The Lost Girl Page 17

  Iris felt the heat rise in her cheeks, in her chest, in her fingertips. Hot tears burned in her eyes. Hot words rose up in her throat and burst out of her mouth. “You’re an ogre!” she yelled.

  Heat rises. Iris knew this. And so her words floated up in the air to the ceiling and then just hung there where Iris and Mr. Hunt could stare at them. He gaped at the words, and then back at her, as if maybe she was the ogre.

  Iris turned and ran.

  Lark was in Ms. Baptiste’s office on the cot with a Barnhill Elementary blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her face was white with deep red splotches, and her eyes were swollen and red.

  “You drew on my project,” Lark said.

  Iris’s throat burned. She could not speak.

  “You drew stars on my project,” Lark repeated. “You didn’t even draw them well. You’re terrible at drawing.”

  “I’m sorry,” Iris breathed. Her tears were burning her face.

  “And your envelope? Your little facts? Your printouts? You think I can’t look up stuff on the internet?”

  “No, I—”

  “I can, you know. I can look up stuff and write it down. And I can draw, too. I could have made these drawings.” Lark pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack and crumpled it up, then threw it at Iris.

  “I know.”

  “I could have drawn the stars on if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to do it my way. Why doesn’t anyone let me do things my way?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “But you did. You thought my way was stupid, so you thought you’d save me from myself, is that right?”

  It was. It was exactly right. Iris was crumpling like paper.

  “So all morning all I could see was you handing me that envelope. And I just wanted to go home. I should have gone home. But I didn’t—I couldn’t. And then it was time and I took the lid off and I saw what you’d done. You didn’t even tell me. You just left me to discover it! And Mr. Hunt kept calling me up and then people started laughing. And someone started making puking noises, and people laughed harder, and I’m holding this stupid stupid thing and—”

  “Lark—”

  Lark looked up at her. “If you don’t believe in me”—and now the tears were spilling out of her eyes again, spilling everywhere. She did not finish the thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  For Your Own Good

  When their mom came and picked Lark up from school, Iris did not even try to go home with them. She just sat on the cot in Ms. Baptiste’s office with her head in her hands.

  This was her fault.

  She wanted to go back and put her finger on the precise moment where things went wrong, so she could make sure never ever to do it again as long as she lived. And while it seemed like sneaking down in the middle of the night to fix the project might have been it, that if she pressed on that moment hard enough everything she’d done and everything she should do now would be clear, something whispered in the back of her mind: That isn’t it, you dear thing. Go deeper.

  But she did not want to go deeper. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She just wanted to stay here with her head in her hands in the dark and quiet, possibly forever.

  But soon Ms. Baptiste came to get her and gently suggested that it was time to go back to class.

  Iris got up wordlessly, and then she noticed the nurse’s necklace.

  “That’s a crow,” she said flatly.

  “Oh, this? Yes.” Ms. Baptiste held up the silver bird dangling from her necklace. “I love corvids. They’re so smart! Did you know they can use tools?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Did you know they can recognize faces? And they warn each other about dangerous people? If someone tries to hurt a crow, pretty soon other crows start attacking them on sight. Isn’t that cool?”

  “I guess,” Iris said.

  “I like it,” said Ms. Baptiste. “They protect each other. It would be nice to have a flock, wouldn’t it? Anyway, you go back to class. I’m sure Lark will feel better soon.”

  Iris nodded softly.

  When she left the nurse’s office, she did not turn right to go back to the fifth-grade wing. She had made a mess of everything, but now she needed to try to fix it. So she headed right to the office and told Ms. Snyder she needed to see Principal Peter.

  Principal Peter was a shiny-headed, shiny-faced man who wore a big, shiny smile that showed off his shiny, shiny teeth. It was hard, sometimes, to look at him directly, but right now Iris fixed her gaze on him and did not blink.

  “And what can I do for you, young lady?” he asked shinily.

  She could do this. She could make it right. She could press her finger on this moment and discover it was the moment she made everything okay again.

  She knew she needed to act correctly, that if she got emotional he’d dismiss her as a hysterical little girl. That is what it is to be a kid: adults don’t take you seriously unless you act like you have no feelings.

  Iris cleared her throat.

  “I am here to talk to you about Lark,” she responded, speaking slowly. She was sitting up so straight; her chest was out; her voice was steady even though some strange tendril of feeling was tickling at her throat.

  “I see,” he said. “As I’m sure you are aware, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to talk about another student with you.”

  “But—she’s not another student. She’s my sister.”

  “I am aware of that. You do look something alike!”

  He laughed. Iris did not.

  Breathe, Iris. Breathe. She had come in here mad before, and he had done nothing but question her attitude. So she was going to take deep cleansing breaths, just like Abigail had taught them, and speak to him, one reasonable person to another.

  “I think Lark should be in Ms. Shonubi’s class,” she said reasonably.

  “I am afraid there is no room in Ms. Shonubi’s class.”

  “I’ll switch with her. I’ll be in Mr. Hunt’s class.”

