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Omegas

Chris Cascio

    Mikey sat rigid in his desk, teeth clenched, studying all of us. He’d gone off at the mouth again, sputtering examples of notable explorers though the teacher had asked for only one: Polo, Cortes, Boone, de Gama. Then Crockett, Crockett, he’d yelled. We’d all howled at first. But then the teacher had told him to settle. She corrected him about Crockett and asked him to remember what they’d discussed. And that’s when we’d turned to watch. He’d always been one of us, mugging shamelessly whenever we’d done something. And he’d been fine until recently. We’d begun needling him quietly about being a spaz, about making sure to take his Ritalin, which he’d admitted reluctantly after an absence. Now it was in the air. He saw it in our faces. We were thinking it. He knew it, and we knew that he knew it. And we were getting hungry.
    Before it had been Ellen. None of us had known what was wrong with her, only that she fell asleep a lot. She was short with undersized fingers. Her forehead, too, was small and her eyes were two uneven slits. She wore the same pink sweat suit every day, and she smelled like Band-Aids. She didn’t speak much, but when she did it sounded like groaning. Sometimes she would use the restroom and not come back. Then the teacher would send a girl to check on her in case she’d knocked out on the toilet. When she’d fall asleep in her desk, we’d take turns taking things—or leaving things: crumpled paper, piles of thumb tacks, used tissues. She’d wake up confused and we’d pretend nothing had happened. Once, we slipped off one of her shoes and she didn’t notice until after she stood up. There was Ellen, lopsided and muddling in the aisle. That day, the teacher held all of us after school, all of us except Ellen of course. All she said was that she couldn’t single anyone out because we’d been so sneaky, but that we should all be ashamed. After twenty-five minutes of silence, she asked if we understood that none of us were any better than anyone else. We hung our heads until she dismissed us. From then on, Ellen sat in the front row, right in front of the teacher. From then on, we didn’t pay Ellen much attention.
    When we returned from Christmas break, Ellen had moved to a new school, and nothing else was said.
    Now, in the back row, Mikey remained still. The teacher turned back to the board to finish her lesson before lunch. Recess would follow. The air in the classroom began to feel warm, and as the chalk scraped against the board we twisted our faces toward the front of the room but kept watch from the corners of our eyes, our tongues tucked back, hackles raised, waiting.

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