One for the Murphys (7 page)

“Carley?” His tone makes me jump.

“Huh?”

“You must have said something? Or done something to get him going?”

“Well… I…”

Just then, Mrs. Murphy slides in between the cop and me. She reaches back with her right hand and takes mine. She gives it a firm squeeze.

I move closer to her.

Mrs. Murphy’s tone is quiet, but boy, does she sound mad.
“How…
dare
you… come in here and insinuate that she had anything to do with what that monster did. It wouldn’t matter what she did; he was the adult, and he should be held accountable for his own actions. I, for one, hope he rots in jail.”

I move even closer to her.

“And you! You’d think an officer of the law would have a drop of sense… or compassion. What do you hope to accomplish by badgering her? She’s a child and a victim, and you’re treating her like a criminal. And furthermore, since she isn’t a suspect, I know that you can’t take her anywhere. She’s staying right here… with
me
.”

I step forward again, and the front of me almost touches her back.

His left eye squints as he stares Mrs. Murphy down. “Listen, ma’am. If you impede my investigation—”

“You listen,” she interrupts. “You’re not dealing with a child anymore.”

He slips his notebook into his pocket but doesn’t break eye contact with Mrs. Murphy. Finally he looks away first. A little thing like her stares down a guy like that.

“I’ll let myself out then,” he says.

“You do that,” she says. We watch him open the door and leave.

She takes a deep breath and turns toward me, still holding my hand. “Are you okay, Carley?”

I try to pull my hand away, but she won’t let go.

“Carley? Tell me if you’re okay.”

The way she stuck up for me and how she looks at me slips inside. I want to thank her. I want to ask her if my mother really
held me down for that whack job. I want to ask her why she cares. I want to ask her if everything’s going to be okay, because a part of me whispers that she has the answer.

“It’s okay,” she says, as if reading my mind. “You know he was wrong, right?” She continues. “It wasn’t your fault. Not any of it.”

I nod on the outside.

“Oh, that must have been so painful for you to hear, Carley.”

I shrug. “Naw. It’s not a big deal.”

She half smiles. “Well, I guess some people would believe that line if you fed it to them.”

A tiny jolt in my stomach rattles me. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I said I’m fine.” I force a smile.

“Yeah, I know.” She sighs. “You’re always fine.”

And with that, I peel my hand away and I am gone.

I walk into the fireman room. The bed is made perfectly with little fire truck pillows. In my mind, I can see her fixing it just right. The way she lines up all the corners and makes sure the bed is straight and neat. I want to curl up on it, but it seems like a world I can never fit into.

I walk around to the other side of the bed and lie on the floor. I bring my knees to my chest and hug them. I know I will keep thinking about the horrible visit from the policeman just so I can think about how Mrs. Murphy stepped in and took my hand and wouldn’t let go.

I
t’s been almost week since Mrs. Murphy turned that cop to dust. I have been drawn to her more, but I’m more afraid, too. Careful not to get too close.

At school I try to avoid Toni, who hates me for existing, and Rainer, who actually has a reason to wish me dead. Every time he sees me now, he calls me Oliver.

Here at the house, I pretend to do homework but really just read since I went with Mrs. Murphy and the boys to the Glastonbury library. The most amazing library ever, in a huge old white-brick house.

Mrs. Murphy has gone upstairs to tuck the smaller boys into bed, and I’m left alone with Mr. Murphy. I think he’d pack me up and mail me somewhere if he could. I watch him watch the game.

It’s boring until a cute guy with dark hair and eyes comes up to bat. He looks like he plans to knock the ball into next week; I
like that. He hits it by the pitcher and runs to first base. He’s fast. Like me.

I’m a little startled when Mr. Murphy speaks to me. “So, you like baseball?”

“Well, I like
him
,” I blurt out.

He smiles as he looks back to the screen. “Well, I like him too, but somehow I don’t think in the same way you do.”

I’m embarrassed.

A while later, a player from the other team hits a ball over a big green wall called “The Green Monster.” I watch Mr. Murphy.

“That’s just wicked great!” he says. “I knew it was time to go to the bullpen.”

