Detention

Michelle Nedboy

The lollipop was good; cherry, her favorite. But the stick was becoming gummy and soft, fluffing up her tongue with the dull taste of paper mush. So she bit down on the bulge of the lolly and crunched at it until all of its remains were safely tucked away in her molars. The snack was now immortal.

She flicked the mushy stick into the trash bin. It hit the rim and fell to the floor, but she pretended not to notice. She got up from her desk, unhinging her legs from their awkward, curled-up position. They puffed and popped with that horrible static-y feeling, like fire ants biting up and down her bloodstream. She sat back down and punched her legs, the soft smacks echoing in the otherwise silent room. There were other people there, fiddling at their nails and sweaters, their hair and zippers. Someone coughed; it sounded ghastly, like sandpaper. Her face skewed up in disgust and pity. She was still punching at her numb legs, like dough, but they were feeling better and she could start focusing on other things, like the kid with the spider. She hated spiders, they were unpredictable. He was holding one, it was huge, and it kept trying to escape his sweaty, skimpy palms. He wouldn’t let it, no matter how hard it tried; it zigzagged across his hand like a bumper car. The spider was a black widow, a mean one, too. His red lips curled into an ugly snicker, his freckles squelching up and down his pale cheeks. The kid who coughed was crying quietly to himself in the far-left corner. There was a sophomore (she knew this because they were wearing a grad shirt from their middle school and she did the math) who was flipping out. She kept mumbling to herself and sniffling into her sleeve, the boogers seeping into the cotton.

The crying kid threw up just then and no one paid any notice; it stank of tuna and beans. The teacher who sat in front was leaning back in their rolly desk chair, grinding on a Nature Valley granola bar and making noticeable crumbs on the desk. He was heavy and sleazy, his shorts butchered by his cracked belt and his dull red shirt tucked in too tight. His eyes bulged and followed their every move, his round knuckles red and pasty and playing with the greasy buttons on his shirt. He met her gaze, and stopped chewing; he looked like a piece of taxidermy. A cold shiver went down her back, and she had the nagging urge to look behind her. She averted her eyes, feeling nauseous. She looked at the clock: 4:32. A half an hour left.

The kid in front of her was tapping his foot, but with no particular beat. It bounced and slowed and bounced again, like a broken toy. She looked at the kid with the spider again, and noticed that the spider was gone. She looked away and tried not to think about it, but it didn’t work. There was a feather, drifting above their heads. It was white, curved and crooked like a fish bone. She concentrated on it. She watched it flex and float, sway and swell. It came close to her nose, she blew softly on it, breathing life back into it. It danced away from her, and skidded towards another kid’s desk. They were sleeping with their mouth open; it got sucked down their throat, their snores hiccuped for a brief moment. She slumped in her chair, her feet pointing crookedly towards the stained ceiling. She bit at her lip, bored, scared, annoyed, and sad. This place was depressing.

She looked at the clock again: 4:49. Eleven more minutes, and she was gone. She’d never come back if it meant all this, the sniffling, the coughing, the chewing, the bouncing, the mouth-breathing, the darting, the spider. She knew these kids, she saw them walking through the halls before homeroom, during bathroom breaks and in between classes. They were normal kids, a little weird, a little misbehaved, but they weren’t bad kids.

4:51. The spider was crawling up the bouncing kid’s leg. It jiggled against the dark denim, an angry black blur. He sat there, his buttered chin resting in his sandy hands, oblivious. His shaggy hair was ringed with dandruff and other flecks of dirt; his nails were bitten into scratchy, jagged nubs. He smelled like mushrooms and Brussels sprouts, his back stuck out lazily, riding up his black and blue striped cotton shirt; she could see the small blackheads and whiteheads scattered across his lower back. The spider walked up to a particularly large whitehead, and stopped.

4:53. The teacher was staring at her again, with those fish eyes of his. Kids were looking up at the clock, waking up, getting excited. Their eyes followed the little hand steadily, they softly mumbled: “52... 53... 54...” They looked at each other knowingly, chittering with one another like old friends. It felt like New Year’s Eve. “56... 57... 58... 59...”

