Ida B Page 5

  “Ida B . . . ” Mama started twice, but she never finished. And I just let it lie.

  After breakfast I brushed my teeth, got my bag, walked out to the stop, and waited. I went out way ahead of time so I didn’t have to talk with Mama and Daddy, so I didn’t have to hear anything even closely resembling, “It will be all right.”

  It was raining and windy, but I left the umbrella Mama’d put out for me closed up in my bag. That rain soaked my legs and pelted my face and my eyeballs till they hurt, but I was glad because it just made me madder and more determined to be full-blown ornery by the time I got to school. And when the bus pulled up, I got right on without turning to see if Mama was waving from the window or Daddy was watching from the barn.

  “Good morning,” said the bus driver, smiling and cheerful.

  “Morning,” I said back like metal: cold, hard and flat.

  I walked up the steps and paused at the top of the aisle. I made my eyes into slits so I’d look as mean as I felt. But when you make your eyes into slits, everything gets blurry, so everybody on that bus became blurry nobodies. Nobody I wanted to know, anyway. I walked down the aisle like that, not seeing anybody, just checking for a spot.

  About halfway down, I found a seat all to myself. I sat there for the whole ride, squinting at the back of the seat in front of me with laser eyes, my mouth ready to growl, my hands like sharp claws gripping the bag in my lap, not thinking anything except, I hate this, over and over again.

  Ten other kids got on the bus before we got to school, but nobody sat with me. I must have radiated foul meanness of the most terrible kind. Like there was a dark cloud of rank, revolting air around me that no one wanted to penetrate for fear of excruciating pain or agonizing injury.

  When we got to school I filed off the bus and into the building with everybody else. Then I followed the signs to the office and stood in front of a big wooden counter.

  “Can I help you?” asked a lady I might have thought looked nice if I wanted to believe anybody here was nice, and if I could actually see her, since my eyes were still like slits.

  “I’m Ida Applewood,” I said back.

  “Well, Ida Applewood, what can I do for you?” Even with my blurry vision, I could tell she was smiling. You could tell it just from the sound of her voice. I hated it.

  “I’m new,” I said, and you could tell by the sound of my voice that her happiness had not infected me.

  “Then let’s see where you belong.”

  “I belong at home,” is what my head wanted to say, before my new hard heart got a chance to quiet it. All of a sudden, I could see home and smell it and feel it, and I missed it something terrible. But before I started blubbering and babbling everything to her, my heart stopped me. It reminded me that even if I didn’t belong at Ernest B. Lawson Elementary School, I didn’t belong at home anymore, either. And I got mad all over again.

  “Here we are,” she said, like she was telling me something pleasing. “You’re in Ms. Washington’s class. That’s Room One Thirty.

  “Now, to get to your classroom,” she went on, “you go out this door, take a left, and it’s the third door on your right. It will say Ms. Washington, fourth grade, on a sign outside the classroom. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, with just a bit of nasty in my voice.

  Because at that moment, as I turned to go down the hall toward the Dungeon of Deadly Dullness that I was sure awaited me in Room 130 of that school, I was overfilled with misery. I needed to release a little bit of it before it got to dangerous levels and burst out of me in the form of a wicked vileness that lashed out at anything in its path, including innocent kindergartners.

  “You have a great day, Ida!” that woman called after me.

  But I didn’t say anything back. The less words the better, I was thinking, for everyone concerned.

  Chapter 15

  I stopped in the doorway of Room 130 for a minute, just taking it in so I could do like soldiers do before a battle: assess the enemy, formulate a plan, get armed, and attack.

  Some kids were still hanging up their coats, talking to each other, getting books out, making happy sounds. Outside the sun was starting to come out, and it was shining in the windows. There were rainbows and pictures and big colorful words on the bulletin boards. There was even a pretty rug at the far end of the room where there were no desks, only shelves of books that looked like real books, not schoolbooks. All that was missing were bluebirds and chirpy music.

