I sit in my regular spot on the bus after school, waiting for Jack and Shelby. They’re late today. Real late. In fact, they’re still not there when the bus driver shuts the doors and starts moving. I look around anxiously, peering through the windows, but I don’t see either of them. Where could they be? Why aren’t they here?
Just as the bus starts rounding the corner, a sharp banging sounds near the front. The driver slams on the brakes and flings open the doors.
“Sorry!” Shelby says breathlessly. “I got held up. Thanks for stopping.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t run you over,” the driver growls. “Get in.”
Shelby scans the bus quickly before heading down the aisle toward me. Her face is pinched with worry and she’s biting her nails. “You hear about Jack?” she asks, sliding into my seat.
I clutch her arm, shake my head.
“He got in a fight. During gym. Him and that Ben kid. I wasn’t there, but I heard about it. Everyone’s sayin’ it got pretty wild. Mr. Michaels took him to Principal Moseley’s office. Your dad’s on his way down, I guess. Big meetin’.”
I stare at Shelby, trying to make sense of what she’s just said. Jack? A fight? I’ve never known Jack to hit anyone in his life, not even me. I’m the one who slugs people—well, him, mostly—when I get mad enough. Jack’s never raised his hand to anyone. I take out my pink notebook.
“Is he in trouble?”
Shelby nods, taking her nails out of her mouth. “I think so.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“Depends on the school rules, I guess. We had a kid down in Texas who brought a slingshot to school and only got a detention. But you know, this is Vermont. Things could be different here.”
I bend my head, write again. “Was Ben hurt?”
“Someone said his nose was bleedin’. But that’s all.”
“Was Jack?”
Shelby shakes her head. “He was holdin’ a paper towel or somethin’ along the bottom of his chin, but I couldn’t tell if it was bleedin’ or not.”
“You saw him?”
She nods. “Right when they were bringin’ him into Principal Moseley’s office.” She looks down at her hands. “I waved, but he didn’t see me.”
I stare down at my little pink notebook, trying to imagine Jack being led into the principal’s office after a fight. His shirt was probably wrinkled, his hair all messed up. He would have been clenching his fists, looking at the floor, embarrassed, angry … “Did he look sad?” I write.
Shelby reads the question and looks up at me. “Did he look sad?” she repeats slowly. “Yeah Pippa, you know what? I would’ve said mad, but I think you’re right. I think he did look sad.”
There’s a note on the kitchen counter from Dad:
Pip,
Had to go over to the school to see about Jack.
Nibs will be home in ten minutes. Stay with her until we get home. She knows.
Love,
Dad
I take a banana out of the bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. Then I head upstairs. I sit in the middle of Jack’s bed, unpeel the banana, and eat the whole thing, one bite after the other. Then I lay down. I pull Jack’s covers over the top of me and close my eyes. His bed smells like dirty socks and the spicy deodorant he’s been wearing ever since Shelby got here. Gross. I throw the covers off again, stare up at a crack in the ceiling.
Once, a really long time ago, while Mom was reading Charlotte’s Web to Jack in bed, I crept in and slid under the covers. Jack tried to make me leave. He didn’t want me to go on Wilbur’s journey with them, whatever that meant. He said I was annoying, and that I would just get in the way. But Mom shook her head and gave both of us a kiss. She said that we needed to remember that we were the most important people in each other’s lives. And that having the right people with you—on any kind of journey—was everything. Even if we could sometimes be a little annoying. I burrowed down real tight under the blankets next to Jack, with just my head poking out at the top, and stared up at the same crack in the ceiling as Mom read. I didn’t have any idea what was going on—there was a pig and a mouse and some goose that stuttered when she talked—but it didn’t matter. I remember feeling safe, warm, and completely happy.
I close my eyes against the sting of tears and roll over, pressing my face into the pillow. Maybe those kinds of moments only exist when you’re little, because you don’t know any better. Because you were just a stupid little kid who thought that nothing bad would ever happen. That nothing bad could ever happen because you were tucked inside a sea of blankets next to your big brother, listening to your mother’s voice in the dark.
I slide my hands under Jack’s pillow, bunching it up to get more comfortable. But my fingers touch something soft. Silky. I pull out the Batman mask. And then the Spider-Man one. Inside the Batman mask is the neatly folded article about the bank robbery in Middlebury. Inside the Spider-Man mask is the other article that I found with the fish story on the back. I stare at both of them for a long time.
Red and black and blue.
Pig and mouse and goose.
Jack and Dad and me.