Sasha waited in the hallway for Toddy to slip out of his classroom and meet her for the recess time before lunch. He was too busy fastening bells to ribbons to see her, but from the doorway to Toddy’s room, Miss Islip raised her hand in a wave.
Then she got a good look at Sasha. She yelped, “Sasha Brown!”
Miss Islip stretched a shaking hand to Sasha’s shoulder, studying the girl’s face, taking in the sunken cheeks, the eyes with circles like raccoons’, the dry lips. Under Miss Islip’s fingers, the shoulder was bony, the skin stretched like the latex on an overblown balloon.
“When’s the last time you ate, Sasha?”
Sasha stared at Miss Islip with eyes that were too big for her face. Two wide gray circles as flat as pocked cement.
“Ms. Terrywater,” Miss Islip cried as she spotted Sasha’s teacher in the hallway. “What—”
“I’ve tried calling home, but no one’s answering. Sasha won’t give me any details, but I understand there was an accident involving her parents a little while back at the Cirque. I’ll try again this afternoon, but right now I have recess duty.” Ms. Terrywater rushed after the rest of her class, pulling apart two boys shoving each other down the hall. Sasha sighed through her nose, and Miss Islip pursed her lips.
“Toddy, you wait here in the classroom. Sasha, come with me. Let’s get you some help.”
Sasha sank all her weight into her heels and shook her head. Sasha had destroyed her whole world when she’d let the Smoke in, and now she was beyond help.
Miss Islip peered into Sasha’s face. “What is it? Why won’t you come with me?”
Sasha raised her chin defiantly, but Miss Islip knew something about being stubborn too. The teacher took Sasha’s hand firmly and marched her down the hallway. The silver-and-rainbow necklace Miss Islip always wore clinked with each step. They rounded the corner into the cafeteria, where the distinctive school smells of melted cheese and fried potatoes filled Sasha’s nose.
“You know we serve breakfast here, right? And that it can be free. Breakfast, and lunch, too. Why don’t your parents sign up for these things? Why does no one else think to take care of it? Your teacher? Don’t they see you starv—like this?” Miss Islip rapped at the glass food service barriers and smiled impatiently when a tall man with a shiny, bald head sauntered out from the back.
“Hello, Miss Islip,” he drawled. Sasha smiled. His voice was rumbling and careful, slow like a tortoise.
“Mr. Perry, Sasha needs something to eat.”
“Well, lunch service is just about to start if you’ll give me a moment to—”
“I’m sorry, but I need you to start serving right now. Lunch, or anything else you can put together on the quick. Look at this child!” Sasha stumbled slightly as Miss Islip pulled her forward. Mr. Perry drew back when he saw Sasha’s shadowed face.
“It’s no lie. That girl needs something to eat. Right away.” Mr. Perry hustled to the kitchen while Miss Islip sat Sasha down at a table.
“Has your mom or dad bought food for your house, Sasha?” the teacher asked as she settled in across the table. “Do they cook for you? Tell me how I can help.”
Sasha stared down at her hands in her lap. She inhaled and could smell the fragrant floral scents of the roses in the Cirque garden. She longed to be back there, not here, where Miss Islip’s kind stare made Sasha feel as small as a rolled-up pill bug. She didn’t need help. She didn’t.
“I gathered this together real quick,” Mr. Perry announced, coming out from behind the counter with a tray loaded with food. He set it down in front of Sasha with a flourish. “But I got a nice piece of roast turkey and some stuffing warming up too. Go on, child. Get started. Eat up.”
Sasha stared at the food. A bowl of cut fruit. Carrot sticks and dip. A muffin. Two cartons of milk. She marveled that she didn’t feel hungry anymore. All this food in front of her, but her eyes could do nothing more than glaze over, and her mouth could do nothing more than grimace. Mr. Ticklefar and Aunt Chanteuse had brought food for her and Toddy every single day since their parents had flown away. But guilt made Sasha refuse it. Even now she shrank away from the table and would have fallen to the floor had Miss Islip not jumped up, skittered around the table, and caught Sasha in her arms.
“Whoops, no falling over.” Miss Islip put her arm around Sasha and pulled the girl close. Then, incapable of fighting the impulse, Miss Islip dashed a kiss onto the top of Sasha’s head.
A shock of electricity, like one gets from flipping a poorly wired light switch, came with the kiss. It stunned Sasha at first, then tingled over her scalp in the most luscious of zings and zaps. It washed over her neck and shoulders, down her arms, and to her thin fingertips. And it burst the dam in her eyes.
Tears rushed in like an eager spring river, filling and overflowing Sasha’s lids. They gathered in the dark socket below her irises, filled the hollows in her cheeks, and seeped into the line between her lips.
Sasha ducked her head under Miss Islip’s arm and shook, the sobs racking her body with shudders. Snot gathered in her nose, and she worried that her nostrils would clog up and suffocate her, but she hardly cared because she could be all right dying with the warmth that filled her heart right then.
But Sasha was not to die. The tears that couldn’t stop and the arms that enfolded her and the kiss that she hadn’t realized she had been aching for worked together to melt the adhesive that had bound her mouth shut. The glue dissolved, and it tickled her lips as it did so, as though hundreds of tiny butterflies were batting their gossamer wings against her skin.
Sasha laughed.
She laughed again, realizing what she could do. A grainy dryness filled her mouth, but she could open it. And she could laugh.
Miss Islip laughed. Mr. Perry did too, a growling sort of laugh that came more from his belly than his mouth.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” he told them as he headed back to the kitchen. “And don’t you feel shy ’bout saying hi to me from now on, Sasha. You just let me know when you’re feeling peckish, hear?” Sasha nodded at his retreating back and turned her attention back to the food.
“It’s like magic,” she said slowly, tasting her words as though they were her first. “Talking again. Almost like the Light is back.”
“Sometimes all the magic in the world can’t solve our problems,” Miss Islip said sadly. “But I’m glad you’re speaking again. I want to hear all about what’s going on at home.” Miss Islip pressed her palm to her chest. “And what’s going on in here.”
Sasha nodded. She could tell Miss Islip about her parents being taken away easily enough, but to reveal the secrets of her heart was more difficult. She wasn’t sure she knew all those secrets herself.
“But first you eat.” The teacher sat up straight and tall. “You have to go slowly.” She picked up the spoon and dipped it into the fruit. “Here. Take your time. One little bite at a time. I’m going to go get Tod. He’ll need some lunch too.”
“Oh, I made sure he was eating,” Sasha whispered.
“I can tell you took care of him, but now . . .” Miss Islip hesitated, but she never finished her sentence. She only sighed gently. “Stay here and eat, and if anyone says anything to you, just call for Mr. Perry, understand?”
Sasha nodded again and took the utensil in her hand. She brought it to her lips, tasted the cold, fleshy sweetness of pear on her tongue, and sighed. Miss Islip’s instructions stayed in her mind, though, and she ate as slowly as she could. The food was luxurious in her stomach, but it also hurt, like swallowing pine needles.
Or maybe that was just Miss Islip’s kindness that hurt so much. A kindness Sasha knew she didn’t deserve.