  And there was Ms. Washington, I figured, sitting in a kid’s chair with her chin resting in her hand, listening to some girl who was picking her fingers and talking at the same time.

  I could tell this was a warm place. Not a warm temperature place, but a warm-feeling-inside place. Some part of me knew it, but my heart refused to feel it.

  So I kept looking around, making a list of everything in my head so I could use it if I had to for my plan to be unknown, uninvolved, and uninterested.

  “Well, hello,” I heard a low, friendly voice say.

  I looked over to where the voice came from, and there was Ms. Washington staring right at me and heading straight for me. That woman was like a truck: big and powerful and directed. But she moved smoothly and soundlessly, like a top-ofthe-line luxury model.

  “Are you Ida?” she asked, smiling as she came toward me.

  And I was so surprised by her, by her voice and her size and that I could feel her even when she was twenty feet away, that I just stood there for a bit. When I gathered myself together, all I could do was nod.

  “Welcome, Ida. I’m Ms. Washington,” she said, and she put out her hand to shake mine.

  I gave her my hand, not because I wanted to, but because I wasn’t thinking straight. Ms. Washington turning out to be nothing like I expected had temporarily disrupted my assessment of the enemy and my plan, but not for long. I watched my hand go up and down like a pump handle.

  “Why don’t you take off your coat and hang it up, and then I’ll show you around,” she said.

  So I headed to the coatroom and had myself back in fighting form by the time I got back to her.

  “Everyone, this is Ida Applewood, and she’s going to be in our class from now on,” Ms. Washington told the kids in the room.

  “Hi, Ida,” they all chimed.

  I stood there and gave them the blank-faced, Miss-America-the-Miserable-flat-hand-up-and-back-down-again wave.

  “Why don’t you each tell Ida your name and something about yourself,” Ms. Washington said.

  There was a girl named Patrice who had a sparkly shirt, sparkly fingernails, and sparkly barrettes, too, and said her best friend was Simone. There was a boy named Calvin who told me his favorite thing in the world was homework, and then he grinned real big at Ms. Washington. And there was a girl named Claire who said she liked to read and play with her friends and go on trips with her family and she would show me around if I wanted.

  There was a whole bunch of other ones, too, and they were all smiling like they were happy to meet me and happy to be there, and it was all I could do to look at them and be polite.

  “You poor suckers,” I wanted to say, and I don’t usually use that sort of language. “You just don’t know any better. But I know the deal.”

  “Ida, is that the name you go by, or do you have a nickname you like to use?” I heard Ms. Washington ask.

  Now I knew Ms. Washington was talking to me, but I couldn’t believe she was asking me that particular question. Like she was trying to tell me that all of those tribulations with Ms. Myers were just a bad dream, that this bright, cheerful place was what school was really like, and tomorrow it was going to rain silver dollars, too.

  She looked so sincere and caring I almost wanted to almost believe her. But I didn’t. And I wouldn’t in a million and a half years.

  “No. Just Ida,” I said.

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell us about yourself?” she asked me.

  Well, there were
a few things my mouth was itching to share. But I quickly decided that saying, “I hate school and anything that goes with it. And I completely expect that being a student in this class will suck the life out of me before the end of this week,” on the first day back at Ernest B. Lawson Elementary School probably wasn’t the best plan, even though it might be the most truthful.

  “No, ma’am” is all I said.

  “Well, all right,” Ms. Washington said back, sounding a little disappointed but not pushing it. “Let’s begin.”

  And it was all okay. Not good, but not the most terrible, excruciating, utterly painful experience ever.

  Nobody bothered or picked on me. They smiled at me and I just looked straight at them, my face blank like they weren’t even really there, which is the most effective technique for making people uncomfortable and ensuring that you will have no friends.

  I did the worksheets, lined up, followed directions, answered when I was called on, didn’t talk out of turn, and it was just fine. Better than being buried in an anthill with a boa constrictor around your neck and lima beans stuffed in your mouth.

