Vice Principal Lynch pinched his lips into a line and shook his head an inch to either
side. My eyes hurt from the pressure of squeezing them shut. My fingers cramped — I crossed
them as hard as I could. Pick up, mom. Pick up, mom.
“Amy, you were supposed to get off the bus at Marisa Dyer’s stop today, yes?” he asked,
forehead tilted forward, peering over small, unrimmed glasses at the school directory.
“Yes,” I breathed, throat dry as a chalkboard eraser.
I slid my hands under my thighs. The seat cushion was scratchy. There was a crucifix
hanging above the office door, just like the one on the necklace mom gave me for my First Holy
Communion. I reached for my necklace nervously, pulling the cross from side to side. I lifted the
chain up around my chin, jutting it out to hold the cross in place for a few seconds before letting
it drop.
“Well, we can try her, but if she doesn’t answer, we’ll have to call Marisa’s house. Her
parents may have to come pick you up.”
I jolted forward in my seat like I’d been hit by lightning.
“Her grandma.”
“What?” Vice Principal Lynch paused mid-dial.
“Marisa’s nan babysits her after school.”
“At her house, though, correct?”
I nodded while Vice Principal Lynch called my mom. No answer. He tried Marisa’s
house. Don’t let it be Nan. Please don’t let it be Nan. He unpinched his lips, smiled as he spoke
into the receiver.
“Hi, Vice Principal Lynch here from St. Ambrose School…” I didn’t hear another word
over the blood pulsing in my ears.
“Marisa’s grandmother is coming pick you up.” His smile was kind, but tired. I swung
my feet, bit a nail.
“It’s okay. Lots of kids miss the bus. Just be quiet during announcements next time. I
can’t have you in here every Friday now, can I?” he chortled.
Every tick of the clock boomed in the quiet office. Vice Principal Lynch breathed thickly,
like he had a cold. I watched him fill out paperwork with an inky black pen. His handwriting
wasn’t very good. My teacher, Mrs. Connolly, would yell at him if he were in my class. She’d
make him write rows and rows of cursive on special lined paper until his letters looked like the
ones on the poster in our classroom. There was a snow globe on his desk. Little plastic brown
twigs, an orange carrot, black sunglasses, and a multicolored scarf were settled on the bottom
among little white, iridescent specks. “Florida Snowman,” it said at the base of the plastic orb.
“What’s that?” I asked, nodding toward the bubble. Vice Principal Lynch picked it up.
“My sister got it for me in Fort Lauderdale,” he said, reaching toward me. “You can
shake it if you want to.”
I took it from his hands, shook it, watched as snowman parts and the sparkly white flakes
floated and swirled in the liquid.
“Oh, I get it! It’s hot in Florida,” I said.
“Have you been to Florida before?” he asked, smiling. Vice Principal Lynch was pretty
nice, I thought.
“Once,” I said, “my mom took me to Disney World two summers ago, when I was six—”
a dull, low buzz from the secretary’s desk cut me off. She’d unlocked the doors. Oh no. Nan’s
here.
“Alright, time to go, Amy!” Maybe he wasn’t so nice, after all. He sure seemed happy to
get rid of me. Probably because he got to go home and watch the news or cook vegetables or
whatever teachers do outside of school. I’d rather do Mrs. Connolly’s cursive homework for a
thousand hours than go with Marisa’s nan right now. I tried to walk slowly as I could from Vice
Principal Lynch’s office, but he put his hand on my shoulder and sped me along. Definitely not a
nice guy. He’ll be sorry he made me go with her if I don’t come back for school on Monday.
There she was, in the vestibule. Small and thin as a whisp of smoke, but she seemed to
take up the whole doorway. Vice Principal Lynch opened the door, welcoming her in. Nan swam
in a thick, furry black coat and a musty cloud of old-lady perfume.
She pulled back red-lipsticked lips to reveal uneven, half-gray teeth as she screeched,
“Hurry up. No more lollygagging.” There were little flakes of blood red on Nan’s teeth.
I glanced back at the office. I could almost swear I saw the secretary make the sign of the
cross, Vice Principal Lynch recoil. Had the sky through the doors behind Nan become darker? I
marched with leaden feet to Nan’s shiny, red car.
I barely heard the smack of the car door over Nan’s shaky squawk, “What am I, a
chauffeur?” I saw driblets of spit land on her black leather gloves. Tears burned in the corners of
my eyes.
“It was an accident,” I said, looking down at my saddle shoes.
“You missed the bus because you were lollygagging. And now I have to drive — in this.”
She gestured to the still-darkening sky. Thunder cracked.
It was quiet in the car. I could only hear my breath, the tires rolling over suburban streets,
the flat plunk of raindrops on the soft roof of the convertible car. Occasionally Nan spat another
“lollygagging” into the stuffy, too-hot air. The car smelled funny, sour like wet clothes left too
long in the washing machine. I pulled the sleeve of my sweater over my hand and held it to my
nose, trying to focus only on its dryer-sheets and crayon smell. Then I saw it, down by my toes,
under Nan’s seat. A book, hardback, like a textbook, but black leather like Nan’s gloves, with
gold letters on it. Carefully, I wedged my toe between the seat and the book to slide it toward me.
