed out her dress to cover up as much of the diaper bulge as possible without stretching the material.. “She taught me right.”
So much to unpack there, but I let the comment go out of pity. “They might be nicer to you, if they knew,” I told her. I gently rolled the truck to her and she stopped it. She waited for me to mirror her so she could roll it back. We had made a kind of pen using our legs.
“I don’t think so,” she replied, softly. “People don’t like things that are different.”
I caught the rolling dump truck as she passed it and turned it around. “That’s not true.”
“Yes it is.” There was no hesitation there. “I was different when people thought I was a big girl and went to big girl school and my friends were mean to me. Then I went back to daycare and I stopped being different.”
More than likely, I realized, that was probably because the doomed Littles in Yamatoa were either so mind fucked that they didn’t know how to be mean to her, or they had the common decency to take pity on someone who was an actual child. By the time she left the country, she’d gone through puberty, and had long been a fixture with any and all of the adult Littles already trapped there.
I rolled the truck back while trying to find a way to counter her without it becoming a circular argument. “Have you tried telling other Littles before?”
“Yes,” she said simply. She pushed it back without turning it around.
I pushed the truck back. It went so fast and so sudden that the doll fell over. “Alright, what happened?”
Ivy took a moment to prop the doll back up. “Some were nice. Lots were mean. Much opportunity for hardship. All went away when they learned they were really babies like me.” Much more gently, she rolled the toy back over to me.
“Why did you tell me, then?” I asked.
“You’re different, too.”
That felt like an accidental insult. “No. I’m not.”
“You used to be a Grown-Up,” Ivy said softly, a hint of awe creeping into her tone.
I remembered the truck and kept rolling it. Using just my index finger I circled the room. “So did they,” I said.
“How do you know?” Ivy held the truck. “Did you see them be Grown-Ups?”
“No.”
“Have they told you about them being Grown-Ups?”
“N…” I stopped. “A little bit, yeah.” That was a weird question. Come to think of it, we didn’t talk so much about who we were before we had our lives ripped away from us. Snippets here and there when we were feeling really sorry for ourselves, but that was about it. “Why is that?” I wondered aloud.
The Yamatoan had a strangely profound answer. “It does not feel natural to talk about who we used to be.” A bit of her mother’s accent and patter snuck into her speech. “The frog often does not think to tell its tadpoles that it too was a tadpole.”
“You’re losing me, Ivy.”
She passed the toy truck back. “I knew you when you were a Grown-Up. Everybody did. That makes you different, too. That’s why I told you.”
At least she didn’t mention something about me sticking around forever. “What if I told everybody?” I offered. “Tell them the story you told me?”
Ivy’s entire body stiffened. “Please don’t.”
Wow. That had come out wrong. I held up my palms trying to make myself look less threatening. “Not what I meant. I mean, maybe there’s a way I could tell them for you so that they wouldn’t be so mean. So that they would…” I bit my lip and reached up so I could at least squeeze my pacifier like it was Lion. There really wasn’t a good way of saying I wanted to spread the pity around. I settled on, “I’m a teacher. I’m good at explaining things.”
“No.” Ivy said, shaking her head. “Please no.”
“Why not?”
“Do you need a reason to not want a hug?”
I sucked on my teeth and let the pacifier dangle again. “Point taken.”
Something caught my attention from the corner of my eye. Across from the play center, on the other side of the room, was the reading nook. It was completely barricaded off from Zoge’s sight, and Beouf would have to consciously lean over in her seat to see what went on there. It’s why it was most Littles favorite place to poop if they could get the timing right. Semi-privacy and only sharing your humiliation with one other equally as doomed person.
Billy and Chaz had unburied themselves from the beanbag chairs and had taken up a new pastime. They were on their knees hugging each other. That’s the excuse they would have gone with, anyhow.
I could already hear Billy’s indignant voice in my head: “What? We were just hugging! Gibson and Ivy can hug but I can’t hug a friend?” Before we met, Billy already knew how to push buttons and play dumber than he really was.
