Shipwrecked

Published March 25, 2007 in the Sunday Reader

She had just finished putting the empty microwave meal box along with all the others in the refrigerator's vegetable drawer when Ronnie came into the kitchen.

"Hey Syl," he said, speaking to her through the refrigerator door. She stood there for a while, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, trying to figure out what they were going to do for food now that the microwave meals were gone.

She closed the door and asked, "What do you want?"

Ronnie shifted from foot to foot, and she could see he was wearing his pajamas from two weeks ago, the ones she thought she'd put down at the bottom of the hamper.

"You wanna watch TV with me?"

Sylvia sighed. "I'm busy, Ronnie."

"But you said you would watch," he protested, and made a face like he was about to start crying again.

"I don't care if I did," Sylvia said. "All we've got left is cereal."

Sure enough, in another few seconds the tears were running down Ronnie's cheeks. "I don't like the dry cereal," he whimpered. "Can't we have milk?"

Sylvia shook her head. "There's none left."

"It's not fair," said Ronnie. "I don't like it, Syl. I'm cold."

Sylvia was in no mood for more whining from Ronnie. He had been whining about being cold ever since the power went off in the middle of the night, even though that was three days ago and the heat came on again in the morning. Sylvia looked at Ronnie's toes, bare except for the worn down pajama feet.

"Well, where's your slippers?"

"Haven't we been good yet?" asked Ronnie. "I haven't disobeyed."

Sylvia ignored him. "Go watch TV," she said.

Ronnie shuffled out of the room, still making little sobbing noises. Sylvia didn't know why Ronnie couldn't stop crying. She was proud of herself for not having cried once, even when the milk had run out. Sylvia hated dry cereal, too.

She thought about what they must be doing in school by now. Even though she knew they didn't expect her back yet, she couldn't help wondering what would happen if she never went back. Christmas was over, and Mrs. Geragos in the third grade had told her they were starting on fractions after Christmas. Sylvia was really in the second grade, but usually finished her lessons early, so her teacher let her walk down the hall to the third grade. Sylvia liked it there better. They had a clubhouse right in the classroom, against one wall. It was up on stilts, and had different compartments you could climb into, so that’s where she’d go if Mrs. Geragos was in the middle of a lesson. Sylvia didn’t have many friends at school yet, they had only moved there this year. But she liked being around all the people. Besides for school, she wasn’t supposed to go out.

Later on, Sylvia came in to sit on the couch with Ronnie, who was playing on the floor with his race cars, and he started telling her a story about what TV she'd missed.

"There was a man, and he lived on an island with all his other friends, 'cuz they got shipwrecked, but they were smart, and figured out how to make stuff and drink coconut milk. It was just like us, Syl."

Sylvia wondered if it was time for Blue's Clues yet, that was sure to shut Ronnie up.



"I know we're not supposed to plug in the phone except for 'mergencies, but if there's no more food, that's a 'mergency, right?"

"It's only one more day, Ronnie. We made it this far, we can just eat the cereal."

Ronnie shook his head. "Are there any coconut trees around here?"

She didn't say anything, just changed channels.

"How far d'ya think it is to China?"

"What?" said Sylvia.

"China. Is it really ten days away?"

Sylvia remembered how the corn dogs had lasted for eight days, because they came six to a box, they had two boxes to start, and Ronnie usually only ate half of one at a time, so he'd start on the unfinished ones first. Now the boxes were torn in little pieces and bundled up with all the chewed-on corn dog sticks in a plastic bag from the Be-Lo, stuffed in the vegetable drawer behind the empty microwave meal boxes, where the bugs couldn't get to any of it.

"I saw one, Syl. I think I saw a coconut tree across the street."

Sylvia stared at the TV, feeling a little numb. "You did what?"

"Looked for coconut trees. Don't worry, I closed the curtains and stuck the tape back tight, just like it was."

She considered getting up from the couch and punching Ronnie, but didn't have the energy. He'd learn, she thought. She'd tell, and then she'd be the hero, the one who microwaved their dinners every night, made the cereal in the morning, stored the garbage away, picked up all Ronnie's other messes so the apartment would stay neat, and made sure Ronnie didn't cry so loud somebody might hear. That's what it was all about, couldn't he see that? Why else were they doing all this? That's when Sylvia heard the knock at their front door.

It started off like any other knock, all the ones they'd heard before and hid from, silently, waiting, holding their breath, until the knocking went away. Sylvia stood up as quietly as she could and went over to Ronnie, then put her hand over his mouth real fast, before he had a chance to do anything dumb. His eyes got wide, but he didn't struggle.

This knock was different. It kept on going, got louder, and louder, until Sylvia could hear voices yelling, right outside the door, and their whole apartment seemed to shake from the pounding. Sylvia had never been so scared, and suddenly, she knew she had to run to the door and open it.

So she did. Outside, on the landing, stood a brown man Sylvia knew was the manager of their apartment complex. He was with a black lady and a large white man, who were both wearing uniforms. Sylvia thought they smelled like they'd just come from McDonald's.

The black lady smiled at Sylvia, and said, "Hi! Is Mommy home?"

Sylvia looked up into their faces, and then she started to cry.

The Anxiety

It was Fenton's last day in school, and he couldn't wait for it to end. Mrs. Jacobs had sent him out of class and to the principal's office again, and said he had to wait there, until his mother came to pick him up. Fenton felt a burning sensation in his head as he thought to himself, it ain't my fault she turned around when she did. If she cares so much about that stupid class, why didn't she look up when Todd Sommers was hitting me in the back? Or jabbing me through my hair with a pen?

