The Mare

Velvet

My first week at school they beat a old man and made him crawl on glass. If I said that to Ginger she would say, “ ‘They’? Who is ‘they’? Be specific.” And I would be thinking, What difference does it make? They beat a old man. Anyway, I didn’t know who they were; they were kids in my school a few grades above me.

But I saw them doing it. It was the morning before the school opened. Most kids stand by the door waiting to go in, but I walked away from them that day because I was missing my horse and also thinking about what my mom told me, and how she looked at me when I said I wasn’t bad just because my father didn’t want her. Or me. I walked to the side of the school and I saw these older kids in the back, way at the end of the basketball court, crowding around. Even from far away it looked like something bad. But I mind my own business, and anyway the doors were open and my homeroom teacher, Mr. Stamford, was yelling at me.

They next day the homeroom teachers yelled at all of us. They used words like vicious and decency. They said the old man was small and crazy and the boys said they would burn him and made him crawl on the glass while they kicked him; Mr. Stamford yelled about jail. Teachers have been yelling at us about jail since first grade, so somebody just said something funny in the back and people laughed. “That could’ve been your father or your grandfather!” yelled Mr. Stamford. But it couldn’t. Not mine. I didn’t have a father or grandfather anymore.