I spent most of the day in bed. I got up once and sat outside, looking over at Mr. Jones’s backyard of dark bushes, thinking of him in front of the class, trying to convey the sweet enigma of x, nobody paying attention with me not there.
I wanted to stay home all week. I wanted to stay in bed for the rest of my life, until the mattress fell apart and threw me to the floor. I was afraid of going to school, turning a corner, and finding the track coach in her navy blue sweatpants and slight earnest accent, recruiting coltish freshmen. The thought of it made me want to throw up. I
tried to stay in bed again the following morning, but this time MY mother swatted me out the door. My father drove to work, wearing a suit the color of dirty water.
I walked the high school halls close to the wall, thinning myself, skittish, buglike, and so, when in math class that afternoon Mr. Jones told me I had to stay after to take the makeup test, I was flooded with relief. Anything to keep me out of the school at large. It’s all word problems, he said. I felt the calmest I’d felt all day in the math classroom, which had both its doors wide open to the afternoon sun. After the bell rang, I stayed in my seat and the rest of the students ran out.
Mr. Jones blew his nose and came over to my desk.
The lump under his shirt was medium-sized, and from what I could tell it was fat enough to be double digits but not fat enough to be in the twenties. I guessed his old favorite.
15? I said, pointing.
He smiled a little, face soft and tired. And nodded. Very good, he said. Very good.
He had the paper in his hand.
Nobody likes makeup tests, and I was still nursing a stomachache from walking through the hallways, but the truth is I ended up being very grateful for that day. Not because of the shelter it provided even though I was glad for that, and not because I needed to learn more about algebra, a subject I knew well already, but because it was during that makeup test that the first and only person ever noticed and commented on my knocking.
Until that moment, I’d been living in my own little universe of good-luck hell. I was subtle about knocking, usually doing it before falling asleep, like prayer time, but I was still surprised that the people I knew well weren’t more aware. My parents didn’t notice, my lunchtime friends didn’t notice, and later on, even that one boyfriend
didn’t notice (although he did say once, in the middle of sex, Mona, MONA, what are you doing with the bedframe?). It was only Mr.
Jones, the hypocrite of my childhood, who observed and remarked on my engine of a hand.
He handed over the paper and a pencil.
Go to it, he said. You have twenty-five minutes. I’ll be right up here if you have any questions.
I nestled into my chair. In general, I find math tests soothing;
all those numbers on the page nervous and undone, waiting for me to come over and settle them into their right spots.
But the first word problem made me uncomfortable immediately and it Just got worse from there.
Janet can run 50 yards in 3o seconds on Tuesday. She runs 15 percent faster on Wednesday, but on Thursday she runs 5 percent slower than that. How fast does she run on Thursday?
I skipped Question One, which made my hand pull into a fist, knocking briefly on the test paper.
Question Two was worse.
Janet is the fastest runner on the team until Lydia moves in from Kentucky. Lydia runs twice as fast as Janet on Monday, but then four times slower on Tuesday. How fast does Janet run on Tuesday?
I knocked again. Mr. Jones looked up.
Is someone at the door? he asked. His eyes looked tired, bagged, underlined with arcs from endless correcting. I could see the 15 sinking. His change when he drove home, the quick swap for 12, for 7, for 4.
Oh no no, I said. I think they just left.
Eyes on your own paper, he said, out of habit. I smiled. The classroom was empty aside from the two of us.
Outside, lockers were being opened and slammed and students were talking loud, glowing with three o’clock, everyone hungry for everything.
I read Question Three: Janet wins another race. Question Four:
Janet in training. Question Five: Janet goes to the Olympics.
I could feel the ache growing in my stomach, and put my fist down to the paper and knocked again. Dragged my knuckles over the white space. Slow Janet down. The only class I’ve ever failed was driver’s training, because I spent the whole time touring the town with my foot slammed against the brake.
Question Six: Janet in the prelims at the Olympics held in Slovenia. Question Seven: Janet as the anchor in a four-way race with two variables.
Knock knock knock. I rubbed my knuckles against the words. I tried to concentrate just on the numbers. But there was even a drawing at the bottom of the page of a girl with muscular thighs running, lines whisking off her back to indicate the immensity of her speed. Hurrying to another page, that busy beaming Janet.
I knocked again and this time he caught me. Mona Gray? he said.
He stood up.
I think it’s some pipes banging, I said, indicating outside. Oh no, he said. I saw you just then. I saw that.
I’m almost done, I said.
Question Eight: Janet racing a train and winning.
I pretended to look at the page and concentrate but I had to knock again. I tried to imagine her dead on the ground: a snail, a robot, a corpse in running shorts. I glued Janet to the bleachers and chained her with a metal ring to the bench leg. I deliberately broke my pencil lead.
Oops, I said. Look at that.
Mr. Jones was standing right by me now, looking down with curiosity. He perched himself on the neighboring desk, the one where Greg Fitzpatrick usually sat and flung his eyes back like a fishing line to cheat.
Question Nine: Janet running in outer space, beating two comets and an asteroid.
Mona Gray, he said, what exactly are you doing with that paper there?
I faced him. I pulled in my lips. What do you mean? I asked.
He indicated with his chin. I mean, he said, why do you insist on knocking on this piece of paper? He picked up the test and put it back down.
I don’t know, I said. I’m knocking on wood, I said.
He blinked at me over the desk. He was wearing a shirt that said Minehead over the pocket. I wondered if that was his first name.
Knocking on wood, he echoed.
Yes, I said.
Why? he asked. What?
Why are you knocking on wood?
I stared at him. The question itself bothered me enough that I had to knock, and I reached down to the paper again. We both watched my hand go. I felt like a zoo animal.
Well if you don’t stop I’m going to have to deduct from your grade, he said. You’re giving me a headache.
I’m sorry, Mr. Minehead, I said. I mean Mr. Jones.
He breathed in and shrugged. Knockingonwood, he murmured.
Question Ten: Janet on the high school track in a race against Death, Death wearing a black fashionable running outfit, quick and ruthless, sweaty and swift; Death loses by thirty seconds.
I finished reading and held up the paper. I’m done now, I said. I fluttered it in his face. I wanted to get the page away from me.
I didn’t even like having my hand close to those words.
He raised his eyebrows and plucked it like a kerchief from my fingers.
I looked away, out the two open doors of the classroom. I could still see people walking to the stairways, readying to leave school for the day and do teenager things, like sit in closets together, reaching out tentative hands until they crossed the air and hit skin. There were so many colors and sounds that happened when the classes dismissed. They overwhelmed me. The reds and the blues alone were so rich I could’ve stared at them for hours.