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cc&d magazine (v217)
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Literary
Town Hall

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Here, Kitty Kitty

Cynthia Black

    Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick.
    They carry around wooden bats with black rings painted on the ends, and one of them is hitting the bricks of the one-story school.
    “Those are the boys that’ll come an get ya.” Heidi nods her head to the group of older boys standing together at the corner of the school.
    They weren’t supposed to be there, but nobody ever did anything about it. It wasn’t the first time I saw them lurking by the elementary school doors.
    “They’ll come an get ya if your parents want them to, and nobody will do nothing to them cause they in-cahoots with the parents.” She spins her blonde curls around her pretty little fingers and snaps her gum. “They do all the watchin for your parents when they ain’t around.”
    They are the boys that’ll come an get me. And Heidi would know because she was popular and everybody told her everything. I even saw her talking to those four boys just yesterday, and she was giggling and they were smiling. She pointed me out to them. She pointed me out to them and one smacked his bat in his hand, and she giggled.
    But those boys don’t smile for nothing, but why do they smile at her? I bet it’s cause she’ll just walk right on up to them and twirl that pretty hair, putting her hand on her hips. Boys like that, and I bet these boys really like that.
    Most of us will just stay way clear of them. We know that they don’t mean to come and learn something. Their parents don’t make them come here. They come for something else. They like to kick and spit, and I even saw them hit a little kindergartener—that one girl that got put in the hospital cause one of them just swung at her with that bat of his, all cause of a ball.
    But I want to know what they’re doing here, now. I heard about how they come and then someone’s gone missing, and then the cops, they come, too. There’s all this hub-bub for awhile then nothing gets done and the kid don’t come back and then nobody sees these guys for a long time again. So, I just stay far enough away to not get nearly close enough, and I watch them, and I see them watching me, today. I just stay close enough to watch, but I can run if I got to.
     Nobody actually knows what those boys do with those bats, but I can tell Heidi’s going to tell me as she digs small water trenches around the flowers in the big planter by the flag pole with me. She’s never dug nothing with me before. I know they’re some grades older than I am, eighth or ninth grade, and I just don’t talk to anybody older than me, or younger, if I don’t have to, and nobody talks to them anyways. Well, nobody but dumb girls like Heidi.
    And, I know they live in the trailer park by the cemetery. I know that two of them are brothers cause they look almost exactly alike except one’s way taller than the other. But I know the other two live there too cause I see them chasing cats or throwing white rocks at the trailer windows when I walk my bike up the hill to go to school. Sometimes, they stop throwing things and stop laughing and yelling long enough to stare at me. Seems like they stare at me a lot.
    They scare me most times. All of them are way bigger than me, and they’re loud. They like to chase down other kids and beat them up, but I don’t know why. Some kids are just mean ones, trying to steal somebody’s money or stuff. I didn’t know they got paid to do it.
    Heidi says, “Oh yeah. Our parents pay them to watch us.” Then she looks around to make sure they don’t know she’s talking to me about them. “Then, they find out what you been hidin and doin and then they take care of it.”
    “Take care of it?” I ask, not knowing what that means.
    “Ya know. Take care of you.” She’s all excited. She digs so hard at the yellow stinky flowers she breaks all the roots. I’m a little mad at her. She don’t have to come over here and do what I do then just ruin everything. She licks her lips and leans in closer to my ear. She whispers, and I can smell those lunch hot dogs. “They beat you up until ya say you’re sorry an you’ll never do it again, and then, if ya do, they’ll come back an finish it.”
    I quickly look over at the boys. “Nuh uh. Can’t be. Nobody’s like that.”
    Heidi grabs my arm and turns me away from them. It hurts a little. “No dummy. Don’t look at them. They’ll know I’m tellin you about them. Then I’ll get it, too.”
    I try to look over my shoulder without her noticing.
    Heidi whispers again, teasing, “Our parents pay them extra for every beating done.”
    I whisper back, “NO!”
    “Oh, yeah. Remember that Amy girl?”
    “Amy Paptke?”
    Yeah, I remember that Amy girl. She was my friend. She used to live in a run-down farmhouse just past the cemetery and rode a miniature horse that belonged to her neighbor. The horse was older than dirt, and I could see it in his eyes he didn’t want some little fat girl bare-backing him in the small pen he had. But, Amy rode him anyways. She rode him and pierced my ears for the second time with a dirty needle and an ice cube.
    Heidi rolls her eyes. Many things I say to her are such a burden. “Yeah, whatever. Amy . . .”
    I have to interrupt. “You don’t remember Amy?”
    “Hell no. Well, a little, maybe.”
    “She was in our class. You live just right behind where she did.”
    “Yes, I know. But, anyways. . .”
    “But anyways, you were her friend. I saw you guys ridin that poor pony all the time.”
    I can tell Heidi isn’t wanting to hear none of this. She’s going to yell at me. “I was not ridin with Amy on that diseased pony! I wouldn’t be seen tem miles close to that girl.”
    “Amy was your friend. I know. She showed me the notes you passed in class. You put ‘BFF’ on the ends of them.” I am not letting her get away with this one.
