Ivy walked up the steps to the first grade classroom. She paused at the door before entering, to scent out danger. It was a habit of hers, borne of experience.
The teacher, Mrs. Fulton, stood in the corner with a parent, taking instructions about her son’s peanut allergy. A few students were already seated and talking, others were still putting their rain jackets and backpacks away at the back of the classroom.
Ivy walked up to the coatrack. She didn’t have a jacket; her foster mother said they’d wait till next month, when the check came. But she didn’t mind, the weather wasn’t even cold yet. She pulled her blue backpack off her shoulder and hung it on a hook. She liked how the foster mom had written IVY on it in black marker. It really belonged to her.
A classmate had a SpongeBob lunch box hanging next to his Batman backpack. Ivy experienced a flash of envy. The kids who brought lunches in lunch boxes were an elite group. Not required to wait in lunch line for cafeteria workers, they grabbed a lunch table by the open window, unzipping their hordes of riches: real sandwiches made at home, tubes of pink and green yogurt, cookies, Goldfish crackers.
Spongebob’s face smiled at Ivy on the vinyl lunch box; she gazed at it with longing, wondering what treasures were stored inside. Without meaning to, she reached out and stroked the yellow box with her index finger.
“Hey!” Jacob stood at her shoulder. “That’s mine!”
Ivy snatched her hand away and hid it behind her back. Jacob pulled the lunch box off the hook and clutched it to his chest. “Don’t touch my stuff.”
Ivy’s face burned. A second boy, taller than Jacob, ran over and stood by his side. “Ivy germs,” he whispered.
Jacob hung the yellow box on another hook, at a safe distance from Ivy’s blue backpack. “You can’t touch anything of mine. I don’t want Ivy germs.”
Rigid, Ivy stood in the spot by the coatrack hooks, focusing on the happy face of the princess on her blue backpack. The teacher, Mrs. Fulton, called over to them in a stern voice.
“Jacob? Ivy?”
When the children didn’t answer, she walked toward them, though Jacob’s mother placed a restraining hand on the teacher’s arm.
“What’s this all about?” asked Mrs. Fulton.
Jacob’s face was flushed. “She was touching my lunch box.”
Mrs. Fulton’s voice was calm, but firm. “We talked about this, Jacob. You know our class rules. How do we treat each other?”
Jacob’s mother tapped the teacher’s shoulder. Ivy stole a glance at the mom. She was pretty, with shiny dark hair. The skin on her arms was smooth. She didn’t have sores and spots like Ivy’s mom had.
Ivy mentally corrected herself: like the mom she used to live with. Before she was killed dead.
Jacob’s mom said to the teacher, “He’s sensitive about the peanut allergy. We’ve taught him to be. He has to be so careful.”
Mrs. Fulton ignored Jacob’s mom. Through her glasses, she fixed the two boys with a knowing look. “What were you saying?”
The taller boy hung his head, but Jacob wasn’t cowed. “We don’t want her germs,” he said stoutly.
“Now, Jacob,” his mother began, but Mrs. Fulton cut her off. “We talked about this yesterday, but I guess you weren’t listening. At recess, you’ll walk the playground three times before you can play with your friends.”
Jacob’s eyes shone with tears when the teacher pronounced his sentence; but still, he whispered, “She has germs.”
“Four times,” Mrs. Fulton said. “You’ll walk it four times.”
Jacob’s mother tugged at the teacher’s elbow. In a hushed voice, she said, “Really, Mrs. Fulton, everyone’s concerned. It was all over the news this week. There’s some really disturbing talk about those people. How do we know the children aren’t in danger?”
The teacher quelled her with a look, but Ivy didn’t see it. She just stared at the princess’s smiling face on the blue backpack and clutched her hands into fists. Don’t touch anything, she told herself.
The princess’s face blurred. Ivy missed her mom.
The dead one.