stomach still hurts, though. The oatmeal tastes like sawdust. I choke it down with overfluorinated water, counting the minutes before I can go back to the roomfor a swig of Pepto before school. I look at the Triadâs empty seats and feel the oatmeal work its way back up my system.
But they donât load us onto the buses. We listen to the phones ring in the offices and watch as the buses idle in the parking lot.
Rose returns after what seems like an eternity. She stands at the front of the cafeteria, hands on heavy hips. âKelly, Jared, and Wyatt all have blistered tongues and lipsâsecond-degree burns. And their fingers have burns on them as well. This was a serious, brutal attack, and none of us are leaving this room until someone tells me who did this.â
Beulah stands behind Rose in a skirt that sticks to her nylons, making a fizzly sound whenever she moves and tries to unstick the skirt. Major static cling. The skirt is that salmon color you see old ladies wearing at retirement centers in Florida.
âIâm waiting,â Rose says, shifting her weight.
We search one anothersâ faces for the truth. Even the new boy looks bright-eyed. Maybe they warned him. Maybe heâs been waiting for something bad to happen to him, only to be relieved to see it happened to someone else.
Before Rose can say anything else, I stand up. âI did.â
Silence.
Nobody congratulates me.
Why would they?
You canât congratulate cruelty.
They send everybody off to school and Rose yanks me into her office. I donât even hear what she says. Itâs like Iâm in some kind of bell jar, Roseâs words all muted and soft. Phone calls. Reports. Anger management. Therapy. Consequences.
âThere will be consequences,â she says, her words ringing clear as her pudgy hand squeezes my shoulder.
I sigh and feel relieved that Iâve confessed. I wonder if thatâs how Dad feels. Like all these years of running are done. Behind him. Heâs free.
âYou of all people,â she says. âWhy would you do such a thing?â
It seemed so clear before. It made sense. I wanted me back, but what I did to the Triad doesnât change anything. It just changes me. So I canât get me back. Sheâs gone.
In the end, my dadâs still in jail and Iâll be shipped off with an unknown to who-knows-where. Unless Dad stops being so vague about that mystery relative.
End of experiment.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A fter a day of talking to counselors and meetings with lots of other random people, they all decide that my punishment is to become a pseudo-indentured servant for Kids Place as well as take anger management classes. That and Iâve been banned from the Halloween social this weekend. Whoopee.
The plus of orphanages? Thereâre no parents to press charges.
The Triad returns with bandaged tongues and swollen lips. At dinner they stand up in front of everybody and Rose pulls me to face them. She wants to make an example of me so others will be shamed into being good. âDo you have anything to say?â she asks.
âRepent!â I can hear my dadâs voice at those tent revivals. Maybe I spent too much time listening to his sermons instead of counting the cash.
You know, lots of people think blind people have a heightened sense of sound, touch, taste, and smell. But weâre all born with the same âsensoryâ capacities, so to speak. A blind person seemingly has heightened other senses because a blind person uses them more.
I wonder if Dadâs conscience is turned off. Maybe he was born conscience-impaired, and mine is heightened because I use mine for both of us. It doesnât matter much.
I stare at the Triadâweeping blisters caked with shiny salve.
âWell?â Rose nudges me half a step closer. In her thousand-page manual of rules and regulations for Kids Place, she doesnât once touch on the rules of survival. She