“Well, it makes sense to me that he hit it over that wall,” I say, studying the Citgo sign that fills the sky right behind the monster.

He looks at me as if I’ve betrayed him.

I point at the screen. “Well, look. There’s a big invitation right there. The letters in Citgo say ‘See-it-go.’”

He stares at the screen for only a second before cracking up, which I like. He shakes his head. “Julie tells me that you have an interesting take on the world.”

I must look worried.

“I mean it as a good thing, Carley. She says you’re clever.”

“She does?” I mumble.

“Yes, she does. And you know, a smart man doesn’t argue with his wife!” He winks before seeming to laugh to himself.

And I decide that maybe baseball isn’t so bad after all.

T
oday will be both my sixteenth day here and my birthday. I’ve figured that God was trying to tell me something by having me come into the world on April Fools’ Day. Now, I know He was.

I was born at 9:32 a.m. Exactly at that time last year, my mother called me at school, telling the secretary it was a family emergency and that she needed to speak to me immediately.

When I got to the phone, I heard the “Happy Birthday” song sung to Carley Cakes, which was pathetic enough. But then she went into “our song,” as she has called it forever.

I loved it.

Today, there will be no calls. I doubt she knows where I am, but I wonder if she’s awake and better and thinking of me today. She used to say it was the day she met her most favorite ever person.

I hear Mrs. Murphy scream downstairs, followed by laughing and then complaining. Mr. Murphy and the boys are laughing too, so I hurry to the kitchen. For April Fools’ Day, Mr. Murphy had put an elastic band around the hand sprayer on the sink, so when Mrs. Murphy turned on the water, she got shot in the chest.

He was falling about laughing at her, but she was laughing too. She smacked him on the arm, kissed him on the cheek, and vowed revenge. A strange combination of things to do. They seemed like little kids. Something about it has stuck in my head all morning since.

I guess the Murphys don’t know it’s my birthday, since there were no juggling clowns in the kitchen. I’m happy and disappointed at the same time.

I’m in Ruben’s class a fifth of a second when that fool Rainer asks, “Oliver? Do you want more rolls?”

I’m so sick of him that I say, “So, Rainer, what’s your last name anyway? Is it Shine? ’Cause if your name is ‘Rainer Shine’ you could be a great mailman or maybe even a meteorologist!”

His friends laugh, but he looks mad, and I wonder if he’s not going to out me when Mr. Ruben starts hitting his own desk with a pointer. “Call to order, ye peasants!”

Mr. Ruben wears a suit today. He brushes his lapel and says,
“As you can see, it’s a special occasion. On this most glorious morning, I will explain the details of your term projects, which will comprise thirty percent of your final grade. I will also assign you partners.”

Collective groan.

He holds up his hand. “Now, now. Hear me out.” He begins to pace, rubbing his palms together. “Although everyone changes the world around them—you know, immediate family, et cetera—there are few people that have changed the world
globally
.” He spins toward us. “Now, these people have tended to be intelligent, tenacious, and good communicators, but the attribute that helped them truly succeed in their endeavors was the inclination and
ability
to kick some major backside.”

There’s hooting and howling.

He puts his hands up. “Yes, yes. I knew you’d like that.” He points to himself. “I dressed up today in honor of these people. People like Nicolaus Copernicus, who went around spouting off silly ideas about the sun being the center of the universe—not the earth. He was criticized and thought a fool for his refusal to back off of what he believed to be fact. But now, hundreds of years later, he’s known as the father of modern astronomy.”

Rainer speaks up. “Does Mandy know that the sun is the center of the universe? I think she thinks it’s her.”

Mandy glares while the rest of the class laughs.

Mr. Ruben sobers up a bit. “Uncalled for, Mr. Tibbs.”

Rainer smiles. “Hey, I’m not afraid to kick some major…
backside
.”

“But to what end?” Mr. Ruben laughs and holds his hands
up. “No pun intended.” Then he looks at Rainer. “There’s a big distinction there, now isn’t there? There are different ways to change the world. I’m sure, Mr. Tibbs, that you’ll change it for the better.”

