Sing Me to Sleep.
by Angela Morrison.
For Matt, who left us too soon.
prologue.
d.a.m.n, she"s ugly.
My bio-dad"s first words when he saw me. It"s my only image of him. A shadowy figure bending over Mom wearing a hospital gown, holding a flannel-wrapped bundle in her arms.
d.a.m.n, she"s ugly, Tara. What did you do?
Like she ate or drank something strange that made me come out red and pimply with a purple blotch on my forehead. No hair. Cone head from the delivery. My baby face screwed up and screaming at him.
Mom didn"t hate him enough to actually tell me that story. She doesn"t talk about him-not to me. He played in a rock band. Not a big one. That"s all I know. I"ve seen the picture, though. It"s in our family alb.u.m with the rest of my baby pictures. The only one that survived with him in it. But Mom did hate him enough to tell that story over and over to his sister, her best friend since high school, every time his name resurfaced between them.
It"s my first clear memory. Stacking Cool Whip bowls and margarine containers on the kitchen floor, listening to Mom talk on the phone, tuning into the quiet intensity of her voice.
"d.a.m.n, she"s ugly. Our beautiful baby. That"s all he had to say."
I was her beautiful baby. She called me that all the time.
Beautiful? Now I knew the truth. I was ugly. d.a.m.n ugly. No wonder Dad took off. Never looked back. Not at his ugly daughter making a fairy-tale tower from white and yellow plastic bowls, singing the first song she ever wrote, quietly to herself.
Da-amn ugly, da-amn ugly.
At least I can sing. Got that from my mom"s side. I may not look like a songbird-more like a song stork-but if you close your eyes, it"s beautiful.
chapter 1.
THE OFFERING.
c.r.a.p. There"s a naked freshman chained to my locker.
No. Not naked. Briefs. Not a good look, kid. Spindly white legs, wimpy chest, shaking arms. Black socks. Maybe his mom didn"t do the laundry all spring break, and that"s all he"s got today.
A bike chain encased in lime-green plastic goes through my locker"s handle down the poor kid"s underwear and out a leg, loops up, locked tight. He could escape if he wanted to streak.
Sn.i.g.g.e.ring behind me. I don"t turn. That"s what they want. The sound multiplies. Amplifies. Magnifies into an audience.
I didn"t see it coming while I slumped into the hall traffic, sinking lower into my baggy sweatshirt and loose Levi"s, my eyes tracing the regular lines in the floor tiles, as I hid behind my long brown frizzed-out mane, face rigid just in case.
My progress was strangely quiet. No guys darting in front of me telling me to "get my effing ugly face" out of their way. No one shouting, "Take cover. The Beast is loose." No dying animal moans echoing off the lockers as I walked by. Only silence. Deadly silence. I thought I"d escaped this morning. I should have known. The hunters are on the attack.
But I"m not the only one they attacked this time. I focus on the trembling kid. "Did they hurt you?" I accidentally brush his arm.
He jerks back, stares at the spot I touched like it will burst into flames or harden to stone and turn to dust. Can"t blame him. I"m Beth the Beast. Too tall to ever stand straight. Bony body. Face full of zits. Bug eyes magnified by industrial-strength gla.s.ses. The braces have been off for three years, but no one sees my straight, white teeth. Just fangs, long yellow ones. Dripping blood.
"They said"-the kid shudders and swallows hard-"to tell you I"m the offering."
They. We both know who they are. Colby Peart, Travis Steele, Kurt Marks. The Hors.e.m.e.n. Aren"t there supposed to be four? And I think that"s biblical. Ironic. Nothing biblical about Colby and his senior ultra-jock following who hold Port High School in their grasp. Apocalyptic? That works. But the end of their reign approaches. Seniors graduate. Unless by some sick shake of fate"s dice they fail, next year this place will be liberated. The Hors.e.m.e.n will ride off into the sunset. I hope warriors hiding behind the hills get them and tear them to pieces.
The kid"s talking again. The press behind me seethes in close enough to hear. "They said the Bea-you-require a sacrifice." He shudders again and looks down at the floor. "Every full moon."
The crowd behind us roars. Laughter is supposed to be healthy, uplifting. Not in Port, Michigan.
"It"s okay." I restrain myself from patting his shoulder. "We"ll get Mr. Finnley to bring his bolt cutters."
The kid won"t shut up. His head comes back up, and he grimaces at me. "They said you"d drag me into your lair-"
More laughter.
Heat pours into my face, and I mumble, "I don"t eat freshmen for breakfast."
"Eat me?" Confusion knits the kid"s brows together. "That"s not what they said you"d do."
