Fig by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

Author:Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

CHAPTER EIGHT

TRANSITION

alarm: n. 1. A sudden feeling of fear 2. A warning of danger; signal for attention 3. A device that signals a warning 4. The sounding mechanism of an alarm clock .

September 2, 1986

I’m late to the first day of school. The sixth grade—the last grade before I go to junior high. The sixth grade with Mrs. Landry, who all the kids call Mrs. Laundry, and sometimes Dirty Laundry.

I am late because the pigs got out. They got out even though the gates were latched.

I help Daddy corral the pigs back to where they need to be instead of where they were in the road that is really just a long driveway. The sheep stand in the north paddock where the motherwort grows wild, and they watch as we scour the fencing for a break, but there is no break. Daddy spent the entire summer upgrading this fence. Wood and wire: My father fortified the farm.

“Maybe it’s the wind?” Daddy asks, but he isn’t asking me. He seems to be asking the latch itself. He stares at it as if it will come undone of its own accord. Provide the answer he needs. The latch remains shut. It keeps silent. We get in the Dodge, and Daddy drives me to school. Before I climb down from the cab, he writes a short note on the back of an old grocery list. Daddy always writes in tidy block letters and in only capitals. Addressed TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, the note is for the secretary. My excuse for being late.

I’m handing the note to the secretary when I see her. It’s been five years, but she looks the same. Same black leather briefcase. Same dull brown hair. And there’s even a run in her panty hose, only in a different place this time. I hold my breath and cross my fingers: Alicia Bernstein from Social Services has not come for me. I will not allow it.

The secretary takes the note, reads it, crumples it with a tiny fist, and tosses it into the wastebasket bin even though the cardboard recycling bin is right beside it. The social worker is talking to Principal White. Two walls of his office are made from thick glass, and the blinds are up. His office reminds me of the refrigerated room at The Flower Lady, only it’s not filled with beauty.

Divided by glass and one closed door, their conversation is on mute. Alicia Bernstein is opening her briefcase, and I can almost hear the click of the hardware as it echoes from past to present while she reaches in for a manila folder. The secretary cracks her gum to get my attention. She holds the tardy note for my new teacher, and I almost rip the paper when I grab it.

I walk so fast, I run out of breath, and when I stop to get it back I read the note. The secretary forgot to mark the time of my arrival, which means I have all the time in the world.

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