Station Part 2

By Alex, 7^th grade

“I-”

“That’s not all. Look.”

She pushed up her right sleeve, and held her arm out for me to see. I had to press my hands against my mouth to stop from screaming in shock. There was a long, ugly scar that crossed nearly her entire forearm, long and brilliant red against her snowy-white skin. It was long-healed, but I could tell that the original cut must have  had to be really deep.

Miss Brunswick saw my expression of shock and smiled weakly.

“It was a long time ago, Nat,” she said. “It’s just a scar.”

“Well, that’s not just a scar,” I said. “What happened?”

“A dog bit me.”

“How many dogs?” I asked.

“Just three.”

“Three?”

“Yeah. Just three.”

“That happened at the camp, didn’t it?” I asked her in a whisper.

I took her lack of an answer to be a yes.

It was a minute before all of this sank in, and in that minute, Miss Brunswick stood up and pulled her sleeve back down.

“They’ll miss you in the cafeteria,” she said distantly. “You’d better go.”

She got  up and walked away.

I got up too, but I didn’t go to the cafeteria. Instead, I went the opposite direction, back to my room. I shut the door and locked it, which I wasn’t supposed to do, and pushed a chair against it, just in case. I collapsed onto the bed and closed my eyes. My thoughts were reeling around in my mind and not really making any sense. I couldn’t pinpoint on one thing in particular, so I focused on the whole picture. I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me. There was something missing, but I was going to have to come up with that on my own.

I don’t know when I went to sleep, or for how long, but I knew that when I woke  up, it was noon, and a pair of silver glasses were floating above me. I blinked, and Officer Clayton was staring at me.

“Natalie,” he said sternly, “your presence is required in the conference room.”

I sat up slowly. “Why?”

Officer Clayton was not the person to ask that kind of question. He sighed loudly and looked at the completely unremarkable ceiling before answering.

“We are discussing your future, Natalie, and you’re late already. I shall be walking down that hall in five minutes sharp, with you or without you. And no more questions!”

He turned around and walked out the door. I took this as my cue to get up and get dressed. And, just to see what he would do, I deliberately waited until six minutes after he had left before opening the door. Officer Clayton was halfway down the hall, and I hurried to catch up with him.

“You’re late!” he snapped, but didn’t stop. “Punctuality is a virtue, Natalie, do I have to tell you again?”

I probably didn’t mention that Officer Clayton had made his punctuality speech to me three times, maybe four. I couldn’t really be sure, because I hadn’t been paying attention for most of the speech every time.

Sure enough, when I decided to listen for a few seconds, he was winding down.

“…and make no mistake, Natalie, I shall be informing that teacher of yours about this little tardiness problem you have…”

If only he knew the truth.

I followed him all the way down the ancient corridor and into the equally old conference room. It was empty. Completely empty, save a dusty table and around four hundred chairs. Officer Clayton turned around quickly, walked out the door, and I heard the distinctive click of him locking the door.

I pulled a chair off the massive pile, dragged it up to the table, and sat down, doodling in the thick layer of dust. I didn’t really pay attention to what I was drawing, and when I heard Officer Clayton talking softly to some people outside, I looked down and jumped. My random shapes and patterns had turned into the kind of things I had constant nightmares about; a headless person chasing a faceless kid with a stick.

I managed to get the whole thing off the table just after Officer Clayton unlocked the door and started letting people in. I smiled and greeted everyone, who never smiled back, and shook their hands. Nobody noticed that mine were dusty.

Officer Clayton walked in last, and started pulling out a whole bunch of chairs. Nobody sat down, though, and I felt very out of place.

“We are present today to discuss the future arrangements for miss Natalie Sherman,” he began, gesturing to me, “and miss Mariah Brunswick.”

It was only then that I noticed that Miss Brunswick wasn’t here.

“It has been decided that Natalie is under no circumstances going to return to Pennsylvania, so she will live in New Hampshire…”

I guess I dozed off again after that, because the next thing that I was aware of was a very large thump. Officer Clayton appeared to have banged the table with something and was frowning deeply at me.

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Are you finished?”

After twelve  long years of instant obedience, I was bound and determined to become Officer Clayton’s worst nightmare.

“Yes, Natalie, we are finished,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Are you ready to join us in the real world?”

“Yeah,” I said, staring at a blank spot on the wall, which I was pretty sure was one of his pet peeves. “That plan sounds great. Really great.”

“I am fairly certain that you didn’t hear all ofour discussion, Natalie,” he said in a dangerous voice. “Do you wish for me to repeat myself?”

He was turning tomato-red, and it was hysterical. I didn’t trust myself to talk. It was all I could do to shake my head while keeping a straight face.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded, now swallowing giggles.

