I knock Doozerdude’s head.
“Quit it,” he whines.
“Come on, Estele,” says Mom.
I climb into the back.
The red vinyl burns off
the back side of my legs.
I suck in baked air.
Mom pulls away from the house.
We are off to school.
Like normal.
Drooping
Everything
out the window
is drooping.
Hanging heavy.
We roll past
palm trees.
Every frond
is stretched
straight down.
Mom stops
at the red light.
The heat shivers
on the asphalt.
I try not to melt
and slip
off
the seat.
A Good Day
Dale bolts across the playground.
Mom turns and pats my leg.
“Like you said, well be okay.”
I gulp back some tears,
because I hear
a maybe
around her words.
I get out.
“Have a good day. Estele,” Mom calls.
Did anyone hear her?
By her voice
everyone will know
my dad left.
My skin prickles stiff.
I bet they can see he left,
and now
they won’t want to be
around me
either.
Fear
Mom’s car disappears
around the bend,
and a freak-out jumbles me up.
I race across the playground.
My backpack thumps
the breath out of me.
In the empty bathroom,
I squat in a stall
and cry it out.
Mom’ll come back.
She’s got to come back.
She won’t leave too.
Cover Up
I splash my face
with cold water,
and press a rough paper towel
to my eyes.
Deep breath.
It doesn’t look
too much like I’ve been crying.
Maybe it looks like allergies.
That’s what I’ll say
if anyone asks.
Someone comes into the bathroom.
I hurry by
without looking
to see who.
Fifth Grade
Ms. Dry den is straightening her desk.
“Good morning, Essie.”
“Hey.”
Everyone is goofing around.
Wally’s acting like a turkey.
“Hey, Essie!
Did you have a good Thanksgiving?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
I slip into my seat,
and sit on my shaking hands.
They don’t know.
They really don’t know.
I smile
and pretend to be the same person
even though
I’m not.
My Desk
I creak open my desk
and lift an old spelling paper.
Roach poop
rolls off.
I shut the top fast.
No one noticed.
I sneak it open again
and move everything around.
The roach is gone,
so I push the dry blackish balls
with an old tissue
to the hole in the desk corner.
The poop rains down onto the brown carpet.
No one notices.
No one notices stuff
if you are sneaky
enough.
Attendance
“Jarin.”
“Here.”
“Gary.”
“Here.”
“Wally.”
“Here.”
“Chris.”
…
“Chris?”
…
“Essie.”
“Here.” Kind of.
A Deal
I guess Chris got an extra day
of Thanksgiving vacation.
What a deal.
I wonder
what he’s doing?
Recess
“Come on, Essie.
before anyone else!”
Wally tugs me across the playground.
“Mine!” he shouts,
grabbing the highest bar.
“Energize the transporter, Scotty.
Two to beam up.” He grins.
I roll my eyes.
We hook our knees on the bars
and climb up.
“Successfully transported. Captain Picard.”
“You’re mixing two
different Star Trek shows,” I say.
“Well, sorry, Mr. Roddenberry.
You sure are grumpy today.”
I shrug.
“Send her to Bones in Sick Bay,” says Wally.
I wish
that’s all I needed.
Upside Down
Wally and I
hang upside down.
His freckly face
is laughing,
but I’m just
swinging back and forth.
My braids drag in the dirt,
and the blood filling my head
seems to push out
my missing-Dad thoughts
for a second.
The Party
“Hey, Essie,” Jarin calls.
Hurry up already, Wally.
I bang the boys’ bathroom door once.
“Essie,” Jarin calls louder.
I turn around. “Me?”
“Yeah.” She looks through a stack of envelopes,
then flips her long hair behind her shoulder.
I tug my braids.
“I’m having this great boy/girl birthday party.”
“Cool,” I say.
“Yeah. My dad’s taking us
to Wynette’s Wave World,
and we are going to have pizza,
and everyone gets to stay super late.”
“Wow,” I say.
She goes through the stack again.
