Hush by Anne Frasier Page A

than
that.
    Headlights suddenly illuminated the interior
of the small shop. When the lights were cut, Ethan could make out
the car. "Cool it," he told Brent. "My dad's here."
    "Hey everybody," Brent announced. "Ethan's
daddy's here to pick him up."
     

Chapter 10
    It used to be that thirteen was his lucky
number. But lately the number twenty-two had been showing up with
unwavering regularity. Anytime he looked at the clock, it was
something twenty-two. 2:22, 5:22, 7:22. Like that. The other day,
he bought a sandwich and a Coke and it cost him $6.22. Then he
picked up a newspaper and there was a picture of a wrecked bus on
the front. The bus's number? Twenty-two. Then it occurred to him
that his address was 7852. If you added those, you got twenty-two.
. . .
    A thud above his head made him jump.
    She was awake.
    Soon she would begin bellowing at him, making
demands.
    He could smell her through the floorboards.
Her stink permeated the whole house. Did she take a shower at all
anymore? He didn't think so. In some ways he liked that, because it
meant he was the only person using the shower. He didn't like
knowing someone else had been there, that those were her body hairs
stuck to the soap and the fiberglass shower floor. He couldn't
stand knowing that she'd left invisible sloughed-off skin behind,
along with her stench. It was much better that it was just him.
    Why had she always hated him?
    Dirty boy. Dirty, dirty boy.
    He remembered the first time he realized she
was different from other mothers . . . and that he was different
from other children.
    Kindergarten.
    That single word made him break out in a cold
sweat.
    She'd taken him to the huge brick
schoolhouse, her sweaty hand swallowing his as she pulled him
along, his short legs trying to keep up, his fear creating an acid
taste in the back of his mouth.
    His legs were almost too short to make it up
the steps, but she didn't slow down. "Come on. Let's get this over
with," she said, tugging at him, pulling his arm straight up from
the socket. As soon as they stepped inside he felt alien. And that
alien feeling never went away.
    Women—other mothers—looked at them, then
quickly looked away. Some put hands to their faces, covering their
nose and mouth. Some moved back to let them pass, as if afraid he
or his mother might brush up against them.
    He wore little red shorts and a
red-and-white- striped T-shirt that didn't cover his belly. His
shorts were stained from "shit," as his mother called it, and his
feet, in the faded, cracked flip-flops, were crusted with dirt.
    His mother was dressed the way she always
dressed when she wore clothes, in tight terry-cloth shorts and a
tank top with black, coarse hair sticking out from under her
armpits. She had always seemed huge to him—she was his mother—but
now he saw that she was three times as big as the other women
standing in the hallway trying not to look at them.
    "Come on," she said, jerking his hand,
dragging him into a room where a beautiful woman sat at a desk. She
had black hair and red lips, and a warm smile that made everything
seem okay.
    Other women were sitting at desks, filling
out papers. Some children were in the corner, playing with
toys.
    His mother dropped his hand. The woman behind
the desk said hello to him and asked him if he'd like to play with
the others.
    He looked up at his mother. Would she let
him?
    "Go on," she said, using her angry face, her
angry voice.
    So he walked slowly over to where the other
children were playing. One boy had a plastic car he rolled along
green carpet that had a drawing of streets on it. A girl with blond
hair was playing with colored blocks, stacking them higher and
higher. He thought she was pretty.
    The girl looked at him and said, "You
stink."
    The boy looked up, then pointed. "You
pee-peed." That wasn't enough, he had to announce it to everyone in
the room. "He pee-peed," he said in a singsong voice, still
pointing. "Teacher, he pee-peed."
    He could feel something hot