The letters on the cover weren’t letters at all. They were strange little markings, halfway between
the alphabet and cave drawings. In the middle, there was a big circle with a star and a naked man
with weird muscles in it. There was a little crescent moon under his private parts. I shoved the
book back under the seat with my foot. Nan’s spell book!
“And now you are kicking my seat,” Nan roared, louder than a flock of cawing birds.
“Make me drive all the way to your ridiculous school — with no apologies — and then the nerve
to kick my seat. You’re worse than a lollygagger. You’re a lollygagger with no manners.” Nan
pulled into the driveway, put the car in park, and lifted her pointed chin, better to see me in the
mirror. I focused on the dashboard clock — 3:04 PM. We might have beat the bus back to
Marisa’s house. She might not be here yet. I might be alone with Nan. I felt like I might throw
up.
“Come on.” Nan opened the car and flicked her head toward the front door. She was still
wearing large, dark sunglasses, even though it was drizzling. My legs were frozen. I couldn’t
make them walk me into the house. I stared at the back of Nan’s seat, thinking about the book
underneath. I felt the tears fighting to come up again.
“Come on,” Nan repeated, reaching in and pinching my ear, hard, between her thumb and
index finger, dragging me out of the car. I couldn’t let this old woman make me cry. I couldn’t
let her take me inside. I had to get away. Be brave, I told myself. I swatted at her hand.
“No,” I screamed.
“Excuse me?” Nan oozed as she raised a sharp eyebrow above the thick plastic brim of
her sunglasses.
“No,” I shouted, stomping my foot against the driveway, sending pellets of wet gravel up
my half-fallen knee-highs. “I’m not going in there with you. I know what you are.”
“What did you say?” Nan hissed through those gray and red teeth.
“I know what you are. I heard my mom talking about it.”
The school bus I was supposed to be on came to a metallic stop in front of the driveway
in a mist of sweet, sweaty exhaust. Marisa hopped off the bus and onto the sidewalk, backpack
held aloft to shield herself from the rain, coming down harder now. She splashed in tiny pools of
water on the pavement until she saw Nan and me. She stopped dead in her tracks, wet leaves
sticking to the bottom of her shoes.
“Good, you’re here, Ame.” Marisa looked at me nervously and began to ask, “Did you
miss the bu–?”
Nan continued the interrogation as if no one were speaking or splashing. “And what is it
your mother was talking about exactly?”
“You’re a witch. My mother was talking to her mother about it on the phone.” I pointed
to Marisa. “Her mom told my mom you were babysitting us after school, and my mom said
‘she’s a real witch, isn’t she’?”
“A witch?” The lightning in Nan’s voice matched the storm screaming closer in the
blackening sky. “Your mother and my daughter-in-law called me a witch?”
“A real witch. Her mom even said it, too.”
Car headlights appeared. Marisa jumped onto the wet grass so my mom could pull her
SUV into the driveway. She left the car running, opened the door, and scurried toward me,
umbrella extended overhead.
“Oh Amy, I am so sorry, I missed the school’s call — I rushed out of work. I’m so glad
you’re here!” Anxiety left her voice like air from a hole in a bike tire. “I can’t believe you missed
the bus.” She turned to Nan, “thank y– “
“She was lollygagging.” Nan’s voice was hard stone.
“I’m so sorry, than–“
Nan hadn’t yet taken her eyes off me. “Tell your mother what you said.”
“Amy, what did you say?” mom asked, face pinkening with embarrassment.
“I told her what you said.”
“What I said?” Mom looked between Nan, in her fuzzy coat, dripping like a wet dog, and
me.
“I know she’s a witch.” I stepped in front of Mom, to protect her.
“Amy Elizabeth! What has gotten into you?” Mom sounded angry. At me. What is going
on? I thought.
“You said it! You said she was a real witch. I heard you!”
Nan turned her sinister stare to mom, whose face had gone ghost white. Marisa’s mouth
hung open, her book bag a wet lump at her side, the bow in her hair saggy and soaking.
“I didn’t mean she was a real witch,” Mom said. She sounded nervous. “I meant she was
a…” she trailed off, embarrassed. Nan looked at us poisonously, her headscarf now slick to her
skull. “Sometimes grownups say things, not nice things, and I…” Mom paused, looked at Nan.
“We all need to get out of this rain, thank you for getting my daughter from school. I’m so sorry.
Goodbye, Marisa, sweetie.” Mom grabbed my hand and pulled me to the car. We both slammed
our doors shut.
“Mom you said it, you said she was real witch!”
“That’s not what I meant,” she grumbled. “Let’s just go home.”
Mom backed out of the driveway and into the street without looking back at Nan lording
over the driveway like a drowning crow. But I did. I flipped my whole body around, knees on the
seat, feet dangling over the edge, belly pressed against the back support, leaving a watery
shadow on the leather. I could just see Nan through the wall of rain, soaked and staring. The dark
glasses had dropped down her nose, and her chin was pulled close to her chest. Over the top of
the thick frames, her eyes blazed black. Her top lip was curled into a thin red line, teeth bared.
Her hands were open at her sides, and I can’t be sure, but I swear I saw Nan’s feet, in their
grandma shoes, hovering above the ground.
About the Author
Amanda Dougherty is a fiction writer from Philadelphia, PA. She studied postgraduate creative writing at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Her work appears in Punk Noir Magazine and is forthcoming in Exposed Bone Magazine.
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