The Same Stuff as Stars

  “She’s Mrs. Morgan. Mrs. Erma Morgan. The same as the road. I don’t think there’s any number—”

  “Hold on a minute, okay?” Angel could hear the woman conferring with somebody else. “Okay. Looks like it’ll have to be a new stop. The bus will stop right by your mailbox. Now, that will be the elementary school bus, won’t it?”

  “There’s more than one bus?”

  Another sigh. “Honey, we got five different schedules to coordinate. Kindergarten. That’s morning and afternoon. Elementary. That’s one through five. Middle school, which, in case you’re wondering, is six through eight. And high school. But I’m guessing you don’t need to know about that last one.”

  Angel felt panicky all over. She’d never imagined that she and Bernie would be riding different buses. What would he do if she wasn’t with him?

  “Now, which bus was it?”

  “I don’t know—I mean—”

  “This is a busy day, honey. Could you get your mother to call later? I could explain everything to her.”

  Angel hung up the phone.

  Grandma was watching her from the rocker. “See what I mean? They treat you like scum on a frog pond. I bet they didn’t even tell you what time the dang thing went past here.”

  “Grandma, it’s two different buses.”

  “Two?”

  “Yeah. I got to ride one and Bernie has to ride a whole ’nother one.”

  “Well, you didn’t expect them to make it simple for you, now, did you?”

  “What am I going to do?” She was talking to herself. She wasn’t asking for help.

  “Well, you could try not going a-tall. By the time I was your age—”

  “Welfare would be after me and Bernie for sure then.”

  “And why do them snoops have to know where you’re at?”

  “I already told the woman at the school where we live, Grandma.”

  She shook her head sadly. “And I thought you was so smart.”

  “Do you know the telephone number for the library?” Grandma bristled. “Just what does that Liza Irwin have to do with anything?”

  “Well, I need a grownup to call the school and find out about the schedules. They don’t want to talk to a kid. Of course...” She came over and knelt beside the rocking chair. “They’d pay attention to you if you called them.”

  “Are you trying to fancy-talk me?”

  “Not on your stuffed cabbage, Grandma.”

  Grandma rose to her feet. “Hmmph. Get me that number.”

  Another series of busy signals until at last she got through once more to the grumpy secretary, who did talk to Grandma. It was worse than Angel had imagined. Bernie’s bus would come forty-five minutes after Angel’s. He’d never go to school without her policing him. Besides, she couldn’t have him standing out there on the road by himself. No telling what would happen.

  “Oh, Grandma, what’ll I do?”

  Grandma sighed, headed back for her chair, and plumped herself down. Finally, she said in a tired voice, “I reckon I’ll have to walk him down.”

  “You?”

  The old woman pulled up her skirt, raised her legs, and stared at them. “Spindly, but they ain’t broke yet. I’s’pose next thing I know you’ll be telling me I oughta go all the way to school with him the first day.”

  “Oh, Grandma, would you? That would be so great!” Angel could feel the cares rolling off her shoulders like water off a dish drain. Grandma was going to help. She was. She was. She wouldn’t have to do everything for herself and Bernie. Grandma would help. She wanted to kiss the old woman right on the face, but she was too shy. There was no telling how Grandma would react to kissing.

  ***

  Getting through the first day at a new school was worse than visiting the jail, but like the jail visits, she’d had plenty of practice. This was her eighth school in six years. Verna never could stay in one place very long, and besides all the moving they did with Verna, there were the two terms in foster care. No wonder she was always thinking about things Ms. Hallingford said. She had been Angel’s teacher for a whole year. No one else had taught Angel more than a few weeks or months.

  In the middle school office, Angel was given all sorts of papers to take home and have her mother sign. She’d just get Grandma to do it—or sign Verna’s name herself. She’d done that often enough in the past. They hardly ever questioned it.

  She didn’t want to use any of Grandma’s check money for lunch, so she’d brought a peanut butter sandwich for herself. It stuck to the roof of her mouth like tar. She longed for milk or juice or something to wash it down, but she felt embarrassed getting up and going to drink from the water fountain every few bites.