  At recess we went outdoors. I sat on the steps just outside the back entrance, put my chin on my knees, and watched nothing.

  One of the girls from my class, the one named Claire, ran over, stopped in front of me, and asked, “Do you want to play with us, Ida?”

  “No,” I said right away without thinking about it, because that was my plan: no friends, no play, no smiling, no happy.

  “Okay,” she said back, looking surprised and maybe hurt, and walked away.

  And I did feel a little bit bad about not even trying to be nice. But I knew I was right because here’s the thing: how do you run and play when you feel like there are bricks of the heaviest sadness weighing down every part of your body? How do you laugh and talk when there are no laughs left inside of you?

  Just when I’d been sitting on those concrete steps for so long my back end was numb, Ms. Washington came over and sat down beside me, so close I could feel the warm coming out of her. I could smell peanut butter and summer flowers on her, too.

  “How’s it going, Ida?” she said, matter-of-fact, looking straight ahead just like me.

  “Okay.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?” she asked.

  I stuck with my standard response. “No, ma’am.”

  “Well,” she said, “when you want to talk, I’m ready to listen.” And while I do believe that statement is number five on the top-all-time-silliest-things-grown-ups-say list, Ms. Washington didn’t sound too silly when she said it.

  Ms. Washington gave me a minute to soften up and give in, because she didn’t know about my heart and its resolution, and that she was dealing with a mighty and unbending will.

  “I’ll see you inside, then,” she finally said, after a good stretch of silence. And she touched my arm as she got up. Just enough so I felt it after she was gone, but not so much that I minded.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

  Chapter 16

  The Yellow Prison of Propulsion dropped me off just where it had picked me up that morning.

  “See you tomorrow,” the bus driver hollered as he closed the door behind me. And that was the worst thing he could have said.

  I was full up with foulness again.

  As I stood there at the end of the drive, though, I realized I’d been so busy thinking about school all day, I hadn’t spent any time planning for what I’d do when I got home. All I knew was that I didn’t want to talk to anybody, because I didn’t have one nice thing to say anywhere in me. I did have a whole lot of things to say that could get me into trouble, though, especially if Daddy heard about them.

  But there was no Daddy watching from the barn. And Mama wasn’t at the stop or looking out the window. I was hoping she wouldn’t be up and around when I got inside, either, because I knew that if Mama was there, she’d want to talk.

  “How was your day, Ida B?” she’d say.

  Then she’d look at me with those tired eyes, and even my foulness would be stilled for a moment. I’d stand there with my mouth closed tight, my lips zipped, glued, and stapled together to keep the angry words that were banging to get out and have a go at Mama from escaping.

  But she’d ask me again, “Baby, how was your day?” and my heart would not be able to pass up two invitations to have its say.

  Those words would come shooting out of my mouth, heading straight for Mama. Words like, “What do you care?” and “You broke your promise” and “Have you seen my parents? Because mine disappeared and I’m living with two people who don’t keep their word and don’t care about me and are just plain mean.” Words that would make Mama’s eyes cry, and then maybe mine, too, and land me up to my armpits in the deepest pile of trouble ever.

  I needed a plan for avoiding Mama, so I walked up the drive real slow to give myself a chance to come up with a good one. By the time I got to the front door, I knew what I would do.

  “Hello,” I’d say very politely if Mama was waiting for me. Then when she asked me how my day was, I’d tell her, “Could you please excuse me? I have a desperate need that must be taken care of immediately.” I would cross my legs like you do when a certain kind of necessity strikes, make my face squinch up like I was about to burst, hobble up the stairs, spend three minutes and twenty-two seconds in the bathroom, and flush the toilet twice, even, to make it sound real. Then I would go to my room, and make a sign that read:

  Mildly Sick

  (but not so much she needs her temperature taken)

  Tired Child Inside.

  Please do not disturb until morning.