He and Chaz weren’t just hugging, however. The way they rubbed their hands over one another’s backs and pressed their faces together, cheek to cheek, gave off more sensual undertones. Looking right at me, they puckered their lips like dying fish, and blew kisses at me.
Clark and Ivy sitting in a tree…
Caught between our two stations, Mandy and Shauna looked side to side to gauge the boys’ pantomime and Ivy and my reaction. Ivy didn’t seem to notice. My face must have been something priceless, because as soon as they spied me, they used their pacifiers to muffle their giggles.
My hand tightened to fist. I was gonna knock Billy’s block off. March right up to him and punch him in the nose.
As soon as I stood up a familiar hand reached up and clamped onto my wrist, immobilizing me. Even if I pulled as hard as I could, there was no way I was going to escape Ivy’s grasp.
“Ivy…” I leaned in and whispered. “Let go.” For my discretion I heard tiny popping sounds travel across the classroom and straight into my ears.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G…
“No,” Ivy said. “Don’t be bad. Don’t be naughty.”
First Ivy…first then Billy. Even with all her recessive strength, Ivy would be caught off guard if I punched her in the face. Everybody had a plan until they got hit hard enough. I wouldn’t knock out any teeth, but I could shock and stun her enough to…what was I thinking?
There was another play here that I wasn’t seeing, something to keep Billy off my back and give me time. I sat back down, but Ivy didn’t let go of my hand.
True to form, my disciples changed their positions and held hands in mock reflection of us. Their eyelids batting and continuing to mime making out with each other with their tongues flapping out of their mouths disgustingly. Billy reached out and groped Chaz on the chest. Chaz threw back his head in fake ecstasy.
“Billy! Chaz!” Beouf called from her kidney table. “This is your one chance before I call your parents!”
“But we weren’t doing anything!’ Billy lied, poorly.
“I don’t want to hear it, young man.”
“You can’t even see what we’re doing!”
Beouf's head motioned to me and then the girls muffling themselves with rubber dummies. “I don’t need to. I can see what everyone else is doing.” She looked over the top of me and straight towards Ivy. Her eyes doubled back on her hand over my wrist. “Good girl, Ivy. Let him go.”
Evidently, no one was nearly as quiet as they suspected.
Billy and Chaz finished out that particular center rotation glaring at me over the top of large hardback children’s books. Their gaze was unblinking and unforgiving, as if I’d been the one to tattle on them and break some kind of code. I’d only wanted to break Billy’s stupid face; maybe boot Chaz in the ribs or something.
When the timer went off and we were supposed to go pull the latest symbol off of our visual schedule, my two disciples were slow approaching. Tommy crawled alongside Chaz, the pair looking like a couple of dire wolves on the prowl.
FLICK!
A painful, stinging thud lit my left earlobe up. Without thinking I covered my ear with my hand. Tommy, of course. I knew it before I whirled around. The wolf imagery was entirely accurate: Pack tactics. Bullying by numbers. I’d created monsters that I could not control; whose only sense of loyalty was based on who helped them feel good about themselves and inflict pain on others.
How fucking immature! I understood Ivy’s hesitance. With how they were now, Ivy would be even more of an Amazon to them, and the rules of the game I’d created were to frustrate the Amazons and their Helpers as much as possible at every turn no matter how self destructive.
Wait a second!
Game!
A bolt of inspiration struck me!
“Ow,” I said, rubbing my ear. “Good one!”
“Thanks,” Tommy said. He blinked and realized what he’d just admitted to. “One what?”
I threw in a conspiratorial wink. “Good,” I said, leaning in. “Just don’t overdo it. I don’t want them to guess.” Then, because I was still extremely petty, I stealthed my arm up to the other side of Tommy’s head and flicked the bottom of his ear.
“Ow!” Tommy jumped back, rubbing his ear.
“Clark,” Melony gave away who she was watching, “that’s your last warning, too. Your Mommy is a lot closer than everybody else’s, young man.”
“Yes, Mrs. B!” I chirped back, filled with fake sunshine.
Tommy took the next symbol off of his schedule and stared at me. “What are you talking about? Who are we trying to fool?”
