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we’re in trouble.
jim wouldn’t answer the teacher. i tried to tell her that he couldn’t. he’d left his voice behind on tarsus. she wouldn’t listen. i got between them.
we’re in the principal’s office. he’s making us talk to him separately. i told him jim can’t. he wouldn’t listen.
he got tired of trying to wring an answer out of jim after about five minutes. sent him back out here. i didn’t even get a minute to make sure he’s okay before i had to go explain myself.
“your brother wouldn’t talk to me.”
“he can’t.”
“you keep telling us that. what do you mean he can’t?”
“i mean he can’t. he can’t talk to anybody anymore.” i leave out the part about how he can whisper yes and no to mom and dad, and the part about when he wakes up from a nightmare and everything he’s been keeping inside spills right out into my arms. the school principal doesn’t need to know that.
“why can’t he?”
“i don’t know. they took his voice when—“ i cut myself off. neither of us has said anything to anybody about what happened except each other. it’s none of their business. they wouldn’t get it anyway.
“when what, george?” the last person to call me george was bubbe. she’s dead.
“that’s all.” now he can’t get anything from me either. he sends me back out to jim.
jim’s shaking, and when i get a little closer i can see the tears on his face. someone’s given him a bottle of water, which sits on his lap untouched. i sit down next to him and wrap my arms around him just like when he has a nightmare. his head finds its place on my shoulder. the hard plastic arm of the chair is digging into my ribs, but i don’t care.
“it’s okay, jimmy,” i say. i’m the only one allowed to call him that. “if they keep picking on you, we’ll just stop coming to school.” jim doesn’t want to stop coming to school. he wants things to be the way they were before.
it’s about twenty minutes before mom and dad walk through the door. “jimmy,” she says to me. i’m the only one allowed to call him that, and besides, you’d think she’d be able to tell us apart after fifteen years.
i don’t correct her on either point. dad just sighs.
they go to talk to the principal. i don’t know what they’re telling him. maybe that jim used to be talkative, which he already knows. maybe that the two of us weren’t always so inseparable, that we used to be able to be in different classrooms without freaking out, which he also knows. maybe they’re telling him everything that happened on tarsus that made jim so quiet and made me his protector, which isn’t his business.
whatever they’re saying, it’s a long conversation. my ribs ache, and jim’s starting to calm down. i don’t let go of him even as his sobs die down. he has to be the one to pull himself away or i won’t know he’s okay.
mom and dad finally come out of the principal’s office. the principal gives them a nod and then flashes us an almost pitying look. i don’t want pity and jim doesn’t either. i shoot the principal a glare.
he sends us home. on the way out of school, mom says something about how i can’t fight teachers anymore, even if they’re picking on jim, and they won’t be picking on jim anymore anyway, because the principal’s gonna have a big meeting and tell everyone to leave the kirk boys alone because we’re troubled.
i don’t want him telling everyone we’re troubled. it’s none of their business.