BRANDON HOBSON

 

SOME OF WHICH HAD TEETH

 

The boy sat in front of the school nurse as she called his mother.

“He has lice,” she said.  “We have to send him home again.”

“Oh, oh,” said the mother.

“He can’t be around the kids,” the school nurse said.  “Please give him a treatment at home.”

The boy put his colored pencils and sketchbook into his backpack and checked out through the office.  He walked past the playground, where some of the younger kids were playing, then crossed the railroad tracks towards the street he lived on.  When he got to his street, behind an apartment house, he walked down to a creek, where he sometimes found luna moths and frogs.  He stepped over the rocks by the creek, looking down at the mud.  There were pieces of dirty glass from a mirror, which he knelt down and picked up and tried to see his reflection in.  Then he threw the glass into the water, and as he did so he noticed a girl across the creek.  She was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest.  It seemed she was watching him.

He jumped the creek, getting his shoes muddy, then slowly approached her.  She was barefoot, and her knees were dirty.  She turned to look up at him.  Her hair was stringy and covered part of her face, but he could see her eyes were dark.  Then he saw that she had a broken wing from her shoulder blade, and he found himself staring at it.

“Do you want to touch it?” she asked.

He reached slowly and touched it.  The wing was opaque and heavy and felt like fur, but it frightened him.  The girl made a snorting sound and dug her fingers into the mud.  “There’s something down there,” she said, and got on her hands and knees.  She leaned forward, resting her ear against the ground.

“Oh,” she said, extending her arm to him.  “Come listen?”

He could see earthworms crawling around her face.  She laughed, reaching for him.  He turned and ran.  He ran away from her and heard her calling for him to wait, but he didn’t look back.  He jumped the creek and ran home.

When he got there, he found his mother sitting in her chair by the window.  She was holding a washrag to her ear.  He sat down on the floor and took out his colored pencils and sketchbook. He opened his sketchbook, which showed drawings of little creatures, winged creatures, bats and birds, some of which had teeth.

His mother held a bloody washrag to her ear. Every so often the boy could hear his stepfather's footsteps creak above them, upstairs.