I took my own token, and turned my hands to the side of my face to create lip-reading blinders. Using only my breath, I mouthed the word, “Ivy”.
A malicious spark lit up in Tommy’s eyes. I had him hooked! I put down my hands and saw him rattle his head. “No,” he mouthed. I didn’t need to look over my head to know that I’d just been spared a second salvo from another member of the A.L.L.; probably Billy.
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Annie came and sat across from me during snacks, right on cue. “What are you doing?” she asked me, point blank.
“I’m sitting here with my new friend, Ivy.” I said. “Would you like to join us?”
The only girl member of the A.L.L. narrowed her eyes. “Suuuure.” She was suspicious, but receptive. Word about what I’d said to Tommy had gotten around to the rest of the group in between center rotations. Being the most emotionally intelligent of my crew, Annie had come to verify for herself.
Thank goodness.
If there was a con, she’d be the one to sense it. If something needed to get broken down in a language that even Billy could understand, she’d be the one to translate. Meaning if I could sell Annie on leaving Ivy alone, she’d do the rest of the work for me.
“So…” Annie said. She gestured across the table. Ivy hadn’t left my side. “This is new. I heard you had a lot of fun together at the Fall Festival.”
“Yes,” Ivy agreed. “Lots of fun. Then Clark came over to my house and we played.”
“Oh really ?!” Annie looked like she wasn’t sure if she should be interested, amused, or offended. Perhaps all three. Whatever it was, she smiled in a way that vaguely reminded me of Brollish.
I returned the look, and babbled like an idiot, never breaking eye contact. “Oh yeah. Lots of fun. We bounced in the bouncy castles a whole lot! Just us Littles! My Mommy forgot to unbuckle my leash, but then Ivy did it for me.”
Annie’s smile slowly mutated into something more genuine. She looked directly at Ivy. “You did?”
Ivy blushed and looked away, smiling from the look of admiration on her peer’s face. “Yeah.”
My strategy was elegant in its simplicity. Ivy had grabbed my attention when I realized her strength could be used for more than just keeping Littles from running away in the bus loop. All I had to do to get her some social breathing room was sell the idea that staying on her good side could be valuable in the future. Ivy was too trusting and obedient on the whole to be a lookout, a schemer, or an instigator; but a Little that could remove Amazon strength diaper tapes was a golden flying unicorn that crapped rainbows. One would have to be an idiot to not see the potential there.
It was a lie of omission, one that played on selfishness and the fantasy of escape, but it would work in the short term. Speaking of short term, finding a way to manipulate my classmates towards my own constructive ends was keeping me from losing my temper and worrying about Tracy.
“Hey, Ivy,” I said. “Maybe your Mommy needs help passing out snacks?” The Little Yamatoan looked weary, suspicious even. I got so close that I was practically kissing her. “Don’t worry,” I promised. “I’m not gonna tell her the story.”
Ivy leaned back away from me. “Pinky swear?”
I wrapped my smallest digit around hers. “Pinky swear.”
Ivy got up and waddled over to Zoge by the snack cabinets. Annie and I scanned the room to make sure Beouf was busy passing out paper towels. “Seriously?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. She’s that strong. I saw it myself.”
Annie’s eyes glazed over with envy and a kind of greed like mine had no doubt been. It wouldn’t take much more to reel her in. And where Annie went, Billy and the others would follow like dominoes.
A knock at the back door interrupted my sales pitch. No one said “come in”, but it creaked open anyway.
“Hell-o,” an unfamiliar voice called in. “Knock-Knock. Can I come in?”
An Amazon stepped inside the classroom carrying plastic cartons stacked on top of each other. “Is this Mrs. Beouf’s room? The baby room?”
My eye twitched. For obvious reasons, I did not like this woman, with her bleached blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail so tight that I could see her roots. For half a second, I thought it was Helena Madra, but Amy’s Mommy had less severe features, and paler skin. There was a resemblance, but only in the broadest strokes; like two actors auditioning for the same role.