She turned around when she wanted to, that's why, thought Fenton. Now he was walking down the corridor that went by the auditorium. This corridor always made him nervous, because sometimes kids would cut class, and hang out in the hallways behind the music department. If you weren't paying attention and walked by too close to the folding gates that locked those hallways off from the corridor, somebody might reach through the gates and grab you.



It hadn't happened to him, but a kid Fenton knew named Curtis got grabbed once. Curtis was even smaller than Fenton. They took off his belt, pulled his pants down to the floor, then tied his arms up over his head with the belt, through the gates. When the classes changed, that's how the kids passing by in the corridor found him, near tears. It took five minutes for the music teacher to notice the laughter and yelling and come untie Curtis. Nobody else cared enough to help him, that's just what kind of school it was.

So Fenton didn't mind getting expelled. That's what Mrs. Jacobs said was going to happen, and all because he pushed Todd Sommers in class once, after letting Todd do things to him every single damn day for the whole two months since school started. She called it the final straw. "Fenton, stand up," she said. Had him get up in front of the whole class. "Fenton, remember what we talked about with your mother? Well, Fenton, this was your last chance. And instead of settling down, you continue to distract your fellow students from their work."

When his mom had come in for the parent-teacher conference, Mrs. Jacobs told her he wasn't completing his assignments. How could he, when there was stuff going on at home for him to worry about? And when kids like Todd Sommers and his friends were always messing with him? He had tried telling Mrs. Jacobs when it first started happening, when Todd asked to see his homework one morning the first week of school, real innocent like, because he said he wanted to see if Fenton had gotten all the answers. Fenton hadn't really talked to many kids yet, this was a new school, and he was shy. The first therapist he ever saw told his mother that he had anxiety issues, and he was seeing a different one now, but Fenton knew he still had the anxiety. He gave Todd his homework that morning, and Todd smiled an evil smile as he crumpled it up into a ball and wouldn't give it back.

But when Fenton told her about the homework, before class even started, Mrs. Jacobs didn't do a thing. In fact, she accused him of making up stories on account of him being lazy! She said it while laughing, telling him it would be a long school year if he insisted on concocting tall tales instead of buckling down and doing his work.



Fenton walked past the auditorium on the far side of the corridor from where the folding gates were. He looked out the big plate glass windows at the grassy area in the middle of the school. It was outside the cafeteria, and there were rocks, and a little stream that emptied into a pond. The stream seemed more like a ditch to Fenton. Since school started, he had never seen any running water in it, just green algae. It covered the pond, too. The bigger kids sat on the rocks during lunch. Todd Sommers was always on those rocks, when he wasn't sneaking into the woods to smoke cigarettes. Fenton could tell every time after lunch when he'd had one, because Todd sat right behind him in Mrs. Jacob's class, and he'd come in smelling to high heaven.

It was the middle of the afternoon, now, and nobody was on the rocks. Fenton suddenly thought about his dog. Beast the dog. He was a good dog, even if he was a mix of mutt and other things, like his mom said. Spaniel, definitely, because he was small. And Lab, and maybe Chow, Fenton had read in one of the books he took home from the library about how the Chow dogs had black tongues, like Beast's tongue was, a little. But not all Chow dogs were friendly, and Beast was. He even got along with Marzipan and Maybelle, they were two cats, and they belonged to his mother, technically, but Fenton took care of them too. It just ain't right, he thought to himself. We take care of them, and they don't give nobody no trouble. Why they gonna evict us over a couple of animals?

It had been two weeks since Fenton found the letter from their landlord on his mother's desk. It was only a few days since the landlord had sent them an official eviction notice, which his mother had broken down and cried about. Since the first letter showed up, she said her headaches had come back, and she was having trouble breathing, so she went to see her doctor to get her pills switched to a different kind. She told Fenton she was having trouble staying focused on the classes she was taking at night, and might have to drop out for that term. She was worried about how they got their rent, something called Section 8, which is what she told Fenton they qualified for, only a lot of people didn't want to rent to anybody in Section 8. I hope she's okay, thought Fenton. I hope she didn't go on a crying jag right in the middle of work, when the school called about me. Fenton remembered when she first heard from Mrs. Jacobs that he was on probation or whatever and might get expelled, how she had said she was counting on him to stay strong.

Now Fenton was walking down the last corridor leading to the front of the school, where the detention hall was, and the middle school nurse, who split an office with the school therapist, who was booked for appointments into next month before she was scheduled to see him, and the principal's office. The lockers were orange and blue and yellow, and they all looked the same. He wouldn't miss being around this place. Fenton didn't bother going into the principal's office, he sat down on one of the benches in the lobby, and stared outside at the parking lot.



Fenton supposed the eviction notice was like him getting kicked out of school. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, and there was nothing he could do about it. He'd just have to hope things would be better at the next place they found. Mom said she was gonna home school me if this happened, thought Fenton. But how's she gonna have time if she's looking for another place for us? What if we can't find a place that takes animals? What's gonna happen then? What's gonna happen to Beast? Without noticing he was doing it, Fenton brought his sleeve up to his mouth and starting chewing on the cuff. Then he caught himself. I haven't done it since last year, he thought. The therapist said I was cured of doing it. But I don't care if I am. I don't care. By the time his mother's car pulled up outside, Fenton had chewed a hole right through the cloth.