Square Peg in a Game of Dominos - 2. The Incident

“What?” Emily and I echoed in unison. Our ranting continued while Mom stood there unable to control the barrage of escalating shouting.

“You’re kidding!”

“This can’t be happening! This really, really can’t be happening!”

“What about my friends?”

“How am I supposed to fit in with a bunch of new kids?”

“Come on girls, it’s not going to be that bad.” She tried, but it didn’t work. “Denise and Randy both go to public school. They might be in one of your classes--”

“There separating us?” I screamed.

“Rosaly, public school frowns on twins being in the same classroom. They think it’s best for you and Emily to have your own class and make your own friends.”

“But Mom, the school year is half way over. Why can’t they wait and have us change schools in the fall and then we can go to middle school.” Emily had an excellent point. “This late in the year, everyone already has friends. They aren’t going to like us. I thought that school didn’t want us anyways.” Emily’s lip trembled at the thought of not being the most popular girl in class.

Mom closed her eyes and contemplated how much of the truth we could handle. I already knew something was wrong when our teacher, Mrs. Woodson came in after lunch with her eyes all red and swollen.

The parents had been notified that Pastor Woodson not only impregnated the school secretary, but he also drained every cent from the church account and skipped town, leaving his wife to clean up the mess.

“First Baptist is closed. Pastor Woodson did some every bad things and we have to make the best of this. You’ll be starting public school tomorrow.” Without leaving room for argument, Mom turned and started rummaging through the fridge for items to start dinner.

                                                                         ***

So much had happened in the last 5 years. Dad eventually stopped coming home. He would take longer and longer delivery jobs and then one day he just never came back. A check showed up once a month from a different zip code from some rinky-dink town that we’d never heard off. With Mom’s paycheck from the bank and the money Dad sent, we were okay financially. Too bad everything else was a huge freaking mess!

I wanted to find Randy and tell him everything that had happened. He was still my best friend, but I couldn’t rush down there to see him until his Dad left for work. Mr. Seller’s worked the night shift at a factory outside of town. When he was home, he only did two things: sleep and watch the world outside from his beat-up blue chair.

The guy was a total sleezball. I don’t know how everybody else didn’t see it. He might be an adult, but I was smarter. I memorized his schedule and when I saw his black pick-up truck drive up the street, I jumped on my bike and rode in the opposite direction towards the dead-end.

“Cool,” He looked way to happy for my troubling news.

“It is not!”

“Come on Rosaly, your mom is right. We might be in the same class.”

“I don’t want a new class or a new school.” Randy wasn’t going to understand. I shook my head and walked back home.

                                                             ***

Yep, they separated Emily and me. They even arranged it so we ate on different lunch shifts and to make it worst, neither Randy nor Denise were in my class. It would have been nice to have one friendly face.

Mrs. Taylor was at least nice. “Why don’t you take that empty seat over there by Matthew? Matt, be a dear and raise your hand for Rosaly.” Duh, I could just look for the kid with the empty desk beside him, but I didn’t want to piss off my teacher on the first day, so I smiled at Matt and weaved my way over to the empty desk.

The room was filled with clusters of desks, each arranged with 2 students on each side facing the others. Matt didn’t look happy to see me. In fact, nobody smiled or made me feel welcome at all.

“Well, isn’t this great,” I mumbled to myself. Being invisible was my best skill and here I was with every set of unfriendly eyes in the room staring at me. I quickly took my seat and tried to pay attention to Mrs. Taylor explaining about the anatomy of a frog. Since we had already learned this at First Baptist, I spent the rest of class sizing up my new classmates.

“You really should be listening to Mrs. Taylor.” The whisper behind me made me jump. I swiveled around in my seat and looked into the most gorgeous, honey-brown eyes I’ve ever seen.

Jamison Jackson was breathtaking. His soft brown hair fell across his forehead. He glanced from me then back to Mrs. Taylor. “Pay attention,” he scolded again making me blush.

                                                             ***

The weeks passed quickly. None of the other kids in class gave me a second glance, except Matt and Jamison. Matt thought it was his responsibility to make my life more miserable then it already was and Jamison, for some reason, deafened me.

“You live on Landover Road? That’s only a couple of blocks away from where I live.” Jamison chatted while we stood in line for the library. “Do you know where the park is on Memorial Lane?”

I nodded my head, loving the sound of his voice. “I live right there.”

Not only was it walking distance from my house, I could ride my bike and be there in 5 minutes flat. While thinking of a way to invite myself over, a hard shove from behind spun me around. Before I could sidestep Matt’s tight grip, he had me against the wall and pushed me down.

Something hard banged into the back of my legs as I landed. It was a metal trashcan. I fell butt first into it as the room erupted in laughter. I was stuck in the trashcan like a turtle flipped on its shell. It took Jamison, Mrs. Taylor and the Library teacher to get me out.

Matt got detention for the prank. Since school didn’t call or send a note home, I figured that Mom didn’t need to know.

Besides, how do you start that conversation anyways?

“How was school today?”

“Good, except for when I got shoved into a trashcan in front of my entire class while everyone laughed at me…school was great. Please pass the carrots.”

Nope! That’s not going to happen.

Matt was warned to be nice. We both asked to be assigned to other desks, but Mrs. Taylor wanted us to try to get along. Ignoring me was Matt’s way of ‘trying to get along.’ It was fine by me.

The morning it all changed, I was talking to Jamison about a new movie. Matt walked pass me. I wasn’t really watching him, but I noticed him sharpening his pencil. He continued to sharpen it, tested the tip with his finger then sharpened it more. Satisfied with the point, he returned to his seat before the bell rang.

I ran to my seat like everyone else. Dropping into the chair, pain shot up my back. It stunned me. I gasped and clamped my hands on my desk.

