The Liar - Part 1

The first day of my junior year, I walked into my Oklahoma history class and saw Mrs. Morrow. She smiled at all of us like she was so sweet, but I knew she couldn’t be, just like I couldn’t be. She wasn’t really sweet, and I didn’t trust her perfect smile.

People screw up. Other people get in the way of being good. Even parents don’t always do the right thing. My dad’s a prime example.

There’s nothing anybody can do about it.

            Dad had told me about his fourth grade teacher, the one who took him out of his class and beat him with his belt in the boys’ bathroom.

            “Don’t let a teacher ever do that to you, Kendra. Hear me?” he said. And then he smacked me in the face.

I knew Mrs. Morrow wouldn’t be any different from the rest of the teachers I’d had. They expected the worst from the majority of us. We never disappoint. 

Dad may have had a really rotten teacher, but he finished high school and opened his own mechanic shop. Now, he expected me not only to graduate, but to make the honor roll. I’m not smart enough, but I am good at lying.

I decided that things would be better for me if I got rid of Mrs. Morrow. She looked like the person I wanted to be, but couldn’t be. It would be real hard to see her every day.

“I saw Mrs. Morrow wink at Coach Hayes,” I said to Emily Coates that first afternoon.

Emily giggled.

I followed Mrs. Morrow from school on the second day to a neighborhood a few blocks away. It was actually on the way to the ice cream store where I worked on the weekends. Little stone houses with grass and flowers growing in the front yards sat on wide yards with big trees. Her house looked like a picture in a kid’s storybook, with white curtains in the front windows and flowers and bushes growing everywhere.

            My heart sank into my stomach. I wanted a house like that, someday. Mrs. Morrow had that house now. She was so much better than I could ever be.

The next day in history, it was hard to look at her. I wanted her life so bad, and I didn’t see how I’d ever get it. She was a constant reminder of what I could never have.

            The next day morning, I saw her talking with the football coach. They stood close together near the door to the gym.

            “I saw Mrs. Morrow touching Coach Hayes in the hallway just before lunch, and he wasn’t minding either,” I whispered to Emily Coates. You could count on Emily to spread just about anything as far as it would go in the school. And it didn’t end up the same as when it started. By the time Emily had spread it around, Mrs. Morrow was touching him inappropriately and there was no stopping the rumors.

I added fuel to the fire when I told Jacey Michaels the next day that I saw Mrs. Morrow wipe something off Coach Hayes’ face as they walked in from the parking lot before school. By fifth hour, I heard that Mrs. Morrow’s lipstick had been all over Hayes’s face in first hour.

A few more small words, dropped here and there, and stories about Mrs. Morrow raced through the school.

Mrs. Morrow began to have this kind of pinched, pained expression on her face. She seemed pale, and couldn’t seem to think straight. I felt kind of sad, because I knew why she was rattled, but you know, I was glad. At least she didn’t seem so self-righteous.

One Saturday night I had a run-in with my dad. He pounded on me and my little brother. Mama locked herself in the bathroom. Monday morning, my makeup didn’t hide the bruises on my jaw bone very well, so I wore my hair loose and tried to let my hair hang over the bruises.

Mrs. Morrow pulled me aside after class. I was all worried it was something to do with the rumors, like maybe she had heard who had started them. She pointed to a desk at the front of the room next to her desk and then slipped into her chair.

“Please sit down, Kendra. I’d like to talk to you a minute.”

I made myself look at her. “I’m trying as hard as I can in here, Mrs. Morrow. It’s just hard for me because sometimes I don’t get too much time to do the reading homework. I’m working some for my neighbor lady after school and taking care of my little brother. Then I work weekends. I just don’t have time.”

“Kendra, your school work is okay. I wish you had more time to do your homework, I think you could easily make an A. You’re smart. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,”

“It isn’t?” My foot started tapping, and I couldn’t stop it. Here’d come the part about the touching and the lipstick and all the other stuff I’d made up about her and the coach.

“No. I want to talk to you about that bruise on your face.”

My hand flew to cover the mark on my jaw bone, and I ducked my head.

“Sometimes I see bruises on your face and arms. But you’re not playing any sports. Has someone been hitting you? Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

She bent over to try to look me in the face. I sank lower and lower in the chair, chewed on my lip and wondered how I could get out of here. I couldn’t tell her about Dad. He’d beat me dead if I did, if anyone ever came around to the house to talk to him about beating up us kids.

“No.” I sat up straight again in the seat and flicked my hair over my shoulder. “Just a misunderstanding with a girlfriend. We got a little carried away.” I laughed. “Doesn’t hurt or anything. Really.”

Mrs. Morrow’s forehead creased and she peered at me, almost like she was my mother or something. My stomach got weird, all sick like. Here she was trying to be nice to me and I’d slammed her behind her back. I wished I hadn’t said those things, but I couldn’t take them back. Maybe the rumors would die down if I didn’t start anything new

“You seen anything else going on with Mrs. Morrow?” Emily asked the next day.

“Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t keep myself from making something up. Mrs. Morrow was too pretty and too snoopy. I couldn’t risk her saying anything to anyone about my bruises. My little brother and I were done for if she did. The faster she was gone from the school, the better. “She and Sampson were hookin’ up in her car before school today. Sunk down in the seat and everything. Disgusting, huh?”

Emily’s eyes widened; she rushed off to spread the latest about Mrs. Morrow and the geeky science teacher. By lunch, the school buzzed with the latest. By fifth hour, Mrs. Morrow could hardly hold her head up to look at us.

I felt bad. I stopped by her desk after class and asked her if she was feeling all right.

“I’m fine, Kendra. Thanks for asking. Sometimes it’s just tough in a new school, that’s all.”

That night, Dad got drunk and beat me again, but better me than Sam. One of these days he was going to hurt my little brother really bad. We’d already been to the emergency room twice this fall, and with no insurance, some hospitals didn’t want to let us in. I wondered how much longer they’d buy the bit about bike accidents or falling out of trees. They must think that even for a six year old, Sam was really accident prone.

As I dressed for school the next day, I put on long sleeves, even though it was Indian summer. My right forearm was covered with a huge purple bruise from where Dad had grabbed and shook my arm. Luckily, he hadn’t touched my face, but the back of my head had a lump from where I’d hit the wall.

Mrs. Morrow wasn’t in class. The substitute wanted to get through the day. Period. None of my other teachers noticed anything. I hurried home so I would be there with Sam when Dad got in from work, and to help Mama with supper. It seemed like if food was ready to go on the table when he got home, he wouldn’t have time to drink a beer and get mad at all of us.

Mrs. Morrow wasn’t there the next day either. Rumor had it she’d been suspended for “working the parking lot.” I knew she hadn’t been working any parking lot with anybody. In my head, I saw her sweet smile and the concern in her eyes when she’d asked me about the bruise on my jaw bone.

(Watch for Part 2 of "The Liar" on Monday, July 8.)