The Tiger Rising (2 page)

Nobody wore pink lacy dresses to school. Nobody. Even Rob knew that. He held his breath as he watched the girl walk down the aisle of the bus. Here was somebody even stranger than he was. He was sure.

“Hey,” Norton called, “this is a school bus.”

“I know it,” the girl said. Her voice was gravelly and deep, and the words sounded clipped and strange, like she was stamping each one of them out with a cookie cutter.

“You’re all dressed up to go to a party,” Billy said. “This ain’t the party bus.” He elbowed Rob in the ribs.

“Haw.” Norton laughed. He gave Rob a friendly thud on the head.

The girl stood in the center of the aisle, swaying with the movement of the bus. She stared at them. “It’s not my fault you don’t have good clothes,” she said finally. She sat down and put her back to them.

“Hey,” said Norton. “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean nothing. Hey,” he said again. “What’s your name?”

The girl turned and looked at them. She had a sharp nose and a sharp chin and black, black eyes.

“Sistine,” she said.

“Sistine,” hooted Billy. “What kind of stupid name is that?”

“Like the chapel,” she said slowly, making each word clear and strong.

Rob stared at her, amazed.

“What are you looking at?” she said to him.

Rob shook his head.

“Yeah,” said Norton. He cuffed Rob on the ear. “What are you staring at, disease boy? Come on,” he said to Billy.

And together, they swaggered up the aisle of the bus and sat in the seat behind the new girl.

They whispered things to her, but Rob couldn’t hear what they were saying. He thought about the Sistine Chapel. He had seen a picture of it in the big art book that Mrs. Dupree kept on a small shelf behind her desk in the library. The pages of the book were slick and shiny. And each picture made Rob feel cool and sweet inside, like a drink of water on a hot day. Mrs. Dupree let Rob look at the book because he was quiet and good in the library. It was her reward to him.

In the book, the picture from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel showed God reaching out and touching Adam. It was like they were playing a game of tag, like God was making Adam “it.” It was a beautiful picture.

Rob looked out the window at the gray rain and the gray sky and the gray highway. He thought about the tiger. He thought about God and Adam. And he thought about Sistine. He did not think about the rash. He did not think about his mother. And he did not think about Norton and Billy Threemonger. He kept the suitcase closed.

Sistine was in Rob’s sixth-grade homeroom class. Mrs. Soames made her stand up and introduce herself.

“My name,” she said in her gravelly voice, “is Sistine Bailey.” She stood at the front of the room, in her pink dress. And all the kids stared at her with open mouths as if she had just stepped off a spaceship from another planet. Rob looked down at his desk. He knew not to stare at her. He started working on a drawing of the tiger.

“What a lovely name,” said Mrs. Soames.

“Thank you,” said Sistine.

Patrice Wilkins, who sat in front of Rob, snorted and then giggled and then covered her mouth.

“I’m from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” Sistine said, “home of the Liberty Bell, and I hate the South because the people in it are ignorant. And I’m not staying here in Lister. My father is coming to get me next week.” She looked around the room defiantly.

“Well,” said Mrs. Soames, “thank you very much for introducing yourself, Sistine Bailey. You may take your seat before you put your foot in your mouth any farther.”

The whole class laughed at that. Rob looked up just as Sistine sat down. She glared at him. Then she stuck her tongue out at him.
Him!
He shook his head and went back to his drawing.

He sketched out the tiger, but what he wanted to do was whittle it in wood. His mother had shown him how to whittle, how to take a piece of wood and make it come alive. She taught him when she was sick. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched her tiny white hands closely.

“Don’t jiggle that bed,” his father said. “Your mama’s in a lot of pain.”

“He ain’t hurting me, Robert,” his mother said.

“Don’t get all tired out with that wood,” his father said.

“It’s all right,” his mother said. “I’m just teaching Rob some things I know.”

But she said she didn’t have to teach him much. His mother told him he already knew what to do. His hands knew; that’s what she said.

“Rob,” said the teacher, “I need you to go to the principal’s office.”

Rob didn’t hear her. He was working on the tiger, trying to remember what his eyes looked like.

“Robert,” Mrs. Soames said. “Robert Horton.” Rob looked up. Robert was his father’s name. Robert was what his mother had called his father. “Mr. Phelmer wants to see you in his office. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Rob.

He got up and took his picture of the tiger and folded it up and put it in the back pocket of his shorts. On his way out of the classroom, Jason Uttmeir tripped him and said, “See you later, retard,” and Sistine looked up at him with her tiny black eyes. She shot him a look of pure hate.