“Then get out of my sight!” he bellowed, and I was all too happy to leave. I just walked to the door as slowly as I could, to aggravate him even further. Two minutes later, once I had gotten to the thick wooden door, I discovered that it was locked.

“Officer,” I said, with a passable imitation of politeness, “the door-”

I had pushed him to the limit. He kicked over three chairs before stomping to the door, fumbling with his keys for a second, and opened the door. He jerked me out into the hallway, and his face got very close to mine.

“I have had it with you, Natalie!” he whispered furiously. “If you do that one more time--”

“Do what?” I asked innocently. His face turned bright purple, and he turned, stalked back inside, and slammed the door behind him. I immediately doubled over with pent-up laughter, hurrying away so he couldn’t hear.

“There is no way I am going to carry this.”

It was Wednesday morning, and I was staring at a suitcase. A nasty, ugly, green one with some suspicious fuzzy patch on the inside. Next to it there was a tiny pile of neatly folded clothes. No matter what I did, I was not going to be able to get the pile that was easily one quarter the size of the suitcase to fill the suitcase, even when I added in my other stuff, which there wasn’t very much of. I shoved it off the bed. It made a satisfying thump, and I made sure to step in it as I walked across the room and  grabbed my old, familiar bag embroidered with the old numbers. The frayed gray seven-one-six weren’t pleasant things to look at, but at least my stuff fit in it. I shoved everything in and walked out into the hallway.

I noted that there wasn’t an escort waiting outside my door, and thought for a second that maybe they had left without me. As I started to panic, I remembered that Miss Brunswick would never leave without me. I relaxed as I figured that they were finally fully appreciating my thirteen years and letting me escort myself the hundred feet or so down to the car.

I didn’t see a car when I went outside. Instead, I saw Miss Brunswick, standing in the shadows next to a suitcase, looking extremely guilty.

“Hey, Nat,” she whispered. “Minor change in plans.”

I followed her around to the back of the station, where I knew all of the police officers parked their cars. Miss Brunswick led me over to a rusty orange pickup, withdrew a key from her pocket, and opened the door. I slid in, threw my bag into the bed, and buckled my seat belt. Miss Brunswick followed and started to drive hesitantly.

“I didn’t know you could drive,” I said.

She turned to me, and I saw the uncertainty on her face.

“I didn’t, either. How do you make it go backwards?”

“You push this thing,” I said pointing to the metal gearshift, “until it lines up with that orange R there…Let me do it.”

I pushed the gearshift forward, and the car sped in reverse. Miss Brunswick carefully navigated us out of the parking lot. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the car going forward in time, and we ended up careening across a grassy field.

“Take your foot off the pedal!” I called over the noise of the roaring engine.

“What?”

“The pedal! Take your foot off the pedal!”

But it was too late. The car hit a little bump and we were flying. We landed fifty feet away, with a nasty thunk that shattered the back windshield.

It was quiet for a few seconds. Even the engine was silent.

“Maybe I should drive,” I said. Miss Brunswick nodded eagerly.

After five minutes of persuading the engine to start with a hammer I had found on the side of the road, I was in the driver’s seat, now competing with both the roaring engine and the wind that came through the hole which had formerly been a back windshield to hear my teacher’s directions. She had quickly mastered the workings of the gearshift, and was expertly shifting from forward to reverse when necessary. I could barely see over the dashboard, but I didn’t hit anything (other than fifteen mailboxes), so I figured I was doing pretty well.

“Turn left up here!” Miss Brunswick yelled, pointing to a small road. Another mailbox came crashing down as I tried to make the narrow turn, and someone yelled at me from a porch. The truck rumbled on by. I couldn’t have stopped if I had wanted to.

Miss Brunswick guided me down the long, rambling road for several miles, until it came to a stop altogether. I slammed on the brakes, and the car turned a full circle in the dirt. Once we had stopped spinning, Miss Brunswick reached over, yanked the key out of the ignition, hopped out, and started retrieving our bags from the back of the truck. Only when she realized I wasn’t following did she stop.

“Coming, Nat?” she called.

“Where am I going?”

“Just follow me. You’ll see.”

I climbed slowly out of the car and grabbed my bag from the back of the truck. Slinging it over my shoulder, I turned around to close the door, and nearly ran into a road sign. The faded, cheery purple paint said:

Welcome to Tuscana

I knew exactly what that sign meant.

“No! No!” I yelled.

“No what, Nat?” Miss Brunswick said, stopping and turning to face me.

“You’re taking me back!” I screamed. “Back to Tuscana. Back to the camp.”

“I told you there had been a minor change in plans,” she said calmly.

“I’m not going back! I thought you knew that.”

“Nat, please listen-”

“No!”

I climbed back into the truck and slammed the door. The key was in my hand, and it hovered next to the ignition as I pondered whether or not to drive away.