Roman: 8 years old – Isabella: 6 years old.
I hate this part of the city as much as I hate the other.
I hate school. Doesn’t matter which school, I know I’ll hate it.
I hate Steve.
I think I hate Steve more than I hate Troy, and I’ve only known Steve for three weeks. I’ve learned he yells louder when I speak in a language he doesn’t understand. Idiot. Yelling tires him out—I think it’s because of the beer he drinks. He leaves me alone the sooner he starts yelling. Then I can run to the room I share with some boy half my size and another guy who’s older than us and thinks that makes him better.
He’s not better. I’m still teaching him this lesson.
I hate those two boys too, Josh and Perez, but since we all agree that we hate Steve more than we hate each other, we haven’t killed each other yet.
I’ll give myself another month in this place before I’m sent to another home. After being expelled from all the other schools on the city’s eastern side, Margaret said they had no choice but to move me to another area where they can “accommodate” my different needs.
I’m not sure what that means, but at least I don’t hate Margaret—except when she gives me that look where her eyebrows pinch, and I know she’s about to sigh, “Again, Roman?”
She tries to make me talk about my feelings. She also likes to bring me snacks. I know it’s a bribe because I’ll do anything for a Pop-Tart.
I’m always so freaking hungry.
Even if she feeds me, all adults are stupid. She’s as useless as the rest if she can’t do anything about Steve. Or maybe she doesn’t want to.
But I heard Steve say a couple of words to describe his wife that I think works well for Margaret (sometimes): Fucking Bitch. I don’t know what it means.
Maybe I’ll ask the teacher about it.
I even told Margaret about going into Steve’s basement one night without food and not leaving the cold room until the next night.
A whole twenty-eight hours—wait. Are there twenty-eight or twenty-four hours in a day?
Ugh. It doesn’t matter because I saw her write “active imagination” after I told her last week. That was three weeks after I hit a teacher on the first week of school and ended up here… at another school. In my defense, the teacher called me a menace when I wasn’t being one.
So I showed him what a real menace looked like.
Then that stupid teacher called me an “attention seeker.” Frick him.
Anyway, I have a plan. Perez said there’s one other school in the area. If I get kicked out of this school and the other, Margaret said they won’t have a choice but to move me to another city or a group home. And then her brows will pinch, then she’ll say, “Again, Roman, really? We talked about this.”
Not like moving me would make any difference. All the schools will be crap, and all the teachers will be the same.
The vice principal of Woodside Elementary and Ms. Something are saying the same thing the last school told me. I’m only listening to snippets of it as we walk to class.
We’re here to support you, Roman.
We understand moving to another school in the middle of the year is very scary.
All the other kids are going to love you, Roman.
We want what’s best for you, Roman.
It’s what they all say. But they don’t mean it, because if they did, they wouldn’t make me live with someone like Steve.
Or Troy.
The dad at the last house was a fan of throwing things to practice his aim. He liked using us kids as moving targets. The mom of the house did her best to make up for it by making sure there was food on the table every day, even if it was just a slice of bread.
The mom at my current house sucks as much as the dad. The last time either of them remembered to feed the three of us was yesterday morning.
I am fucking hungry, to say the least.
But whatever, I’ll be gone soon enough, and who knows if the next house will be worse than Troy and Steve combined.
The school here has classrooms spread around to circle the main field. All I’m focused on is the corner, where there’s a blind spot between the fence and a building. No one would know someone is there unless they walk that way.
It’s perfect.
We enter the locker area between two classrooms, and Ms. Something takes my empty bag from me to put it on a free hook. She doesn’t wait for me before going into what I’m guessing is my temporary classroom—before I get moved, that is.
I turn my head in time to hear two boys laughing at a little girl rummaging through a bag. Her dark pigtails fall over her face as she turns away from them when one of the boys—the skinny one—says, “Hey, Isa.” The uglier one hits the skinny one’s shoulder, snickering like he can’t wait for the joke. “Say raspberry.”
