Chapter TwoKami
“Better we talk in my room,” Maggie said, waving me down the hall to a door with a sign on it that saidThe Orangutans. We walked in and I saw the usual elementary school classroom: pictures drawn in crayon and marker, colorful construction paper, addition and subtraction posters, the alphabet.
“I guess my first question is how things are going at home,” she said, leaning on her desk as I sat in a tiny chair. Thiago stood beside her, and I couldn’t help but notice how their bodies grazed each other slightly.
“Why do you ask, Maggie?” I couldn’t help but call her by her first name. Not when she was probably only five years older than me.
“Your brother’s kept to himself since the year started. And that makes his classmates see him as weak, and then they start testing him. Children, you know…”
“Why haven’t you done anything to stop them?” I was pissed already. “Principal Harrison said it himself—they’re only six. They’re babies!”
“I try to let all my students grow at their own pace, and that means encouraging them to explore their identities and—”
“Cut the bullshit. My brother’s getting bullied, and nobody’s doing anything.”
“Kamila,” Thiago said, censoring me with his gaze.
I focused my eyes on him. “Don’tKamilame!” I practically shouted. “You’ve known something was going on for weeks, and you didn’t bother to tell me? You’re my next-door neighbor!”
I don’t know why I said that. Maybe to warn Miss Maggie here that she’d better be careful the next time she shows up at her new boyfriend’s place in a skimpy skirt. If my brother saw her like that, he could lose all respect for her as a teacher…
“I already told you in the office why I didn’t say anything,” Thiago said. “I wanted to avoid jumping to conclusions…”
“You took your time, didn’t you? How long did you need to realize it’s not normal for a six-year-old to be covered in scratches and bruises?”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized just how stupid I’d been myself. How could I have just swallowed all his excuses about falling down during soccer, or some game in the blackberry bushes… It was my fault. I had been so focused on myself and my problems and my parents’ issues that I hadn’t seen the signs…and now it was Cam who was getting hurt.
“Kamila, wearegoing to take action,” Maggie told me calmly. “I just need to know if there’s anything going on at home that we should know about.”
Thiago looked unfazed, but I could tell he was worried.
“My parents are getting a divorce,” I admitted, avoiding Thiago’s gaze as I said it. I didn’t want to see him relishing my misfortune. He’d told me more than once that he wished my family would fall apart the way his had. Maggie, meanwhile, was looking at me with such pity that I wanted to shout,Wipe that stupid look off your face. But I kept going. “So as you can imagine, my brother’s not exactly living in what you’d call a healthy environment right now.”
“I had a hunch,” Maggie said, “when I saw this drawing your brother did the other day.” She opened a desk drawer, pulled out a sheet of paper, and passed it to me. What I saw filled me with grief. It was a group of stick figures. I guessed that the one on the left was supposed to be my mom. She was bigger than the others and far away from them. She had green circles for eyes, which I realized were probably supposed to represent the cucumbers she put on her eyelids at the spa. On the other side was Dad—I could tell because of his huge belly. He had his back turned, and a phone was pressed to his ear. Cam was in the middle with his iguana. And then there was me. I was tiny, with short blond hair, a giant frown on my face, and blue tears pouring from my eyes.
Was that how my brother saw me?
Was that how he saw all of us?
I could barely bring myself to look up. Thiago was clearly worried, his hand clenched into a fist. “Kids…really suffer when their parents split up,” he said. “They hold it all in. That’s probably why he didn’t tell you about everything that’s been going on.”
“What’s the solution, then?” I asked in a near-whisper.
“I’d like to talk to your parents,” Maggie responded, “but they’ve both made it clear that neither of them can meet with me anytime soon. Some of the kids have told Cam that his father’s a thief—that’s one of the reasons why I was asking about his home situation.”
“Thief?” I interrupted her, taking a moment to understand. “Who said that?”
Maggie, looking uncomfortable, glanced over at Thiago. “George said something about your father stealing a bunch of money from his—”
“That’s a lie.”
“I understand, but I have to tell you what I’ve overheard.”
I stood, ready to go. There could only be one person behind all this. “I’ve told you everything you need to know,” I said, but before I could go, Maggie turned to me.
“It would be great if you could stop by the playground during recess sometime, just to say hi to Cameron.”
“Oh, you better believe I’ll be showing up at recess,” I said, feeling surer than ever, “and I’ll slap the shit out of anyone who dares to lay a finger on my little brother.”