4:54. The spider hadn’t moved. It clung against the boy’s skin, as if willing itself to remain there forever, or to sink into his back and crawl up and down and through his spine for pleasure. She felt like screaming. He stopped bouncing his leg to stretch, his bony arms extending over his head and behind him. His back cracked soothingly, his shoulder blades meeting in the middle to kiss. The spider started to move again, disturbed by the sudden change in movement. It crawled differently this time, purposely. She knew what it was set to do. It crawled up his shirt and perched at his neck.

4:57. Kids were starting to pack up, chat and laugh. The sophomore wasn’t sniffling anymore, she was humming happily to herself. The kid who threw up and went unnoticed had gotten himself cleaned up; he was smiling and nursing a ginger ale, well on his way to eat spaghetti tonight. The freckled kid who’d brought the damn spider in the first place had put on his muddy windbreaker and backpack and had slipped out of the room, unnoticed. The teacher was still staring at her, watchful of her every move. The spider lifted and dropped its legs repeatedly.

4:59. A few kids were being let out by the teacher; he didn’t look at any of them, just a quick jerk of the head. They were normal students again, happy and healthy, their wrongdoings put behind them. The boy was getting ready to leave, too. His leg stopped jiggling, his motives were meticulous and clear. He was smiling to himself, unaware of the thing on his neck. She sat there, the same way she had been sitting there, rigid and tense, her hands placed clammily against the desk. Slivers of sweat were collecting underneath her sprawled out palms; her eyes darted between the spider, the teacher, and her backpack. The spider stopped wiggling its legs. It positioned itself. She reached for the big zipper and pulled it back, her left hand hovering above her orange history folder. Her eyes never left the spider; the teacher was glaring at her, his Nature Valley wrapper crumpled on the desk. She didn’t care. The boy was getting ready to stand up but before he could she grabbed the folder and whacked his neck with it. It made a wfamp sound and the spider dropped to the floor, some of its parts and juices smeared against the folder, muddying it. The boy yelled out in surprise and confusion, the teacher bolted out of his chair, a little too eagerly. He felt the back of his neck and looked at her, questioningly. He pulled his hand out in front of his face and saw the juice, saw the muddied folder and saw the discarded spider on the floor. His eyes went a little cross-eyed, but before he could say anything, the teacher was towered over them. He told the boy to scram, wouldn’t even allow him to explain anything. He weaved through the slanted desks and jingled out the door, his keychains knocking into one another. He stood there, scratching his itchy head, waiting for her to look at him; when she did, she saw him mouth something: “Thank you.” He left.

She looked back up at the teacher, who was breathing hotly; his breath stank of stale coffee and the granola bar he just ate, and there was something else. Tobacco.

He yelled at her, told her how he had his eyes on her the whole time, how he saw her squirming and shifting, how she threw the lollipop stick and missed, how she blew the feather and how she couldn’t sit still. He told her that this was detention and you were supposed to sit still. Her mind went to all of the other kids who couldn’t sit still, but she didn’t say anything. Then he asked her why she hit the kid with the folder, his reddened hands placed squarely on his hips, two slabs of meat. She tried to explain the spider, but when she looked down she couldn’t find it, it was gone. She showed him the folder, told him about the freckled kid who snuck the spider in. He asked her, “What freckled kid?” a sneer in his voice. There was no freckled kid, he said brashly, he would’ve seen him leave like the rest of them.

It occurred to her that he wasn’t really listening. He didn’t care if her story was true or not, because his response was planned the minute she had entered the room an hour ago. He told her to come back tomorrow, ready to behave, ready to sit still and to shut up.

She didn’t say anything, she was too numb. Her chest was hottening and she knew she was going to cry, but not now, later. She put her folder back and slipped her bag on, and walked out the dimly lit room. The yellow fluorescent lights buzzed softly.

The teacher chewed the inside of his cheek merrily and walked back towards the desk; as he lifted his gnawed boot, the spider was exposed. It lay there, twisted and dead.

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