“Oh.” She pats my shoulder.
“I guess you’re not invited.”
She flips her hair one more time
and walks out to the playground.
Man, she’s mean.
Her and all her cool friends.
But today
Dad seems
even meaner.
Dad leaving
hurts so bad
it makes what Jarin does
feel like nothing.
Walking Back to Class
“Who wants to go to Wynette’s Wave World
with Jarin anyway?” asks Wally.
“You weren’t invited either?”
“Negative.”
Two
Ms. Dryden
loves amber.
She has this necklace
with two bugs
sealed inside
the golden
rock-hard resin.
There’s a big bug
and a little bug,
and neither one
can ever
get out.
Ever.
The Challenge
“The capital of Washington,
Essie and Juan Carlos,” says Ms. Dryden.
We stand up next to our desks.
My half of the class groans loudest.
“Come on, Essie,” whispers Wally.
This is for an extra ten minutes at recess.
Juan Carlos doesn’t answer either.
“Washington’s capital.”
I know the answer, but right now
it’s nowhere in my brain.
Nowhere.
Why can’t Juan Carlos think of it either?
“Juan,” someone whines.
“Olympia,” I say without even realizing it.
My side of the room goes wild.
It’s amazing
what your brain can do
when it’s so stuffed
with worry.
Lose
Sharpening my pencil,
I hear Chris’s friends say,
“No, I thought he’d be here today.”
“Well, we lost that basketball game
after lunch without him.”
“For sure.”
“We’ll make it up tomorrow.”
“If Chris is back.”
“Yeah.”
“We need Chris on our team.”
“Essie sits behind him.
Ask her.”
“Essie,” says Joe,
“did you hear Chris say
he was gonna
be gone today?”
“Nope,” I answer.
All those boys looking at me
makes me slip past quick
to get to my desk.
But I know what they mean
about needing
everyone
on your team.
What’ll we lose
without Dad?
Waiting
Dale leaves the pack of second graders
and lopes over to me on the parking lot curb.
“Hey, Es.”
“Es, I’m pooped.
Ms. Bovencamp
makes us do so much work.
Look at my hand,
still crunched up.”
He holds it to my face
like a claw.
“Yeah, yeah.”
I push his fingers away.
“Like second grade is such a big deal.”
“It is!
She makes us write our whole name,
D A L E S H E R M A N,
on every paper. It’s way tough.”
“Whatever.”
A bunch of kids run past.
Dale moves closer to me.
“We still write ‘Sherman,’
don’t we, Es?” he whispers.
My heart bumps.
I act like I’m looking down the road for Mom.
I whisper back
with my lips half closed,
“What are you talking about?”
He cups his hand to my ear and
spits the hot words,
“Do we still write ‘Sherman’
even though Daddy isn’t here—
I mean isn’t at our house?”
I jerk back
and rub off his breath.
“We are Shermans, no matter what!”
I say it
louder than I mean to.
“Dad can take lots of stuff away,
but not our name.”
“Okay, okay,” Dale says.
“I was just hoping that was right.”
“It’s right, all right.”
I check around
to be sure no one
heard us.
“Dad!” yells some kid.
“Mom!” another calls,
running to climb into a car.
No one heard us
at all.
Freaking
Mom’s a little late
picking us up.
Is she okay?
Could the baby be coming so early?
It’s not due
till the end of January.
Or could she
not want us either?
A little late
can make a big freak-out
if you are seven or ten.
Neither Dale nor I
lets the freak-out out,
but we are both having it—
silently,
so the other kids don’t see it.
But I can see it
in Dale’s crazy eyes,
and I know he can see it in mine,
until Mom pulls up,
and we both stop
freaking
for now.
Driving Home
“Was it a good day?” Mom asks.
“Yeah,” Dale and I answer.
“Did Daddy come—,” says Dale.
“No.”
Mom adjusts the rearview mirror.
Her eyes lock onto mine.
I look out the window.
If Dad didn’t come home, this day was no good.
It stinks.