  It was confusing changing to different rooms for different classes, but everybody was in the same boat. This was everyone’s first year at the middle school, and even if some of the kids pretended to know their way around, she could see in the way their eyes shifted, looking for room numbers, and from the high-pitched yelling and giggling that most of them were nearly as nervous as she was.

  No one spoke to her in the cafeteria. Everyone seemed to have friends from the year before to eat with. She caught one girl staring at her. When she stared back, the girl looked away, and began talking to someone close by.

  I don’t want friends, she told herself. Friends get nosy. I don’t want to have to explain about Verna. How could I anyway? Or about Wayne. Her heart sank when she thought of him back in Burlington with no one to visit, no one to care whether he lived or died. Nobody deserved that kind of life, did they? No matter what they had done. Everyone needed somebody to care about them. Even Grandma, who probably thought she didn’t. But today Grandma was taking Bernie to school. Oh, mercy, let it go okay. Let Bernie behave himself. And while you’re at it, God, let Grandma behave herself.

  “You just moved here, didn’t you?” The girl whom she’d caught staring a few minutes before had come over to her table. She was in new jeans and a bright-red turtleneck shirt that was stretched tight across her already developing breasts. Her brown hair was curly and framed her face. With a pang, Angel realized that here was a girl somebody cared enough about that they’d bought her new clothes and taken her to a beauty parlor for the first day of school. She pushed her own hair off her face.

  “I’m Megan Armstrong,” the girl said. “Who are you?”

  “What’s it to you?” The words just popped out.

  “Okay, okay,” said Megan, walking away. “We were just wondering who you were.” She went back to her friends to report. They all looked quickly at Angel and then began talking and giggling behind their hands.

  She didn’t care. She really didn’t. All she had to do was get through the wretched day. The first day was always the worst, and sometimes after a week or so she could spot someone else who was on the edge of things, some other kid who didn’t want to talk about home, who just wanted somebody to eat lunch with so as not to stick out so much. It might take a while, but she could wait. She always had before. At one of the schools she’d gone to, it took three months before anyone knew her dad was in prison. That was a record. Someone usually found out in a few weeks. She could tell when it had happened because her lunch partner was suddenly no longer at the accustomed table. At her last school a girl named Chantille Saunders’s father was in jail, too. So even if neither of them wanted to talk about it, they ate their free lunches together until school let out. Come to think of it, if Bernie hadn’t been such a problem in first grade, last year in Ms. Hallingford’s class would have been her alltime best school year.

  But, as they say, that was then, this was now. She wondered what would happen if she jumped up on the lunchroom table and yelled out to everyone: “Hey, you losers. My daddy’s in jail. Want to make something of it?” What would Megan Armstrong and her fancy friends think then? They were curious about her or they wouldn’t have sent Megan over, but what would they do if they knew who she really was? Scum on a frog pond. Being a Morgan from Morgan
Farm Road wasn’t as great a thing as she’d first thought. Well, she didn’t care. All she wanted was for Bernie to get through the day okay. If it was all right for Bernie, she could stand anything.

  No one except teachers spoke to her for the rest of the day. In each new class she tried to find a desk in the back corner of the classroom, where she could hunch into herself and just stare at backs of people’s heads without them looking at her. When she’d gone to the office first thing, she’d been given a schedule to follow, but of course none of the teachers had her on their rolls, so she had to give her name and address again each time—language arts, science, social studies, math, gym (no, she didn’t have any other sneakers and hadn’t brought shorts and an extra T-shirt), and a class that for the next nine weeks was something called library skills, but later in the year would be either art or music. At first, she was disappointed—she’d rather hoped for art—except that Mrs. Coates, the librarian, seemed really nice, almost as nice as Miss Liza, with a library twice as big.

