Quaking (15 page)

Then I hear shuffling outside my door. “Matt?” It is Sam’s voice. “Can I talk with you?”

I do not respond. My mouth is hanging open but I do not know how to make my voice work.

“Matt?”

I make a sound in my throat and a moan comes out of my mouth. I sound like the kid.

“Matt? I need to come in. I’m not going to knock, okay?”

The man is not an idiot.

“I’m opening the door now.”

I look up at him, my mouth still hanging open. It is the only loose part of my body. The rest of me—fingers, arms, legs, feet—are wrapped around me like a contortionist. I am a tightly tangled fit of twine.

Sam leans against the door frame and stares into my eyes. It is not the stupid clown Sam. It is the no-nonsense Sam. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He presses his lips together and starts yanking his knuckles and making them pop. Loudly.

The popping pulls me out of my stupor. Quickly. I am rapidly moving toward irritated and disgusted.

He rubs his MIA bracelet and lets out a long breath. “I know that must have been frightening for you.”

Oh, no, Sam. It is a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning. Under a chair. With rocks crashing through glass toward you.

“I know you’ve already been through some rough times in your life,” Sam says.

I shrug.“So have we all, right.” I do not say it like a question but he answers, anyway.

“No. A lot of kids have had very happy, sheltered lives, especially compared to you.”

I stare at him. Enough with the Quaker honesty, already! “Is this supposed to be making me feel better?”

He gives his sad clown smile. “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

“No, thank you.”

He loses the trace of a smile. “You’re a strong girl, honey. Really strong. In fact, I think you can handle just about anything.”

I am thinking,You do not know me very well, then, Sam. I am no George Fox. If I were not already turned off religion, this would certainly do it for me.

“Don’t you want to talk about what happened today?”

Jessica is behind him, holding a cup with steam rising from it. “Matt, I made you some tea.” She squeezes past Sam and I smell the raspberry even before she gives me the mug.

“Thanks,” I mumble. My hands are warm and the steam rises to my face, letting me hide. And that is where I want to be right now. Hidden.

Somehow Jessica knows this because she kisses the top of my head and walks quietly out of the room, tugging Sam’s arm so he follows behind her. He is saying, “No, honey, I think—shouldn’t we—” but Jessica shushes him.

She pops her head back in my room. “Matt, you know we’re here for you whenever you want us, right?”

I nod, the mug in front of me, and she disappears, smiling, behind the steam.

CHAPTER TWENTY

 

T
hat night I am freezing. It is so darn cold. Is it always this cold? Maybe I just never noticed. I put my hand by the floor vent.There is only cold air blowing out. Why do we need air-conditioning when it is zero degrees outside?

I cannot sleep. I put on my jacket for the arctic walk to the thermostat downstairs. I flip on the switch in the half bath, leaving the door almost closed so the light does not wake up Sam and Jessica. There is enough light for me to read the thermostat, though. It is fifty-four degrees. Fifty-four is an outside temperature. What is an outside temperature doing inside?

I turn the dial up to eighty and think about Hawaii. I am waiting for the instant surge of sunshine. It does not come. Now I wish I had put my boots on because my feet, even in socks, are freezing. There is arctic air blasting them from the vent. I stamp them to keep them from turning to solid ice.

I hear a click and am blinded by light from the living room. There is a rustling, and Jessica comes out in her flannel nightgown and sweater. “Matt, honey, are you okay?”

“I am freezing.”

She pushes the hair out of her face and looks at the thermostat.

“It does not work,” I inform her. “It is not a real thermostat. It is a placebo-stat. It is only there to make you think you have control over the heat.”

She shakes her head and grimaces. “It’s the heat pump. It never feels warm. I hate it.”

It is nice to hear Jessica hate something. No one should be all-loving. It is not normal.

She opens the hall closet and pulls at boxes on the top shelf. “Ah, here it is.” She takes out a black and gray blanket-type thing and smiles at it.“This was my grandmother’s shawl.”

“The grandmother of the blue-dented-pot fame?”

