ih I e s Of Ann, I murmured then, mostly to myself.
No, said Lisa, Lisa.
I kept watching her. Inhale. Knock knock knock knock. Then exhale. Repeat: Inhale. Knock knock knock knock. Exhale. Perfect.
I didn’t know you knew I knocked, I said then, slowly.
Lisa shrugged. Everyone knows, she said. Even Mimi knows and she barely knows anything. When I do you for Guess Who? in Hands-on Health, everyone gets it in about a second.
I kept my hand on the chair. Rubbed knuckles against the wood.
Guess Who. I’d thought I’d been carrying on my knocking secretly, my own guilty private guillotine. Since Mr. Jones and the day of the makeup math test, no one had ever said anything to me about it.
Does Ann know? I asked, starting to close my eyes again even though my heart was beating faster.
Lisa shrugged. Dumb dead Ann, she said. She just thinks you’re weird.
The school was bone-silent now except for the sound of Lisa and the ticking of the clock in the hallway. Tick tick tick. Knock knock knock. I slumped there, head on my arm, listening to her be me. I tried to fall asleep and could feel myself almost drifting away, lolling off, pushing away the morning, redoing the morning in my head, trying to calm that flower of panic that was folding then re blossoming each second, a kaleidoscope of movement and smallness, fold, blossom, a fist, a rose, but after a few minutes, the knocks on the door frame started to intensify, each a little harder than the last. The knocks became hits. Pow. This brought me back. I opened my eyes.
I don’t do it like that, I said.
She didn’t respond and I watched her pull back her elbow and pound a fist into the door frame.
Hey Lisa, stop, I said from the nook of my arm. Go to recess already. You’re really late.
No, she said, I’m keeping you company. She drew back her arm again as if to sock someone and lobbed it into the wood. Her fist made a thudding sound. KNOCK KNOCK! she yelled out. I lifted my head from the desk and half sat up. I wanted her to go away, to stop being there.
Lisa, I said again. Stop it.
She looked over, eyes shiny. We glared at each other and then she pulled back her arm and struck her fist into the door again. I could hear the skin on her knuckles grating against the wood, the way the sound absorbed instantly, no echo.
She smiled at me. I didn’t smile back.
She drew her arm back again, far.
Come on! I said, sitting straight now. STOP IT. Go away! My God, haven’t we had enough bloody children for one day? I said. Go to recess, Lisa!
The rest of the school was completely quiet, drawers and cubbies, floor and cabinets, all silent watching wood.
She nodded right at me this time, eyes bright as dimes. I slumped back down, partway to the desk.
She turned back to the doorframe.
Hands at your sides, I said.
She did that. She kept her hands at her sides. She stood still for a second and I thought we were done. I waited for her to leave the room, cawing, to run out as fast as she could. To disappear. She moved a step back. That’s when Lisa spun out.
“si-b I e s “94 Of I didn’t expect it, but I should’ve; she was standing there tighter than normal, standing with her four feet of self, that’s it, that’s all you got, said God, that’s all I’m giving you to contain it ALL, and she had this blank look on her face and I was back to my elbow, still watching, about to close my eyes again when she gritted her teeth and in the center of a second reared her head back, and before I even knew what was happening, hurtled it forward and slammed it with all her might into the hard wood of the door frame. And before I even knew what I’d seen, I heard it, heard the shatter and bash of her skin and skull, the weight of the blow, and her forehead split open, broken continents, bleeding. She had some kind of giddy dazed woozy look on her face and I stood up, suddenly, shaking, awake, heart slapping, and I might’ve done nothing but stand there and shake if she hadn’t reared back again, ready to bang forward again, crush those continents into countries, crush those countries into states, make more space in those four feet, it’s just not enough space to keep all of it in, and she started arcing forward, eyes focused, but this time I leaned in and seized her, got her by the shoulders, her body hot and slippery as a fish, closing my arms around her, tight, pinning her own arms down, one across the other, so she was hugging herself.
Let me go! she yelled.
Her hands were flailing, trying to get free. I held her down.
When I spoke, my voice was sharper and clearer than I expected.
I don’t want your company like that, I said, hard.
She drew her head forward and slammed it back into my chest, ramming it hard so it clipped me on the chin, socked me with the weight of her cranium, and I could feel the breath knock out of me for a second, feel my sternum bloom open and bruise, but I held on even tighter, and she
tried again but this time I clamped a hand down on her forehead, palm on her skin, wet now with blood, mashing her head into the nook of my neck.
She was kicking up her legs, thrashing around like a drowning man.
Knock knock! she yelled into the empty school. Who’s there? she yelled back. Ann! she said. Ann who? Ann Chovy, she said, and she started laughing, loud and joyless: Ha! Ha! Ha! she yelled. Ann Telope! Ann Esthesia! she yelled.
I was holding her as hard as I could, one hand on her forehead, pressing down on the broken bloody skin, spit flying out of her mouth, my other hand clamped around her waist. She was giving off heat like a radiator. I could hear the sounds of recess growing outside, screaming kids and cement and rubber balls.
Give me some wood, Lisa said. Get me near wood. Her voice was high now, rising. Give me some Ann Esthesia, she yelled.
Oweee, she said. Nowyou’re going to get FIRED, she said. No more math class. Her head was bucking but I kept my hand hard on her forehead, pressing down, her whole brain, her small skull. She kicked her legs up higher and harder. And by the end of the summer, no more mother, she said. And soon a new math teacher and Ann is going to be going to the school for kids with no legs.
Ann has legs, I said then, meekly.
Lisa kept kicking and thrashing in my arms and she swallowed and it turned into a gulp and I could feel her whole body starting to shake. She was twisting so hard I was getting rope burn on my inner forearm but I held her strong, I had her, she was not going to break free, and she yelled, Let me go, and I didn’t say anything back this time and she kept wriggling and thrashing and yelling: Let me go! Let ME GO! Come on! I want to be one of the bloody children, I want to have cancer too, I want cancer NOW!
and she was twisting and twisting but I kept holding her as tight as I could, fierce as a vise, and she said: I wanted to cut off MY arm, I wanted to do it, how come Ann got to do it, how come Danny’s dad got to do it, how come Ann got the ax, I wanted to bleed all over the carpet, I want to have chemotherapy, I want to have no hair, I want to be in the hospital too, she’s going to have to die all by herself, and she swallowed again, ragged and raw, wheezing, and the trembling was like a whole town on fire, the shaking up to the sky, smoke over the sun, her body rabid with shaking, un still blurred, and her breathing was thick, and it was my turn to talk but I kept holding her close and I had nothing to say, there wasn’t much I could say to that. No matter how many times she kept her mother company, it was clear who was leaving, and who was staying put.
“!?T’si-ble si Ign Of One Sunday I remember, I am standing in the kitchen, watching my father make his lunch for Monday, spooning dim hard-boiled eggs into plastic bags. Made by yellow hens, once. The day is foggy and dull but I go to the garage anyway and pull out my bike, ride down the street, ride. There are a lot of people on the block, the curbs are filling up with cars, more cars than I’m used to, red cars and blue cars, cars from all over town, people dressed in black walking slowly up to the door of the Stuarts’ house. And then I re member, of course, it’s the funeral today, today’s the day they bury the baby in a coffin the size of a suitcase.