Free This Must Be the Place: A Novel by Kate Racculia Page A

troublemakers in his classes as though they were Oneida’s friends and she could offer them counsel: “Why don’t you tell that Hearst kid to knock it off? He’s pratting around with the lathe; there’s going to be trouble,” or “Can you talk some sense into that Baxter moron? Kid’s gonna lose a finger if he’s not careful.”
    She took a sip of milk. “OK, I guess. Pretty boring.”
    “Any big tests coming up?” Anna asked.
    “Math quiz on Friday about the quadratic equation. And I have my group history project. That’s due in a couple weeks.”
    “Is that why that punk kid was here last weekend? That Wendy what’s his face?” Sherman, anticipating Bert’s arrival, pulled her chair out. “That kid’s gunning for trouble. I caught him with a tube of fake blood a week ago; you know what he was going to do with it?”
    Sherman didn’t continue. With a start, Oneida realized it hadn’t been a rhetorical question. She shrugged, said that she didn’t really know him, he was just in her group. She neglected to mention Wendy’s new favorite thing to do was grin madly at her if they passed in the hall, after which she’d hear a mocking falsetto
Spooooooooon!
as soon as he glided into her blind spot.
    “There’s only so many things you can do with a tube of fake blood in wood shop, none of them good,” Sherman said. Bert accepted Sherman’sdistracted offer of a hand and allowed him to maneuver her to her seat. She thanked him quietly and immediately bowed her head, assuming, as Oneida saw it, that the rest of the Darby-Jones tenants were too far gone to even bother asking to join her.
    “Tragic Jigsaw-related Dismemberment,” Arthur muttered. “A hand, a foot, a finger. Kid kind of sounds like fun.”
    Sherman bristled. Oneida felt a little giddy. She thought Sherman was a windbag—not a bad guy, but a windbag, and ridiculously out of it—and she agreed with Arthur: Wendy was a jerk, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t see the potential for comedy in the situation. She smiled, and when she looked up she caught Arthur Rook watching her, noticing her smile. He looked desperately happy, relieved, almost, to have discovered the appearance of a tiny alliance, and she looked quickly away.
    “And who is this young man who sits before me?” Bert Draper, all prayed out, adjusted her glasses on the tip of her nose and squinted at Arthur. “Is this the boy who’s been hiding from us for days? We will overlook your abhorrent rudeness, young man, but only this once.”
    “I’m . . . thanks,” Arthur said, more confused than penitent.
    “Now tell us about yourself. Where do you come from. Where is your family from. What do you do, and what are you hoping to do, now you are here.” Bert fired statements, not questions.
    “Bert,” Mona said, reaching for the platter of meat loaf. “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
    Bert harrumphed and wriggled in her chair. She reminded Oneida of a chicken settling over an egg, fluffing and adjusting herself, anxiously, jerkily. Roberta Draper gave Oneida the creeps. She was practically mummified, her skin wrinkled and parched; the face powder she used flaked off like dust. Her eyes were hard and dark, and that was what bothered Oneida the most: whenever she talked to Bert, she knew—she knew—Bert was withholding information. Bert had seen more people come and go, and more things happen, in their home than Mona and Oneida put together—and for whatever reason, for now, Bert Draper was keeping it all to herself.
    It was also terrifying to watch Bert Draper eat. She didn’t have false teeth, but she didn’t possess a full working set of originals, either. Littleflecks of moistened half-masticated food would work their way between her remaining teeth and through her lips, dropping to her plate or dotting the wildly patterned orange and turquoise scarf she wore, not because of drafts but because, Oneida knew, she was sensitive about the folds of skin that hung