Jessica laughs and shakes out the shawl. “One and the same. It’s an angora wool shawl, which her mother, my great-grandmother, brought over from Ireland. There’s a little rip somewhere. . . .” She examines the corners. “Ah, here it is.” She holds up a corner with dark blue yarn woven through it. “I fixed it, thinking the blue would blend in enough.” She scrunches her nose up.“Maybe if I were a better seamstress it would have, but I’m afraid sewing isn’t my forte.”

“It looks fine,” I tell her. “I like the tassels.” There are wispy, ghostly threads of yarn fringing the entire shawl.They start solid next to the body of the shawl and stretch out into such fine threads they seem to disappear into the air. There is something unearthly about them, as if they are tying together what is and what was.

Jessica smiles. “And it’s warm and soft. Feel it.”

I pull back. “I do not like wool. It makes me itch.”

“Not this kind. This is as soft as cotton balls but so warm.” She puts her face against it as if to prove her point.

I hesitate, then stroke the shawl like it is a cat. Jessica wraps it around my hand and I notice instant warmth. I let out a sigh.

“I want you to have this.”

“For tonight?”

She smiles. “Forever.”

“You will not miss it?”

She looks at me, still smiling. “Oh, I’ll see it all the time, and I’ll enjoy seeing you using it.” She puts it around me, even over my head. “You remind me of my grandmother.”

“That is because I look like a little old Irish peasant at the moment.”

“No, I mean your personalities.” Jessica puts her arm around the shawl, my jacket, and me, and gives a squeeze.

“She was somewhat obnoxious, I take it.”

“No,” Jessica says, giving a soft laugh and holding me close. “I loved her very, very much.”

I do not know what to say. And I do not know why my nose is getting stuffy and I have to swallow so hard.

She strokes my shawl-head for a long time. It makes me warm and drowsy.

Finally, I yawn. “What was Grandmother-of-the-Shawl’s name?”

“Maggie Mahone. She was full of wonderful stories, so I’m sure you’ll have pleasant dreams.” Jessica turns the bathroom light off and steers me toward the stairs, with a little hug. “Good night, Matt.”

“Night.” I pull the shawl tighter around me. It is cozy. “Thanks,” I mumble. I am not sure if I am thanking Maggie Mahone or Jessica. I do not think Jessica heard me. Perhaps Maggie Mahone did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 

I
take Maggie Mahone’s shawl on the bus with me. It covers both me and my backpack. Still, I shrink in my seat. The bus has to detour around some construction on lovely Route 229.We drive past the Meeting House, and I see what I had not seen when we left the day before. There is red paint, like splattered blood, all over the front of the Meeting House. I shudder. People—I recognize most of them, like Chuck and Laurie—are painting white over the blood. So far, you can still see the red oozing through.

The Rat and his Vermin crowd to my side of the bus to get a better view. I shrink down into my seat.They are jeering and snickering at the “whitewashers.”

I pull Maggie Mahone’s shawl tighter around me.

At lunchtime, the peace club is spilling out of the library conference room onto not one, but two large tables. I sit by myself at the third.

“Okay, everyone,” Mrs. Jimenez says, trying to get everyone’s attention. The librarian glares at her. “It’s great to see so many of you,” her voice strains a loud whisper, “but from now on our meetings will be immediately after school on Tuesdays. I’m afraid—well, glad—that we’re getting to be such a large group we can’t fit in a conference room, and we really can’t hold meetings during the day in the library.”

“Aw, man,” a boy with long blond hair says, “I’ve got cross-country on Tuesdays starting next week.”

“We’re lucky we get to meet at all.” I recognize one of the original students from several weeks ago. “If it were up to—uh, a certain teacher, we’d be banned.”

“Let me guess,” says a boy with a peace symbol on his shirt. “Does his last name start with
M
?”

I am thrown for a second because I was expecting to hear “
W
.”Then I remember it is only me who calls him Mr. Warhead.

“Yeah, Rob, and he’d really like what you’ve done to your jeans!” someone says.