  No, she had no report card from her previous school, but, yes, she did know the name of the school. She supposed they would have to call and get her health and academic records. Health records! She’d forgotten that Bernie would need those as well. She’d have to persuade Grandma to call about them. Grandma wouldn’t know the name of his previous school, and Bernie would probably refuse to tell. He didn’t exactly leave North Burlington Elementary with a shining reputation. Oh Lord, is he behaving himself? The elementary school building was right next to the middle school, but it might as well have been light-years away. She’d never see him during the day, never be able to listen to his complaints, never be able to remind him to behave.

  She couldn’t worry about Bernie now. She had to get through the day. She’d managed to scrounge up a pencil and a few sheets of paper, but this afternoon she’d have to go down to the store and get a proper notebook and a pack of lined paper. All the other kids seemed to have notebooks with movie scenes on the covers, little calculators, ballpoint pens, and lots of sharp pencils with pink erasers that no one had ever used, much less chewed on, but Angel didn’t waste envy on them. She knew she couldn’t afford those things.

  Except for the brief encounter with Megan in the cafeteria, she was able to get through the day without anyone paying much attention to her. Even on the bus, she got a seat by herself, and the driver remembered without asking where to drop her off.

  The house was empty. How could that be? She’d expected to walk in and find Grandma rocking away, ready to report how everything had gone. “Grandma? Grandma!” It was spooky to walk in and hear her own voice echo in the empty kitchen. She knocked gently on Grandma’s door. Maybe she was taking a nap. When there was no answer, she turned the knob and peered in. No Grandma, but that didn’t mean the room was empty. It was jammed with cardboard boxes and stacks of newspapers and magazines—a worse jumble than the sugar shack. You could hardly see the bed or the dresser for the mess. A fire hazard, plain and simple. If Welfare showed up, the sight of that room alone would make them snatch her and Bernie away She closed the door quickly. She didn’t want Grandma to pop up out of nowhere and catch her snooping.

  She looked up at the kitchen clock. It was two fifty-five. Bernie’s bus was due at three forty-five. She didn’t know what to do with herself until then. It occurred to her later that she should have enjoyed the peaceful patch of time, read her book, taken a nap, but all she could do was pace up and down the worn kitchen linoleum and keep willing the hands on the clock to move faster. Has Grandma disappeared like Verna? Was she so sick and tired of Angel and Bernie that she’d just run away from home? Where on earth could she be? Angel should never have made her think she had to look after Bernie. That was it. The last straw. But I couldn’t help it. He had to have someone to watch him at the bus stop. And she offered. I didn’t force her into it. She said she would.

  At three thirty, she couldn’t stand it any longer and ran down to the mailbox, only to start pacing up and down the road, craning for a sight of the yellow bus. Oh Lord, how am I going to explain about Grandma to Bernie?

  She heard the bus before she saw it, shifting gears to get up the hill on the far side of the trailer. Finally, it lumbered into view, coming bumpily down the middle of the dirt road. With a squeal of brakes and flashing of lights, it pulled up by the mailbox.

  The door whooshed open. “Okay, kids, hop on it. I ain’t got all day.”

  Kids? What did the driver mean, kids?

  She soon saw. First, Bernie bounced down the stairs, then slowly, very slowly, clinging to the rail as long as possible, Grandma. As soon as she was on the ground, the driver yanked the door shut.

  “Grandma?”

  “Well, I couldn’t call a taxi now, could I?”

  “She stayed in my room all day!” Bernie was practically jumping up and down. “I was the only kid at school with a grandma in my class all day!”

  “Are you okay, Grandma?” Angel asked anxiously. The old woman’s lined face was not nearly so cheeiy as Bernie’s round one.

  “Ah, ginger snaps!” the old woman exclaimed. “Let’s get in there and get us something to eat. Have you ever tried to eat that pig slop in the school lunchroom? Bleeeh.”

  Bernie giggled with delight. “Me and Grandma throwed our whole lunch in the garbitch!”

  “Oh, Bernie.” Well, anyway he was happy. It couldn’t have gone too badly.

