The children are telling me that Anna B is not Anna B. They’ve been looking at her sideways on the bus ever since we left the city. I will admit that Anna B. is looking weird as shit today, but honestly, she always looks like that to me. I don’t feel like I’m allowed to even think something like that, but now that Peter’s been on the topic for, like, half the bus ride, dampening the side of my head with his frantic breath, I feel very comfortable acknowledging it and I nearly let the thought leave my mouth, but then I remember I’m supposed to be an authority figure modeling behaviors such as empathy and self-control, so I don’t say anything but still, I don’t know why it’s taken her peers four years of high school to notice. I knew it the moment I saw her.
First of all, she sat in the front row of my class without prompting or coercion, which is nearly a carnal sin, but then, despite being directly in my line of sight, she never paid attention. Was she looking at me while I gave lessons? Sure. She was looking at me. But she wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes always had something behind them like she had a film rolling in her pupils. It was creepy and I was happy when the school year ended and I never had to deal with those eyes again.
It’s not her eyes that are bothering the students though.
“She’s been talking to herself,” Peter whispers to me from between the bus seats. His breath. Did he skip lunch? What did he do that for? So worried about other people, maybe he needed to worry about himself. I inch away from him and turn my head toward the window. He does not find this discouraging. He starts telling me all the things she’s saying about being hungry and her stomach hurting and how she didn’t think the lunch looked good and so she skipped it but that otherstuff looked good and maybe she should try the other stuff.
“People are allowed to talk to themselves, Peter,” I say, flatly. I want him to know that the conversation must end now, so I reopen my book and attempt to tuck in.
He’s not fazed.
“It’s how she’s saying it,” he continues, pressing his face against the gap. His braces glint with saliva. “With this weird voice like I don’t know. It’s not a regular voice. It’s making us feel, I don’t know, like, uncomfortable, I guess.”
My ears pricked at the word “uncomfortable.” I am technically not allowed to do nothing when a student utters that word. I am a sleeper cell. I am awakening. I have to close my book. Oh, God. I’m going to need to have a difficult conversation. I’m going to need to talk to her about how to conduct herself in a social setting i.e how to be a human that people don’t want to punch in the face or scurry away from. I hate those kinds of talks, needing to explain what seems like common sense. I have a hard time stating the obvious in even plainer terms. And I’ll have to stare into those weird eyes while I do it. No, the irony of being a teacher who can’t explain simple things has not escaped me. I am currently sending out my application. I want something managerial and menial and preferably childfree. This field trip, thankfully, will be my last.
I look beseechingly across the aisle to the other chaperone, Todd — Who’s even named Todd anymore? — I don’t know this man. I’ve seen him in the halls but that’s it. I don’t even know if he really works at the school full time or if he works within any of the departments. All I know is he’s worse than me. There’s a student on this trip who’s allergic to Advil. Guess what? He almost gave them Advil. I don’t expect him to handle this, but still I have to look at him; I want him to see me seeing him do nothing. He’s watching a video with his headphones on, deliberately choosing to be engrossed in the commercial break flashing across his screen.
“Fine,” I mutter. “I’ll talk with her.”
I massage the bridge of my nose, a proactive measure because this conversation will annoy me more than usual. After a full day of shepherding students around the city, praying that none of them get separated at a station or assaulted and snatched by a city dweller, I am ready to just be at home on my couch with a cup of tea. The sun is dipping below the horizon and so is my patience. I toss my book into the seat beside me and with much exasperation, deep sighs and groans and a hard eye roll, I wade to the back of the bus. The students track my movements, sensing an impending drama. It’s off-putting. It’s the same head turn they’d use if I were passing out a pop quiz or publicly doling out consequences after reckless behavior: a mixture of head ducking and darting eyes. An air of culpability.
Anna B is sitting by herself in a back row that seats four. She’s tucked into a corner, her legs pulled to her chest, her forehead resting on her knees, obscuring her face. I sit down, making sure there’s at least a seat between us. I am acutely aware of our audience.
“How are you feeling, Anna?” I say, and my voice surprises me. High pitched and lilting and gentle and so divorced from how I feel that I give myself whiplash. I’ve perfected the mask. I am the caring one; Todd is the dickhead.
She does not respond.
I do not allow myself to touch students. Always a space between us, a boundary not to be crossed. But her body is so oddly wound, I feel an urge to place a hand on her shoulder, to check if she’s breathing. The bus jiggles over potholes and she somehow maintains her contorted shape while perched on the cloth bus seat. I wish I could do that. It seems athletic.
