The Fourth Child Jessica Winter (i love reading .txt) 📖

By the time Lauren had traveled to school, done her locker, and sat down for homeroom, she had been asked so many times abouther injury that she had a speech down by heart, so well practiced that she could riff and improvise on it, edit or remix iton the spot.

“I can see you are admiring my black eye,” she said to Renée, who approached her with mouth agape. “But you should ask DanielleSheridan how I got it.”

Lauren’s whole body buzzed. The thrill of a good lie. Her head filled with fizzy soda. It wasn’t even a lie—it was a suggestion. Lauren could do the lie without telling it. Maybe this was the same thrill that Jeff Leidecki enjoyed every time he shouted muthafucka or the n-word on ski bus. And anyway, it was better that Danielle Sheridan got in trouble instead of her doofus little brother.Danielle had been way more obnoxious on ski bus than Sean ever was at home, and Sean hadn’t insulted anybody’s butt.

“Ask Danielle Sheridan,” Lauren kept saying. The full name felt formal, correct, like an official grade-wide investigationwas under way. She wasn’t exactly accusing Danielle Sheridan of anything. She was just granting Danielle Sheridan the rightto tell her own story.

Danielle happened to walk into homeroom at the worst time: as everyone else was settling into their seats, right before Mrs.Velasco called the room to order. Danielle walked in, and every head swiveled. Giggling, whispering. Somebody booed. An “EVERYBODYHIT THE GROUND!” from Gordie Garland’s corner of the classroom. Muffled laughter.

“Did boxing class run late?” Jamie asked Danielle as she passed Jamie’s desk. Danielle smiled helplessly at no one in particular, trying tobe in on the joke.

Two periods later, earth science, Lauren sat at a back table with Shannon, Jeff, and Evan as Danielle approached. “Lauren,what is going on—” Danielle began, going to place one hand on Lauren’s arm.

“Don’t touch her,” Shannon said, possessive, protective.

“I don’t—how did you get hurt?” Danielle asked. Her doll’s face wasn’t crafted to show distress. Her cornflower eyes and upturnedrosebud lips only knew a language of soft-spoken delight.

“Do you remember thrashing around on ski bus like a crazy person?” Lauren asked. An even tone. Again, it wasn’t an accusation—itwas a question, regarding an observable event with witnesses. Did Danielle remember? The question didn’t assume one answerover another. Lauren wasn’t lying. She was acting, she supposed, but she wasn’t lying.

“But I didn’t—” Danielle said. “I never touched you.”

Jeff squealed. “You just touched her,” he said. “Like five seconds ago, I saw you.”

“You weren’t jumping up and down and messing around?” Lauren said. “Didn’t people see you? Weren’t you dancing to the N.W.Asong?”

“‘One Hundred Miles and Runnin’,’” Evan said. Backing up the story. These were bland statements of fact. Lauren didn’t singleout Jeff or Evan as witnesses. They had to come forward on their own. No one likes to be put on the spot.

“But I didn’t give you a black eye!” Danielle said. Her voice cracked. Her lashes blinked mechanically.

A Baby Born doll, with nine lifelike functions and eleven accessories.

“If you didn’t give her a black eye on ski bus,” Shannon asked, “then who did?”

“I have no idea!” Danielle said, one tear spilling down her cheek.

“So are you calling Lauren a liar?” Shannon asked.

Shannon was enjoying this too much. She and Lauren weren’t even all that good friends.

“No, I am not calling her a liar!” Danielle spluttered.

Shannon was one of the first kids in school to get three-way calling at home. She liked using it with girls who were in afight, but one girl wouldn’t know that the girl she was fighting with was listening in on the conversation. Shannon wouldprobably call Danielle tomorrow but not tell Danielle that Lauren was there, too, on the other line, cross-legged on her bed,hunched over her phone, one hand clamped over the receiver to hide her breathing.

“And when she was done beating up Lauren, she called you fat and ugly, Shannon,” Jeff said as Evan bayed beside him.

Sometimes Shannon would telephone a boy and girl who were rumored to like each other and conference them in without saying anything, not even hello. If you lucked out on the timing—if both of them answered on the first or second ring—each would think the other had made the call; they wouldn’t know a third person was involved at all, or not at first. Shannon called these “crush calls.”

“No!” Danielle wailed. “I didn’t say that about Shannon! I did not!”

“What is going on?” Mr. Philbin asked. “Evan, stop acting like a hyena. Danielle, what is wrong? Do you need the nurse?”

That’s what all the male teachers always said when a girl at Mayer Middle School was crying. Do you need the nurse?

“No,” Danielle said, looking back and forth between Lauren and Shannon.

“Then sit down, Danielle,” Mr. Philbin said.

Shannon wore an ominous smile. “She will be destroyed,” she whispered to Lauren, leaning across the table. “We will crucify her.” She’d gotten that line from a movie about high school. If Mom heard Lauren saying that, she would want to wash hermouth out with soap—Mom wouldn’t do it, but she would threaten it.

Lauren watched Danielle’s back, two rows over and one seat up. She could tell Danielle was crying. Just then Lauren rememberedSean’s bag of frozen peas, left underneath her bed. They would be a thawed lump right now, puddling into the baseboard. Hopefullythe ceiling wouldn’t leak. Danielle’s head was bowed and her shoulders were shaking. It was all so easy it was boring. Itwas embarrassing.

Now Jamie and Jeff were off to Kent, a bookish place with a strong Model United Nations team and a famous novelist among its alumni; Shannon and Evan to Knox, which was nicknamed Jox. Kelly to Catholic school; Renée to Nichols, the private school near the Albright-Knox art gallery—Mom spoke of Nichols like it was a kingdom visible from a misty distance, a castle behind a fortified moat. Bethune was only a mile away from their house by road, and closer if you cut through the yards, out