The peace shirt boy stands up, grinning, and I see his torn jeans and wonder what the big deal is. He turns his back to the tables and lifts his T-shirt but I cannot see his jeans because of all the people.

“So?” someone says. “It’s an American flag.”

“Dude!” someone yells back. “It’s upside down! That’s the symbol of distress.”

Mrs. Jimenez smiles but shakes her head. “Please don’t let . . .You Know Who see that.”

“Voldemort?” Rob asks.

I am starting to like this Rob.

His large brown eyes are open wide but there is the slightest hint of a smile on his lips. He reminds me of an actor. I know! He looks like a younger version of Will Smith.

Mrs. Jimenez sighs. “Let’s try to be understanding.”

“Understanding?” Rob says. “What about the attack on that Quaker church—while people were inside?”

Mrs. Jimenez shudders. “Horrifying, I know. It’s getting dangerous out there.You heard what the mayor said?”

“About the churches?” It is Susan. She shakes her head. “That’ll never happen. I mean, some people might stop going to church, but churches—or synagogues either for that matter—aren’t just going to close down for a few weeks.”

“And why should they?” Rob asks.“What about freedom of religion? Freedom of assembly? Freedom of speech?”

“I know,” Mrs. Jimenez says, “but the mayor has to keep his citizens safe. This is a small town with a lot of churches and temples, and he can’t promise that every church will be surrounded by police since most of them have services at roughly the same time. There’s only one peace vigil—Thursday nights—so he can cover that.”

“But he still warned about the danger of going,” Susan says quietly.

Rob kicks his feet off of a wooden chair so suddenly, the chair clatters to the floor.

“Shhhhh!” the librarian sputters.

Rob puts the chair upright but his teeth are clenched. He shakes his head. “Does anyone else feel like we’re living in a totalitarian society? Supposedly, we’re fighting to bring freedom and democracy to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, what’s happening to freedom and democracy at home?”

There is no answer.

Rob looks around the room. “Why are we all just sitting here? Why don’t we go see the mayor and tell him how we feel?”

“Right now?” someone asks.

“I don’t mean cut class, I mean we should make an appointment and go tell him that this sucks.” Rob’s eyes flit from face to face, including mine. His eyes linger on mine and it is not scary but my heart does start beating faster.

“That’s it!” He turns from me to Mrs. Jimenez. “Why don’t we tell the mayor he should be stopping the local terrorists instead of telling innocent people to stop living their normal lives?”

The room rumbles with agreement and I am surprised to hear a “yes” escape from even my mouth before the librarian comes over and shushes us all.

At the end of the day, the bus leaves school using the detour and drives past the Meeting House again. I close my eyes. I cannot look. I let the shawl cover my ears so I cannot hear what the Rat says. I hear him laughing but I keep my head down and refuse to let him in.

My head is still down, in disappearing mode, when I step into Casa Quaker. Jessica is on the phone. She tugs on my shoulder and hands me a postcard of the interior of a church in Washington, D.C.

It is from Loopy. I wave to Jessica and walk upstairs, reading it.

I flip the card over and look at the red stained-glass windows and wonder how the inside of the church looked with shards of red glass.

I sigh and hear Jessica still talking on the phone.

“I know. I wish he wouldn’t put himself in such danger. . . .Yes, I’ve tried to talk to him, but you know Sam. . . . My heart is in my throat every time he leaves the house.”

I close my door. I do not want to hear this.

“Matt!” Jessica calls up the stairs.

I jump. “Yes.”

“Honey, I have to run to the legal aid clinic. Sam will be home soon.Will you be all right by yourself?”

“I guess.”

“Okay, see you later.” I hear the front door open.

I open my door. “Wait!”

“Yes?”

“Where is . . . the kid?”

There is a pause. “
Rory
is at physical therapy. I’m picking him up on my way back.”

“Oh.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I will be fine.”

“See you, sweetheart.”

The front door closes.

It is the first time I have been in this house alone. It is strange. I do not like it. I go down to the kitchen, looking for signs of life. The computer is on and I walk over to it. I sit down on the wheely stool and look at the opened site.