Mrs. Fribush smiled when we walked into the room. “Don’t you look nice today, Margaret. What a pretty sweater. And is that your stuffed animal? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you bring anything from home before to share with the class.”
I wanted to crawl under my desk. She made it sound like I was a baby, bringing my blanket to school for show-and-tell or something. Brody kicked the back of my chair with his foot.
Everybody was looking at me, but only Brody was being mean. Everyone else was smiling and fussing over the unicorn. I began to wonder if it really didn’t have some sort of magic in it after all.
Mrs. Fribush finished taking attendance and looked over in my direction. “Margaret,” she said, “you may be class monitor while I walk the attendance down to the office.”
Class monitor was usually Brody’s job.… Not that he did anything—just that it was his job the same way that tunnel of concrete with the stinking water at the bottom was his ditch. “Class, I’ll be collecting your essays when I get back. Use these few minutes to check over spelling, punctuation, and grammar.”
Brody made a face at Mrs. Fribush’s back as she walked out the door.
I got my essay out, trying to think of something to say in a hurry so I could finish it and hand it in.
Nobody else was even looking at their papers.
“That unicorn Maggie’s got is magic,” Patty Jo piped up. “That’s how she got that new sweater and all. She made a wish on the unicorn and it came true.”
“So that’s what was in the trash bag,” Brody said. He stood up and put his foot down on the unicorn’s back, pushing, pushing till he’d flattened it to the floor.
“Hey, cut it out!” I said, scraping out of my chair and shoving him away.
The mark from the bottom of his sneaker stayed across the unicorn’s back.
Brody came around the front of my desk. “If you got a magic unicorn,” Brody said, “you better start wishing for more than clothes, Margaret Wade. You better wish for a short jail term for your brother. He’s in a mess of trouble at my house, and he’s gonna need a lot more than something to wear. Come to think of it, where he’s going, they give them their clothes for free. Free black-and-white-striped clothes. You think that thieving brother of yours will look good in black and white?”
Everyone was listening.
I wanted to put my foot on his face and flatten him like he’d flattened the unicorn, but I was too embarrassed to move.
Alice pushed up against Brody. “Why don’t you just shut up,” she said. “You’re always blowing off at Maggie about something.”
“I’m not just blowing,” Brody said. “Her brother is a thief. You remember he was stealing before? Well, now he’s at it again. You should have heard my mama yesterday afternoon when she found a whole box of Twinkies missing. I bet he stole that unicorn from somewhere too.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Brody Lawson,” I said.
“Heck I don’t! Your brother’s a dirty little thief. The lot of you are nothing but trash. My daddy said so. He said he ought to call someone and have that rusty tin trailer of yours towed away—with all you inside it.”
I sat frozen in my seat. Kids started hissing all around me, saying how this was missing from their yard and that was missing from their room, and how maybe Moochie was behind all of it. Moochie would have needed a freight car to take everything he was accused of taking.
“He’s been coming up to our house and stealing from us since he could walk,” Brody said, getting everyone worked up, looking all around the room with those narrow eyes of his. “But yesterday he went too far, that’s what my mama said, he went too far taking a whole brand-new box of Twinkies, and my daddy’s going to—”
“What!” I cried. I felt like I was going to explode. “What’s he going to do?”
“My daddy’s going to see you pay for all the trouble you’ve caused,” Brody said. “You’re going to have to move away and never come back. And you’ll never see your brother again, ’cause my daddy’s going to see he gets locked up in prison for the rest of his life.”
Alice snorted. “What world you living in, Brody? They don’t put little kids in prison.”
“Ever hear of the juvenile home, Alice? Huh?” Brody stuck his narrow little eyes up close to Alice. “That’s worse than real prison. They chain those kids under porches. That’s a fact. But that’s nothing compared to what they’re gonna do to Maggie’s sister. She’s going to a place for retards, and they’ll never let her out. And her mama’s going to jail for leaving her children alone all hours of the night and day. My mama says people go to jail a long time for that.”
“Children,” Mrs. Fribush said, coming through the classroom door. “What’s going on in here?”
All the kids who had been staring at Brody swiveled back around in their seats, folded their hands, and looked straight ahead. “Nothing, Mizz Fribush.” Mrs. Fribush glared at Brody as he slinked back to his seat.