Riot levels break out behind us. It sounds like half the school has crammed into the hall.
I don"t turn and look. "I"m not going to hurt you."
"Can you knock me out first?"
The laughter, mocking and harsh, bounces back and forth across the hall, off the metal locker stacks.
This kid must have swallowed every word of the Beast legend. I"m a giant. I"m hideous. But a crazed female rapist preying on skinny freshmen?
I hold up my hands and back off. "They got you, okay." My eyes sting. They got me, too. "You"re safe." I turn and try to push through the wall of unyielding bodies to find the custodian. My eyes are blurry. c.r.a.p.
Don"t lose it. Don"t lose it. Don"t lose it. "Excuse me. Please." The surging wall of cackling bodies solidifies.
Then I see Mr. Finnley"s head. Scott"s there, too-leading him through the crowd. I swallow hard.
"Sorry, Beth." Scott bites his lip. "I wanted to get this cleaned up before you got here-but the kid wouldn"t leave his whities."
"That"s enough, people. Don"t you have cla.s.ses to go to?" Mr. Finnley glares, and the ma.s.ses scuttle off back to the cracks and drains they came from. The Finnster shakes his head and gets busy cutting the chain. "I"ll have to report this."
That"s all I need. Another session in the office. Questions I can"t answer. "Who did this?" Silence. "Who do you think did this?" Who do you think did this? We all know. Colby and his clones are behind everything nasty that goes on here. n.o.body names them. We have another a.s.sembly about bullying. Nothing changes.
I glance down at the binder I"m carrying for first period. I scribbled out the words, but I know what they say: Your words-
Why do they define me ?
Why do I believe you?
Your face,
Your lips, and your fingers-
Don"t spill them on me.
I"m bones, blood, and flesh
Not clay to be pounded,
And scorched in the fire
That seethes in the hate you feel.
I bleed when you wound me
Just like the pretty girls do.
It needs some kind of hopeful chorus. Can"t seem to squeak anything like that into the equation. No music, either. Just those thin lines that make me sound so angry. I guess I am-angry. But I don"t want everyone knowing that. I do a lot of erasing, burning, shredding, hiding, hurting. I run back to Da-am ugly and stay there.
The end of the year can"t come fast enough. If I tiptoe next year, I"ll be able to breathe-like when they left junior high.
Scott reads my mind. "Only three months, eight days, thirteen hours, and twenty-nine minutes until they graduate."
"Why do you help me?" Scott and I were best friends in preschool, and then he was in my cla.s.s again in third grade. He was skinny and had to go to the nurse"s office for hyper drugs at lunch. I was already taller than everyone else and wore thick, round gla.s.ses that made me look like an overgrown bush baby. My hair was short back then. Cut it now? No way. Where would I hide?
Scott doesn"t have to hide. Doesn"t have to help me and doom himself to eternal loserhood. He"s cute since his face cleared up. I don"t think he sees it. He"s still way short, Quiz Bowl captain, core nerd. Still my friend.
He grins, nonchalant, self-sacrificing, Clark Kent to the core. "I don"t take gym anymore. They can"t steal my clothes and throw them in the toilet."
"But they could hurt you."
"You"re worried?" He pats my shoulder. "That"s nice, Beth. See you in choir."
Choir. School choir. Not my real choir down in Ann Arbor. Not the choir I begged Mom to let me audition for when I was thirteen. Not the compet.i.tive all-girls choir where I sit un.o.btrusively in the back and anchor the altos. Not the one I have to drive a hundred miles to, through Detroit"s rush-hour traffic down I-94 every Tuesday and Thursday to rehearsals in a freezing cold church. Not Bliss Youth Singers of Ann Arbor. The choir I live for. The choir that takes me away from who I am to what I long to be. Beautiful? I guess. Isn"t that what everyone wants? They all probably want love, too. I live with so much hate that I"m not even sure what love is. Neither is on my horizon.
Scott"s just talking about our struggling school choir. Kind of a joke. Marching Band is almighty here. But choir pa.s.ses the time. Easy A. Music is music. Singing is singing. A respite from the madness. No jock senior boys allowed. Out of this school of nearly two thousand kids, there are only eight guys in the whole group, so I sit by Scott and sing tenor. I"ve got a decent low voice and perfect pitch so sight-reading parts come naturally. I can sing high, too. I can sing as high as anybody if I want. I help out the sopranos and altos when we run parts. They go to pieces when I go back to tenor.
Scott can"t sing, but he tries. I asked him once why he takes choir. Any guy who signs up is instantly labeled "gay" by Colby and his jocks-and the rest of the school.
Scott turned kind of pink. "So I can hear you sing."