“We missed you at church,” Joelle said to Bryan and Robbie. “What are you up to this afternoon?”
“We have to help Robbie pack,” Bryan said. “He’s going to Outdoor School.”
“You got a cold week,” Joelle said. “Megan got lucky, she went in May.”
“Dad got me some new boots,” Robbie said. “I’ll be fine.”
“We’ll send you a care package,” Joelle said.
“He’s only gone for a week,” Dean said.
“He could still use some treats — Thursday is Halloween! I’ll mail it tomorrow, that way you’ll get it in time.”
Robbie shrugged, but Dean could see he was pleased. He remembered Laura’s worries about Outdoor School and wondered if she was right to be concerned. He’d been trying all weekend to get a few minutes alone with Robbie to talk with him about See-See’s mother, or at least to approach the subject indirectly. But Bryan kept interrupting, or else Dean would begin the conversation in too banal a way and Robbie’s attention would drift and he would ask to be excused.
On Monday morning, with everything carefully packed, Dean had the idea to put Bryan on the bus and drive Robbie to school by himself. They would talk in the car. With the familiar road ahead it would be easy to assure his son that they were still a family, and that he thought often of his mother. That none of the rumors he’d heard were true.
But when they got into the car, Robbie turned on the radio and started to sing along. Then, when Dean brought up the subject of play practice, thinking this would be an easy way to segue into a discussion of any overheard gossip, Robbie began to talk about the play, about how they were in tech rehearsals for the week, and how, when he got back, it would be time for dress rehearsals. He was excited to see himself in all the various costumes: munchkin, poppy flower, flying monkey. He talked so animatedly that Dean couldn’t bring himself to interrupt him. It even crossed Dean’s mind that Laura might be wrong about Robbie, and that perhaps she was the one who was angry with him and offended by rumors.
When they arrived at school, Dean kissed him good-bye on both cheeks (Robbie allowed this!), and then he watched as he boarded the charter bus hired for the occasion. There were dozens of parents on the curb, some of them crying. Dean thought of Nicole’s sadness at the beginning of every school year when the kids would be returned to their schoolyard kingdoms. Then he drove over to the high school to begin his day.
Part Three
Chapter 14
Robbie checked his compass, which hung from a lanyard around his neck. All week long, he’d been learning about orienteering. He’d learned about tribes in South America where kids didn’t have words for left and right. Instead they learned north, south, east, and west. During that lesson, Robbie raised his hand to ask how people knew their left hand from their right hand and everyone laughed and the teacher thought he was being a smart aleck. But he honestly wanted to know what they said. He was fascinated by the idea that certain words could exist in one language but not in another. He was fascinated by lots of things, but he was constantly being told that he was “off topic” or that he “had tone.” No one had ever told him these things in elementary school. But now, in middle school, he was getting a reputation for being mouthy and difficult. It had started with his teachers, and now it was drifting down to his friends. He felt strongly that nothing within him had changed. The only thing that was different was that his mother had killed herself. But he wasn’t allowed to talk about that; he wasn’t even allowed to repeat things his mother used to say, because when he did, people thought he was an even bigger weirdo. It was like he was supposed to pretend that he’d never had a mother at all. Even his father went along with this new reality.
It had been nice to be away from home for a week. Robbie could admit that, here, in the quiet, bare woods. The fallen, dried leaves made shushing sounds as he walked. They faded more and more each day, from red and gold to auburn and yellow to brown and brown. Above, the sky was overcast, matching the pale gray bark of the trees. Monochrome was a word that Robbie had recently learned, and which he liked. He made up his own word from it: moonchrome. This was the color that moonlight gave to trees and leaves and grass and houses.
He and his mother used to make up words: iceslip, ponins, delicatessies, lemonstone, snarfle. His mother told him he had been slow to talk, but once he’d started talking, it was in fluent sentences. She used to call him Robbie-robin-red-breast. He had no idea why, it was just something she said.
He and his mother had their own language, and now he was the only remaining speaker.
Robbie could no longer hear the voices of other kids nearby. He had deliberately gone in the opposite direction of where he knew he should go, leaving his buddy group behind. They were supposed to find their way back to the school by themselves. It was the final orienteering challenge before they went home tomorrow. But Robbie didn’t want to go home.
His original plan had been to sneak off the bus going home. As long as his name got checked off during attendance, he would be in the clear. He was pretty sure he could get past the bus monitor; he could say that he had to use the bathroom and never come back. His friends wouldn’t notice — or care — that he was gone.
But then the teacher announced there would be an orienteering test on Thursday afternoon, and he realized that was the better time to go. He was disappointed to miss the Halloween campfire, but maybe they wouldn’t have one, anyway, because of what had happened at last night’s campfire. The school director was pissed with them because they had laughed when he tried to teach them “Blowin’ in the Wind.” They had laughed because the questions were like something from a kid’s book—How many seas must a white dove sail? — and because the face the director made while he was singing was so hilarious, like he was constipated. And they had laughed because they wanted to laugh, because they were making s’mores and the moon was out and for a whole week they didn’t have to go to school. But the director wanted the campfire to be more like school.
He chided them: “This is protest music! I guess you’re not mature enough for this.” Robbie wanted to raise his hand and say, I am, I love music, I know about Bob Dylan. But instead he had turned to his best friend, Kyle, and said, “I liked that song,” a sentiment Kyle had then conveyed to everyone sitting nearby, and everybody cracked up as if he’d confessed to liking Barney the purple dinosaur.
And then the school director thought it was Robbie’s fault that everyone was laughing at him, that Robbie had been the one to say something sarcastic. And Robbie hadn’t even bothered to defend himself, because he knew there was no point.
His legs were getting tired. He sat down on a rock and gazed up at the trees. The branches at the top were so spindly, they tapered sharply, like pencil tips. He imagined the trees writing letters on the air — to whom? This was the kind of question he would share with his mother, to amuse her, to make her smile. He knew the kinds of questions she liked best, the ones that would get her talking. She would ask him for a word for tree letters. Leaflets, maybe — except that was a real word. Maybe Leaflins. Or should he start from tree? Treescrolls. A girl at school was named Sylvia, and she said her name meant “woods.” It was from Latin, she said. He liked talking to Sylvia; she had a round, calm face, and when she walked through the hallways, it was like she was floating gently down a river and everyone else was hiking uphill. But she was only in school in the mornings, because she was studying ballet. She left every day at lunch to go to a studio in Frederick. She had to get special permission from the school board. Robbie wished he had some special reason to leave early. He’d seen her going a few times, climbing into a car with her duffel bag over her shoulder. Her mother picked her up.