“Um, but could you not do that on my bed?” I asked, looking at her hands.
“Sure,” she said, brushing off her cruddy remnants. “Are you going back to school tomorrow?”
“I think so. I can’t afford to miss anymore,” I said, feeling panicked at falling even further behind in math.
“Okay, I’ll meet you at the bus stop,” she said, tromping out of my room in her heavy boots.
“So, you’ll be on the bus with me tomorrow,” Kevin asked from my doorway.
“Sharpening up on those spy skills?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Didn’t need to. She talks really loud,” he said, making a production of acting like he was cleaning out his ear.
I laughed. “True dat.”
“She smells kind of bad too,” he said, wrinkling his nose as he stepped in my room.
“I’m sure we’ve smelled that bad before too,” I reprimanded him lightly.
“Hey, no way. Even when we live in the car, you’re always clean, and so am I,” he said, defending himself.
I couldn’t argue with him. I had always worked hard to make sure Kevin and I always looked as presentable as possible. Lucinda had used us countless times to get donations from churches by parading us in front of the sympathetic hearts there. The key was to look poor, but still clean at the same time. It’s weird how people judge you. You can’t cross the line of just being down on your luck, where they would help you, to being a dirty scum-bum, where they wanted nothing to do with you. Looking poor was never hard to do in our worn-out, discolored clothes, but keeping clean had always been a challenge when you lived in a car.
“Hmm, well, it’s not our place to judge. Besides, we’ve seen worse. Remember Stinky Steve at the last shelter?”
Kevin pretended to gag, making me smile at his antics.
“Oh yeah, Stinky Steve was the grossest ever, with those disgusting, smelly overalls that looked like he…”
“Peed in them,” we both said laughing at the same time. “His hair was the worst though. I bet it’s been like fifteen years since a bottle of shampoo’s touched that head,” I added.
“It would run away screaming if it did get that close,” Kevin said giggling as he pretended to run away.
“Okay okay,” I laughed, holding my side. “Let me rest so I can go to school with you tomorrow.”
I rested back against my pillow, feeling slightly winded from my laugh-fest with Kevin.
“Katelyn, can you take care of your brother tonight? I’m exhausted from catering to you the last few days,” Lucinda said, sliding my door open.
“Sure Mom,” I said sitting up, not bothering to point out that the only thing she had done over the past two days was take care of herself. I was actually surprised she had made it this long. Normally, Lucinda always “coincidentally” managed to get sick whenever anyone else in the family did. And she expected, or rather, demanded to be catered to.
I spent the remainder of the evening fixing Kevin’s dinner and straightening up the trailer that had gotten trashed during my two days of convalescence. Actually, I wasn’t bothered too much. Emptying and cleaning ashtrays and washing used coffee mugs took my mind off what I would be facing the next day. I was confident Max would try to talk to me, and I had no real idea what I wanted to say to him. Different scenarios ran through my head as I wiped the last of the ashes off the coffee table where someone had neglected to use an ashtray. There was one idea I was considering, which wasn’t the best, but the opportunity had presented itself.
The next morning I woke up exhausted from both my cleaning regimen the night before and staying up too late to complete the majority of my missed assignments from school. The only thing I struggled with was the math, but used the examples from the textbook and slowly felt like I was finally getting it.
Bethany and her brother, Matt, met us at the bus stop and I put my plan into gear by questioning them on things they liked to do. Matt never really answered, choosing instead to just watch me warily out of the corner of my eye. Bethany, on the other hand, responded like a flower in the sun. I felt bad about my initial judgments of her after gleaning a wealth of information over the bus ride to school. She lived with only her brother and father since her mother had abandoned them several years back when Bethany’s dad wouldn’t give up his love of drinking. I could tell by the way Matt tensed up next to me while she was talking that this was the root of his problems. I felt his pain. God knows I’ve dealt with enough of Lucinda’s addictions over the years. Of course, her issues went a whole lot deeper than just a love of cigarettes and stupid men.
I walked into school with my new tentative friends and felt Alicia’s and Rebecca’s stares as we passed them near the front office. My eyes remained firmly planted on the sunny yellow walls as we continued toward the classroom. Bethany, oblivious to the inner turmoil I was feeling, continued to chatter on as she tried to cram a lifetime of information into one conversation. One thing I didn’t like was the sharp edge of her tone whenever she mentioned the school or our fellow students. Being prejudice obviously ran both ways. In all the conversations I had with the Pops, as Bethany called them, I never once heard them talk about her or Matt with the same animosity she had for them. I stifled a sigh. I hope this course of action didn’t turn out to be a huge mistake.
Max was already at his desk when we entered the room. He had his body angled toward my desk and I sensed an ambush. I couldn’t help drinking in the sight of him as I approached Mr. Graves.
“Katelyn, are you feeling better?” Mr. Graves asked concerned.
“I’m getting there,” I said in a near whisper since my voice kept going in and out annoyingly.
“You sound awful,” he said, still looking concerned.
“I think this is the tail end of it,” I said, trying to sound hopeful. “Anyway, I was wondering if I can move my desk over near Bethany, if you don’t mind.”