The Decomposition of Jack by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

Author:Kristin O'Donnell Tubb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

20

Bad Stuff Spilling Out Is Good

After lunch, me, André, and Joey Fillipelli are laughing and bouncing off each other like a trio of Ping-Pong balls. We pass Ms. Bennett in the main hallway.

“Mr. Acosta, can I have that minute with you now?” she asks. She adjusts her cat-eye glasses at the corner, and I’m not going to lie, it makes her look like a kick-butt supervillain.

Joey elbows me. “You’re in trouble,” he mutters.

“Uh, sure,” I say to Ms. Bennett, and I duck back into her classroom. Classrooms have a creepy hollow feeling when they’re not filled with breathing, sweating people.

I instinctively go to my desk, which is in the middle of the room. Then I realize how awkward that is, sitting there in the middle of all those empty desks with her at the front of the room. She must, too, because she perches on top of the desk two seats in front of mine.

“You didn’t turn anything in today, Jack,” she says. “On your project. I was really looking forward to yours, too.”

I burn like exhaust fumes. I wait for her to continue, but she’s not going to continue. How do teachers do that? Just sit there in all the uncomfortable silence? “I guess I don’t really have much of an update,” I say through my dry throat. Parched. Mummified.

“That’s unlike you,” Ms. Bennett continues at last. “You’re usually a very good student. Your grades have slipped this unit, Jack. In fact, you’re not passing this class currently. What’s going on?”

Phoenix flashes through my mind suddenly. Advocate for yourself.

But instead, I feel anger burbling up inside me. Stage Two Decomposition: Gasses. Bloating. Discoloration. I respond more harshly than I expect to: “Nothing.”

Ms. Bennett looks over the top of her red eyeglasses. Man, she really has this supervillain thing down. “You sure? Nothing going on . . . at home?”

Her eyes. It’s the look I always try to avoid when I’m out there scraping up guts: pity.

Rigor mortis hits. My jaw locks shut. My muscles clench. My nails dig into my palms.

How would she know what’s going on at my home?

Does she really care that my dad moved out eight weeks ago?

Does it matter to her that my mom is obsessed with dead things? And I’m not really sure how healthy that is? That people think I eat roadkill? Or maybe that I just collect it for kicks like some kind of morbid Dr. Death? That they call me names like the Roadkill Kid and Jack Splat?

My Stage Two Decomposition almost morphs into Stage Three: active decay. In Stage Three, the cadaver reaches a point of rupture. Bacteria burst through the skin’s surface.

I stand too quickly, and my desk chair squeaks extra-loud in this empty room. But I pull back on my anger. Rein it in to Stage Two. I force myself to smile through clenched teeth.

“Nope, all’s good! Can I go now?”

Ms. Bennett stands, too. She looks at me like she did earlier, like I’m a specimen under a microscope.

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