They both burst into a fit of laughter, throwing their heads back as if it was the funniest thing they’ve ever said.
It’s not. How the hell is saying raspberry even funny?
The girl looks up at the two boys, bottom lip quivering and eyes glistening as she hugs herself.
Get a grip.
I roll my eyes and follow the vice principal into the classroom. Those types of bullies are boring and weak, always running their mouths, and wouldn’t know what a punch is until it hits them. Once it does, they either figure out how to throw one back and make it fun for me, or they cry and beg. Both outcomes seem good to me, especially when they end up doing both.
Other than finding out the classroom I share a building with is two grades below me, nothing eventful happens in class with my overenthusiastic teacher trying to convince everyone learning is fun.
As soon as the lunch bell rings, I grab my bag and beeline to the blind spot tucked away in the corner.
All the other students exit the rooms and head straight onto the field and playground, making this corner of paradise all mine. At this time of the day, the sun sits just right, so the place is only partly covered by shade. Splinters threaten my skin as I slide down the fence and onto the pavement. The sun sears my face, but I’d rather burn than be cold in the shadows. I’m not interested in feeling the sharp chill again.
Not after Steve put me in the basement.
My stomach sinks angrily when I open my backpack. I shouldn’t have gotten used to finding food in my bag rather than a pencil, book, and beer bottle cap. I expect nothing less from useless Steve.
Would Margaret call this an active imagination? Frick her, and frick Steve. She’d probably call the house, and Steve would tell her a heroic story about how he slaved away making my lunch, only for me to forget it. Then I’d hear that line I hate hearing everyone say about me.
Attention seeking.
They’re wrong. I don’t want their attention. There’s nothing good that can come from it.
Even the basement wouldn’t be all bad if it wasn’t so cold and quiet and I wasn’t so hungry. No one to yell at me? No one to hit me?
As I said, the less attention, the better.
It’s safe in there. But scary. And my lungs do that weird thing where they hurt, and it gets hard to breathe. I hate it.
Attention seeking.
Stupid, stupid, stupid Margaret.
Grabbing the used textbook and blunt pencil, I let my hands do all the talking while my brain continues flashing pictures I can’t keep up with. It’s so loud I wish it would shut up for two minutes.
Thick, angry strokes of graphite form shapes on the lined page. Circles and triangles, one right after the other, until a boy smiles with his razor-sharp teeth while the people around him scream.
My hand freezes as a chill falls over me—like the feeling of being watched. I snap up at the intruder with a glare, and the girl stiffens in shock. She looks just like a cartoon with her big brown eyes gawking at me… right before the familiar look I know all too well transforms it.
I’ve seen it on the cartoon mouse—I think his name is Jerry—when he sees Tom or when I come into class bruised and bloodied. Fear.
Her bottom lip trembles like it did when the two boys teased her in the locker area. She gulps as she looks between the field and me, then back at the field, like she’s trying to decide who’s the worst monster.
When she drops her head down, I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief, but then she goes ahead and ruins my lunch by walking over to me.
I scowl at her. She’s clearly decided I’m less of a threat to her than Skinny and Ugly. Her worn sneakers scuff against the concrete pavement as she shuffles to a spot a few feet away from me. I stare at her, daring her to look me in the eye.
I don’t care if this was her spot before, because this is my spot now.
Until I leave, at least.
Minutes pass, and the tension radiates from her as she sits there, staring at the wall, still like a rock. So freaking still. Now, because of her, my hand doesn’t want to work. Nothing is going onto the page the way it should. The straight lines are curved, and the curved lines are straight.
I’m not feeling it, and it’s all her fault.
I’ve seen kittens less nervous than her. If I listen closely enough, I’m convinced she isn’t breathing, and the lack of sound coming from her is pissing me off.
It’s so quiet. What the hell is her problem?
“Loosen up,” I snap.
I’m not touching her, not even looking at her. She just needs to chill out.
