Breadcrumbs - Anne Ursu [16]
She looked into Mr. Williams’s room to see Jack’s desk was still empty. Mr. Williams had returned, though. Hazel could not believe he had not stopped into her classroom to give them an update. Hazel wanted to run in and ask him, but the sound of clanky footsteps from the room behind her indicated Mrs. Jacobs had regained function, so Hazel sprung off on her heel and ran down three flights of stairs into the girls’ locker room, where a bunch of surprised-
looking fourth graders were changing into their gym clothes. Hazel straightened purposefully and gave them the sort of look fifth graders give fourth graders to keep them in line, then walked into one of the bathroom stalls and curled up in a ball on the toilet, where she sat until the end of the school day. And if anyone saw her, they would think that this was the way she was supposed to be, that it was perfectly normal to be a thing created out of the lack of something else.
Finally the school bell rang, and Hazel unballed herself from the toilet and opened the stall. Her legs groaned as if they would have liked nothing more than to be curled up like that forever.
Everyone was streaming out of the school, and there was no going back for her backpack or her jacket, because she did not need to add missing the bus to her list of crimes. And she didn’t particularly want to face anyone in the class—never again, really. But certainly not now.
When you throw something at someone else, it’s usually not a considered action. Hazel, really, had not thought things through. If Hazel had thought things through, she might have realized that elementary schools do not take kindly to students throwing things at other students, or to them stomping out of class, or to completely disappearing in the middle of the day. She might have realized that these activities would result in an inevitable call to her mother, and that her mother, too, would not take kindly to the throwing, stomping, or disappearing, and that when Hazel snuck out of a back door of the building at the end of the day without her backpack, jacket, hat, or mittens and walked around the whole school to head to the buses, her mother would, inevitably, be there waiting for her.
“What were you thinking? Where were you? What happened?” All these words came sputtering out of her mother’s mouth at once, but Hazel got the drift.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? You’re sorry? Do you know how worried I was? You just disappear like that? We looked everywhere for you!”
Hazel’s heart sank. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
Her mother shook her head and grabbed her phone. “I have to call Mr. Yee,” she said. “To let him know you haven’t been kidnapped. Principals don’t really like it when fifth graders disappear in the middle of the day.”
As Hazel’s insides churned, her mom talked on the phone to the principal. She said “uh-huh” a lot and “I see” and “Yes, I’ll take care of it,” and Hazel got the distinct feeling that that “it” was she. Her mom hung up, and turning to Hazel, started to put it away.
“Wait. Can we call Jack?” The words burst out of Hazel’s mouth.
“What?” This was not one of those whats that was asking What did you say? Or Could you delve deeper so I could better understand your meaning?
“He was hurt. Something hurt him. Something got in his eye. He was hurt really bad and they took him away and I don’t know what happened because I didn’t follow him and I threw a snowball.” Tears pricked in Hazel’s eyes.
Her mother’s expression softened. “Oh. Is that what this is about?”
Hazel nodded.
“Oh, honey.” Her mother sighed. “I’m sorry he got hurt. I really am. That must have been really hard. But . . .