Her stillness prompts me to ask again, “Are you feeling okay? A little motion sick?” Period maybe? I withhold. Cramps have forced me into similar pretzel-like positions.
This time I got a head shake. A stern, rigid one. I find this odd, but I hold my face still. I do not want to alarm her classmates, many of whom unabashedly face us, twisting their torsos over the arms of their seats, leaning into aisles; the lack of couth is appalling.
“Are you in pain?”
A tight nod.
“Would you like some Advil?”
A mutter. A muffled something. I lean in.
“One more time. I couldn’t hear.”
I’m hungry, I think she’s saying. Worst case of hanger I’ve ever seen. Can hanger be written into a student’s medical file? Is that a thing? Perhaps when it’s this severe it should be. I make a mental note. I glance at Todd, at the back of his bowed head. It’s lolling in a way that suggests he’s asleep. I feel a renewed wave of frustration. He’s so useless. I want to slap him. After I quit, I think I will. But behind my frustration, admittedly, is fear. This child is unwell and my responsibility. Did we forget to feed her? The kids had a moment when they could wander off to buy lunch for themselves. Should we have checked that they’d all eaten? What if she faints? Do I have a snack? No—should I ask another kid if they have a snack?
“We tried to give her some food,” Peter says, recognizing, somehow, the crux of my self-interrogation. A few kids nod their heads to corroborate.
“What do you want to eat, Anna?” I ask. “Maybe we can stop at a rest stop and get you something.”
I see her head lifting and it feels like such a private moment: it’s her anguish that makes me look away. Her pale skin has gone gray with flashes of blotchy red in places. There’s deep, shadowy crescents beneath her eyes. Her mouth is hanging slack and somehow her teeth have yellowed. A globule of green snot quivers atop her cupid’s bow.
Our audience reacts in a way I cannot. Some kids stand and move seats. The reshuffling doesn’t seem to disturb Anna. In fact, her eyes haven’t left my face. She’s focused in a way that I never thought possible. I struggle to return her gaze. The bus rattles; I take the opportunity to put another seat between us. She doesn’t seem to notice or care.
“I can’t,” she gasps, “I can’t wait for—a rest. Stop.”
A line of saliva glistens as it trails the expanse of her chin.
“Okay,” I am sweating, my armpits prickle with heat, “Okay, then, Anna tell us what you need. I will provide it.”
“I’m not supposed to,” she blinks one eye at a time. Her rasping and wheezing heightens my anxiety. My nervous system is on fire: I scratch my head in four places; rub my elbows and knees. Suppress an urge to rock self-soothingly. Is this girl dying? She looks like she’s dying. Am I going to watch this girl die? “Hey! Peter! Tell the bus to pull over!”
Wide-eyed, Peter stumbles out of his seat and down the aisle. I watch him lean over the driver’s shoulder, an Italian man with a voice that easily carries whenever he senses nonsense.
“What is this kid talking about?” The driver says, his eyes flashing into the rearview mirror.
“We have an—a,” I pause. Word choice. Which word? Emergency? Dear God, no. Not that. “We have a situation! With a student! Who isn’t feeling well!” As if to demonstrate my concerns, Anna coughs up some phlegm and swallows it. The snot has made its way into her mouth.
All the reshuffling and yelling finally resurrects Todd. He pulls off his headphones, surveys the scene with sleep still on his face.
“Well, there’s no shoulder here, ma’am.”
“The nearest rest stop then!”
Anna bursts into laughter then. By now, most of her classmates have crowded at the front of the bus, exchanging glances and concerned whispers. I wish I could join them, but I’m the adult. I have to fix this. I am supposed to protect her. Though, I feel deeply that I am the one in need of protection.
Her laughter is somewhere between a gargle and a cough, and I would not even think of it as a laugh if she weren’t smiling so broadly. It even manages to touch her eyes, to crease them joyously. Before I can think, I am standing and backing away. I hear Peter behind me, frantically begging and the bus driver, ignoring him as I had done earlier, commanding all of us to sit down. He is telling us this is a safety hazard. Our huddled, retreating bodies are no doubt blocking his view of Anna B whose jaw has now extended beyond natural dimensions and whose teeth have lengthened to a point. Most everyone is screaming now, even Todd, who believes he is still sleeping. “Wake up!” His eyes latched onto Anna’s speedy climb over the tops of the seats. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” The shrillness of our collective voices, the undeniable, primeval panic, manages to convince the driver that something has gone awry, but he is too late. The kids, clamoring for an exit, tumble backward into him, sending the entire bus swerving out of its lane. Our bodies lift momentarily, sending my stomach into my mouth, as the bus tips onto its side and skids down the road, crashing into cars.