With a squeak, she yanks her bright pink bag to her chest with shaky hands. It’s one of those nice backpacks with glitter and stuff on it. I bet she’s actually a fancy pants. Her parents probably packed her lunch. With her ridiculously wonky pigtails, I’m sure they put some stupid note in her bag, saying they love her and hope she has a good day.
She’s not like those annoying rich kids, though. None of those idiots would be caught dead wearing shoes with holes in them or a shirt that has to be at least three sizes too big.
Still, the kid in front of me doesn’t look like she’s ever known what it’s like to be locked in a basement or what it feels like to have a heated fork brand her skin. I bet she gets tucked into bed every night, like in all those books the teachers read.
Spoiled brat.
The sharp sound of a zipper opening snags my attention. I watch her small hands pause for a second before digging into her bag to grab a worn stuffed toy. It’s some character from a show I watched once—when I was at a house that had a TV.
Something about a mouse. Or a rat. Macky Mouse or something?
Whatever the thing is, it looks just like the little earrings she has on. It’s like she’s obsessed with the pest. Troy set up traps all around the house to kill them.
Her eyes dart up to me, and I look down like she isn’t there. Happy—or at least not stiff and staring at a wall—she places the toy next to her with her delicate little hands and arranges its legs to sit upright by itself.
When she pulls out her lunch box (a ripped plastic bag), I can’t keep my attention hidden anymore.
What does she have? Is she one of those kids that gets a well-balanced diet with that triangle diagram thingy? Maybe she’s one of the lucky ones who gets leftover dinner for lunch. A kid at my other school got to bring takeout for lunch, and the ass would show it off to everyone in the class.
He stopped bringing them in once I started taking them from him.
Pigtails sets the plastic bag on the ground next to the toy. I wait with bated breath as she takes out the contents.
First, she pulls out two crackers—the ones that are drier than sand but do their job filling you up—and gives one to the toy as she nibbles on the other.
What the heck?
The thing isn’t real, and she’s giving her lunch to a toy? I knew she was spoiled, wasting food like that. If she isn’t going to eat it, then I will.
The mouse shrinks back when she catches me watching. But I don’t look away, tapping my pencil on the paper, waiting to see what else comes out of her lunch bag and if she’s going to waste that too.
I can already tell the next thing isn’t just a cracker. It’s too big to be. My mouth waters at all the possibilities of everything it could be.
My hunger doesn’t stop when she pulls out her pathetic-looking lunch. It’s just two thin slices of bread, partly squashed from sitting inside her bag without a container. Even though it doesn’t look like there might be anything inside, I’m still salivating.
I’m about to scream at her for being such a spoiled brat when she tears the bruised sandwich in two, squishing the butter through the rip. But my mouth slams shut when Pigtails holds her hand out, buttered bread offered to me as if I’m someone to be pitied.
“You shouldn’t share your food,” I bite out at the same time my stomach grumbles.
Her big eyes drop away from my face, and her bottom lip quivers again. Does this girl ever stop crying? Life sucks. Get over it. No use crying about it.
“Oh,” she says, voice so soft I almost miss it. “I thought—’
“Thought what?”
“I thought you were hungry,” she whispers, lowering the food onto the plastic bag directly between us.
She pulls out a reading book from her bag, and I watch her flip page after page while nibbling on her sandwich timidly. When the last bite disappears, she places the cracker next to the remaining bread and pulls the doll into her teeny arms, quietly reading her book.
It doesn’t matter how long I stare at her or how long I pretend to look away, my stomach doesn’t stop groaning, and she doesn’t spare a second glance at the remainder of her lunch—the same lunch sitting closer to me than her.
Tentatively, I inch my fingers toward the food, waiting for her to snatch it away from me as the other kids sometimes do. But she does the opposite. She gives me this sad little smile that kicks me in the gut when I take the first bite.
It’s awful. Both her sad look, and the crap I’m eating.
The bread is probably drier than the cracker next on my list of things to eat. The butter isn’t even spread properly, as Troy’s wife would. She always made sure she got the spread to every corner, and nothing was too clumpy or too thin, and it would always go into a container to stop it from becoming mush.