  He smiled a shiny smile, as if she were a first grader telling him she wanted to be a Jedi Knight when she grew up. “This is not a Disney movie.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Breathe, Iris. Breathe. “I could take her spot, and she could take mine.”

  “Now, Iris,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m sure you understand that we can’t simply switch students for no reason.”

  “But there is a reason.”

  “Iris, you can trust us. We are working hard to make the best possible learning environment for her. Mr. Hunt has already spoken to the students who teased your sister.”

  “He did?”

  “As you know, our school has a strict anti-bullying policy. That is part of our Believe in Barnhill program. But”—he leaned back in his chair, eyes never leaving her—“that policy applies to you as well. You called a teacher an ogre.”

  Iris went hot.

  Principal Peter folded his hands together. “Now,” he said, looking a little less shiny, “do you really think that’s appropriate?”

  No. Of course she didn’t think it was appropriate. Iris was not a sheep dropped into an elementary school, bleating all around looking for her ill-mannered herd. Right there in the front of the school handbook—the same thing the students had to sign at the beginning of the year—it said, Do not call teachers ogres.

  Or it probably would next year.

  “I believe I asked you a question.”

  “No!” Iris said, too loud, too fast. “Of course not.”

  “I am glad we agree. It is not appropriate at all. If anything like that happens again, we will have to discuss measures. Now, Iris. I know this is a difficult adjustment for you. I understand your emotions are high. We didn’t expect this to be easy, but we do believe this is in your best interest in the long run.”

  “. . . We?”

  “Your parents and I.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “It was your idea, though. You’re the one wh
o did this. You’re mad at me for complaining to you last year and you’re trying to punish us.” She might as well say it. She was saying everything else.

  “Iris . . .” He shook his head, as if she was the one who had disappointed him. “First of all, that’s not how adults do things. Second of all, I am not ‘mad’ at you. But, yes, you do seem to devote a lot of emotional and mental energy to defending your sister, energy that could be better spent on learning. And how you do expect your sister to know how to stand up for herself when you’re always standing up for her?”

  Iris’s mouth fell open.

  “Third, I cannot have you believe this is some kind of retribution from me, or that this decision wasn’t made with both of your very best interests at heart. It was your parents’ idea, not mine, as I’m sure they’d be happy to tell you.”

  A chill hit Iris’s body with the force of a massive wave. She sat for a moment, while the cold washed over her. It felt like someone had turned a dial in her brain and all she could hear was the hum of static. “I have to go,” Iris said.

  It had been her parents’ idea.

  It hadn’t been Principal Peter at all, though he agreed to do it. And now Iris was mad all over again.

  She could not exactly call her mother and yell, because her mother was watching over Lark, and she did not want Lark to hear any of this.

  But there was another person she could yell at.

  If she could find a way.

  It was six hours ahead in London. This meant they mostly talked to their dad in the mornings before school, later on the weekends. By the time Iris got home from Camp Awesome tonight, her dad would be fast asleep.

  Still. He’d said when he’d left that the girls could message him anytime and he’d get his head to a computer screen as soon as he possibly could, and even though he wasn’t there with them, they should always know he was there for them, and he would prove that by turning on the notifications on his Skype app so he’d always see them and could respond right away, and while Iris didn’t know what exactly that meant, it seemed to mean something.

  So Iris stomped up to the media center, to the one grown-up in the school who might look right at her and really see her.

  “Mr. Ntaba—

  “What’s wrong, Iris?”

  “I need to talk to my dad. Lark had to go home and—”

  “You need to use the phone?”

  “With the computer. I need to Skype him. He’s in London.”

  Mr. Ntaba gazed at her, studying her. Iris looked back. He had known her for six years, and for five of those he’d seen her always next to Lark, and this year she was not, and he must know. He must know that even the Right Book could not help her now.

  “Please,” she said quietly.

  A moment. A short nod. “Okay, Iris. You can use the computer in my office.”

  Soon she was sitting in Mr. Ntaba’s office chair while he loaded up Skype for her and watched as she signed into the family account.

  DAD I NEED TO TALK TO YOU

  And he wrote back right away, just like he’d promised:

  Three minutes.

  When his face popped up on the screen, Mr. Ntaba ducked back out front, and Iris turned to steel.

  “I heard Lark had a bad day,” her dad said. “Are you all right? Where are you anyway?”

  No. She was not going to be distracted. “This was your idea.”

  “What?” he said. “What was?”

  “That we’re in different classrooms. It wasn’t Principal Peter’s idea at all. It was your idea.”

  Her dad’s face hardened. “Yes. And your mother’s. It is, after all, our job to parent you two girls. As your parents.”

  And there, everything was hot again. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me believe that it was Principal Peter?” Do not cry, Iris, do not cry.

  “Well, Iris,” he said, his voice heavy. “I guess we thought you’d be upset.”

  “You lied to me,” she said quietly.

  “We didn’t lie. You made an assumption and we did not correct that assumption. But if you had known it was us, we never would have heard the end of it. We wanted you to be able to focus your attention on making the best of the situation.”

