You Will Be Safe Here

Milly-Anne

Milly-AnneMs. Goodnight bustled back into her room. She’d just completed her third meeting of the day, this one a PLT meeting for her second PLC group, which followed an IEP meeting into which she was roped for a student she didn’t know, which itself followed an impromptu parent meeting when Mrs. Bigsly showed up unannounced demanding to know why her son, Clayton, was failing nearly every class. Ms. Goodnight explained that Clayton was failing because he didn’t do any of his work and ate paste to entertain his friends, a fact that did not seem to faze his mother.

“But it says in his IEP that he has ‘room to wander.’”

Stunned, Ms. Goodnight excused herself. She had other students to worry about, like Jordan Lee, who never had anything to eat but liked to bite her classmates, and Miles Gunderson, who slept through every lesson but gleefully explained to anybody who would listen that he stayed awake all night playing video games. Then there was Milly-Anne Taylor, who, while she didn’t eat paste and always had enough to eat, and while she did not once take a chunk out of, or even gnash her teeth at, any of her classmates, was singular enough of a problem on her own.

And, of course, her classroom was spattered with blood.

Red spray, as if from a hacked-open artery, coated the children’s chairs. Wadded up hunks of discarded organs, dripping with blood, were scattered all over the tables. A severed head was perched upon a stack of papers on her desk. Scalps hung from the ceiling like hairy spiders. This, after all, was the reason she spent four years in undergraduate school and two years in graduate school: to teach special needs eighth graders how to make a good House of Horrors for the school-wide Halloween Celebration, all while making it engaging and educational.

Ms. Goodnight herself was outfitted in a white surgeon’s smock, safety goggles, a surgical mask, and bright yellow, chemist’s gloves. All of them were flecked with fake blood. She chuckled a little bit, wondering what Mrs. Bigsly thought when she saw her son’s teacher dressed like this. Maybe that’s why she didn’t say anything when Ms. Goodnight left.

She rolled up the left glove and checked her watch. s**t. Nearly two-thirty. Her class was in Gym with Mr. Powers until the end of the day, but the meeting about Milly-Anne was in fifteen minutes.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, bustling into the conference room.

Mr. Tull, her bespectacled, balding, and rather constipated principal, sat at the head of the long table. To his right sat Mrs. Burton, Milly-Anne’s case manager. Mrs. Taylor, Milly-Anne’s mother, sat at the middle of the table, staring vacantly before her. Milly-Anne sat at the other end, two seats away from the nearest adult, rocking and staring at the ceiling. Her yellow summer dress, the one with the white daffodils, was as rumpled and dirty as usual, and she’d outgrown the open-toed sandals she always wore, but there was no way anybody would convince her to wear something different. This would not have been a problem if she didn’t wear it every day, even as the weather grew colder, even in the snowstorm the year before.

She didn’t seem at all concerned with the presence of such esteemed and knowledgeable adults. Any other child might cling to her mother, or stare wide-eyed around her, but Milly-Anne hated physical contact, and the outside world rarely seemed to register. If it did happen to intrude, as it did today, she met it with puzzled indifference, or ignored it completely, or (as was the case in S.O.L. practice a few days before) with unmitigated horror.

“Mrs. Taylor,” Mr. Tull drawled. “I’d like to apologize for Ms. Goodnight’s lack of consideration. We here at Forest Glen Middle value our parents’ time. We understand you had to take time off from work to get here today.”

Ms. Goodnight slid into the seat across from Milly-Anne’s mother. She tried to swallow her protest but just couldn’t hold it in.

“And time away from my planning.”

Mr. Tull peered at her over the rims of his glasses.

“Ms. Goodnight. This is not the time for this discussion. I will not tolerate subversiveness.”

Mrs. Taylor stared at all of them, her jaw slack, her eyes dead. She was a small, wan woman with rumpled hair, rumpled makeup, and a rumpled maroon shirt. The words Bottom of the Barrel were sewn onto the breast pocket, and the rest of it was stained with a variety of condiments: yellow mustard, red ketchup, a few unmentionable green gobs. Bottom of the Barrel was the local discount grocery store. Mrs. Taylor worked in the deli.

Mrs. Burton cleared her throat.

“If everybody’s ready?” Her voice was thick and her eyes looked a bit red. She arranged the stack of I.E.P. papers sitting in front of her. “Mrs. Taylor, we are here to discuss an update in Milly-Anne’s I.E.P., as requested by you following the first quarter.”

