The Dead Inside Read online

  Or maybe not.

  I’m on my way to the bus after seventh period when I hear my name.

  “Cynthia Etler.”

  The syllables of my name snap like gunshots, in time with the speaker guy’s footsteps.

  I try my usual trick. Nine out of ten grown-ups will disappear if you ignore them. But this guy is that fearless one in ten.

  “This her?” another voice asks, from directly behind me.

  I’m about to take off, but they get me by the scruff of the neck. Right there in the Masuk High School entrance. Everybody’s watching as I do the Fred Flintstone, scrambling my legs in the air.

  Whoever this guy is, he’s fast and I’m powerless. He steers me toward the office, and he’s not fucking around. Ms. Grass is suddenly here, pushing the office door open, and even she looks scared. But I shouldn’t be that surprised. I knew I couldn’t skate; I saw this hard end coming. Something, somehow, had to stop me.

  So now I’m under arrest. No joke. My mother put out a warrant for me. No, I swear to God. Turns out she made one call to the school—that was when Ms. Grass pulled me into her office—and that was enough of an effort for her. Her next call was to Rudy the youth officer, because I’m “out of control.” Next stop: Monroe Police Department.

  At the precinct, I get my fingertips stained by a cop. He’s, like, manhandling me, gripping each finger and rolling it across an inky pad. The harder he presses my finger, the more juice floods the pad.

  As my fingertips are drying, the cop brings me to a room made of glass. Waiting for me there is Rudy, the “youth officer.” I bet Bridgeport has, just, officers, you know? Sitting across from two big police guys, the memory of getting handcuffed in front of the school still fresh, I feel like the fly in the spider’s web. Why can’t I move? Why aren’t my wings working? What’s that thing coming at me?! Fuck!

  The Cyndy who knocked Kara Anderson down in front of the buses is gone. I fold my arms across my boobs to get my toughness back, but the cop says, “Put your arms down.” It’s not a request. He’s got a gun.

  I’ve never heard anything quieter than this room. There’s not even a ticking clock to think about. I stare at the table and wonder what I’m supposed to be doing. Finally, Rudy’s Styrofoam cup squeaks on the tabletop. I hear the clunk of his swallow. Then he speaks.

  “Cynthia.”

  My eyes are dried out from staring at the table. I could use a blink. Still. I just stare. I don’t speak.

  “Cynthia,” he says again. He sounds like he could “Cynthia” all day.

  Okay. Uncle.

  “Yeah?” I say, and let myself have one, wet, blink.

  “Cynthia.”

  I’ve gotta look at him too? Okay, I’ll do my trick. When Jacque plays the “Lookit me when I talk to you” game, I lift my eyes to his drunkflush cheeks, but never to his actual eyes. That way he’s not winning, but he thinks he is.

  My trick works on Rudy too.

  “Your mother is here.”

  My heart cracks in half. I’m gonna get hauled back to that house. She gets to just hand me back to her husband. And I have no say.

  “You have a choice to make.”

  “I do?”

  “You can go home with your mother—”

  Choice Two must be bad, because everything in the room turns dark. Rudy’s face, the lights, the mood. His voice sounds like judgment day.

  “—or you can go into foster care.”

  POOM! Choice Two is a torpedo. My cracked heart explodes into fireworks.

  I’m the kid who got a pony for her birthday. My face is too small to hold my grin.

  “Foster care! Thank you!”

  See? I told you. God’s giving me a do-over! This time I’m gonna get a family straight out of a Judy Blume book, with a mom who wants to know how my day was, and a dad who ruffles my hair. If the smoking pit could see me now, bouncing up and hugging a cop? I’d be banned for life.

  9

  NO MAKING OR RECEIVING PHONE CALLS OR LETTERS

  Thank God it’s not a tart cart that drives me away from the police station—a short bus would have ripped the thrill right out of this. Instead, it’s one of those blue vans, with the backseat windows that pop out at the bottom. I don’t know how such a tiny lady can drive this thing. The steering wheel’s as big as the moon.

