All Good Children - Catherine Austen [41]
“Of course, being in detention doesn’t mean you’re bad,” Linda babbles. “It just means you’ve done something wrong and you’re not going to get away with it.”
When they’re two desks away, I can hear what Mom is whispering in every child’s ear. I’m sorry.
I start to shake. I want to get up and leave, but I can’t move with all these kids here, and the camera and Werewolf and my mother.
Xavier is ahead of me, staring at his RIG. Mom gasps when she sees him. He looks up and smiles. “Hello, Mrs. Connors.”
She breathes slow and deep. “Hello, Xavier. How are you feeling today?”
“Fine.”
“Oh my goodness, you’re a good-looking boy!” Linda says. “How old are you? Eighteen? Twenty-five? You belong on a poster in a college dormitory, that’s where you belong.” She laughs and looks at Mom. “I know they’re mostly all good-looking these days, but this boy is something special, wouldn’t you say?”
Mom rests her hand on Xavier’s shoulder. “He’s a very beautiful boy.”
Xavier smiles shyly at my mother, speechless for once.
When the thermometer beeps, she shakes her head. “He has a bit of a temperature. We should wait until he’s well.”
Linda scowls. She reaches across Xavier’s desk and snatches the thermometer from Mom’s hand. She wobbles her head around and mutters, “Well, hmm, I don’t know. It’s just on the edge. We should do him anyway.” She jabs her needle into Xavier’s left arm.
Mom stares at the needle in her own hand. She swallows and tries to smile. “I don’t think so. I know he takes other medications and there may be contraindications, especially with a temperature.”
“It’s critical that we get the detentioners done quick,” Linda says. “Don’t make me regret offering you this job.”
Mom groans and sucks in her lower lip, stares down on Xavier’s angelic face. “What other medications are you on, dear?”
Linda huffs and snorts. She tries to squeeze behind Xavier’s chair, but there’s not enough room. She stomps around the back of my desk and comes up on the other side, her fat shoes squealing along the floor. She seizes the syringe from Mom’s hand and plunges it into Xavier’s right arm.
“Ow!” he shouts.
“No,” Mom moans.
Linda yanks out the needle, scowling. “That’s the sort of consequence hesitation brings.” She hands a patch to my mother. “We are here to do these children, and we are doing these children. Now let’s get a move on.”
Mom presses the patch on Xavier’s arm, stroking it gently to fix it to his skin.
“Thank you, Mrs. Connors,” he says.
She turns to me with the saddest face I’ve seen since Dad’s funeral. “Hi, Max.” Her voice is soft like a little girl’s.
“Oh my goodness!” Linda shouts. “This is your son! He’s at this school!”
All the kids turn around and strain to get a look at my mother while she fills a syringe just for me.
Linda laughs and slaps the air. “No wonder he was so odd at that football game! Oh my goodness. You’ll see such a difference after this. Oh, you’ll love it.”
Mom sticks a thermometer in my ear. It feels obscene, and I cringe away from her. She leans into my desk, smelling of latex and toxins. “I’m glad you explained it to me,” she tells Linda. “I’m glad I could be here for this.”
“Don’t you mention it,” Linda says as she readies her needle. “It makes all the difference to be there for them.”
Mom reads my temperature and nods.
“Mom—,” I start to beg.
She pinches my arm, tight and twisted, digging in her nail. “Be quiet, Max!”
I feel like I’m six years old.
She lays her gloved fingers on my right arm. “It will make all the difference for me to be here.”
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out, not even air.
She leans toward me and whispers, “Don’t say anything.”
“Mom, don’t—”
“Shh.”
Linda jabs my left arm.
“That doesn’t hurt, does it?” Mom asks softly. I look up at her. She smiles. “Does it hurt, Max? I tried to do it gently.”
There’s no needle in my right arm. There’s something cold and wet against my skin, but no penetration. I peer down, but Mom’s hand covers the syringe and I can’t see what she’s doing. A bitter chemical stench rises