This woman, wearing a bright red suit with a stiff skirt that went all the way down to her ankles and thin rimmed dark sunglasses perched on top of her head, had an air of entitlement and authority about her. Like most Amazons, I could tell she was very used to getting her way. I didn’t think she was a school board member, but she could have been some kind of nebulous regional official; an unelected supervisor from the county. If it were later in the year, I could see the cupcakes being some kind of Teacher Appreciation stunt, but it wasn’t even Winter Break yet.
Something in the back of my mind was brewing. Why did she seem so familiar?
Beouf looked up from passing out paper napkins and walked to the back of her classroom. “Hello,” she smiled. “How can I help you?”
The stranger extended her hand in greeting. “Hi there. Martha Dunwhich,” she said as if that was supposed to mean anything.
Dunwhich? That did mean something, but not to Beoufl
Beouf took her hand and shook it. “Melony Beouf, pleased to meet you, ma’am. What can I do for you?”
I popped my pacifier in my mouth and started working it furiously, biting and gnashing it. I stared down at the activity table and did everything I could to slow my breathing. This woman was largely a stranger to me, but I’d met her before.
“My daughter Emily’s birthday was yesterday,” the Amazon said. “She’s four years old!”
“Congratulations,” Beouf said. She was being polite, but I could tell she was annoyed. A parent not connected to any of your students in interrupting your class- who wouldn’t be?
“And I wanted to let her celebrate her big day with all of her school friends,” the intruder droned on. “But, I seemed to have bought too many cupcakes for the class and I wanted to see if your students wanted the extra.”
A murmuring broke out around me. Free sweets were free sweets. They were Amazon sized too; they were practically burgers with chocolate frosting on top. They probably weren’t spiked, but if they were, who cared? We were all padded up and denied potty privileges as it was. Nothing to lose.
I didn’t join in. Martha Dunwhich was the last parent I’d gotten to interact with before I had my accident right there in the I.E.P. meeting. Her last words to me were,, “Why are you pooping your pants?” in the most condescending tone ever.
“That’s very generous,” Beouf replied. “We were just about to have snacks, but that’s a lot of sugar for their tummies.”
Groans of protest erupted out of the mouths of my classmates..
“Oh no no,” what should have been my student’s parent said. “I totally agree. I’m not saying you have to pass them out now. Mrs. Ambrose isn’t having our party until after lunch.” She gestured behind her to what was supposed to be my classroom. “I’ve got two more tins over there. You can have these and do whatever you want with them.”
I heard, but did not see Beouf hem and haw semi-theatrically. “What do you think Mrs. Zoge?”
“I think it would be a very nice treat for them,” Zoge paused. “On the playground. After naps. If they’re good.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Beouf said. I looked up to the sound of resounding cheers as my mentor took the confections out of the intruder’s arms. I was gripping the edge of the table like it was a lap bar on a roller coaster.
I wanted this to be over. I wanted this giant bitch to leave and get on with my day. I wanted to find ways to trick and manipulate my friends old and new so that none of them were mean to each other. I wanted to not think about my classroom and the eerie silence that was emanating from it and what that might not mean. I wanted to not accidentally hope that that might mean Tracy had come back in.
Annie did a double take looking from me to Dunwhich and back. She saw the look of recognition in my eyes “Clark, who’s that?”
“Clark?” Dunwhich repeated it. “Clark Gibson?”
She peered past Beouf and into the center of the room where I was sitting. Eye contact was made and I froze. She slipped past Beouf and hunkered down at the side of the table so that she was my eye level, gawking at me “Oh my gosh! You’re so cuuuuute!” she trilled.
I bit down on rubber and gripped the table, doing my best to avoid eye contact.
Mission Failed. She just leaned in, grinning like Janet had on that first awful day. “Look at you! In your romper, enjoying your paci.”
“Ma’am…” Beouf interjected.
My friend’s politeness was outright ignored. I felt a hand reach under the table and grip at my feet. “Do you have widdle booties on? No. But that’s okay.” Her hand shot back up over the table and wrenched my cheek. “I bet you’re so much happier now that you’re out of those big boy clothes and have a Mommy or Daddy to take care of you instead of a yucky job.”
