There was a quiet minute after the door swung shut behind Leslie. Then he heard Leslie saying something to Janice. Next a string of cuss words which were too loud to be blurred by the closed door. This was followed by some loud sobbing, not Leslie’s, thank the Lord, and some sobbing and talking mixed up and—the bell.
He couldn’t be caught staring at the door of the girls’ room, but how could he leave? He’d be deserting in the line of fire. The rush of kids into the building settled it. He let himself be caught up in the stream and made his way to the basement steps, his brains still swirling with the sounds of cussing and sobbing.
Back in the fifth-grade classroom, he kept his eye glued on the door for Leslie. He half expected to see her come through flattened straight out like the coyote on Road Runner. But she came in smiling without so much as a black eye. She waltzed over to Mrs. Myers and whispered her excuse for being late, and Mrs. Myers beamed at her with what was becom
ing known as the “Leslie Burke special.”
How was he supposed to find out what had happened? If he tried to pass a note, the other kids would read it. Leslie sat way up in the front corner nowhere near the waste basket or pencil sharpener, so there was no way he could pretend to be heading somewhere else and sneak a word with her. And she wasn’t moving in his direction. That was for sure. She was sitting straight up in her seat, looking as pleased with herself as a motorcycle rider who’s just made it over fourteen trucks.
Leslie smirked clear through the afternoon and right on to the bus where Janice Avery gave her a little crooked smile on the way to the back seat, and Leslie looked over at Jess as if to say, “See!” He was going crazy wanting to know. She even put him off after the bus pulled away, pointing her head at May Belle as if to say, “We shouldn’t discuss it in front of the children.”
Finally, finally in the safe darkness of the stronghold she told him.
“Do you know why she was crying?”
“How’m I supposed to know? Lord, Leslie, will you tell me? What in the heck was going on in there?”
“Janice Avery is a very unfortunate person. Do you realize that?”
“What was she crying about, for heaven’s sake?”
“It’s a very complicated situation. I can understand now why Janice has so many problems relating to people.”
“Will you tell me what happened before I have a hernia?”
“Did you know her father beats her?”
“Lots of kids’ fathers beat ’um.” Will you get on with it?
“No, I mean really beats her. The kind of beatings they take people to jail for in Arlington.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You can’t imagine….”
“Is that why she was crying? Just ’cause her father beats her?”
“Oh, no. She gets beaten up all the time. She wouldn’t cry at school about that.”
“Then what was she crying for?”
“Well—” Lord, Leslie was loving this. She’d string him out forever. “Well, today she was so mad at her father that she told her so-called friends Wilma and Bobby Sue about it.”
“Yeah?”
“And those two—two—” She looked for a word vile enough to describe Janice Avery’s friends and found none. “Those two girls blabbed it all over the seventh grade.”
Pity for Janice Avery swept across him.
“Even the teacher knows about it.”
“Boy.” The word came out like a sigh. There was a rule at Lark Creek, more important than anything Mr. Turner made up and fussed about. That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn’t believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them. By tomorrow every kid and teacher in Lark Creek Elementary would be talking in half snickers about Janice Avery’s daddy. It didn’t matter if their own fathers were in the state hospital or the federal prison, they hadn’t betrayed theirs, and Janice had.
“Do you know what else?”
“What?”
“I told Janice about not having a TV and everyone laughing. I told her I understood what it was like to have everyone think I was weird.”
“What’d she say to that?”
“She knew I was telling the truth. She even asked me for advice as if I was Dear Abby.”