“By moving back to his native planet,” Mandy snaps.

“Now, now, children.” He leans against his desk. “We’re going to focus on people that have changed the world for the good. Adolf Hitler certainly changed our world forever, but he left behind a wake of trauma and pain.”

“Maybe he was mad that his parents named him Adolf,” a voice adds.

Mild laughter.

Mr. Ruben continues. “But what about Anne Frank?” His body is still jumpy, but his eyes are sad. “Now, this was a girl hunted simply because she was Jewish. Hid from the Nazis for nearly two years. All the while, she keeps a diary that is published two years after the war—a war she did
not
survive. Yet she says in her diary that she still believed that man was essentially good.
That
changed the world.”

A girl speaks. “I understand it was terrible and everything, but how could she change the world by just writing a diary?”

“Because she put a face to the atrocities of the Nazi death camps. She taught everyone a very poignant lesson of the dangers and horrors of war and prejudice.
And
… the importance of standing up for what’s right and good in the world.”

“Like beef jerky?” Rainer asks. No one laughs.

We stare at a picture of Anne Frank that Mr. Ruben holds up. A girl who could be in any one of our classes. She looks so happy,
and I can’t help but wonder if she had any idea what would happen to her. I feel embarrassed ever feeling sorry for myself when I look at her.

Mr. Ruben turns and puts the photo down on his desk. He turns back around. Slowly. “So… you’ll choose a person that has changed the world for good. It can be from any period in history.” He takes a deep breath. “Any questions so far?”

Nothing but silent, hunched-over kids.

Mr. Ruben claps loudly, and I jump. “Now for the good part.” He takes a deep breath. “William Shakespeare, a man who changed the world with his quill pen, loved to write tragedy. Plays dripping with human conflict and emotion. So, in the spirit of the Bard, prepare thyselves, for I am prepared to hurl an emotional plundering.”

He rubs his palms together again. “I’ve decided that you shall all”—he makes little quotation marks in the air—“suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” He smiles. “I’ve not only chosen your partners, but I’ve given you partners that I know you do
not
get along with or people you have little in common with.”

Everyone wakes up. Including me. I can’t work with Rainer. I can’t.

“Oh yes! I’ll do this—force you together and invite conflict—because I want you to think about what the world would be like if we all worked to understand people who are different than we are.”

Rainer calls out, “I’m going to work with me, myself, and I! We don’t get along, but for the good of the project…”

Mr. Ruben smiles. “Actually, you’re going to work with Mandy Fleming.”

Total relief!

Mandy slaps her desk with both hands and fumes. “That will be the day!”

“Actually, that doesn’t fit your rule, Mr. Ruben,” Rainer says. “There’s no denying that Mandy worships me.”

She whips her head around. “In your dreams.”

“More like in my nightmares.” He smirks.

Mr. Ruben begins. “Now, let’s see. Beginning at the top of the list—Ms. Byars. You’ll work with Carley Connors.”

Total relief turns to panic. I am afraid to look over at her.

“It’s not fair!” she says.

“Ah, yes.
It’s not fair
—the mantra of teenagers everywhere.” He turns to her. “That’s right, my young maiden. Sometimes life isn’t fair. Another lesson to be learned here.”

He doles out the rest of the partnerships, and from the reactions he gets, he must really notice things about people.

T
he doorbell rings. I can feel my armor strengthening. This meeting with Toni over this dumb project has had my stomach in knots since it was assigned two days ago.

Toni’s hair looks even blacker in the sunlight. She steps past me.

Mrs. Murphy comes into the foyer. “Well, hello. You must be Toni.”

“Must be,” Toni says, looking around.

Mrs. Murphy clears her throat. “Would you girls like anything to eat before you get started?”

Toni smirks. “No, thanks.” She turns to me. “Let’s get this over with.” She heads toward the stairs and points. “Your room up there?”

“Yeah.”

Toni takes three steps and turns back. “What are you waiting for? A train?”

By the time I get upstairs, I know I’m through taking garbage from Toni Byars.

I’ve prepared a reason for the room’s decor. “I’m staying here temporarily because…”