“I didn’t request nothin’,” Mrs. Taylor said. Her voice was flat and nasal, at home in barn lofts. “Milly-Anne did all that.”

Mr. Tull chuckled.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Taylor. That’s impossible. I’m reading right here that it says you called about the meeting.”

“Milly-Anne ast me to.”

Mr. Tull turned his lidded attention upon the child sitting at the end of his table, seeing her as if for the first time.

“Is this true, young lady?”

Milly-Anne did not answer. She rocked and stared at the ceiling, rocked and stared.

Mr. Tull slapped the table with the palm of his right hand. Every adult in the room flinched. Milly-Anne stopped rocking. Her eyes slowly focused on her surroundings.

“Young lady!”

Milly-Anne stared at him, her eyes growing wider and wider.

“Mr. Tull,” Ms. Goodnight hissed.

Mr. Tull slapped the table again, and the girl’s hands shot up to her ears. She wailed and kicked the table, rocking Mr. Tull’s bottle of water. He stared at her, confused, hand still positioned above the table, ready to strike. Mrs. Taylor shook her head.

“She don’t like loud noises.”

Mrs. Burton got up and walked around to the girl. She knelt down next to her, careful not to touch her or make any motions that might be interpreted as an attempt to touch her, and started to speak. Nobody could hear what she said, but her voice was hushed and calm, and soon Milly-Anne’s wailing stopped, and then her hands came off her ears, and then she was staring at the ceiling again, rocking and staring, rocking and staring. Mr. Tull looked around and blinked.

“Is she calmed down? Young lady, are you okay?”

He started to slap the table, but Mrs. Burton turned to him and said, “She can’t take loud noises, Dale!”

Mr. Tull nodded as if he understood and turned his attention back to Milly-Anne’s mother.

“Mrs. Taylor? I understand there were some incidents in Ms. Goodnight’s class this week?”

Ms. Goodnight said, “There were no incidents. Nothing unusual for her, that is.”

Mr. Tull grunted. He flipped through a few papers he held in his hands. He grunted again and picked one out, waving it in the air.

“If there were no incidents, then why did, uh—” He checked the paper. “Why did Mr. and Mrs. Lee call me up to complain about loud screaming during S.O.L. practice?”

“That—”

“Loud screaming of the variety I just witnessed coming from this student’s mouth a few minutes ago.”

Milly-Anne started to whisper to herself, Fifty percent wet on Monday. All dried up.

The heat kicked on, pumping warm air into the conference room. Ms. Goodnight winced. It smelled a little like ammonia, acrid and metallic. Mrs. Burton sneezed, followed by a great whopping cough.

“Seasonal allergies,” she explained.

Ms. Goodnight pulled out a little pack of tissues and handed it to her.

“Mr. Tull, what Mr. and Mrs. Lee did not tell you was that their daughter was tormenting Milly-Anne while we were practicing.”

“Tormenting?”

“Yes. She was whistling.”

“Whistling?”

“A very high pitched whistle, just to bother Milly-Anne.”

Mrs. Taylor picked at her uniform.

“She don’t like high pitched whistles. Can’t abide no loud noises at all. Don’t like to touch the floor with her heels, neither. Been walkin’ on her toes since she learned how to stand. Her arches collapsed.”

Mr. Tull was unimpressed.

“Even so, she disrupted a very important practice session for the practice standardized test coming up next week.”

Ms. Goodnight sighed, exasperated.

“She doesn’t even need to take the test.”

“Doesn’t need to take the test?” Mr. Tull stared around in disbelief. “Doesn’t need to take the test?”

Milly-Anne whispered, Green and black. Not wet since Monday.

“She’s scored perfectly on every practice S.O.L. I’ve given her since August. She even corrected the spelling errors on the last one.”

“Scoring well on the practice test is impressive, but that still doesn’t exempt her from the real test in May.”

“She has a photographic memory, too. Show her a map of America after the Louisiana Purchase for one second and she can draw it for you perfectly.”

Mr. Tull turned to Mrs. Burton.

“Mrs. Burton? What is your take on this child’s alleged genius?”

Mrs. Burton had to clear her throat before she could speak, and when she did, her voice was thick and hoarse.

“She has started a number of science projects since August. Mr. Holmes was fixing that leaky pipe in the ceiling last week, and she got him to get her some samples from the air ducts. But—”

“But what, Mrs. Burton?”

