Jodi Picoult - Shine

“Do you know what you did wrong, Ruth?” Mrs. Grau-Lerner asked.

Ruth shook her head. She hadn’t hit Maia, although she had wanted to, so why was she being punished?

“Not only were you involved in an altercation…you also were rude to Mr. Yorkey.”

Ruth looked up at her. She thought Mr. Yorkey had been asking her a question. She didn’t realize it was actually a test.

If Mr. Yorkey had wanted her to sit down and cool off, he should have told her so. Had it been Mama, for example, she would have said, Do your homework . No wiggle room there, just a direct order. Instead, Mr. Yorkey had given Ruth a choice, and now she was being disciplined for taking it.

“Mrs. Grau-Lerner, Maia said-”

The woman held up her hand. “Ruth,” she replied, “we don’t blame others at Dalton. We take responsibility for our own actions.”

Ruth looked into her lap. “Yes, ma’am,” she said.

Suddenly there was a knock on the director’s office door, and a secretary opened it. “Ms. Brooks is here,” she said, and through the slice that was opened Ruth could see Mama still in her uniform, crackling with questions.

“Why don’t you wait in Ms. Thomas’s room while I speak with your mother?” Mrs. Grau-Lerner said.

Ruth slipped out of the office and past her mama with her eyes cast down. She knew there would be a reckoning in private. She walked to the classroom, which was empty because all the other students in Ms. Thomas’s class were still getting tested in the gymnasium. She sat down at her desk, and then stood up and walked toward the front of the classroom.

She picked up the chalk and wrote her name on the board, underneath that night’s homework assignment. Then she erased it, so that you couldn’t see the letters. Just a ghost that let you know something had been there.

–

Mama was mad, all right, but not at Ruth. “Social difficulties, my foot,” she muttered under her breath, as they boarded the bus together. “More like they’re the ones who are having trouble adjusting. Can’t deal with the climate, what does that even mean?”

Ruth was afraid to speak. If she did, then she would have to tell Mama about Maia and what she’d said, and she didn’t want to do that. But the bus stopped at the spot where they should have gotten off to go to Ms. Mina’s, and they stayed on. It wasn’t following the uptown route to Harlem. Ruth had no idea where they were headed.

Maybe Mama was so angry she had forgotten to get off the bus.

“Mama,” Ruth asked in a small voice. “Where we going?”

In response, Mama pushed the cord for the next stop and took Ruth’s hand. They got off the bus, belched into the frenetic hurry of Forty-second Street. Ruth huddled closer to Mama, avoiding tourists who were pointing at the lighted billboards and the girls in too little clothes and too much makeup who checked their reflections in the windows of fancy restaurants.

“Here we go,” Mama announced, walking into a small store that sold gloves and barrettes and scarves and any other accessory you could think of. Maybe Ms. Mina had been sending Mama on an errand when she got diverted to the school. Ruth trailed her fingers along a display of hanging earrings that were made of feathers and tiny woven dream catchers.

“Ruth,” Mama called, and she turned around. “Is this what you were talking about?”

She was pointing to a case of glittering rhinestone headbands, each brighter than the next. On their blue velvet field, they looked like constellations.

Sirius, Ruth thought.

“Pick one,” Mama said.

Ruth blinked, shocked. Of all the outcomes she could have imagined, being rewarded for getting sent to the program director’s office was not one of them. “Mama,” she said, “I don’t need it…”

“Oh yes you do,” she said. She pointed to one that looked like a string of daisies, made of crystals. “That’s pretty.”

Ruth nodded.

“You know how I wear a uniform? It’s so Ms. Mina and Mr. Sam and everyone else in that building recognizes who I am. This is your uniform.” Her mama picked up the daisy band and settled it gently on Ruth’s head, like she was being crowned. “If this is what it takes to make them see you,” she said, “then so be it.”

–

Although Ruth knew she wasn’t allowed out on the fire escape because Mama thought it was unsafe, she waited until everyone was asleep and then crawled outside. She lay on her back, careful not to get too close to the edge, and stared up at the stars. It was easy to find Sirius, as Ms. Thomas had said. It was by far the brightest, shining even through the smog and the clouds and the ambient light of the city.

Ruth reached up and touched her rhinestone headband. She thought about the bright beam that had left Sirius eight and a half years ago. It was reaching her fire escape and Christina’s home and Dalton all at once. No matter where you stood, you’d be underneath the same light.

JODI PICOULT is the author of twenty-three novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Leaving Time, The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Between the Lines, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, Nineteen Minutes, and My Sister’s Keeper . She lives with her husband and three children.

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