There’s a blaring of horns, a rush of breathless cries. The world inverts. I am plastered to the roof, beneath the bodies of the children I was meant to care for. And my vision goes momentarily black as my head is dashed against the escape hatch; a warmth spreads over my body like egg yolk. All is still but I feel as if I’m falling, falling, so a flood of hot bile bursts from my split lips and dribbles onto my shoulder. There’s plenty of rattled breathing, but someone is surely dead. Surely. Blessedly, it is not me. Somewhere behind the ringing in my ears, somewhere beneath the squirming bodies and moans, is a crunching like tires on loose asphalt. It is one of my favorite sounds. A tactile sound that brings me back to roadtrips in the rain, the comforting thrum of the heater and the motor and my own steady breath and I am almost soothed into darkness, into my own private dark. But something is wrong. Like smelling a sweet, delicious dessert while staring at vomit. Something is wrong with the sound and I am jolted awake. I cannot see the source and a piercing heat coming from the lower half of my body clouds my attention. The sound is consistent, uninterrupted and cocooned within the splay of unconscious bodies and debris. I start to cry; there are broken bones in me, poking my insides in ways that only bring more tears, more pain, more tears. It is all so unbearable I will myself back into the private darkness; I throw my body into it; I beg it to swallow me whole.
_________________________________________________________________________
Blurry-eyed. Good drugs, I know. In the hospital. Am told I was in a coma and why I was in a coma. My parents come and cry over me like I’m in a casket. After a few days, some police come by. They tell me that no one has died. Even the bus driver is alive. The driver mentioned some hysteria. The last thing the driver remembers, I am told, is hearing about a situation. No one is dead, they say in a way that makes me narrow my eyes, but someone is missing. One Peter Camel. They ask me about him. I say I don’t know anything because I don’t. I tell them about a sound I heard. That’s all I can recall. The crunch. Not like metal. They call it auditory hallucinations caused by bodily trauma. I nod. Yes. Hallucinations. That makes sense.
“What about Anna B?”
“What about her?”
“One of the students mentioned her. She said, and I quote, ‘she looked scary.’”
I blink. “Anna B is a scary looking girl. Always has been.” The police look at me as if they’re waiting for me to say more. I shrug. “Maybe she’s a product of incest.”
The police look at the doctor. The doctor lifts her eyebrows.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t joke. It’s just how, I, um, cope.”
“Thank you for your time.”
They start to leave.
“How is she?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Anna B.”
“She’s doing well. Minor injuries compared to her peers.”
I nod. “That’s good. I mean—not good. Just glad not everybody is, you know, hurt.”
“Right.”
They say they’ll be back if any more details come to light then thank me, again, for my time. The door seals shut with a click. I itch the sweaty parts beneath the casts encasing my torso and stare out the window, stare at the flowers on the bedside table, the handwritten note, illegible. I try to keep from thinking, but it happens anyway. I wonder, for a brief moment, if I’d done a good job. Why I feel the need to be told this I am not sure but the urgency of it crowds my mind, the pressure of it just slightly less bearable than the tightness of the body cast. Because there is no one there to reassure me, I try to feel something akin to happiness about nobody dying, but—Peter Camel. I can’t fully believe that nobody is dead if someone is missing. I think of his parents. They’re very thin, his parents. They have no strength to mourn; their bodies would give out. Then I would’ve killed three people. I pause.
Why do I think it’s my fault? How could this be my fault? But it’s too late. I believe it. Peter Camel is gone and it’s my fault. I drill the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. It’s not good to be kept alone like this. Something is stirring beneath the quiet that the doctor and the police left behind. I try not to look directly at it but the trying is what makes it more visible: crooked limbs jutting and collapsing and going vertical and going right-angled. Tires on wet asphalt. Not quite right. My chest feels stiff, constricted, lifeless inside the cast and yet—all too bloody. All too alive. My own heart beat chewing at my ear. I try to rip the stiffness wide open. Get some air. Get some air. The monitors ding and ring, scream. I am screaming. A nurse grabs my frantic hands by the wrists and the turn and depth of her frown tells me that I am a problem but I can’t stop until it stops someone make it stop: “Please, please, that sound”—more nurses now, swarming like flies to a wound—
Imani Moss is an emerging writer who enjoys writing surreal, supernatural, and sometimes horrific portrayals of her experience as a high school English teacher. She is currently based in New Jersey.