Perfect Student, Ms. Beckman
The school, with its colossal white columns, looms over Briar as she settles next to her usual pillar. The teacher in charge of watching the students wears a whistle around her neck, hair dyed unnaturally red, and her phone low and far to compensate for her nearsightedness. Briar catches her eye as she settles against the pillar. Too far to speak, Briar mouths, “Hey, Ms. Cabble.” Ms. Cabble waves with just her heavily jeweled fingers and smiles a false smile. “Bless her heart,” she mutters. Poor girl, reading. She goes back to her Facebook feed, liking photos of local babies.
Briar pulls a lock of nearly white hair behind her ear as she opens the book on her lap. The South Was Right! given to her by Mr. Jackson because she often argued with him in class. She sighs and opens the book, rolling her eyes at the first few sentences. She closes it, and pulls out a tattered and worn copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Just as she’s about to start for probably 50th time, a rock lands near her. She looks around, and the only person she can see is Ms. Cabble, adjusting her glasses and scrolling. She shrugs and goes back to the book. A moment later, a rock hits her right on the crown. “Ow!” she says, rubbing her head. She glances up just in time to see movement in the bushes. She looks to make sure Ms. Cabble isn’t paying attention before going to check it out.
“Judah!” she says, seeing a bush of unmistakable curly black hair within the green bush. A chills runs down her whole body and a tear comes to her eye. “I thought you were--”
Judah hushes her heatedly. “Is anyone looking at you?”
“No...” she says.
“Briar, please, no one else can know I’m alive. I need your help. You in?”
Briar stands there, looking at a bush. The weight of Mr. Jackson’s fat book pulls at her back. “Yes,” she hears herself saying. “OK.”
Judah smiles with all his eyes, which, just a moment ago she believed she would never see again. The smile fades just as quickly, as if another persons pulls it away. “Mr. Jackson is the one who killed my family...”
Briar twitches, feeling the urge to rip off the weight in her backpack.
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
A flash of light inside a house, and, just like that, his mother is gone. He blinks at a leaf, not seeing it. The smell of it is green and a touch bitter, like the dried little bay leaves his mother would put in her gumbo.
“Judah?” Briar asks. She takes an unconscious step toward him.
He blinks back to her and the tears away. “Sorry--” he says. His own backpack, weighted similarly with the gun that killed Mr. Jackson, is heavy. He turns to the cool dirt and puts a hand in it, wanting to lay down.
“What do I need to do?” she asks, almost pleadingly.
“OK,” Judah says, bracing himself. He avoids her eyes. “I need you to record Mr. Jackson saying that he killed my family.”
“OK...” she says, eyes working.
“Do you have a phone?”
“No,” she says. “My mom won’t let me.”
Judah pulls his own phone out of his pocket. “Take mine.”
She takes it, thoughtful. “I don’t know how to get him--”
“Leave it with him when he’s alone,” Judah says. “He, uh, talks to himself.”
“Ms. Beckman!” says a jocular voice. Briar jolts fully upright and turns sickly white. “Are you reading that book I lent you?”
Judah pushes himself deep into the bushes, his breath too loud; he claps a hand over his own mouth. The metal of the gun cools his skin through three layers of cloth.
Briar says, “Uhh,” after a long pause. “I started it.”
“I know I ain’t going to convince you, now!” he says. “I just want you to know there is always another side to an argument.”
“Yes, sir,” she says.
“Who are you talking to over here?” he says. Judah watches his beady eyes sweep over him.
“No one, sir,” she says.
Mr. Jackson eyes her now. “Awfully proper today, Ms. Beckman.”
She laughs like a bark.
Mr. Jackson takes a step toward her, looking around to make sure no one can see. Judah’s hand starts toward opening the backpack. He finds himself bearing his teeth.
“Ms. Beckman,” he says, low and dark. She swallows. “I need you to help me grade some papers. For... extra credit?”
Briar laughs with relief. “Oh! Yes, sir.”
Mr. Jackson laughs too. “Did you think you were in trouble? I’ve never seen you look so nervous. What in the world could the perfect student, Ms. Beckman, be up to?”
“Nothing!” she says. They begin to walk together toward his classroom. She looks back at Judah over her shoulder.
Judah exhales. “Shit.”
