Weird Sad and Silent

I
To begin, my name is Daisy Jackson. I am ten years old, or as we say in Roman numerals, X years old. I am a fifth--grade student at Haven Elementary. Here are a few other random facts about me, just to get us started.
I. I live with my mama.
II. We live in an apartment building.
III. Lulu lives next door.
IV. Mama works nights for Glorious Clean, an office--cleaning company.
V. Offices are busy during the day, so all the Glorious Cleaners like Mama work nights.
VI. That means Mama and I have a few hours together after school before she goes to work, and an hour in the morning before she goes to bed and I go to school.
VII. You might think I would get scared at night when Mama’s working, but Lulu stays with me, so I don’t.
VIII. I have a future cat whose name is Rumble Paws. He’s currently a feral cat, but I’ve come up with a plan to get him to trust me.
IX. My Rumble Paws Trust Plan may take a while, because right now Rumble Paws does not trust meat all.
X. Are you tired of the numbers on this list? I hope not. I have to memorize them up to 100, or C, as we say in Roman numerals.
II
Ms. Capon, our math teacher, is the one who gave us the Roman numeral assignment. Nobody else likes the assignment but me. Probably because they don’t love to count the way I do.
My favorite number to count to is 111, or CXI, as we say in Roman numerals. My second--favorite number is 222, or CCXXII. Someday I might tell you why I love these numbers.Might.
Ms. Capon tells us to look for repeating patterns in math, but repeating patterns also apply to words. Words likeyet and might and someday.
My future cat Rumble Paws isn’t my friend. Yet. Right now, he hunches low in the weeds that grow along the side of our building. He won’t come near me.Yet.
But someday, in the future, Rumble Paws might sit on my lap and let me brush and pet him.Someday, in the future, Rumble Paws might fall asleep on my lap and purr.
The basics of my Rumble Paws Trust Plan are as follows:
I. Bribe him with food, like tuna, so he can’t resist me.
II. Sit and watch him while he eats. Silently hold out my hand so he gets used to my scent.
III. Be there every day for Rumble Paws, no matter what.
IV. Envision the day when Rumble Paws is purring on my lap.
III
Ms. Capon says visualizing can help us get better at our goals. She was talking about things like math and grades, but I think visualizing can also apply to terrified feral cats and girls who live in apartment buildings.
Instead of visualizing, I’ve decided to call it futurizing. The future has not yet come. But I’m working on it.
Here’s how I futurize Rumble Paws. I sit in back of my apartment building, next to the clump of weeds, a can of tuna in front of my crossed legs, waiting.
I pick up the tuna can and sloooooowly peel back the top and sloooooowly set the open can on the ground in front of me.
Then I put my hands behind my back and start counting with my fingertips:one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven, all the way up to my favorite number, 111. Or, as you might already know, CXI in Roman numerals. I started counting back when we still lived with my mama’s ex--boyfriend.
I keep my hands behind my back, fingertips tapping as lightly as possible so there’s no movement. No movement is essential. It’s only when I’m still that Rumble Paws feels safe enough to approach.
Today is only one day.
There will be many more to come for me and Rumble Paws.
IV
Over and over my fingertips tap. I still my breathing as slow and light as I possibly can. The brick behind my back is warm from the sun.
I slit my eyes, catlike.
I try to imagine my way into Rumble Paws’s mind and heart. Try to imagine what it’s like to have no home, to slink along the side of our apartment building, hidden by the tall weeds, drawn by the smell of tuna.
Does he think about me? Does he even know I’m there? Or am I invisible? Counting is one thing I’m good at, and invisibilizing myself is another.
I lean against the warm brick. Smell the tuna, waiting in its can. Watch the weeds with slitted eyes, hoping to see them moving, hoping to see my future cat emerge.One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven—-
Wait.
Stop counting.
Something’s wrong.
Danger!
How do I know? I just do. Always. Maybe I’ll explain later. Maybe I won’t.
“Well, well, well! It’s Weird Sad and Silent!” a voice says. “And look what she’s doing, Sophie! Being—-”
“Weird sad and silent,” another voice finishes.
I know those voices. They belong to Tad and Sophie, bullies of our fifth grade. What are they doing behind my apartment building?
Don’t look at them. Don’t move. Say nothing.
V
It’s unsettling how tall some people can seem when you’re sitting on the ground and they’re looming over you. Tad is grinning the way he does when he’s being mean, which is most of the time, but Sophie is not.
The can stays steady on the ground in front of my crossed legs.
“Could she get any weirder?” Tad says.
“I don’t think so,” Sophie says.
I keep my eyes straight in front of me. I stay completely still. To the outside observer, I don’t even notice who’s standing in front of me.
But behind me, my fingertips press wildly: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven.
And inside of me is a whole different story.
Inside of me, I’m back in time, two years ago, on the day Tad and Sophie first gave me the nickname Weird Sad and Silent.
On that day, I was in the Haven community garden, running around, touching each raised bed and calling out the numbers. Out loud, which I never do.
1 to 111.
Or I to CXI in Roman numerals.
There are thirty raised beds in the community garden. I ran past every one three plus times, until I got to my favorite number, 111.
That’s when I looked up and saw Tad and Sophie laughing at me.