WHOMP!
Everyone froze. Beouf’s eyes went wide with surprise.
My fist slammed the table so hard that it thundered. I hadn’t even thought to do it. It just happened.
“Whoah,” Dunwhich said, standing back up and out of range of my swings. “Someone’s cranky!” She wagged her finger at me. I couldn’t tell if she was mocking me or genuinely believed what she was saying. “Remember what your teacher said. Only good babies get cupcakes.”
Beouf side stepped in between us. “Ma’am. Please don’t put your hands on my students.”
That ‘I want to speak to your manager’ energy I’d sensed started to boil and bubble up to the surface. “I was only saying how cute he was!” Then as if everyone hadn’t figured it out she swelled with pride and said. “I was there when he pooped his pants, right in front of me. Didn’t even notice it or care until I pointed it out!” I expected laughter but heard none, and it had nothing to do with the ringing in my ears. “I think he’s in a much more appropriate placement now, don’t you?”
“I understand,” Beouf said, “but do you know his Mommy?”
“No, why?”
“Would you want anyone you didn’t know or approve of putting their hands on…on…”
“Emiwy,” I mumbled past my pacifier.
“Would you want anyone you didn’t approve of putting their hands on Emily?” Beouf repeated. “Especially when she was a baby and couldn’t decide to say no to anyone?”
The intruder started to object. “Of course not. I went through three nannies because of…” she stopped as the gift of self-awareness loomed its ugly head. “Oh. But this is different.”
“How?”
“I wasn’t hurting him…” she sounded unsure. Possibly because I hadn’t stopped rubbing my throbbing cheek since she released me. “Oh. Oh.” She took a step back. “He’s just a Lit…” she stopped herself and Zoge walked over to open the back door a little wider, making it creak.
“Oh, baby,” she said to me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
I remained mute.
“Thank you for the cupcakes, ma’am.” Beouf said politely yet curtly. “My class will enjoy them.”
Dunwhich regained some composure. “You’re very welcome. I’m going to get back to the preschool room.”
“Good idea.”
There was silence after she closed the door. No one said a word. We either didn’t dare or didn’t know what to say. “You handled that very well,” Melony told me. I didn’t recoil at her touch when she petted me top of my head.
“For group story time today,” Zoge quietly suggested, “perhaps we should get one of the story books about how it’s okay to say ‘no’ sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Beouf nodded. She removed her glasses, and rubbed her temples. “And Mrs. Zoge?”
“Yes, Mrs. Beouf?”
“Let’s cut the cupcakes in half. Half now, half later.”
A raucous cheer went up at that.
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Things were looking up all the way until Lunch that Monday. Gears were turning in motion as far as my social life, and I was running on a major sugar high. Amazon cupcakes…holy fuck, those things were loaded with enough sugar to give a bull elephant diabetes!
Close to two hours later and everyone was still buzzing like we’d downed three mugs of coffee. I lied to myself and said I was going to insist that Janet put on that yoga video we’d found as soon as I got home. The only thing I was really looking forward to was getting the other half of one of those cupcakes.
Even Ivy was bouncing up and down in her seat.
“Nap time is going to be a bust,” Beouf called over to Zoge as they sat us in our communal highchairs.
“It was a mistake,” Zoge agreed, “but it was a good mistake.”
“Does that mean we can have more?” I asked while the bibs were busy being tied on and the trays of toddler friendly cafeteria food were being wheeled out. My mentor gave me a look and the vaguest hint of a smile played at her lips. “What?” I said. “Sugar us up, let us run around, and put us on the bus. We’re not your problem after the bell rings.”
Beouf spooned up what could generously be called pasta and zoomed some towards my mouth. “I have to deal with you.”
I took the concoction that was at least fifty percent heated ketchup and swallowed. “Yeah, but I’m not a problem. I’m friggin’ adorable.”
If my old friend had been drinking milk it would have squirted out her nose. “Booger,” she grinned and switched to Ivy’s bowl. “It’s a good thing I love you.”
