HEADACHE

On Tuesday Mom goes back to work
and I have to go back to school.
Megan gives me a get-well card she made.
“Sorry you were sick yesterday, Bindi,” she says.
“Just a headache,” I say.
“Ginger tea can help a headache,”
Kyra tells me.
“I’ll take a hundred cups, please,”
I tell her.
Mr. Stoffel says I can skip
my library-aide duties after school
if I’m still under the weather.
Albert offers to stay late
and shelve all the books himself.
I say I’m fine.
I keep an eye out for any book
about divorce.
Math Magic … Nonsense Poems …
Moby-Dick …
No divorce in those.

Later Albert and I walk home together.
He starts telling me about
barking spiders.
“They don’t really bark,” he says.
“They hiss.”
He hisses in my ear. Then he says:
“If one bit you, you probably wouldn’t die.
Just vomit a lot.”

I tell Albert to please shut up
about barking spiders.
“Okay,” he says. “So, did you know
a cockroach can live for nine days
without its head?”
I’d like to live without my head
right now.