  “Fine,” Iris said. “If you did this, you can change it. It’s not working.”

  “It’s still September!”

  “Just . . . call Principal Peter and tell him it’s not working; tell him Lark should be in class with me.”

  “I know this is hard. I know Lark is struggling.”

  “Mr. Hunt is”—don’t say he’s an ogre, don’t say he’s an ogre—“not right for her. The worst bully in fifth grade is in her class!”

  “Or it might be that your sister is struggling because she does not have you in class with her, and that is very new. There is going to be an adjustment period. We did not expect this to be easy at first, on either of you. Give her some time; let her find herself.”

  “She doesn’t need to find herself!” If there was any kid in the whole world who had already found herself, it was Lark. “There’s nothing wrong with her.”

  “No. No there’s not. But maybe both of you need to learn to be okay without the other one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s life! That’s what growing up is. You can’t depend on another person for everything.”

  “Why not?”

  “. . . Because.”

  Iris narrowed her eyes. He didn’t have a good answer. He was just saying these things that you say because they sound good, because somewhere in time someone decreed that You Can’t Depend on Another Person for Everything. What kind of an idea was that? It sounded like the sort of thing people who didn’t have anyone to depend on said to make themselves feel better.

  “This isn’t just about Lark,” he added.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Iris, that maybe you needed this too.”

  Iris sputtered. Where to begin? If she argued that, no, she didn’t need this, she was accepting the too part. Which she was not accepting, not in the least. With one word, her father had swept away everything she’d said, like it had never happened, like they both had agreed that, yes, Lark needed this.

  “Maybe you need to spend a little less time on your sister and a little more time minding yourself.”

  “I don’t need minding!”

  “Iris, you called a teacher a troll”—Do not correct him, Iris told herself. Do not correct him.—“Yes, I know about that! Your mother and I already talked. What were you thinking?”

  What was she thinking? She hadn’t been thinking! Wasn’t that obvious? Apparently everyone thought she’d sat around and planned this, that she’d woken up in the morning and thought, Hey, you know what would be fun?

  Nothing about this was fun.

  “Iris, you have to stop treating everyone like it’s you and Lark against the world. It’s not healthy. And apparently it’s going to lead you to insult teachers. Really, Iris, name calling?”

  Her anger turned into something else, something slimy and slithering and thick. Before, she’d wanted to burst open, but now she felt like she might collapse inward like a dying star. And maybe it would be better.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she said, voice a whisper.

  This was failing, all of it. They were the ones who had done this, and yet she was the one imploding. If she had been with Lark, none of this would have happened, and she wouldn’t have tried to fix Lark’s project, and she would not have said the thing she said to Mr. Hunt, and everything would be okay.

  No, she was not strong. No, she did not sound like someone who should be listened to. She was Invisible Iris, Immature, Impulsive, Insulting, Infantile. Inept. Inconsequential. She was the sort of person who could not be trusted, the sort other people made decisions for. For Your Own Good.

  “Iris, I trust nothing like this will ever happen again.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “That’s my gir
l.”

  “. . . Please, just move her?”

  “Iris,” said her father, “you will be okay. She will be okay. We want you guys to have the faith in yourselves that we have in you.”

  “I have to go,” Iris said, and hung up.

  Out front, Mr. Ntaba was talking to a second grader, perhaps showing her the book that would change her life. Inside the office, Iris leaned against his chair and stared at the monitor, blinking hard.

  She’d made a mess of everything. And she couldn’t clean it up.

  Abigail had told them to make noise, to stomp around; she’d told them they were worth listening to. But Iris never had a problem making noise; she never had a problem standing up for herself. She could stand tall and firm and still; she could stomp around when she needed to; she could let her inner flame shine bright.

  It was supposed to be the key. The magic. The spell that opened up the world to you. Be strong; be confident; stomp around. That was supposed to work.

  But what happened when you did all of that and no one listened?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Girls in the Glass Coffin

  Though the day had been terrible, Iris did not dread going to Camp Awesome. It wasn’t that she was happy about it either; she just felt nothing. She had spent all of her feelings for the day.

  Anyway, she didn’t want to go home. She couldn’t bear to see Lark. And Lark probably didn’t want to see her.

  Iris took her seat, avoiding Hannah’s eyes, and everyone else’s for good measure. Abigail was standing in front, resting her hand on a big stack of picture books from the library.

  “Well,” she said, “we talked about superheroes and superpowers the other day. Today I want to talk about fairy tales! I got a bunch of fairy tales and folktales from these very library shelves!”

  In her head, Iris let her head fall on the table with a loud thwap.

  Amma perked up. “Do you have any from Somalia?” she asked, motioning to the pile of books.

  “Um,” Abigail said. “No.”

  “That’s okay,” Amma said cheerfully. “I’m used to it.”

  Abigail went on to chirp about how the Grimm brothers get all the credit for the fairy tales we know today but they didn’t actually write them; they just went around and collected the stories.