  She gave Grandma some warmed-over coffee and a piece of toast and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with milk for Bernie. The milk looked so cool and inviting, she poured herself a glass and drank it quickly, feeling guilty about downing milk she ought to save for Bernie.

  “You need any school supplies, Bernie? I got to run to the store and get me some.”

  Bernie looked at Grandma. Did he expect her to remember what he was supposed to bring the next day? “Nah,” said Grandma. “They got more junk in that room than they know what to do with now. We ain’t spending our Social Security check for none, are we, Bernie boy?”

  “Nah.” They both began to giggle.

  Angel cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Grandma, but I’m going to have to borrow some of your money. Verna will pay you back later.” The old woman snorted in disbelief, but what else could Angel do? She’d given Grandma all the rest of her taxi money for the phone calls, and she had to have the supplies. “You want to walk to the store with me, Bernie?”

  “Nah. I’m too tired. Me and Grandma need to rest, right, Grandma?”

  She was relieved, really. She could go so much faster without him, and she wouldn’t have to use even more money to buy him a treat. But as she walked down the road, she kicked the dust. He had always depended on her up until now. He’d always chosen to be with her over anybody else around. She almost felt like crying.

  FOURTEEN

  Draco the Dragon

  If it hadn’t been for the stars, she might have given up trying. Going to school was like running through a minefield in a war movie. She had to keep up the lie that her mother was home but the doctor had ordered her to bed because of severe back trouble, so she wasn’t able to take phone calls or to come in for a conference. She avoided all the other kids like poison. That was the easy part. No one was dying to be buddies with her.

  She tried not to let it rub her raw that Bernie and Grandma were thick as thieves and treated her like she was some stern parent when she tried to make them eat their vegetables or practice reading—Bernie, that is. She didn’t try to make Grandma read, but Grandma was no help with Bernie. She just giggled and acted silly when Angel was trying to help him, which made him all silly, too.

  So she couldn’t have stood it without the nights of starry skies. She would wait until Bernie and Grandma were asleep, pinching herself to stay awake, no matter how tired she was, and then sneak out to the old pasture. The star man was always there before her, lost in the heavens. She would wait beside him quietly, not daring to disturb him, until suddenly he would begin ta
lking about the sky.

  “There’s old Draco the Dragon, his tail slinking around, dividing the Big Bear from his little brother. Want to see?” Then he’d adjust the telescope to her height and let her look. When she would squint and squint and still not be able to see what he was talking about, he would make her look at the naked sky and point out the constellation. “Okay. Find Dubhe in the lip of the Big Dipper and look toward the North Star—Polaris.” She obeyed. “Now, the tip of the dragon’s tail is just between Dubhe and Polaris. Then it snakes around and takes a sharp bend”—he drew it in the air with his pointed finger—“and ends in another sort of dipper. That’s the dragon’s head. See the bright star at the end of its snout and the star beside it? In ancient times those were called the dragon’s eyes. But the beautiful double star is on the top of its head. You need to see that through the telescope.” And then, with unbelievable patience, he would help her find the pair of beautiful pale-yellow stars in Draco’s head.

  Angel could not remember it all, of course. She would go back to bed and lie there in the dark, head spinning, too tired to look up anything in her beloved book, too excited to sleep. It had taken more years than she could conceive of for the light from those stars to reach her eye. To her they were the most magnificent, the most wonderful, things she had ever seen. When the stars sent that light rushing toward the earth, she, Angel Morgan, wasn’t even alive, wasn’t even going to be born for ages and ages. She shivered. To the stars she was not even pond scum. Not even a speck of dust. Not even...not even...She tried to think of something smaller than nothing, but she couldn’t imagine it.

  ***

  Three weeks after school began, Megan Armstrong, who hadn’t spoken to her since the first day of school, came strolling over to where Angel sat eating her peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the back corner of the lunchroom. “It isn’t true, is it?” she said in a snooty sort of voice.

  It took a few seconds for Angel, who had been lost in the stars, to realize that Megan was talking to her. “Huh?”