  This lady, she looked so out of place in the police station. She was the only one there not beige or cream or white. But she didn’t care. You could tell by the way she walked. She made quick steps in her high heels that undid the official silence. She’s done this before. She’s my hero.

  After I hugged Rudy—yeah, I really hugged him—he brought me to the waiting room, which was the size and temperature of a refrigerator. There was a woman there waiting for me who looked familiar, like your favorite baby toy showing up in the basement. Like, Oh man, I kind of remember this!

  The woman was my mother. I didn’t say anything to her. I wasn’t trying to be mean. I just didn’t feel like I knew her well enough to say hi.

  “Mrs. Etler, Cynthia has made her decision,” Rudy said.

  Then he looked at me like I was supposed to do the talking.

  “Can you tell her, please?” I mumbled to my Keds.

  Rudy didn’t mumble back. His words were loud and clear.

  “It’s your decision. You need to tell her yourself.”

  This is why people hate cops, right? But then the other cop brought the high-heeled lady in, and somehow, she gave me strength. I looked at her, this stranger with black skin and kind eyes, and I told her my decision. I said it to the lady.

  “I’m going to foster care.”

  Magically, this lady knew what I needed. With two clicks, she was standing in front of my mother, blocking her from seeing me. She put her hand out to shake.

  “Neekka Smith, Janus House Youth in Crisis.” Her voice belonged to a queen. “I’ll be taking Cynthia to Janus House now.”

  She turned to the cops. She looked them in the eyes, no problem. “Thank you, Officers.”

  Then she turned and high-heeled it out of the room. I Ked-scuffed out behind her, as if it was just that easy, all along.

  • • •

  Neekka and the van took me to Janus House, which is…in Bridgeport! God, I’ll never doubt you again. God damn! I’m living in Bridgeport, and I’m away from Jacque. My life couldn’t be any better.

  Neekka’s one of the four staff here. She’s still my hero, but she’s not my favorite. She’s a little strict. All the staff makes us follow the same rules, but some of them are cooler with how they do it.

  Pretty much, the staff lets you decide for yourself how it’s gonna go. They’re all, “Here’re the rules. It’s up to you if you follow them or not.” So if you choose to follow the rules, you get privileges. If you choose to not follow them, you get consequences. It’s all the same to staff, either way. Crazy, right?

  My first night here, they tell me I have “kitchen clean-up” as a chore. And I act how I would at my mother’s house. I sit there with a plate of “food” in front of me and I go, “No way. I didn’t eat, so I’m not cleaning.” You know, loud. And then I don’t move.

  Staff goes, “Okay. You guys have until six thirty to do your chores. If you’re not done by then, you lose evening privileges. If you still haven’t done them by seven o’clock, you lose the next day’s afternoon privileges too. It’s up to you.”

  That’s it. Totally calm too. There’s no yelling, no threats. Just the facts and my choices.

  At seven thirty-five that night I was sitting upstairs, pulling threads out of my bedspread with fingertips all pruney from dishwater. Let me tell you something. Sitting alone, listening to all the other kids in the TV room, makes you realize how much you really want to do your chores.

  You can’t get away with jack shit at Janus
House, but it’s worth it. Because no matter what you do or don’t do here, you’re safe. It’s like Disney World. I’d only been here a week on my birthday, but they still made me a cake, and sang to me, and let me choose what we’d watch on TV. When I went outside for a cigarette, to see the stars and thank God for everything, it hit me why this birthday was so good: because I knew, all day long, that I wouldn’t end up trapped in a corner by Jacque some time before bed.

  Even the rules are okay, because they might suck, but they also do something good for you. Like, no overnight privileges. Because of that rule, I can’t see Steve. Which sucks. He lives out by Father Panik Village, and none of those guys are gonna come pick me up for a day pass. Jo’s parents won’t either. They’ve pretty much disowned me since my mother called them. And, like, staff is gonna drive me over my boyfriend’s house, so I can smoke pot and get my boobs squeezed? Stop dreaming.

  Actually, I did ask Neekka once. “No individual van rides,” she said.