    “Jesus Christ, Kat, shut up. Amy was NOT my friend. My parents made me be nice to her. She’s gone now anyways, and those boys did it. I’m trying to warn you. They comin after you, Kat.”
    I can’t stop myself from turning around. Heidi stays facing the other direction. She always was a coward. I don’t get it. I got to ask, “Those boys made them move? How? Amy’s dad had a good job at the egg farm.”
    Heidi sniffs, “I don’t know. They just did, but Amy didn’t move. Just the parents did after. . .”
    Tick. Tick. . . Tick. . . Tick. . . .Tick.
    The rest of the boys join in hitting the bricks. They’re staring, all of them now, at Heidi and me. My heart is hurting my chest.
    “You’re a dead girl, Kat.” Heidi walks on by me.
    I should trip her. She belongs to those type of kids. She’s walking up to them, acting like she’s a dumb naughty puppy with her arms folded across her stomach and her head down. I don’t believe her. Nobody’s that mean, and they can’t get away with that. The law would a got them by now. I lift up my hand to try to wave at the boy with a stick. Heidi’s shaking her head at the other three boys surrounding her, talking to her. Two of them stop banging that brick wall. She flings her hair back and nods her head to me. She’s crying now, and I smile cause she needs to feel bad, and I hope she feels bad, forever. I flutter my fingers, I know they’ll wave back nice at me. My stomach is spinning. The tallest one pushes Heidi away from them, never once letting his eyes stray from me. They made her cry real bad.
    I can hear Heidi crying and those stupid bats banging above all the screams of the other kids on the playground. I want to go play now too, but I can’t move. I stop trying to smile and wave after the tallest boy forces his way in between the other three staring me down. He’s in front of them all. At least he stopped banging his bat on the bricks. I can’t help but look at them. The tallest boy smashes his bat, the one with the most black lines on it, on the ground. A little bit of the bat flies off. He’s lifting the bat up above his head and slowly back down. The bat’s pointing at me.
    Nobody else sees this. At least, they act like they don’t.
    Tick, tick, tick . . . tick . . . tick.
    The sound of the bats don’t stop. I can’t hear nothing else no more.
    The bell is ringing, and everybody’s going into the school. All the kids look like sand massing and smashing balls and hats and shoes, tripping each other and teachers yelling at them to be quiet and respect each other. I feel like I have to run as fast as I can and get in the middle of everybody. The boys ain’t moving. They’re waiting for me. A couple of them spit in the hair of the pretty girls, another one sticks his foot out to trip a kid. But, not a one of them never once look away from me. I slowly slid in with the other kids. I got to find Heidi. I know she knows what’s going on.
    I’m passing them. The tallest one yells, “Hey Kat! Your Kitty Kat, right?”
    His brother spit at another kid’s head, “Here kitty kitty. Meow.”
    The third, younger looking one says, “We ain’t gonna hurt ya, Kat. We just want to talk to ya.”
    I keep looking for Heidi, or, a teacher, but all the teachers must already be inside. I am at the back of all this trying to get inside, and I can tell, nobody dares to look or complain about those boys.
    They get in not too far behind me. I keep looking back at them to make sure they stay far enough away. I have to push into the crowd more. I’m trying, but they’re bigger and they get through faster, and now they’re right behind me.
    The last one, the shortest, youngest looking one with dirty blonde hair and freckles speaks real low and just quiet enough for me and his buddies to hear. “Ya know what we do, now, don’t ya, Kitty Kitty Kat?”
    I make a mistake and shake my head, no.
    “Well, guess your gonna find out, then.”
    Another whispers just a little bit louder, “Here kitty kitty kitty kitty.”
    “Here little pussy Kat.”
    “Oh, kitty kitty.”
    “Meow. Hisssssssss.”
    Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick. They tap at the bricks of the hallway as they follow me with their bats. I pick up my pace; the hallway gets longer and longer, I swear it. They pick up the pace of the bats hitting the walls. I see my classroom doorway and beg under my tongue to make it there. God, oh God, I swear I’ll be good now. I swear I’ll be nicer. I swear it, swear it swear it. I look back at them once more, very quickly, their bodies next to each other take up the whole hallway. They bang the bats louder and nobody does nothing but go into their classrooms. Where’s all the teachers? There’s not one teacher. Nobody taller or bigger than them. Their bat noises get louder and louder in my head. Now I hear nothing but the bats. The hallways clear fast cause everybody saw them boys had a target. Doors are slamming left and right, and I see mine start to shut.
    The ticking stops as they come up right behind me near my classroom. I almost have to dive into my room. I shut the door, hard. I can’t breathe. I lean into the door. I can hear them in the hall laughing at me on the other side of the door. I can’t stop shaking like I’m cold, so I go to our sink and turn on the water as hot as I can get it. I put my hands in the sink then my arms. I feel so ice cold. Ice cold and confused and angry. I got to find Heidi. I want answers. Why me? What’d I do? Where’s Amy? What did she do!
