‘.”ible si Ign Of 11?P0 4I want to slice Ann in half, said Lisa, still standing next to me.
Danny O’Mazzi pulled off his sneaker and sock and stuck his bare foot on top of the table, wiggling his toes. Yesterday in the bath I thought my baby toe looked kind of like a 6, he said.
I got pulled in for a second, looking at it. His toe did look kind of like an upside-down 6, or else a little wobbly 9.
So chop if off then, Ann said.
You can stick it on your mantel, added Lisa.
Danny whisked his foot off. Lisa and Ann shared a rare smile.
Outside the room, the parents laughed about something and heels clicked away from the door.
Dumb parents, I hate them, Lisa said.
Just because you have none, said Danny, pulling on his sock. John jabbed Danny in the side with his elbow. Lisa’s mouth got hard and she raised my hand with the ax, trying to pull it up, get under the chair and swipe at Danny’s toe, but I pushed her fingers off, placing the ax down on the side table where I held it down firm with my hand.
Stop! I said. Let’s get going. Ann, did you or didn’t you bring back the 42? Danny, stop smelling your sock.
Elmer’s eyes were wide and nervous. Is skin a material? he asked.
Everything is a material, said John Beeze.
Lisa was still standing right up next to me. I could feel the heat of her, rising. This room of mine had no windows.
If you want someone to cut off a finger, I’ll do it, she said then. I can do it. I don’t mind. I want to do multiplication with i like Danny did. We never get to do multiplication and I know all multi plication, even the 9’s. I want to play an amputee in Life Acting class.
It was MY idea, said Ann. That’s not fair.
Lisa, I said, no way. Go sit.
She stepped closer to me, skin so warm I could feel it. Why not?
she asked. I don’t even like my fingers. They’re stubby. See?
Give me back the 7. I want to be a word problem. Lisa had five fingers and then she cut off one finger. How many fingers did she have left?
Four fingers! sang out John Beeze.
Now Ann stood. Well I want to too then, she said.
I pressed my hand on the ax handle as Ann approached, ready to go hang it back up, and Lisa was glaring at Ann and Ann was glaring at Lisa and just then, at the back of the table Ellen, surrounded by hammerheads, peed.
Ellen, bathroom, I said.
She crept off, but in that one instant, Lisa had seen my fingers relax and she whipped the ax right out from underneath my palm.
Now she was swinging it around the room.
Hey, I said. Lisa. Hey, put that down, NOW. Lisa! I put her name right on the board: Lisa.
She ran to the back of the room, face alive with light. I ran after her.
No, she said. I want to do it. I want to try. 9 X 9 = 81, she said. Ann was pouting and jumping. It was MY idea, she said. I want to, I want to. It was MY idea. Lisa always gets to do everything!
Lisa was dodging and jumping, off chairs, under the table, around the bookshelves. I tried to grab her, putting check marks on every chalkboard I passed, one check, two checks, three. She didn’t even look up. I went left. She went right. More: four check marks, five check marks, more than anyone all year long, six check marks, seven,
bench time for the whole year, Elmer gasping at the i-b I e s ip, rows of checks on the boards, but Lisa wasn’t even paying attention. She dodged again, and then, eyes glittering, put her hand flat down on the back table, and the ax hovered wobbly above it and I was rushing over and everyone was watching, frozen, and the ax swooped low and slammed down, bang, just missing her hand by an inch to make a dent in the fake wood, which shook slightly from the blow. My heart nearly stopped and Lisa was staring at her hand which was all there and John Beeze had pulled the ax out of the desk and was trying to give it to me when Ann rushed over and swept it from his hands.
Mine! she said.
Lisa was still looking at her hand, all whole, in total dismay. I don’t need all these fingers, she said. I wanted 9 to be my base.
wanted one less.
I grabbed Lisa’s hand in mine and pressed down on it, dizzy with relief. Then Ann yelled out: I want two less, I want five less, and Lisa wrenched free from me, not done at all, and said, Then cut off your whole arm then, I’ll cut it off for you, it was not your idea, it was MY idea, and I yelled at Lisa to sit down and the rest of the kids were now either cowering in corners or running around the room in frantic scurried movements and someone, maybe Mimi Lunelle, was under the table, and Elmer was muttering under his breath something religious, and I managed to get closer to Ann but she held the ax behind her and I didn’t want to touch her because the blade was lined up with her back so I yelled SIT DOWN in my shrillest authoritative voice and most everyone sat down except Ann and Lisa, like gargoyles posted at two corners in the far back of the room, Ann with the ax behind her, Lisa’s hands in fists.
I held out my arm, palm up. If I don’t get the ax right this second, I said loudly, I’m calling your parents and having them come get you. And Ann, I need the 42, too. Hand over the ax.
I knocked on the real wood bookcase.
My mom is dying in the hospital and can’t come get me ever again, said Lisa.
Ann’s face screwed up. Lisa ALWAYS has an excuse, she said. She held tight to the wooden handle. I’m keeping the ax. And I’m keeping the 42 too, she said.
Those are not yours to keep! I said. I moved sideways, very slowly, to get behind her so I could grab it.
Ann, Lisa said calmly. If you give me the ax I’ll cut off your fingers for you.
No, said Ann, in a sour voice. Ms. Gray, can I cut off your finger?
No, I said, getting closer.
Ann held the ax up over her head. Then I’m going to throw it across the room, she said.
No! shouted Mimi, Elmer, Danny, and John.
But Ann already had it pulled back, deep behind her. I was almost in grabbing range but she was fast, reaching up and out, arms weighted from the steel, preparing to throw it, fling it across the room, and her arms lifted over her head, but right before the ax could leave her hands and go flying, the weight forced the blade down, curling the length of her own body and hitting straight into her bare thigh. We all heard as it cut past the skin, and cracked into the femur. Dead on. Metal on bone. Burying its blade in her flesh hard into soft. Square into cylinder. Ann DiLanno, inside coming out; Ann DiLanno, opened up like timber.
Blood filled in around the blade, fast. The skin puckered open and Ann’s face transformed into a horrified grimace and she began shrieking.
“I’ve cut my leg off, she screamed.
Oh no no, I said, just a little part, and Lisa was at the tissue box pulling out tissues one after the other, ssh ssh ssh, and I could hear Mimi gagging and Ann was crumpling down to the floor, the ax sticking out of her leg and right then Ellen walked back in the classroom in a new pair of pants, those ones left in the lost-and found for just that purpose, plaid pleated pants of another decade, but when she saw what had happened, she turned on her heel and walked right back out. Lisa pulled the ax out of Ann’s leg, which spit blood once unplugged and we lay pieces of tissue on the open wound which was like using a bottle cap as an umbrella, and I tried to pinch the two sides together but they kept pursing open. Ann was sobbing. It was a thick gash, a clean line, a ravine of blood, from above her knee straight up her leg, closer to inner thigh than outer, far far too close to everything important, and it reminded me, all too clearly, of a version of the blow I had almost given myself.