“Well, she starts a lot of experiments, but she never completes any of them.”

She hacked again, three times in a row, short, violent bursts. Her eyes were suddenly red and watery.

Mr. Tull gave her a triumphant look.

“Never completes any of them?”

“She’s like that at home, too,” Mrs. Taylor said. “Gotta clean up after all these explosions in the bathroom.”

“She’s mixing explosives?”

“I don’t know what she’s doing. Always scraping stuff off the shower curtain, setting it on fire. About near burned out our basement after it flooded last spring.”

All of the sudden, Milly-Anne began to moan again, another long low sound, like a siren ramping up to a high pitched wail. Startled, Mr. Tull slapped the table with his palm several times in succession, and Milly-Anne leaped out of her seat.

“Green and black and dry!” she screamed. “Fifty percent wet in the leaky pipe! Green and black and dry!”

Mr. Tull slapped the table again and again, and Mrs. Taylor got up and went to Milly-Anne.

“Sometimes you just gotta take her out.” She wiped her nose. “Damn nose is runnin’.”

Mrs. Burton hurried out of the conference room, one hand over her mouth, and one on her forehead. She nearly ran over Milly-Anne, who was still screaming through her mother’s hand.

“Mrs. Burton has the seasonal allergies pretty bad,” Mr. Tull said to no one in particular.

~

Ms. Goodnight shoved a load of papers and supplies off her desk. Pencils flew, crayons clattered, and the rest crashed to the floor. She sighed and collapsed into her chair, which nearly tipped over, rocking backwards until it came to a rest against the filing cabinet.

This was nice.

Her feet dangled in the air. She could feel the blood flowing back into them. Her head listed to one side, and she found herself staring out the window. Leaves, gold and orange, coated the ground. The wind kicked up, shaking the branches of a tree just outside, and more leaves sailed into the air. She watched as they floated gently down, then let her head loll the other way.

The overhead lights were too bright, so she closed her eyes.

Suddenly she jerked awake, nearly tipping the chair over. How long had she been out? She looked at her watch. Phew, only ten minutes. She leaned back again, summoning the strength to stand up and go home.

There was a dark splotch in the ceiling. A dark splotch in the shape of a bell, spreading out from one of the vents.

She frowned. Was that fake blood? Clayton Bigsly. How did he get it all the way up there? No, he couldn’t have. Not without a ladder. The splotch spread as she watched, changing from a bell into a large blob. The heat kicked on and that same acrid smell hit her: ammonia and dirt, stronger than before. Her eyes began to water and she suddenly felt dizzy and sick. A scream sounded out down the hall.

She tried to get up and out of her chair but found that she was too nauseous to move. The stain spread out from all four corners of the room, and the air was heavy, and though she gasped and labored, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t breathe. The last thing she noticed before her vision failed was that the stain was a glistening, slimy green, and that there were little particles, little black particles, shooting out of the air vent.

~

Milly-Anne’s mother would have said goodbye when she dropped her off, but considering the fact that Milly-Anne had never said goodbye to anyone in her life, and considering the horrid wailing the little girl emitted for the hour after she was told she was going to school, and considering the kicking and punching and other fits she threw on the way in, her mother decided against any pleasantries altogether. Instead she deposited her, still sniffling, out on the curb and sped away, late, again, for her shift at the grocery store.

Milly-Anne moaned as she stared at the front door. A cold wind blew. Dead leaves skittered across the concrete. The flag line clanged against the pole. Where was the flag? Mr. Tull usually had it up by now. Children yelled in the distance, playing as they waited for the bus. It was only three and half minutes from the last bus stop to the front of the school.

As if on cue, the front door swung slowly open.

All she could see was darkness. Ms. Goodnight usually met her at the curb and walked her in, and the lights were always on, and there were always secretaries and janitors and bus monitors moving around inside, getting ready. But not today. Today there was just blackness. Dead blackness.

Then she saw them. The principal, Mr. Tull, and Mrs. Burton, and the gym teacher, and her sixth grade math teacher, and dozens of the other teachers, all emerged from the gloom to loom pale in the shadows of the lobby. In front of them all stood Ms. Goodnight. Her eyes were wide and black, the whites tinted green.

In the distance, Milly-Anne heard the roar of the first bus as it approached the school.

Ms. Goodnight reached for her.

“Milly-Anne,” she said. “Come here.”