What? Was? That???

What just happened to me???

My legs trembled when I tried to stand up. It wasn’t until I saw Matt’s terrified face that I knew that something was horribly wrong.

This can’t be good. He was scared and in his hand was the remaining inch of yellow pencil with the tip of the eraser.

I struggled to breath. My heart was racing. Without asking for permission, I jumped up and raced to the nearest bathroom.

“It’s okay,” I told myself, but when my jeans snagged something I couldn’t see. Pain flooded my body. I screamed as tears spilled down my face.

“What do I do?” I sobbed.

A soft knock at the stall door made me jump. “Is everything alright?” I didn’t recognize the voice, but I was still new and didn’t know all of the teachers yet. Opening the door, Miss Ayers, a first grade teacher stood there. Her eyes were wide with concern. “I heard a scream in here. Are you okay?”

My hands trembled. I spoke, “I don’t know,” as I turned around showing her my back where I couldn’t see.

“What do you mean, ‘I don’t know--’ Oh my god! Who did this to you?” The shock in her voice had me sobbing again.

“Matthew Rollins--”

“Is that a pencil?” She asked in disbelief.

Suddenly, I was glad I couldn’t see. The women scooped me into her arms and raced to the principle office.

“I need help!” She shouted as she stumbled into the office. Each jolt sent pain through my body. “Principle Van Pelt, this child needs a doctor.”

“Now, Miss Ayers, don’t go off the deep end—Jesus Christ, child, what happened to you?” His eyes were huge.

The other office workers looked green. My dark blue jeans didn’t have the same contrast as my bright red blood soaking the front of Miss Ayers’s yellow skirt.

                                                                         ***

The ambulance ride was a blur. If the day wasn’t already bad enough, it was going to get worse. A nurse cut my clothes off, while some orderly held me down on the bed, bare ass naked.

Mr. Van Pelt tried to call Mom, but when they couldn’t reach her, they gave the hospital my school registration that held a consent for emergency medical treatment.

“I know that you’re scared…” Glancing down at the chart, he recognized the name. “Rosaly?”

Great, now Dr. Thomas from next door was seeing my naked ass too.

“Honey, what happened?”

I looked up at him and rolled my eyes. Dear God, if you are going to let me die, right now would be a really good time!

He read my chart and dropped to his knees in front of me. “I’m going to take good care of you. The pencil won’t show up on x-rays so we need to get this out of you as quick as we can and make sure it didn’t puncture anything inside.” He hesitated, letting me take it all in. “We need to take you to surgery right now, Rosaly, do you understand?”

I did. “Am I going to die?”

He shook his head and twirled my long blonde ponytail through his fingers. “Not today!”

                                                                         ***

Mom and Emily were there when I woke up from surgery. Mom cried a lot that night. This was before cell phones and answering machines and she didn’t know that anything happened until Emily and Denise raced home after school. Since she had the day off from work, she had spent the day shopping.

Dr. Thomas wrote an excuse giving me the rest of the week off school. He even popped in later that night when I got home from the hospital to see how I was doing.

Matt’s pencil busted into pieces when it hit my spine. The splinters all went to the right of my spine lodging near my intestines, but none of them punctured any organs and I was going to have a huge scar when the stitches came out.

Mom let Emily skip school the next day so they could both smother me with attention. I would have rather they just left me alone, but it was nice to know that they both love me.

“Mr. Van Pelt called while you were asleep.” Emily sat beside my bed while I slept. It was kind of creepy, but I liked that she cared. “He told Mom that we are having an assembly on Monday.”

“What for?” My voice was gravely.

“Matthew Rollins is going to be paddled in front of the entire school--”

“Are you kidding?”

“Nope! He even said Mom can come and paddle his sorry ass too. His parents are going to be there and everything.”

Oh no! This was not good! I wanted to be invisible…not the center of attention. I don’t want to be the reason why Matt got his butt beat while everyone watched. I begged Mom to call the school back and tell them not to do it, but she wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to spank him like everyone else, but she wanted him to be punished.

Mom and Emily went back to school and work while I crashed on the couch for the rest of the week. There was nothing on television and since it was before we had videos and cable TV, I just slept.

“Rosaly,” Mom called down the hallway, “you have a visitor.”

Expecting to see Randy, I was surprised to see Jamison at the front door. A big smile split my face as he came in and walked with me to the living room. I still had to be careful sitting down. My stitches don’t come out for another week.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as he glanced around our home.

“I just wanted to check on you.”

That was so nice of him. I could feel a red blush creeping up my cheeks.

“You know that Valentine’s Day is next week…”

My heart started to race.

“…and school does this Be Mine thing were you can send a chocolate heart to someone special…”

Yes! Yes! Yes!

“…well I was wondering if you thought, well, what do you think Emily would say if I sent her one?” He finished his sentence with a rush.

Yes! Wait? No! Oh Crap! I felt like I’d just been punched. I sat their shocked. My hands felt cold and clammy. Did he just say he wanted to send a special Valentine’s Day heart to Emily?

“Rosaly? Are you okay?”

“I don’t feel so good.” Hiding tears, I got up and left Jamison sitting alone in our living room. I don’t know how long he waited until he decided to leave and I really didn’t care, because I never wanted to speak to him again!

                                                             ***

The assembly was awful. I think the only people that didn’t want to see Matt get his butt whipped was him and me. I excused myself to the bathroom at the beginning and didn’t return until I heard kids in the hallway, heading back to class.

I was no longer the new girl. I was the new girl that got Matthew Rollins in trouble. He had injured me and somehow, it was now my fault.

Nobody talked to me and that was fine by me. I ate lunch alone, walked as close to the wall as possible in the hallways, and never lifted my eyes from my desk during class for the rest of the school year.