    There is no Heidi. The chair on her desk is upside down and the teacher’s gone looking for her is what one of my friends say. Some of the kids told the teacher they saw Heidi running off the playground with her bag. We think we are safe, now. The class stops looking at me like I’m a freak, and some throw paper airplanes and spit balls and jump from one desk to the next. I push the button for the paper towels and spin the handle to get more out. The door clicks, and I don’t think twice about it. I hear the door click over everything else, but I know somebody will say something if they come in here. The door’s locked.
    I feel a huge pain rush through my shoulder then my back. I feel the pressure of somebody on top of me, the coldness of the tile floor pushes through my shirt and I hear desks move and kids rushing quietly into a corner. I can’t see nothing, but I smell ketchup and chewed up hotdogs from a hot breath.
    “You know somethin, don’t ya Kitty Kat?” The blonde one’s on top of me.
    I scream out as both my arms stretch. Two hands on each arm pull against me. I’m trying as hard as I possibly can to pull them back in. I feel bruises sting up on each of my wrists as they slam them on the floor. I try to kick and buck, but another set of hands grab my ankles. I can tell he don’t got a good grip on me, so I kick at him as hard as I can. I feel something soft-like smash into the bottom of my shoe.
    “Little bitch! I’m bleedin!”
    Another responds, “Shut up, pussy. She’s just a little girl.”
    I can hear the class shuffle more into each other. Some, I hear trying to keep quiet and not whimper, others, I hear breathe and sniffle.
    My feet sting through the toes when they’re slammed to the ground. I yell into a dirty palm. My tears gather around another hand pressing hard against my eyes. This is what happened to Amy. This is what happened to that boy in second grade I watched get beat up at the park last summer. This is happening to me.
    “Hurry up. We don’t got much time,” another one of them says.
    I hear tape strip and feel it tighten around my ankles and above my knees. Each of my arms slam one by one against each other above my head. I arch my back and scream into the dirty hand when my shoulders pop out of place and the snake-bite feel of the tape wrapped over and over around my wrists and hands.
    They let me go, but all I can do is open my eyes and see them. I turn my head to the class. Many of the girls’ heads were buried in the boys’ chests. The boys just watch me. They just watch me. I see how scared they are. I see how they can’t do nothing but be scared. I try to scream for help, but just as I breathe in, the tape covers my mouth and half of my cheeks.
    I watch the blonde boy hop up and plop right down into my stomach. I can’t breathe; I taste blood from my tongue; snot blows out from my nose. The blonde don’t like me the most. He forces my head back to my classmates. The other three boys came at them with baseball bats. They want to attack everybody. My class huddles closer and closer together. The blonde gets off me. He feels like a snake. I feel his sweat on my cheek as he puts his face to my ear.
    He shows me his bat, and yells loud enough in my ear it stings so bad, “Now, girls and boys. This is what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna take your little Kitty Kat. You, are gonna shut your stupid little mouths about it. You say anything? Poor little kitty kitty here is gonna be at the bottom of the creek where ya stupid little brats like to go play by the bridge.”
    I scream. I shut my eyes. The blonde pushes my head more and more into the floor. I feel the back of my head split open. I think of the friend we found two years ago, trapped under a cement block, his eyes glossy grey and dead, a spider crawled out of his bloated and cracked lips. His parents said he went off the night before to play by the creek, and we found him late the next day.
    He twisted my head, “Do. You. Understand. ME?” I see two of my friends cover their mouths and shake their heads, yes. Then everyone else.
    The shorter one of the brothers says, “Now. Everybody take their seats.”
    “Steve,” the tallest one panics, “we don’t got no more time. Hurry it up!”
    The class fast finds their seats as the three herd them like cattle into the desks, yelling at them. I try to struggle, my head immovable on the tile floor, but I am tired.
    “There, that’s a good bunch of boys and girls. You’re parents will be relieved to know every last one of you did what you was told.” Steve continues all nice again.
    I try to yell, but the blonde keeps slapping my upturned ear, and it stings and rings harder.
    “Ya all be good little boys and girls, or your parents’ll find out then we come for you like we come for Kitty Kitty.” Steve stuck his finger out at each of the kids in their seats.
    The blonde lets my head go, then stands me up with the help of Steve’s tall brother. The blonde got in real close to me, forcing me back against the cement wall dividing the door from the sink.
    “Kitty Kitty,” he calls to me then slithers his face next to my ear again. “You’ve been a naughty little kitty, haven’t ya?”
    I breathe in as hard as the pain allows me to and shake my head, no.
    “LIAR!”
    A wobbly sting comes up from the back of my head and settles in the front. I felt a warm thick liquid trickles down the back of my neck. The room circles in on itself. My class in their desks, Heidi’s upside down chair, the sink, the boys in black threatening other kids, the ceiling. I want to throw up. The ceiling comes at me, and I can’t really see nothing no more. I hear an echo from the blonde boy. He’s singing to me my new name. Over and over again.
    “Kitty, Kitty.”
    Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick. The sound of a bat hitting the tile floor pounds in my head along with my name until there is nothing.



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