Hahahahaha!
Hahahahaha!
VI
That was not a good feeling.
Correction: It was a terrible feeling.
The second I saw them I went silent, like I do when I’m scared.
“Don’t stop now!” Tad said.
Sophie said, “Keep on counting!”
But I didn’t say one more word.
At school, Tad and Sophie made fun of me at recess. They stood there pretending they were running, flinging their hands around, counting out loud and then clamping their mouths shut. And telling everyone that Daisy Jackson was weird, sad, and silent.
That’s when I got my nickname: Weird Sad and Silent.
Yeah, we saw her in the garden running around calling out numbers and we’re like how WEIRD and also how SAD, I mean who runs around counting? And then she sees us and instantly goes SILENT.
They were talking about me.
I was just counting, I wanted to say, just counting to 111, but I didn’t, because it was hard to breathe.
Hard to think.
So I did what I do when it’s hard to breathe and hard to think.
I put my fingers behind my back and tapped the tips of my fingers together one at a time, over and over, counting under my breath:one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven, on and on.
Then they started laughing all over again.
VII
This happened in third grade, but sometimes I still think about that day. I remember standing there. Trying to breathe. Trying to think.
Counting and counting and counting.
I remember looking around at everyone listening to Tad and Sophie, sneaking looks at me. I remember some of them laughing too.
It was like my life split in two right in that moment: Before weird sad and silent and After weird sad and silent.
Until that day, I didn’t think of myself as anything but Daisy Jackson. A kid who used to live with her mama and her mama’s ex--boyfriend but who now lived with her mama in a different apartment across town. A kid who, even though she was quiet, had a few friends she ate lunch with and sat next to. A kid who counted a lot. Whose favorite number is 111 and whose favorite future number is 222.
But now, in the After, I’m a kid looking back on the Before. Before, when I ran around the garden counting each raised bed until I got to 111. Before, when everybody just thought of me as a quiet kid who mostly kept to herself.
Before, before, before.
Since that day, I’ve perfected the art of invisibilizing myself, which is something else I started doing back when we lived with the ex--boyfriend.
VIII
I know how to turn invisible, but at Haven Elementary School I am 100%, or C% as we say in Roman numerals, visible to both Captain and Marimba.
Captain is the custodian at Haven. He knows I like to come to school early and he’s usually waiting for me inside the big double doors. One thing about Captain is he memorizes everyone’s full name and he always uses both names.
Our librarian insists everyone use only her first name, Marimba, but Captain can’t handle it, so he calls her Marimba Surname. It’s a small point of contention between the two of them.
“How’s my girl Daisy Jackson this morning?” Captain says.
Captain always calls me my girl. I’ve never heard him call anyonemy girl and I don’t really want to, either. There’s something about pushing open the big doors and being the first kid in school and hearing Captain sayHow’s my girl that makes me feel better. Like everything will be okay.
“Your girl is good,” I say. We smile at each other.
“How’s your mama doing?”
“Tired. Sleeping.”
“Hard worker, your mama,” Captain says. “Everyone walks around with a stone in their shoe. You both doing better now, though.”
I don’t really understand what the stone thing means but Captain says it a lot, so I file it away.
IX
After Captain, I head straight to the library. It’s still early. Half an hour before the start--of--school buzzer.
Marimba the librarian is usually drinking coffee. She says caffeine is how she gets through the day, what with all these children and all these books and all these demands, and what would she do without coffee, and God help the day anyone finds out. The library is officially called the media center but Marimba calls it the library because she likes the sound oflibrary better.
“A library should be a refuge,” Marimba says, “and media center just doesn’t have the same ring.”
Marimba started playing the marimbas when she was little. That’s how she got her nickname. She loves music and bright colors and dancing, and more than anything, she loves books and children. Most of them, anyway. Even if she complains about them.
“My Daisy,” she says, smiling. “Bright and early as always. How are you today?”
“Pretty good.”
“Reading anything good lately?”
“Of course.”
Marimba nods, like she expected that answer.
“How’s your future cat? How are we doing with the trust thing?”
“Not that great,” I say. “So far.”
“Am I to take it that there’s been no progress?”
“Nope. Not yet.”
But today is just one day, and futurizing a terrified feral cat takes time. A long time.
X
Marimba and Captain have known me since I started kindergarten here at Haven. Marimba was the one who found me hiding in the back of the library the first week of school after our kindergarten teacher, Mr. Kennedy, had already walked our whole class back to our room.
I was hiding because I didn’t want to leave the library. This is before I learned how to be fully invisible; otherwise, maybe Marimba wouldn’t have found me. I hid in the very last row of books, crouched down facing the wall so no one would know I was there, pretending to read a book.
I mean, I was five years old. I didn’t know how to read yet. Most little kids don’t. I had picked the book because I liked the cover.
“Hi there, Daisy,” a voice said. “What are you reading?”
Dang it! She’d found me right away! She already knew my name! I didn’t turn around.
“A book,” I said. It came out more like a whisper.
She sat down right behind me. A grown--up, sitting on the floor? I turned around enough to peek. The book was still in my hands.
“You have great taste,” Marimba said. “That’s one of my very favorite books.”
She’d found me. But she wasn’t being mean to me. And she didn’t seem angry either.