Dale Asks
Dale and I pick the red flowers
off our ixora bush
and suck the honey
out of the stems.
“Do you think Daddy will come back?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Ever?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“I think he will,” he says.
We each tug a flower off
and suck deep.
“I don’t know, Doozerdude,” I say,
because
I really don’t.
Mowing After School
I lean against the handle.
“Go! Move!” I growl over the noise.
The mower inches forward through the thick, fat grass.
I’ll
never
finish
the
lawn.
The mower dies.
“Man!”
I bang the handle,
then yank the pull.
Pppttt, pppttt.
I yank it harder.
Vvvrrrmmm.
Sweat
drips off my face.
I blow on my palms
to cool them.
Dad could have at least
mowed
before he left.
The Talk
“Thanks for mowing, sweetheart.
That’s such a big job,” says Mom.
I shrug.
She shifts on the couch.
“I bet your shower felt good.”
“Yeah.” I wrap a towel around my hair.
“Sit down. Estele. We need to talk.
You must have questions.”
Whoa. This is big
for Mom.
I sit down
and pull my knees under my chin.
“Um,” I say.
I pick at the loose blister skin
on my palm.
Mom grimaces and pats my hand
till I stop.
“Go ahead,” she says.
“Did you know Dad was going to leave?”
“Only the last few days.”
“Why did he leave?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
She does a big swallow.
“You guys never fought or anything,” I say real quiet.
“No, we didn’t. I think your dad
is just really unhappy.”
“Because of us?”
“No, because of himself.”
“Oh.”
I suck on my knee and think.
“Can we call him?” I ask.
“He didn’t give me a number.”
“Will he come back. Mom?”
“Probably not.”
Her sigh whistles
through her clenched teeth.
That “probably not” aches so bad,
I know it was hard for her
to say it straight.
My tears roll off my knees.
Hers splash onto her shirt
and soak her big belly.
I lay my head down
on the little lap she has left.
Mom hugs me.
Garbage
I see inside the black garbage bag
before Mom bundles it closed.
The stuff Dad
didn’t take.
She leaves it for a minute
to get the phone.
I pe
ek in and see magazines
I’ve never seen before.
These are Dad’s?
Did he leave Mom
for someone who
looks like these naked magazine women?
I punch the mound of stuff down,
kick it hard,
and walk away.
I don’t want to look anymore
at the garbage
he left behind.
Knocked Out
I’ve been telling Doozerdude a lot
that he stinks
and needs a bath.
Especially his neck
when it gets all ringed
with dirty sweat beads.
I yelled at him
for touching Dumplin’ Spinner
last week.
And that one broiling hot Saturday
way back before school started,
I complained and complained
to Dad
about us not having a pool.
And my room
hasn’t been so neat lately.
And when Dad and Mom
were playing cards last week,
I butted in
and whined to play too.
None of that
is a good reason
for him to leave.
Is it?
But what if Dad
added all that stuff up?
Was there enough
to knock out his love
and make him leave me?
Books
The books I’ve read
with divorce stuff in them
say the kids always think
it’s their fault when parents split.
The grown-ups always say it’s not.
Maybe the kids
are right after all.
Secretly
I sneak our biggest photo album
to my room and lock the door.
Where are some pictures of Dad?
There.
There we are at the Seaquarium.
At the bay.
Camping last summer near Lake Okeechobee
where those cold springs were.
He loved me then.
Didn’t he?
His face looks happy.
And he’s smiling right at me.
”Es?”
Dale knocks.
I slam the album shut.
”Go away!”
”All right, you don’t have to yell.”
His footsteps disappear.
I crack open the door.
All’s clear.
I race the album back to the shelf.
No one will know
I needed to look.
Tuesday
Chris’s chair stays empty.
”Where is Chris?”
”Why hasn’t he come back yet?”
”Where could Chris be?”
everyone asks.
”Kidnapped!”
The answer ripples
through the room
right through Chris’s
empty seat.
For Real
Ms. Dryden stacks some papers,