The principal’s office was small and dark and smelled like pipe tobacco. The secretary looked up at Rob when he walked in. “Go right on back,” she said, nodding her big blond head of hair. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Rob,” said Mr. Phelmer when Rob stepped into his office.

“Yes, sir,” said Rob.

“Have a seat,” Mr. Phelmer said, waving his hand at the orange plastic chair in front of his desk.

Rob sat down.

Mr. Phelmer cleared his throat. He patted the piece of hair that was combed over his bald head. He cleared his throat again. “Rob, we’re a bit worried,” he finally said.

Rob nodded. This was how Mr. Phelmer began all his talks with Rob. He was always worried: worried that Rob did not interact with the other students, worried that he did not communicate, worried that he wasn’t doing well, in any way, at school.

“It’s about your, uh, legs. Yes. Your legs. Have you been putting that medicine on them?”

“Yes, sir,” said Rob. He didn’t look at Mr. Phelmer. He stared instead at the paneled wall behind the principal’s head. It was covered with an astonishing array of framed pieces of paper — certificates and diplomas and thank-you letters.

“May I, uh, look?” asked Mr. Phelmer. He got up from his chair and came halfway around his desk and stared at Rob’s legs.

“Well, sir,” he said after a minute. He went back behind his desk and sat down. He folded his hands together and cracked his knuckles. He cleared his throat.

“Here’s the situation, Rob. Some of the parents — I won’t mention any names — are worried that what you’ve got there might be contagious,
contagious
meaning something that the other students could possibly catch.” Mr. Phelmer cleared his throat again. He stared at Rob.

“Tell me the truth, son,” he said. “Have you been using that medicine you told me about? The stuff that doctor in Jacksonville gave you? Have you been putting that on?”

“Yes, sir,” said Rob.

“Well,” said Mr. Phelmer, “let me tell you what I think. Let me be up-front and honest with you. I think it might be a good idea if we had you stay home for a few days. What we’ll do is just give that old medicine more of a chance to kick in, let it start working its magic on you, and then we’ll have you come back to school when your legs have cleared up. What do you think about that plan?”

Rob stared down at his legs. He felt the picture of the tiger burning in his pocket. He concentrated on keeping his heart from singing out loud with joy.

“Yes, sir,” he said slowly, “that would be all right.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Phelmer. “I thought you would think it’s a good plan. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll just write your parents — I mean your father — a note, and tell him what’s what; he can give me a call if he wants. We can talk about it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Rob again. He kept his head down. He was afraid to look up.

Mr. Phelmer cleared his throat and scratched his head and adjusted his piece of hair, and then he started to write.

When he was done, he handed the note to Rob; Rob took it, and when he was outside the principal’s office, he folded the piece of paper up carefully and put it in his back pocket with the drawing of the tiger.

And then, finally, he smiled. He smiled because he knew something Mr. Phelmer did not know. He knew that his legs would never clear up.

He was free.

Rob floated through the rest of the morning. He went to math class and civics and science, his heart light, buoyed by the knowledge that he would never have to come back.

At lunch, he sat out on the benches in the breezeway. He did not go into the lunchroom; Norton and Billy Threemonger were there. And nothing had tasted good to him since his mother died, especially not the food at the school. It was worse than the food his father tried to cook.

He sat on the bench and unfolded his drawing of the tiger, and his fingers itched to start making it in wood. He was sitting like that, swinging his legs, studying the drawing, when he heard shouting and the high-pitched buzz of excitement, like crickets, that the kids made when something was happening.

He stayed where he was. In a minute, the faded red double doors of the lunchroom swung open and Sistine Bailey came marching through them, her head held high. Behind her was a whole group of kids, and just when Sistine noticed Rob sitting there on the bench, one of the kids threw something at her; Rob couldn’t tell what. But it hit her, whatever it was.

“Run!” he wanted to yell at her. “Hurry up and run!”

But he didn’t say anything. He knew better than to say anything. He just sat and stared at Sistine with his mouth open, and she stared back at him. Then she turned and walked back into the group of kids, like somebody walking into deep water.

And suddenly, she began swinging with her fists. She was kicking. She was twirling. Then the group of kids closed in around her and she seemed to disappear. Rob stood up so that he could see her better. He caught sight of her pink dress; it looked all crumpled, like a wadded-up tissue. He saw her arms still going like mad.

“Hey!” he shouted, not meaning to.