Em Garner - Contaminated

“Velvet!” he shouts, leaning back in his chair. “There is no more discussion! She’s being moved, or she’s leaving the school!”

I stand up straight. I don’t want Opal to leave school. She needs it. But I don’t want her to be put in some mishmash classroom of all the kids nobody else wants just because of what happened to our parents, because people are stupid and ignorant and afraid. She already hates school. It would be torture for her to have to leave the friends she still has.

But if she doesn’t go to school, and it’s reported, I could lose my guardianship of her. It’s complicated, I can’t pretend to understand it all, and I know there are cracks in the system we both could fall through and probably have. There is no caseworker following up with us, not for months and months, since we got placed in the apartment. If there are problems with our checks, and there often are, there’s never anybody who knows enough about us to really help.

“Fine. Then she’s leaving school.”

The moment I say it, I wish I could take it back, even though I know it’s the right choice. Just like getting my mom out of the kennel instead of leaving her there. Just like moving home instead of trying to get into another assisted-housing apartment. Just like breaking up with Tony even though he was my first boyfriend and I sometimes dreamed about marrying him.

“Velvet, the law says she has to go to school.”

“The law says a lot of things that don’t work anymore,” I say.

Mr. Benedict’s face is like stone. I wonder if it’s just the students or the teachers, too, whispering about my sister. Wondering if she’s got the sickness inside her, waiting to burst out. I wonder how many times she’s had to listen to someone digging at her, talking about her behind her back or worse, to her face, while nobody does anything to help her.

“I’m taking her out of school. I’m… I’m going to home-school her. You have books, right? There are requirements. I’ll make sure she meets them.”

“You can’t just—”

“I can. I’ll teach her.”

“Velvet,” Mr. Benedict says in a voice I think he means to sound kind, “you’re just a kid, yourself.”

“The law,” I say with a sneer, “says I’m an adult. Right?”

He sighs again. “I think you’re making a hasty decision.”

“I’m not leaving her here to be bullied. No way. She’s coming home with me. You can’t keep her in the classroom where she deserves to be. You can’t get a bus to take her back and forth to school.” I shake my head. “No, she’s coming home.”

“I’ll have to report it, you know.”

“You don’t have to. I told you, I’m homeschooling her.” I’m angry again, for different reasons, though they’ve all sort of blended together now. I lean forward across the desk again, looking him right in the eyes. “You won’t report it.”

“I have to.”

I lean in closer. “I know they’re still not sure about the long-term effects on people who only had a little bit of it, and I know there are lots and lots of people who’ve been tested for Contamination. And lots who haven’t. The thing is, right, nobody knows what might happen to those people who maybe just had one or two or ten bottles of contaminated ThinPro. Like, they’re all fine now, but what might happen tomorrow? Next week? Maybe there’s going to be another wave, right? Isn’t that what you’ve heard, too?”

“Yes. Exactly.” He looks uncomfortable, but I’m not finished with him.

“Did you ever have any?”

He swallows. “No. I never did.”

“C’mon, are you sure? Most people had a taste of it. It was so huge. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing it. Are you sure you never had even just the tiniest bit? Not that you should worry if you only had a sip or something, because they’re pretty sure the only way you become a Connie is if you drank massive amounts of the bad batches, and of course they’re still trying to figure out which were the bad ones.” I emphasize the pretty .

I like this, I won’t deny it. Something inside me is twisting and turning with glee, watching his face.

“No. I never had any.”

I think he’s lying about it, but I don’t really care. “I’ll need copies of all her books and the lesson plans, including tests. I’ll make sure she does the work, and I’ll drop it off with you once a week for the teacher to correct. She’s going to finish the year with her class, even if it’s at home.” He shakes his head. “That’s really not possible.” I think my laugh scares him. It scares me a little. “You know, Mr. Benedict, I can tell you for a fact, my little sister is not Contaminated. She never drank any of that protein water, not even a taste. She said it smelled so gross, she’d barf if she drank it.”

He’s staring at me with wide, wide eyes. I lean closer. I’m grinning.

“Opal never had even a drop. But me, Mr. Benedict. I think I had some.” I pause, my smile disappearing. “Once or twice.”

He gives me everything I asked for.

I’M LATE FOR WORK.

I don’t have a place to take Opal, so she comes with me. I give her the scary face, tell her she needs to behave herself and stay quietly in the arts and crafts room. She can pretend to be a grandchild; they’re in there often enough. She just has to stay someplace until I can figure out what to do with her.

I punch in my employee code to prove I’m there. I put on my scrubs in the bathroom. I pause to splash my face with water, run a comb through my hair, swipe my lips with lip balm.

I’m laughing before I realize it. Silently, but shaking with it. My hands grip the sides of the sink, slipping a little because they’re wet. Every time I think of Mr. Benedict’s face, I laugh harder. I bite my tongue and the inside of my cheek to keep from being loud, but the giggles won’t stop coming. It feels so good to laugh, I don’t really want to stop. I’ve been holding on so tight, so long, I’m always sure I can’t keep my grip even one second longer… but now… suddenly now I think I’ll just keep hanging on. Another minute, another hour, another day. Yeah, life sucks but I’ve been handling it this long, I can keep going. Not just because I have to, because there’s no choice, but because I can actually handle everything.

I feel older, all at once, and search my face in the mirror, but see no sign I’ve magically grown up. I have shadows under my eyes but no wrinkles in the corners. I still have a zit here and there, more noticeable without makeup to cover them. But it’s still my face, the one I’ve gotten out of the habit of seeing. I see a hint of my mom, a shape of my dad, but it’s all me. Right there. Velvet in the mirror.

I can’t hang around admiring myself, not that there’s much to admire, so I dry off my face, and head out to the nurse’s station to get my list of assignments. Before I can get it, Ms. Campbell comes out of her office in the back. She stops for a second when she sees me, then her face creases with determination. She gestures.

“Velvet. My office.”

Another spurt of giggles tries to surge up and out of my mouth, but I manage to hold it back. Being called into an office twice in one day? No problem, I think, ignoring the sympathetic looks from the nurses as I follow her.

Ms. Campbell doesn’t hesitate, but gets right to it. “You got a phone call here today. From Jean at the Conkennel. Apparently your mother’s there.”

“She is? Oh…” Relief washes over me so fiercely, I have to sit or else I might faint.

“You were late to work,” she says in a voice thick with disapproval.

“I’m sorry. There was a problem at my sister’s school. But now my mom…”