Raven (Orphans 4)

"She's never late," he said.

"You know she has been a few times, and you had to drive her to school," Aunt Clara said softly.

"The bus came too early those days," he insisted. By the time Jennifer appeared, William and I had finished eating. I began to clear the table.

"Leave that," Jennifer ordered when I reached for the sugar bowl. "I haven't had my cereal yet?'

"You should get up earlier, Jennifer." Aunt Clara said. "You don't have much time."

"I would if I could find the clothes I want," Jennifer whined. "Someone put my blouses in the wrong place, and my favorite skirt was shoved so far in the back of the closet I nearly didn't find it." She glared at me.

"You could put your clothes away yourself, and that way you'd know where everything is," I said.

"You're just jealous because I have more clothes than you. If you had as many as I did, you'd have trouble remembering where you put them," she said angrily. "Besides, you probably were hiding this skirt so you could wear it."

"I don't want to wear your things. I have my own clothes and . . ."

"Stop this bickering at the table!" Uncle Reuben shouted. He rose out of his seat like a gusher, his face crimson and steaming. Jennifer sat, and Aunt Clara quickly poured some coffee in a cup for her. "We never had bickering at the table before," he added, glaring at me, "but I bet that was something that happened in your house often."

"It wasn't," I said.

Aunt Clara glanced at me fearfully and shook her head gently. She wanted me to be like her, bury my head in the sand, absorb Uncle Reuben's hateful remarks, and pray that it would all end quickly.

"If I do anything of any value for you, it will be to teach you how to behave properly," he continued. "I know there are years of degenerate living to overcome, but by God, if you're going to live with us, you'll overcome them," he said, wagging his monstrous fist at me. "Why don't you watch Jennifer? Learn from her," he suggested.

I raised my eyebrows and nearly laughed. Jennifer sat there smugly, chomping down on a few flakes of cereal, sipping some coffee before jumping up.

"We've got to go, Daddy," she declared. "You can teach her how to behave later."

He grunted. William looked at me

sympathetically but said nothing. I went to get my books and left the house a few seconds after Jennifer. She was already down the sidewalk, meeting her friends at the bus stop. The big topic of conversation was the upcoming school dance. The girls were all talking about which boys they hoped would ask them. Jennifer's wish list was the longest.

"She hasn't been here long, but do you think anyone will ask her?" I heard Paula Gordon whisper as she nodded in my direction.

"Who would ask her?" Jennifer said, loud enough for me to hear, and she laughed. "Oh, no, wait a minute. Maybe Clarence Dunsen will ask her."

"Yeah," Paula said. "He'll go, 'Raven, would . . . would . would would would . . would . . . you . . . you . . . like to . . . to . . . gogogo . "

They laughed loudly and then moved away. Their voices grew softer, more secretive. I was relieved to see the bus pull up. I hurried on. They all laughed again when they filed past and looked at me sitting with Clarence.

Funny, I thought, how girls like Jennifer attract other girls just like her. They stick together as comfortably as a pig in its own mess, I thought. It made me laugh. Clarence looked at me with curiosity. For a moment, I wished he would ask me to the dance and we would show them all up. But that was a fantasy, and in my life, fantasies were written on clouds that floated by, impossible to grasp, caught in the wind, gone as fast as they appeared.

6 He Likes Me!

I had a crush on a boy when I was in the sixth grade. His name was Ronnie Clark, and he had blue eyes that brightened with so much warmth when he smiled that he made you feel good when you were upset, and yet his eyes could darken with mystery and intensity when he looked at someone intensely or was in deep thought. I caught him gazing at me that way a few times, and it made my heart flutter and sent tiny warm jolts of electricity up and down my spine. Suddenly, I thought about my hair, my clothes, a budding pimple on my chin.

The world around you changes when you realize someone as handsome as Ronnie Clark is gazing at you with interest. Every time I moved or turned, when I rose to walk out of the classroom, even when I picked up my pen to write in my notebook, I was very conscious of how I looked. I couldn't wait to get to a mirror to check my face and my hair. I hated my clothes and regretted not watching my mother do her makeup when she did it well.

I tried not to be obvious when I looked at Ronnie, and if he caught me looking, I always shifted my eyes quickly and pretended I didn't have the slightest interest in him. Sometimes he smiled, and sometimes he looked disappointed. He was as shy as I was, and I thought it would take a bulldozer to push us dramatically into each other's path. He didn't seem to have the nerve to sit next to me in the cafeteria or come up to me in the hallway, and after a while, I was afraid that I might be making more of his gazes than there was. Nothing could be more embarrassing than thinking a boy liked you when he didn't.

One afternoon, when I was in gym class, I looked at the doorway to the gymnasium and saw him standing there looking my way. We were playing volleyball, and we were all in our gym outfits. The ball bounced close to the doorway, and I chased it and seized it, looking up at him at the same time.

"Nice," he said. Butterflies panicked in my chest, but I gave him the best smile I could muster. Mrs. Wilson blew her whistle and shouted for me to get back into the game. Ronnie walked away quickly before she chastised him for being there, but at lunch, he came up to me in the line and told me I was pretty good at volleyball.

"You could probably be on the girls' team now instead of waiting another year," he said. "Tell me what it's like to be on a school team," I asked him, and he followed me to the table.

We started dating soon after that, but never did much more than hold hands and kiss a few times after school. I met him at the movies one night, but he had to go home right afterward. And then, just as suddenly as it had all started, it ended. He turned away from me as if I had been just another interesting picture in a museum. Soon he was off looking at other girls the way he'd once looked at me. I felt stupid chasing after him, so I stopped looking for him, and that was about when my school attendance began to drop off anyway.