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"They're not letting me play anymore," Beth said. The unfairness of it all bloomed in her chest anew.
Mr Shaibel kept his eyes fixed on the lamp he was screwing a new bulb into, and it felt like more of an insult than all the words Mrs Deardorff had thrown at her just a moment earlier.
"Can't you help me?"
And then Mr Shaibel looked down at her and said "No."
"But you're an adult," Beth said.
"Big whoop."
"You could adopt me," Beth said, and then he looked down again. Longer this time.
"No."
"But why not?"
"I don't have a home for a girl," Mr Shaibel said.
"Girls don't play chess," Beth said.
He looked up again. "I don't have time for a kid."
"I wouldn't need much," Beth said. "Just food three times a day, and a chess set. I'd deal with the rest myself."
"They wouldn't let me adopt you, Beth," he said with a sigh. "I'm alone, I'm getting old, and I'm a janitor, for godsakes. Leave it."
"You didn't say you didn't want to," Beth said.
"It doesn't matter if I want to."
"Mrs Deardorff wants rid of me," Beth said. "I'm a troublemaker. She'd let you if you said she'd never see me again."
"The state wouldn't."
"The state doesn't matter."
Mr Shaibel paused a moment before replying, like he did when she stumped him with a particularly tricksy move. "You really are a single-minded little thing, aren't you?"
"I want to play chess," Beth said.
"I can tell." He twisted the bulb a final time. "No, Beth, I can't and I won't adopt you."
"But you can!" Beth said, anger and fear mixing in her voice. "Katie got adopted by a woman last month and she didn't have a husband!"
"Was that woman a janitor in her fifties?"
"It doesn't matter," Beth said, but she knew it did. "Mrs Deardorff wants me gone more," she offered.
"Beth..." He paused. "If I could, I would."
"You mean that?"
"Yes."
"Do you mean that enough to try?"
He sighed and began to fold the ladder, and Beth read that as the end to the conversation that it was.
Two days later, she found herself called into Mrs Deardorff's office in the middle of Geography.
"Hello Elizabeth," Mrs Deardorff said, lips pressed closely together. "This is Mr Shaibel, but you've met before."
Beth wasn't sure she'd have recognised him. He was wearing a suit which looked slightly too small for him and had made an effort to comb his beard.
"Mr Shaibel is here because he wants to adopt you, Elizabeth," Mrs Deardorff explained, patronisingly. "He thinks you're a very talented little girl, and that that talent should be cultivated.” She said it like a curse word.
”What about the state?” Beth said.
”What about the state?” Mrs Deardorff replied. The point was clear.
Mr Shaibel did not speak, and so Beth said “That—I’d like that. Very much.”
”I have already submitted the paperwork to the appropriate authorities,” Mrs Deardorff said, rearranging some paper on her desk. “As soon as we are notified by mail, you may leave with your daughter.”
Beth could not imagine being Mr Shaibel’s daughter, but she supposed she would soon know how it felt. She had never had a father before, and soon that would be all she had.
”Thank you,” Mr Shaibel said, clearing his throat a little. “Mrs Deardorff, thank you.”
”It is my job to find good homes for all my charges.” Even those you despise, Beth thought, but she did not say anything.
Nobody spoke until Mrs Deardorff cleared her throat again and said “Beth, you are dismissed.”
Beth turned immediately on her heel, not looking back, and walked into the Geography classroom with a spring in her step born from the knowledge it would be one of the last times she’d have to.