“Do you love me, Mrs. B?” Tommy asked. “Can I have a cupcake?” This resulted in a chain reaction. Everyone wanted to be loved by the teacher all of a sudden if it meant getting the other half of that cupcake.
“You’ll all get the other half if you keep being good,” Beouf promised. She stuck a spork into some limp over cooked green beans and slid them towards Tommy’s lips. “Eat your veggies, baby boy.”
Twenty minutes in, when the majority of the cafeteria had already cleared out, I realized something. Still no sign of Tracy. Also no sign of Ambrose or any of my kids. I could have sworn I saw them walk through the lunch line, same as always. Had they finished already?
“Mrs. B,” I asked, “Where’s Miss Tracy’s class?”
Beouf looked behind her and paused. “Huh. I don’t know. Maybe they’re doing something special for the birthday girl or something.”
That was a hard line of logic to follow. The idea that Ambrose might do something fun or special for one of her students felt like such a stretch because it wasn’t promoting abject misery and terror. Given her druthers I could see Ambrose stuffing her face with the cupcakes in front of her students and forcing them to watch in silence. That or conducting academic death matches to decide who gets a bite of frosting.
There was also Emily’s mother to factor in. Dunwhich didn’t seem in a hurry to leave and without Tracy, Ambrose might have seen the benefit of allowing a parent volunteer. I could also very much see Dunwhich complaining to the principal if her daughter wasn’t given the princess treatment on the day after her special day.
“Anybody need an emergency change?” Beouf asked Zoge while we were being hitched together on the line leash.
“Nothing that can’t wait until we get back to class,” Zoge said, tying me and Ivy together.
“Okay then,” Beouf said, leading the front. “Let’s go back and try to take a nap,” A giddy punch drunk giggle made its way through the ten of us. We waddled through the back door underneath the blow fan, and a yawn bellowed out of me. Sugar crash and a full stomach was finally starting to kick in. A nap might be easier than Beouf anticipated.
We rounded the back corner out of the cafeteria as we always did and any chance of me allowing unconsciousness to claim me. Beouf had been correct: Ambrose was doing something special with the class.
Three and four year olds wore pointy party hats with elastic string chin straps holding them to the top of their heads. They sat cross legged on picnic blankets with disciplined expressions on their faces while a boombox was put on a chair blasting bland generic party music.
The overbearing helicopter parent who I’d been humiliated in front of walked from student to student, her daughter Emily pointing out which classmate of hers got which cupcake. The moment a child was given their dessert, all pretense and discipline left them and they shoved the massive baked good into their tiny mouths.
“What do you say?” Mrs. Dunwhich asked.
“Fankoo!” the child gushed with crumbs and frosting spilling out of their mouths.
“And…?”
“Happy Birfday Emwy!”
At a glance, it was kind of nice, actually. Nothing too flashy or over the top. Kids getting some very basic manners lessons and a treat. I spotted a box of loose sidewalk chalk just out of reach of the picnic blankets. So the kiddos would get some play, too?
Ignoring the fact that that had once been my supply of chalk, I actually felt happy for my kids. But there three people missing from the picture: Tracy, Elmer, and Ambrose. I knew where Tracy was, or rather wasn’t, but where were Elmer and Ambrose?
I got my answer right as we finished walking past the cafeteria. Around the opposite corner from the one we’d circled around, near the front of the cafeteria, and just across from the entrance of the preschool classroom, Ambrose was down on one knee and growling at a red faced and crying Elmer.
Ambrose’s voice was too low for me to understand what she was saying, and Elmer’s distress had advanced to the point where all he was doing was shaking his head and blubbering, but I had a very good idea of what was going on; and it was very…very bad.
Elmer, my poor Tweener student had snot coming out of his nose and he was gripping onto his pants like it was a life raft in shark infested waters. Despite that he couldn’t hike them up far enough to hide the diaper bulge beneath his clothes. Elmer was completely potty trained, though. But Ambrose was holding out one hand and pointing at the ground with the other.