This tastes like a child made it, and the butter is only in the middle of the bread. I stuff the rest into my mouth, not bothering to savor it or enjoy the feeling of something other than water in my stomach, just in case Pigtails changes her mind.
Too caught up in filling my face, I miss the prickle of her stare until she finally asks, “What’s your name?”
Her voice is so soft and delicate, like a princess who always has flowers in her hair, a big puffy dress, and a blinding smile.
I run my tongue over my dry lips, trying to get some moisture on them after eating the driest food ever. My eyes drift to the drink bottle that’s now next to the plastic bag. It’s the super crinkly plastic kind from the grocery store that’s thrown away once it’s empty.
She shouldn’t be so giving. Someone is going to take advantage of it one day and hurt her.
“It doesn’t matter.” My nose wrinkles as I grab the bottle and inhale a healthy amount of the liquid, leaving her half of it. “I’ll be gone soon anyways.”
“Oh.”
She sounds sad. Why does she sound sad?
The bell rings, and she doesn’t waste time packing away her stuff and scurrying off like her tail is on fire.
The next day, I spot the pigtailed girl in the locker room again at the end of recess, standing in the corner while Skinny and Ugly laugh. Something in my stomach churns when I see the tears running down her cheeks, her face burning red like she’s been crying for a while. Then she wipes them away with her sleeve and hides behind her hair when the final bell rings.
I didn’t see her at the gap in the corner during the break. I thought she found another place where she could hide from the world.
I guess I was wrong.
She runs to her classroom before the two idiots can say another word, and I watch as they cross the foyer and into the room behind me.
There was one other thing I learned yesterday: Skinny and Ugly are in my class. And Skinny and Ugly like to pick on the younger grades.
I know their type; the bad kids who think they’re invincible just because someone smaller than them can’t fight back. Like Pigtails.
When lunch rolls around, I follow them out and wait for them as they grab their bags and disappear to one of the benches near the back of the school. Before Skinny can put his ass on the seat, I sink my grip into the back of his shirt and yank backward. I kick my leg out, so he stumbles over my foot and loses his balance, landing on the ground with a solid thud.
Ugly is as stupid as he looks because he lunges for me, with no form or practice, all rage. He stops screaming when my fist collides with his face, and he rears back, squealing like a little baby.
Skinny tries to scramble to his feet, but my foot lands on the side of his ribs. “What’s your problem, dude?” he hisses, clutching his side.
“Talk to the mouse again, and I’ll do a lot worse to your stupid face,” I sneer and snatch one of the backpacks. I almost hit them again, just because it isn’t empty like mine.
“Who?” I’m not sure which one speaks.
“Pigtails.”
Without a second glance at them, I shove one of their lunch boxes into my bag and storm away. I can feel them gawking at me, probably nursing their wounds at the same time.
They won’t tell the teacher. What are they going to say?
He hit us because we were picking on the girl two grades younger than us.
I don’t think so.
She’s already there by the time I get to our spot. The rat doll thing is perched next to her, holding half a cracker, while the other is between her teeth, nibbling away like a rabbit as she reads her book.
The same pathetic sandwich is on the same useless, ripped plastic bag. Her pigtails are messier than yesterday, with one sitting near the center of her head and one just above the ear, tied with mismatching hair ties.
Her shoes are holey. A church would be jealous.
Her top is ripped.
The second she sees me, she becomes the same scared mouse from yesterday, hunching her shoulders and staring at the ground as if she’s willing me to go away.
I drop beside her, and she flinches, even though I am a safe distance away.
That needs to stop.
I’m not going to hurt her. Other people can try to.
Besides a sideways glance of curiosity, she doesn’t acknowledge me as I pull out Ugly’s or Skinny’s lunch box, clicking the side open and revealing the type of lunch I thought she would have.
A banana and a decent slice of bread with chicken, mayo, and greens layered in the middle. I push a finger into the bread, checking that it wouldn’t pass as cardboard.
