Maddie sits in the car with her school bag on her lap. The moment her dad stops she’ll catapult out. She fiddles with the catch of her seatbelt. Two more blocks and they’ll be there and she can join the throng of students streaming in through the gates. Without Noah. It feels so strange not to have him at her side.
‘Sticks and stones,’ her mom had said when Maddie first told her about the teasing, how they called out after him: ‘Nuh-nuh-No-aaahhh!’
Sticks and stones. Their words were sticks and they were stones and they broke her brother into little pieces and all Maddie wanted was to smack the grins off the girls’ faces and bite the boys’ hands.
Smack and bite Noah too. Anything to make him fight back. He was so passive, taking their shit, day after day, until the moment he lashed out.
She shoots a quick glance at her dad. He’s staring ahead, and she wishes he’d say, ‘Don’t worry, Mads, it’ll all come right in the end.’ But the only sound in the car is the voice on the radio, warning them about a pile-up on the m3.