She’d diapered him again, and was demanding that he take off the one bit dignity that was left to him. No clue why. His clothes were no more messy than anybody else’s his age; cleaner in fact. Poor kid hadn’t even had a cupcake yet if his clothes were any indication. Not a trace of frosting on his face or fingers.
Beouf turned her head towards the noise. I saw her frown and mutter something to herself. The line stopped with her for just a second, but we kept walking. Office politics. Making a child cry, even one as sweet as Elmer, wasn’t a breach of professional conduct. Neither was putting a diaper on a child who ‘needed it’ at teacher discretion. Brollish might even let public humiliation slide if Ambrose dressed it up in the right way. It’s not like anyone else would stand up for the poor kid.
Enough was enough.
I reached forward and flicked the air. “Tommy,” I whispered. Tommy flinched and looked over his shoulder. “I’m about to do something awesome, tell Billy in front of you to get ready.’ He looked doubtful but I ignored him and tapped Ivy beside me on the shoulder.
“Ivy,” I hissed over to her. “Undo my buckle! Hurry!” We were approaching the breezeway and fast.
“What?” Ivy whispered back, sounding afraid. I was asking her to do something she knew was against the rules.
“Don’t worry,” I promised. “You won’t get in trouble. I’ll say I tricked you. Just do it! Hurry!”
“But I-”
“I’ll do whatever you want,” I interrupted. “I’ll let you hug me as hard as I can. You can kiss me on the cheek whenever you want. Or the lips, I don’t care!” I jostled the immovable buckle around my torso and legs. “Just get me out of this thing!”
Real, tangible fear lit up the Little Yamatoan’s expression .“Can’t you wai-?”
“Ivy!” I cut her off,, my cheeks feeling suddenly wet. “There’s a little kid back there, a real little kid, who is being picked on, Ivy! He’s being picked on because he’s different for things that he can’t help! And you’re the only one that can help him.” I tugged again at the buckle. “Now, Ivy!”
Deceptively strong yet tiny hands shot out and squeezed the release latch. I slipped out of the harness and sprinted back towards the cafeteria before the woven tether touched the cement..
Everything went into slow motion while my heart pounded fire into my veins. Zoge cried out and reached out to try and stop me, calling my name. Chaz’s laughter mixed with her screams and he rocked back as hard as he could in the moving stroller, forcing her to try to break his fall or stop my escape.
Heads must have whipped around fast enough to break the sound barrier and cries went out with “Clark!” being shouted out the way most people screamed “Fire!” Heavy footsteps were cut short with confused shouts of “Look out!” and crocodile tear cries announcing Annie and Billy entering the fray, tripping up Beouf, yanking around the rest of the class, and generally getting underfoot so that she couldn’t catch up in time. Already, Tommy was shouting something along the lines of “Ivy did it! Ivy!”
Screams and laughter. Screams and laughter. Would be anarchists and brats, model prisoners and babies all raising their voices as sacred routine, ritual, and daily transition were broken. To some it was glorious. to others, terrifying.
Along the side of the building, pudgy frosting covered hands pointed at my approach while the one other adult was busy trying to select the perfect cupcake for her precious princess.
I didn’t consciously hear or see any of that. I only pieced it all together after the fact. Tunnel vision and hearing had me. A primal, vicious instinct took over. The one coherent word out of my mouth was a bellowing “HEY!” causing Ambrose to look right at me.
No satisfaction filled me while my fist collided perfectly with her snout of a nose. No thoughts of how I was ending it all by swinging as hard as I could and bopping this finless dead eyed shark as hard as I could. My face wasn’t capable of expressing any joy while bones and cartilage crunched and bits of blood came away onto my knuckles.
There’s an old saying: “Show me a man who resorts to violence, and I’ll show you a man who’s run out of good ideas.”
I guess I’d just run out of good ideas…
Time sped up when I drew back my fist. “MOTHER! FUCKER!” Ambrose covered her face and roared. I went to swing again but before I could a meaty paw of a hand smacked me across the face and knocked me off my feet. My ears rang and my breath raced out of my chest while my body collided with the ground, my skin burning as my arms skidded across the rough concrete. This must have been what it was like to get kicked in the head by an emu or something!