But as soon as she looked away, Brody poked me with his ruler. “You just wait and see,” he whispered.
I couldn’t see anything but black, buzzing like bees in front of my eyes. I clamped my jaw shut to keep from crying.
“I’ll be doing you a favor,” hissed Brody. “You’ll be rid of your stupid family once and for all.”
“Margaret,” Mrs. Fribush said. “Will you collect the essays, please?”
I scraped my chair back and grabbed my half-finished essay in my fist, but instead of collecting the other papers, I ran out of the classroom and flew down the hall to the girls’ lavatory, where I knew even Brody wouldn’t dare follow me.
I hated him. I hated him for saying those things. And I hated it most ’cause he was right. My brother was a thief. And my sister, she wasn’t just slow. She’d never catch up, never. And my mama … where was she when we needed her? Other mamas were always around, why not mine?
I was sick and tired of trying to hold everything together, of cleaning and cooking and minding Hannie and Mooch. I pushed my fists into my eyes, trying to make the tears stay back.
Stupid, stupid essay. I ripped it into tiny little bits and dumped them into the wastebasket on top of the plastic bag I’d pulled the unicorn from less than an hour ago.
I hated that unicorn. We should have left it where it was, Hannie and I. We should have just walked past Newell’s field and pretended like we’d never seen it. The unicorn did grant wishes, but not the way I wanted it to. It made people notice me all right, but they noticed all the terrible things about me. And it made me see myself too, really see myself and my family. No wonder people didn’t want anything to do with us.
I swiped at my cheeks with the backs of my hands. I hoped somebody would take that lousy unicorn while I was in the bathroom, take it so I’d never have to see it again.
Mrs. Fribush must have been worried enough to send somebody after me. Patty Jo pushed open the bathroom door. She was carrying the unicorn.
“I thought you might like to have this,” she said. “In case you wanted to make a wish or two about Brody or something.”
I turned away from Patty Jo and the unicorn. I didn’t want her to see me crying.
“It doesn’t matter what Brody says.” Patty Jo put an arm around my shoulder. She was trying her best to be nice.
“The police can’t do what he said. You know that. They can’t put a little boy in jail for the rest of his life for eating Twinkies. Honestly, Brody is so awful. He can’t prove your brother’s the thief. Maybe Brody’s eating all them Twinkies himself.”
I knew better. I’d found those wrappers in Moochie’s pants pocket—not a whole box worth of wrappers, but enough to prove Moochie’d been into something he shouldn’t have been into.
“You know what I think?” Patty Jo said, rubbing her hand up and down the unicorn’s horn. “I think it’s just that you look specially pretty today, Maggie, pretty as a peach, and that’s what’s got Brody all hot and bothered. My sister Loma says boys only tease you if they like you. That’s why Brody’s picking on you, Maggie.”
I looked at Patty Jo in disbelief. And people thought Hannie was slow.
“Listen here,” Patty Jo said. “You don’t pay any attention to him. He’s nothing but a stupid old bag of cooties. Come on back to class now. We just finished with our essays—”
“I ripped mine up,” I said.
Patty Jo looked into the trash can, then back at me. “If you explain to Mrs. Fribush, she’ll let you hand yours in tomorrow. I’m sure she will. Anyway, we need you to come back now. We’re getting ready for group reading, and you read better than anyone else in class.”
“You think so?” I asked.
“Sure. Everyone says you do.”
Patty Jo handed me the unicorn.
I stopped outside Hannie’s classroom door. Hannie’s teacher, Mrs. Zobris, walked over when she saw me standing there.
“Could I give this unicorn to Hannie?” I asked. “It’s really hers. She just let me borrow it for the morning.”
Mrs. Zobris nodded.
Hannie grinned wide enough when she saw that unicorn coming. She latched on to it like a dog on a meaty leg. And there was that look in her eyes, that pink-icing look that always made me feel so good. Could what Brody said be true? Could they really take her away so I’d never see her again?
Back in my classroom I slid into my chair. Brody slouched down behind me with his long legs stuck out under his desk. I could feel him, kicking, kicking at my chair leg, but he didn’t say another word.