“Eat.” I shove the whole container in her direction and grab her untouched sandwich.
Her eyes grow wide as I take a bite of the awful thing—I’m not even going to call it food.
I bare my teeth out of reflex when she snatches the bread from my hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Her pigtails swing side to side as she shakes her head frantically, trembling as she rips her sandwich in half to push it back into my hand.
Is she serious right now? She’s going to hog a sandwich and a half all to her—
She also tears the other sandwich in half, leaving one on the container and bringing the other to her lips.
“We’ll each have a side,” she says.
I shove the sandwich she made into my mouth and swallow it down. The other one tastes better than anything I’ve eaten in a long time.
Her gaze is trained on me with keen interest. “I thought you shouldn’t share food.”
“Shut up. You don’t count.”
She looks up at me with her little button nose and ridiculous hair, and her eyes sparkle with something I can only call admiration. She’s looking at me like I’m her savior. Just because of a piece of bread?
If she doesn’t stop acting like this, she will get eaten alive by people far worse than the two boys, who are probably still crying over a bit of pain.
But she doesn’t look away; with each bite, the light in her eyes only grows brighter. That look… I’ve never seen that look before. At least not when I’m involved.
And I don’t know if I like it.
It’s weird.
I clear my throat to end the silence as I bounce my foot. “Roman.”
Her little forehead wrinkles. “Huh?”
“My name.”
She blinks. “Oh.” Does this girl ever say more than a few words? What is wrong with her? She clears her throat and frowns at the ground between us as she says, “Woah-man.”
“What? No. Roman.”
She sucks her bottom lip and hides part of her face behind a pigtail. “Woah-man.”
“No, it’s—’ I snap my mouth shut.
What did Ugly and Skinny tell her to say yesterday? Raspberry…? The angry beast—the same one that Margaret is always telling me I need to learn to control—rears its head.
Those dickwads.
“It doesn’t matter.” I try to save her from feeling bad. “I don’t like the name anyway.”
She looks back up at me, almond-shaped eyes glossed over, and I want to yell at myself for making them that way.
In her sweet voice, she says, “I do.”
“Why?”
I’ve never liked my name. No one has ever said it with any sort of love or care. It’s thrown around like some kind of insult.
The book she was reading flips to the cover page, where there are twelve drawings of different men and women with golden leaves around their heads and what look like white sheets wrapped around their bodies.
A tiny finger points to one of the men whose eyes are narrowed, covered in armor with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. “He looks like a Woahman, just like you.”
“It says his name is Ares.”
She nods thoughtfully. “But he looks like a Roman.” The ‘R’ still comes out as a ‘W.’
“It says he’s the God of War.”
Brown eyes peer at the writing, and her mouth moves like she’s sounding out the word. I don’t think she knows what it means.
I shrug. “Still don’t like it.”
She twists her lips, looking around our nook like she might find a response somewhere. Her attention lands on her toy, and I practically see the lightbulb go off in her head.
“How about Mickey?”
My lips twist into a scowl. “Are you calling me a rat?”
The hold she has on me the second she laughs is immediate. I’ve never heard anything like it. There’s joy in there, but something more. It’s like the feeling I have when I finally have a meal or when the sounds in my head stop.
“No, silly. He’s a mouse. You can be Mickey, and I can be Minnie.” She sighs in wonder as she hugs the decrepit thing to her chest. “Mouses are my favorite.”
Mice, I think.
It’s fitting for her.
“What if I don’t want to call you Minnie? What can I call you then?”
The look that flushes her face is worse than getting kicked in the balls. I’ve disappointed her. I’m not sure why.
She chews her lip. “Isabella. But everyone calls me Isa.”
Her name triggers some distant memory. “I’ll call you Bella.” Because she’s the only person I’ve ever met who deserves to be called pretty. Even with her messed up hair and inside-out ripped t-shirt.
“But—’
I stop her before she tries to protest. “I like Bella.”
Her smile is bright enough to stop the sun, and with it, maybe even my plans of escaping this place.
