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"It is you. I knew it was. "
"Then why'd you ask?" I muttered over my shoulder, still refusing to face her.
"Why didn't you just say yes?"
I didn't answer, hoping without real hope that she might go away.
"Why did your cousin try to kill you?" she asked bluntly.
The question startled me so much I evaded an answer without even meaning to. "How did you know he was my cousin?" I hadn't even known it until the trial was over, and I'd found out in the privacy of my kitchen. What did this girl know, anyway?
"Everybody knows. They said it on the news. And they said your mother was in a crazy hospital when she had you. They said she was only a teenager and she died and you don't even know who your father is. They said your cousin thought you were a wicked witch and that's why he did it. "
Warm color crept up my neck, but thankfully my shirt collar hid it for the most part. "You can't believe everything you hear on TV," I admonished, but I couldn't help but wonder. Suddenly I wished I watched more television, and it began to dawn on me that there might be a reason Lu had gotten our cable turned off. "Why do you keep asking questions if you already think you know the answers?"
"Because I keep hearing these really stupid things about what happened to you and I can't believe they're true—even down here. "
I gritted my teeth. "Which things?" I almost growled.
She lifted her nose in the air and sniffed like a small, greedy animal. "All of them. "
"What do you know, anyway? You weren't there. " My voice was rising, but I couldn't really stop it. I wanted to smack her, and it was only out of respect for my surroundings that I did not do so.
"I didn't have to be there. Everyone heard about it. Everyone knows. " She folded her arms, challenging me as surely as if she'd offered me pistols at sunrise. I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't even know if the allegations were false—and if they were true, whether or not I should be upset or ashamed. I stood there confused, wanting to either retreat in disdain or defend myself, but not knowing which course of action was appropriate.
From pure desperation, I opted to misdirect. "Shut up, I'm trying to listen. You're going to get us in trouble. We're not supposed to be talking. "
She went on anyway, her voice just low enough to keep our teacher's head from turning. "I mean, it's not like it matters. You don't have to say anything. I know it's true, and I'm going to go home and tell my dad and stepmom that I got to meet you. I'll tell them it'sall true, just like they heard on the TV, and that I'm stuck having class with that witch. They'll love that. Maybe they'll love it so much they'll take me out of this stupid redneck school. "
I closed my eyes, concentrating on the old man, who went on speaking in his dreary drone about things I would have found fascinating under different circumstances. He gestured at the ceiling and said something pithy and rehearsed about the glass, and then he pointed back out at the restaurant and revealed another historical nugget.
It all sailed past me.
My rage was positively palpable. I wasn't too offended by the Rword; heaven knows I threw it around plenty myself. Even so, I wanted to slug April more surely than I wanted to wake up the next morning. My fingers wrung themselves into a white-knuckled frenzy, but I clutched them at my sides, paralyzed by indecision.
"What's the matter, witch? Can't think of a good spell? Are you going to turn me into a frog?"
One after another I measured my breaths, deep and slow. "I wish I could. We eat frogs around here. " Well, I'd never eaten any personally and I didn't know anyone who had, but I'd heard that it was something that rednecks did.
She laughed out loud. "Jesus," she blasphemed happily. "Nothing you people do would surprise me. Shit, I want out of here so bad. "
"Then go home. Or one of these days I'm gonna send you home airmail," I t
hreatened, fists beginning to shake.
"I believe it, too. My dad says you guys are the worst kind of southerners. "
I couldn't stop myself. I had to ask, even though it meant asking a question when I already knew the answer. I just wanted to hear her say it. I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but that's the story of my life.
"What do you mean, you guys?"
"I mean," and she drew her mouth up to my ear once more. I hadn't yet faced her and she wanted to make sure she still commanded my attention. I believe she would've crawled inside my head if she could have, to make sure I heard her. "You guys who aren't all white and aren't all black. You're not anything except the worst mix of a bad lot, and it don't surprise my dad at all that a family like yours would have something crazy like this going on. "
"Thank you," I said quietly.
"For what?"
"For making this really easy. "