  At the bottom, I’d draw a picture of Lulu sitting right in front of my door, baring her teeth and hissing, “STAY OUT, please.”

  That way, I wouldn’t be telling any full-blown lies, and I wouldn’t get myself in so much hot water that I’d be Ida B Stew by dinnertime.

  I opened the front door just a crack and peeked around the corner to see what was waiting for me. But there was no Mama in the big chair or anywhere about. So I crept the rest of the way in, closed the door so quietly behind me, and tiptoed over to the stairs.

  And just as I put my right foot on the bottom step, smelling freedom but not quite tasting it, who should come running out from the kitchen, jumping and barking and throwing spit every which way like he hadn’t seen me in twenty years, but Rufus.

  Every single plan I’d made went scampering over to the fireplace, shot up the chimney, and disappeared into the sky.

  “Ida B?” I heard Mama calling from the kitchen.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said back while I wiped my face with the back of my hand to remove some of Rufus’s slimy mouth juice and gave him a none-too-pleased glare.

  “Come on out to the kitchen, honey.”

  “I need to go upstairs and get started on my homework” is what my brain thought would give me the best chance for escape, so I tried it out.

  But another voice answered me back. It was the Deputy of Doom and Disaster. “Ida B, come to the kitchen,” Daddy commanded.

  And that was the end of hope. I put my head down and dragged my backpack behind me, getting ready for nothing good.

  As I walked into the kitchen I could feel the two of them, one on either side of me. I decided I’d let them begin any conversing that had to occur.

  “Are you hungry, Ida B? Do you want something to eat?” Mama asked.

  “No thank you,” I said.

  “Honey,” Mama tried again, “do you want to sit down and talk a bit?”

  “I’m feeling kind of tired,” I told the table. “And I need to use the bathroom,” I added, saving a sliver of my previous plan. I started to turn around to get on my way.

  “Hold on, Ida B,” I heard the Master of Mercilessness say.

  I froze, just able to see the hallway and my path to liberation out of the corner of my left eye.

  “How was your day?” Daddy asked.

  Well
, it took me a minute to get over the shock that Daddy, of all people, would ask me that particular question. Especially since I was sure he did not want to hear Ida B’s One Hundred Ten Percent True and Brutally Honest Response.

  And now I faced a dilemma. I had to find a way to answer that inquiry without compromising my heart’s resolution, while avoiding the temper of a daddy who would not appreciate anything sounding close-to-rude.

  So this is what I came up with, which felt better than any of my other options, but not anywhere near fine: “It was okay,” I said.

  But in my head “okay” looked like this: O. K. Those letters stood for Outrageous Katastrophe, and I know it’s the wrong spelling, but it was the best I could do at that particular moment.

  Then I looked straight at Daddy and said, “Can I please be excused now?” and the words I used might not have been angry, but it was in my voice and flashing out of my eyes.

  “Ida B . . . ” Daddy started, already loud and pulling himself up straight. He was leaning forward so he could be a little closer if he needed to get ahold of me.

  Mama stopped him, though. “Evan,” she said, sad enough she didn’t have to be loud, “let her go.”

  Daddy kept staring at me, but he leaned back after a minute or two.

  And I walked pretty fast up to my room.

  Chapter 17

  One night at dinner a couple of weeks later Daddy told me, “We’ve sold the lots, Ida B. To one family. And they’re going to keep some of the trees.”

  “Maybe they’ll have kids your age, baby,” added Mama, who seemed to be doing better since she’d started her new treatments, but it was hard to tell since I was avoiding eye contact and word contact with both of those particular people. “Wouldn’t it be great to have friends just down the road?”

  “Great,” I said in that way I had of talking then, a way that used words but didn’t tell anybody anything.

  That Saturday, the builders brought a bulldozer and a backhoe out to the land to clear part of the orchard and start digging the foundation of those people’s house—those people I didn’t even know, but I knew they didn’t belong here.