Banished

him.

I loved to sing to Chub, everything from songs from cartoons to my favorites from the radio. Today, I just hummed, a sad, wandering melody that came into my head. Chub sighed and leaned into me, and the humming turned to words, the words from the verse. If Chub found them strange, he didn’t let on. I sang, and we rocked, and when the need to replay the verses over and over finally faded, he had fallen asleep in my arms.

I carried him to his crib and tucked him under his blanket. I slipped the pendant under my shirt so Gram wouldn’t see it, and rolled the scrap of lace carefully and put it in the back of my T-shirt drawer along with the frame and the pages. When I left the room, Chub had a fistful of soft cotton blanket pressed to his chin, smiling in his sleep.

CHAPTER 7

I WAS SLIDING into my usual seat at an empty lunch table the next day when I saw him. Sawyer was sitting with Milla and a few other Morries, poking at something in a Tupperware container with a plastic fork.

Only, there was something wrong. I could see it from twenty feet away. His eye was swollen and there was a purple bruise shading his cheek.

I suddenly wasn’t hungry. I threw my lunch-a sandwich and apple from home-into the trash and then walked, as casually as I could, past his table.

Up close it was worse. He had a black eye, and the other eye had an ugly red cut along the brow. In addition to the bruise on his cheek, there was something wrong with his nose; it was swollen and tilted to the right. As I passed, I couldn’t help gasping. Everyone looked up except Sawyer, who dropped his chin even lower and stared at the table.

“Whatcha lookin’ at him like that for, Hailey?” Gomez Jones demanded. “You’re whose fault that is. You done that to him.”

I couldn’t let him say that, not in front of Sawyer. “I-I-”

Milla slammed her hand down on the table angrily, making the trays and silverware jump. “Why can’t you just leave us alone?”

“Yeah, bitch-stay away,” another girl muttered.

I was getting tired of the way they treated me, especially considering what I had done for Milla. “You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me. Maybe you should try being a little grateful.”

“Oh, right. ’Cause you saved me and all, right?” Milla’s face twisted up in fury. “So I’m supposed to kiss your ass?”

“I don’t-I never said-”

“I don’t need you, none of us need you. You think you’re above the rest of us, but you’re not. You’re not. You and your grandmother, you’re broken. You’re freaks.” To my horror, Milla’s eyes filled with furious tears and she bolted from the table. After a second of silence, Sawyer pushed back his chair and went after her, not looking at me.

“Happy now?” the girl said as Gomez and the others started gathering their things. “How many of us do you want to get hurt? None of this would happen if you would just stay away.”

I stood frozen to the spot after they’d all left. I didn’t understand. I had never- never-heard a Morrie girl stand up to anyone outside their group, not in my whole life. I backed slowly away from the table, her words ringing in my ears. When I bumped into a chair, I turned and walked out of the cafeteria as quickly as I could.

Stay away. I’d broken some rule when I talked to Sawyer yesterday, and he’d paid for it. I didn’t bother asking myself who had done that to him-it had to be Rattler, though I couldn’t imagine why. I didn’t blame the Morries for being afraid of him-I was plenty afraid of him myself.

When I got home, Chub was curled up on the couch, asleep.

“How long’s he been down?” I asked Gram.

“Not long,” she said, stabbing out a cigarette in the ashtray and reaching for her pack, then crumpling it when she saw that it was empty. “I think. Or maybe a while, I don’t know.”

She had no idea, I could tell. All she cared about, unless she had visitors, was her programs. I reached for the full ashtray, carried it to the trash and wiped it clean before setting it back on the arm of her chair. I went to her room to get a fresh pack of cigarettes from where she kept them on top of her dresser. But when I closed my hand on the pack, I noticed that it was sitting on a plain manila folder.

Curious, I picked the folder up. Something fell out-a white business envelope and, to my amazement, a stack of bills secured with a rubber band.

I flipped quickly through the bills. My heart raced as I realized they were all hundreds-there had to be thousands of dollars in my hand. I set the money on the dresser as though it was on fire, then picked up the white envelope and slid a piece of paper out. After scanning it I realized that it was a plane ticket. Dated two weeks from now, it was for a flight from STL to DUB. Saint Louis to… where?

Before I could examine the ticket more carefully, I heard Gram coughing my name from the living room. I jammed the ticket back in the envelope and slid it and the money into the manila folder.

In the living room I handed the cigarettes to Gram and tried to look like nothing was out of the ordinary. I smoothed an afghan over Chub and kissed his cheek. “I’m going for a walk. Be back in a bit.”

Gram didn’t respond. I didn’t expect her to.

I didn’t bother with the leash. Rascal didn’t need it-he heeled and sat whenever I came to a stop. As we walked along the road, I tried to make sense of what I’d found. Neither of us had ever been on a plane, and I’d never seen that much money in my life. It had to have something to do with the men in the car, but what? Was she planning to make a run from the law? What had she done?

I was so intent on my thoughts that, as we rounded the curve a quarter mile from our house, I almost missed the familiar sound of the Hostess truck. It was a noisy thing with muffler problems that came along every Tuesday and Friday on its way to the Walmart in Casey. Rascal loved to chase it. Usually he wouldn’t leave my side, but there was something about the bright-colored truck that set him hurtling after it, ears flying, tongue hanging out, taking pure joy in the chase.

I didn’t worry about him-he was a smart dog, and fast, and he loved to give the truck a run for its money-but I hadn’t counted on the curve. The driver couldn’t have seen Rascal, who heard the truck’s approach before I did and spun around in the gravel on the shoulder just as it rounded the bend.

I’ve replayed that moment a thousand times in my mind. I don’t want to. I wish I could forget the sound Rascal’s body made when the grill of the truck struck him, when he narrowly missed being dragged under the wheels, when he went flying through the air and slammed into the hard-packed dirt bank.

I ran, but it felt like my arms and legs could only move at half speed, and my scream was stuck in my throat. I know the driver pulled over and got out and called to me, but I don’t remember what he said.

Somehow I made it to Rascal’s side. It was bad. It was worse than bad. I won’t say what I saw, the damage that can be done during a single instant of innocent joy. In the second that it took for me to kneel down beside Rascal and put my cheek to his head, I was covered with blood. Behind us the driver was yelling at me to put him in the truck and we’d drive to the vet, to move fast, there might be a chance-

But I knew there wasn’t any chance. Not if we went in the truck. Not if I didn’t do what needed to be done.

The rushing was already building in my body, the quickening in the blood, just like it had in the gym. But I couldn’t do it here, not in front of the trucker. I stripped off my jacket and laid it flat on the ground and, as gently as I could, dragged Rascal’s body onto the jacket. With tears welling up in my eyes and making it hard to see, I folded the fabric over Rascal’s poor torn body and lifted him. He didn’t protest. He was already slipping away.

I don’t remember what I said to the driver. I don’t know if I said anything at all. The driver was a kind man, and I think he knew that Rascal was nearly dead and he didn’t want to intrude on my last moments with my dog. I know he drove away after placing a heavy hand on my shoulder and telling me he was sorry, but I was already turning back toward home.

I laid Rascal on the porch, still nestled in my jacket. I put my face close to his and waited for his breath against