Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

“Dennis.”

He didn’t look up. Instead, he ripped a fart that started an avalanche of nervous laughter. The unfortunate girl sentenced to sit behind him leaned back in her chair, her face contorting. The stench was horrific.

“Gross! I’m gonna be sick!”

“Go sit in the next row,” Anne said to her. To the rest of the class she said, “You had all better be reading. There’s going to be a quiz this afternoon.”

Groans of dismay ran through the room.

Anne squatted down beside Dennis Farman’s desk and looked at his face. He continued to crouch over his notebook, pretending not to notice her. His eyes narrowed and his mouth puckered into a tight knot of concentration. He looked angry. He flipped to a fresh page in his notebook and started scribbling again, gripping his pen so hard his knuckles were white.

“Dennis,” she said very quietly. “Is there some reason you can’t sit down properly today?”

He didn’t answer her, but his cheeks flushed red and tears suddenly welled in his eyes. He dug the tip of his pen into the paper so hard it tore.

Anne’s mind went to the night before, to the Farman household, and Frank Farman’s promise that he would deal with Dennis.

She glanced at the clock and stood up. “All right, everyone. Quietly go line up in the hall for lunch.”

Dennis went to bolt from his seat. Anne put her hand on his shoulder. “Not you.”

He winced and jerked away from her touch as if she had burned him.

Wide eyes glanced back at them as the rest of the class filed out the door. The speculation would now run rampant as to the fate of their resident troublemaker.

“Last one out closes the door, please,” she said.

The tension in the silence after the door closed was like a balloon filling and filling and filling with air until it was about to burst. Anne pulled the chair away from Cody Roache’s desk and sat down.

“Did you get in trouble for skipping school yesterday?”

Dennis looked away from her, his face flushing darker.

“You know, it doesn’t help you to keep all those feelings bottled up, Dennis. If you’re angry, say you’re angry. We can deal with that together. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

He screwed himself around in his seat until he had all but his back to her. Anne said nothing for a moment, not sure what tack to take. She had a terrible feeling about what might have happened. She had stood up to Frank Farman. He might have even taken it as an embarrassment. And he might have taken that out on Dennis.

Her father had never raised a hand to either her mother or herself, but Anne knew well all other forms of punishment that could be dished out by an angry man with a fragile ego. How many times had her father reduced her mother to a quivering, sobbing mass of inadequacy with his vicious words? And how many times had he tried to do the same thing to her?

Because Anne had detached herself from him emotionally at an early age, his tirades never had the same effect on her as they had on her mother, who loved him. But Anne knew well the anger and resentment that had built inside her like a brick wall. She had figured out ways to deal with it, to release the pressure when she had to. Dennis had not.

“Are you angry with me?” she asked.

The boy’s body was rigid with anger. He began to shake under the pressure of trying to contain it, and then suddenly he couldn’t. He turned on her, his eyes wild.

“I HATE YOU!” he shouted. “I HATE YOU! YOU’RE A FUCKING BITCH!!”

She hadn’t been prepared for the virulence of his explosion. She sat back in her chair, her heart pounding like a trip hammer as he raged at her.

He banged both fists on his desk over and over. “I hate you! I hate you! I wish you were dead!”

Now what, Miss Child Psychologist Wannabe?

She had opened the door and let loose a demon. What was she supposed to do? Physically take hold of him? Let the rage pour out of him until it was spent? Make him deny his feelings and shove them back into the box with the now-broken hinges?

While Anne was busy not knowing what to do, Dennis fell forward onto his desk and began sobbing so hard he choked on it.

Do something, stupid.

“I’m sorry, Dennis,” she said, her voice trembling a bit. “I’m sorry if I got you into trouble. I didn’t mean to. I came to your house because I was worried about you.”

She had no idea if she was saying the right thing. But then she had no idea if he was even hearing her, he was crying so hard. Despite his outburst against her, Anne’s heart ached for him. He was a monstrous, aggravating pain in the ass on a daily basis, but she knew he hadn’t gotten that way on his own. And under all the problems, he was just a scared little boy who didn’t know how to handle his feelings. He was probably as frightened as he was angry.

Anne leaned toward him and reached out a hand to stroke his head. “I’m sorry, Dennis. You can be as angry as you want with me. We’ll work it out. I’m here to help you, if I can.”

And just how would she do that? If she could get him to tell her what had happened, then what? If his father had given him the beating she suspected was the reason he wouldn’t sit down, then what? She would report Frank Farman to the authorities and open an industrial-size can of worms for Dennis and his family.

“You’re safe here, Dennis,” she said softly. “I want you to know that. You can come to me and tell me anything you need to, anything at all. I won’t get mad at you. I won’t punish you. I’ll just listen, and then we’ll figure out what to do about it.”

His sobs quieted slowly to hiccups and sniffles. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his already dirty sweatshirt. He was embarrassed now. At eleven-a year older than the rest of her charges-he was already edging into that awkward space between childhood and adolescence, further complicating his emotions.

“It’s okay,” Anne said. “This is between you and me. Nobody else. If anybody asks what went on in here while the rest of the class was out, tell them I yelled at you and gave you extra homework. Does that sound like a plan?”

He didn’t look at her, but he nodded. Anne stood up and put her chair back at Cody’s desk. “Good. Now go to the lavatory and wash your face, then go to lunch.”

All the aggression had gone out of him. He put his notebook back in his desk and walked away.

She would leave it at that, Anne decided as she watched him go out the door. She wouldn’t force the issue. He could think about it, hopefully decide to trust her, and come spill his story when he was ready.

Either that was a great plan, or she was a coward. She didn’t know which. If she never pressed him, if he never told her, what happened the next time his father punished him for something?

She wished Mendez would return her calls. He could deal with Frank Farman, and it would be out of her hands.

Almost as an afterthought she turned and looked at Dennis’s desk. Guilt scratched at her nerves, but she lifted the desktop anyway, and glanced down at Dennis’s notebook, still opened to the last page he had scribbled on.

The paper was tear-stained and some of the ink had smeared on drawings of what looked like thick, angry lightning bolts. Then she turned the page back to the one he had been working on all morning, and her blood ran cold.

He had almost filled the page with childish drawings of naked women with knives in their chests.

“Tell me about Deputy Farman,” Vince said before Mendez could ask him about his health.

They walked across the lot to a car parked under the shade of an oak tree. Vince got in and rolled the window down so he could continue to take in the fresh air and the smells of California nature.