Dizzy and bewildered I started flying, being hoisted up in the air, jerked around as if by a crane, my face hovering over the ground as tendrils of lightning started sparking against my backside. I was three spanks in before it finally registered to my body what was happening.
More screaming and shrieking and crying. None of it from me because I didn’t have the air to do it. My lungs contracted but would not inhale. My body kicked and tensed and flopped but had no more potency than a ragdoll. Lion would have taken a better beating.
The only sign of life my body provided the tears, snot, and piss that were getting beat out of me while I agonized with every cell of my brain and body certain that this was the end. I was going to die.
Everything was over. I was going to die. In mind if not body. Body too, more than likely. The ogre was going to beat me to death, I was sure.
“PUT HIM DOWN!” came Beouf’s roar. It still sounded far away. Everything sounded far away.
More cries from all around me, but the pain didn’t stop. The thundering blows rained down on me like falling meteorites, and I just went limp.
“STOP!”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
The screams, shouts, and protests all mixed together into a chaotic dirge. Classroom doors opened, and onlookers peered out into the bubbling chaos. Littles, students, and teachers added their voices to the song.
“HOLY FU-!”
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
“STO-!”
THWACK! THWACK!
“SOMEBODY GET THE PRI-!”
THWACK! THWACK!
“CLAR-!”
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
“SOMEBODY CALL THE CO-!”
THWACK!
“GIBSO-!”
THWACK!
“DON’T-!”
THWACK! THWACK!
“SOMEBODY GET MISS GRA-!”
THWACK!
“I’M FILM-!”
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
“PUTA! PUT THAT LIT-!”
THWACK!
“BOSS!”
WHOOMF!
The world blurred forward for a few feet. The sound of flesh being struck still thundered in my ear for a few seconds, but no direct pain registered. I was beyond pain, now. Something had changed though.. I was on the ground, again, but couldn’t see anything.
Something, or someone was huddled over me, wrapping me up, shielding me. I breathed in and my lungs felt like they were stabbing me from the inside with thousands of tiny needles. A ragged gasping cry gurgled out of me. And it happened again. And again. And again.
All the while, my savior held me closer and tighter, squeezing me gently and supporting my head, pressing me up close to them; almost cradling me.
“GET AWAY FROM MY WIFE!” I heard a deep, masculine voice crack the air like thunder.
“YOU DO NOT EVER….EVER!...PUT YOUR HANDS ON A STUDENT LIKE THAT!” Another voice screamed.
“HE BOKE MUH DOSE! DUH IDDUH BAT BOKE MUH DOSE!”
“IS THAT MIST-?”
“DID YOU SEE THAT?!”
“THAT LITTLE JUST RAN UP TO HER AND-!”
“IS HE O-?”
“BACK INSIDE CHIL-!”
“WHY DID HE-?!”
“WHY WAS SHE-?!”
“CLARK?!”
Through my continued wailing and impact scrambled brain cells I was unable to recognize any of the myriad of voices that were screaming their outrage for and against me. The first voice I actively recognized was the one nearest to me, with her body directly on top of mine, shielding me as best she could from further blows.
“It’s okay, Boss,” Tracy whispered softly to me. “I’ve got you. Don’t worry. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Boss. I’ve got you.”
Comments
I get the feeling we are getting close to the end of the story
Jemsy
Holy moly! I took a break reading this and I got super anxious when I read the intro and title, but knowing who he hit makes me feel much better! (Even if violence is wrong) Why do I get the feeling that this Dunwich -cough, cough Dun-bitch cough, cough- had something to do with Clark's fate? Also as far as a video, no matter what, the school will look bad, I think the only thing Clark may have in his corner was the fact he was being hit on video, and then it seems like Ambrose assaulted Tracy! Expelling him might look bad and come off as retaliation. In a way, it's almost poetic that Ambrose resorted to physical violence against what she sees as a baby. Pretty telling that she's just as immature as Clark was in that moment. If she's the adult she's supposed to know better, Clark's just a "baby" though. As always another great chapter that had me on the edge of my seat! Thanks Pers!