  The last time I saw Steve was the weekend he asked me to do it, so it’s been a few weeks. But that’s okay, because we talk every time I have phone privileges. And since I have no way of getting to his house, he has no way of asking me to do it. So no overnight privileges sucks in one way, but it’s good in another.

  What was really good was the first time I got store privileges. Me and this other girl walked to the deli for candy and cigarettes. It felt just like when I lived in Stamford: freedom, with change in my pocket.

  Three old men sat in metal chairs out front; somebody’s abandoned cigarette sat on the counter, with smoke weaving up like a cobra from a basket. Man, did I feel grown-up. On the walk back to Janus, I packed my Marlboros on the bone of my palm and decided that when I get older, I’m gonna do this for kids like me. I’m gonna help the fuckups and show them how to act. Just like the Janus House staff.

  I’m telling you, I could stay at Janus forever. The van drops me off at Masuk every day, so I get to hang out with Joanna and the smoking pit guys. Then I’m free for the whole day, ’cause there’s no staff around to check if I’m following the rules. I could be smoking pot in the woods for seven straight hours, and how would they know? Not that I’d know how, but I could. And that’s what matters.

  Just in case I ever get the chance, I carry Joanna’s pipe in my denim’s front pocket. It’s a perfect way to show people how cool I am. Any time someone mentions smoking out, I’m like, “You got some? ’Cause I got a bowl right here,” and I slide it outta my pocket. I never have any takers, so I never smoke pot at school. But I totally could.

  Nights and weekends at Janus we watch TV and smoke cigarettes, all of us kids plus whichever staff is on duty. It’s perfect. It’s a home. I don’t even care what staff puts on TV ’cause I’m in this safe place where nobody’s fucking with me. They give a shit, but they don’t give a shit, you know? Only problem is, Janus House is only supposed to let kids stay for thirty days. And I’ve been here for, like, forty. But they haven’t found my foster family yet.

  I’m sitting there thinking about all this, about saying thank you to the staff, when Neekka walks in the TV room.

  “Come on, Cyndy. Come with me.”

  I follow her into the staff room. When I walk through that door, it’s like I’m walking through a spider web. I feel weird all over my skin, but I can’t tell what it is or how to get it off me.

  Frank, this staff who swears all the time, is sitting in there. He talks first. He goes, “Cyndy, did ya wanna siddown?”

  That’s creepy to begin with, because it’s a question, not a command. It’s not “Siddown, Cyndy,” or “Grab a seat, kid,” the way he usually talks.

  “We got some news for ya.”

  Is it normal that my belly just dropped, like it went down a hill in a fast car?

  I guess Frank doesn’t notice my I’m-about-to-barf face, because he keeps going. “Your mother found a place for you.”

  “My mother? But—”

  “Hey. Hey, I know. Don’t worry, you’re not goin’ back with your mother. She found a different place for you.”

  “But I wanna stay here! I love it here!”

  I’ve gotten so friggin’ soft, there’s tears snagging at my throat.

  Frank’s not saying anything. He pulls on the soft white threads around his jeans’ knee holes. Neekka takes over.

  “We know, Cyndy. We wish you could stay too. But we only have thirty-days-per-child capacity.”

  “Is the place a foster home?” I ask in a weeble-wobble voice. Good thing I don’t care what staff thinks of me. Staff that’s not saying anything. Staff that won’t even look at me. “Guys? Is it a foster home?”

  What happens next is like a laser light show. Neekka zips her eyes away from me as Frank looks up from his knees. Their looks clap together in the middle, electric, and they say something to each other without words. What the fuck?

  “It’s a—a boarding school, kiddo. In Virginia. Somebody named ‘Shirley’ found it—your aunt or something?”

  “She’s my half-sister from my father’s—what kind of a boarding school?”

  “It’s a place like here, a place for asshole kids,” says Frank, “Nah, just joshin’. Is that half a laugh? You’ll be all right. And you’ll come back and visit us, right?”

  Way to pat my back in the middle of a beating. But still. “Yeah, Frank. I will.”

  “So, Cyndy,” Neekka says, all business again. “We need you to go upstairs and get your stuff packed. Your mother’s coming for you at seven tomorrow morning.”

  Tomorrow. So I’ve got no chance to say good-bye to anyone. But other than Joanna and Dawn and Steve, who would I say bye to? I’ll see Jo in a few weeks anyway because I’ll be back for Christmas break. I’ll stay at her house, probably, and I’ll have something interesting to talk about for a change: my boarding school for fuckups.

  Man, I’ll be surrounded by friends at a place like that. We’ll lie in the grass under giant old trees and read No One Here Gets Out Alive for English class, ’cause our teachers will be old hippies. And I’ll have my own room with a window seat. I’ve read about boarding schools in books, and the bedrooms always have window seats. I’ll have Janis Joplin posters on my walls, and we’ll make tie-dyes in the girls’ room sinks. And I’ll finally learn how to smoke pot right! Some cool teacher will probably show me how. When I come back for Christmas, I’ll be able to roll a joint. If only we could skip over the mother-driving-me-there part. But whatever. It’ll totally be worth it to get to my new school.

  That weird feeling comes back when I call Steve. But this time, instead of spider-webby, I feel all icy inside. Frank gave me permission to use the staff office phone instead of the pay phone, so there aren’t a million people listening. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling funky. Like, using the staff phone to call your boyfriend? That’s the forbidden dream. So why are they letting me do it?

  “Hey, Steve,” I go.

  “Hey,” he says back.

  “It’s Cyndy.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sup?”

  “Well I don’t know, exactly. Something’s happening.”

  “Yeah?”

  You’d think being alone in this room, without staff, I’d be digging through cabinets to find out what they really think of me. But I’m so locked in my iceberg, I don’t even care.

  “Yeah,” I say. “My mom’s resurfaced. Friggin’ Loch Ness Monster. She’s taking me to some boarding school.”

  “Yeah? No shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  Neither of us knows what to say next. I want to ask him what the school will be like, but duh, like he has any idea. I also want to tell him how sketchy the staff is acting, but I don’t know how to explain it. So we do what we always end up doing: not talking, and listening to the music he’s got on. It’s Floyd again, The Wall. It’s that part where marching drums lead into a chorus singin
g, like, some Nazi hymn. Then it’s just one voice holding out one long note, and you can tell the guy is crying, even though he’s singing. Then he stops, and somebody’s knocking and yelling, “Time to go!” And the people are laughing, laughing.

  The Wall’s trying to tell me something, but I’m not getting it.

  Finally, I think of something to say. “But nothing’s gonna change. Actually, it’ll be better. I’ll call you every night, and I’ll be able to stay with you for vacations.”

  The voice I hear next isn’t Steve’s. It’s coming from the background of his house. “Got Hosebag on the line, there?”

  Then it’s Steve again. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll talk to ya later, ’kay?”

  I’m afraid to hang up. This phone call feels like a tightrope. If it’s cut, I’ll fall and fall and fall. But what else am I gonna say?

  “’Kay. Love you. Bye,” I say, but he’s already gone.

  10

  NO TELLING YOUR PARENTS YOUR HOST-PARENTS’ NAME OR PHONE NUMBER

  When Jacque pulls up in front of Janus House, I feel like slapping someone. Possibly God. I climb into the back-back seat and lie down without a word to my mother or Jacque, like, “I don’t see you people.” I don’t even sit up to wave bye to Neekka and Frank.

  Ten silent, awkward hours later, we get to Shirley’s house. Once we get there, though, it’s like the sun came out. They have real ranch dressing at Shirley’s, from a bottle with a label. It’s right out on the table, and you can pour as much as you want on your white-lettuce salad. And the chicken is Shake ’n Baked. And Shirley made me a cake, even though my birthday was a month and two days ago. I would give anything to live here.

  When we sit down for dinner, everyone sings happy birthday to me, and Julie, my older-than-me niece, gives me a real Hallmark card. Inside it says, “Happy 14th!! We love you,” and then they signed their names. They love me? If they love me, maybe all those times when Kim got to come down here, I could’ve come too? No way. Do over.