Blood Circle

Okay so I don’t wanna scare you, but I accidentally killed my mumma. It was an accident, but I mean, it kinda wasn’t. It was her own fault for sending me to first grade. And had the chocolate cake incident not been an incident in the first place, nothing bad would have happened. I don’t much like talking about it, but here we go.

It all started my first day of first grade. I really didn’t want to go because the way Jay talked about it, it seemed really scary. He was now in third grade, and he made things sound even worse by telling me about BB Gun Ben and how he liked to shoot younger kids with roly-polies instead of BB’s. I don’t want to get a roly-poly to the head, but Mumma made me go anyways, despite my protests.

“It’ll be fun,” she said, “all your friends will be there!”

Easy for her to say. She actually had friends. I tended to sit off to the side drawing shapes on the sidewalk with woodchips and rocks. I don’t know why that nice, six-pointed star I drew scared everyone away my first week of kindergarten. There wasn’t a single candle next to it! Well, not yet. The teacher ended up erasing it with water by the time I found some candles, and she didn’t talk to or help me much that year. She almost seemed frightened — which is completely ridiculous.

Mumma drove me to school and left me out front, leaving me alone in front of that awful place. The Redwood Elementary. The worst place on earth.

Jay decided to be a jerk that day and leave me behind, running into the school the moment we were dropped off. That meant I was alone.

Don’t get me wrong, I like being alone. I really like being alone. In fact, I probably would have left him had he not left me. But Mumma had told Jay not to let me out of his sight until class started, but it seemed Jay couldn’t care less about what Mumma had to say. I understand where he’s coming from.

I stood there until the bell rang, and then I decided I better get to class. I had Mrs. Hana, and from what I heard from Jay, she was kinda a stickler for rules.

When I got to class, everyone was already there, but most of them had their parents or siblings helping them with their backpacks and getting them to their seats. One girl was actually sobbing and babbling to her odd blue-haired dad about how she didn’t want to be there. Spittle dribbled down her chin and snot oozed from her nose. Gross. I was not going to talk to her.

I spotted a desk with a taped nametag with my name on it. The tag had the letters of the alphabet on the top, numbers 1-10 at the bottom, and a puppy and a tiger at each side of my name. It was sickeningly bright, and I wanted to rip the tag right off my desk. Which I did.

It made a loud ripping sound as I peeled the nametag off. I stood to go throw it away. But something was standing in my way. A very tall something in a pencil skirt and heels. I looked up to see a woman with large, round glasses staring at me with a strained smile on her face. Mrs. Hana.

“Jonah, dear, what are you doing?” She asked, her eerie smile never wavering.

Looking down at the nametag, I said, “Getting rid of this nametag. It’s awful.”

Mrs. Hana’s lips tightened, “Did we not spell your name right?”

I shook my head, exasperated that she couldn’t understand that this tag was just wrong. The anatomy of the puppy and tiger was all wrong and the font of the alphabet was in plain Calibri. Yuck. Show some dignification teachers!

I told Mrs. Hana about the tag’s flaws, and she took it from me, examining it. “It seems fine to me. How about this, we leave the tag for a few days and you can make your own in the meantime? Does that sound nice?”

It did not sound nice. It had nothing to do with making my own tag, I just wanted the hideous thing gone before I went blind from the clashing colors. I lightly took the tag back from Mrs. Hana, giving her an innocent smile, before tearing it into pieces and throwing it in the trash.

Oh, shoot I had gotten on the teacher’s bad side. I brushed my hands off like I had just finished a difficult job and looked at Mrs. Hana. Her eye twitched as she looked at me and her smile turned into a grimace.

“Uh, alright then Jonah. I guess you won’t have a nametag.” She ushered me back to my seat and I sat down, not saying a word. She waited a second, watching me cautiously before slowly backing away. When she was about ten feet back, she turned and hurried to her desk, brushing her hands down her skirt.

When the second bell rang, I had three other kids sitting at the cluster of desks with me. One was the sniveling girl, tears still streaming down her face, a chubby latino kid that was staring blankly at the wall, and a pale girl with brown waves of hair cascading down her back. She was doodling stick figures absently onto her nametag.

“Hi everybody! It’s so nice to have you all here in my class with me! I am Mrs. Hana, and this is Mister Snow!” She took her hand from behind her back to reveal a poorly made penguin puppet, and she spoke in a high pitched, annoying voice and made the penguin lip sync to her. “Hey guys! I’m Mister Snow, but you can call me Snowy! I’m here to help you learn and I’ll be your best friend through the year.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes. Mrs. Hana looked at me, clenching her jaw, but she didn’t say anything about me.

The puppet and the teacher prattled on about rules and other things like that. I stared around at the group I was with. The blonde crying girl was laughing at the puppet as it made another stupid joke, and the tears had stopped dripping down her freckled cheeks. I read the tag, and it said Jessica. What a generic name. The latino kid was still staring off into space, but now in the teacher’s direction. His name was Alejandro. The last girl, Lou, wasn’t paying Mrs. Hana any attention. She now had a pack of crayons out and a piece of paper and was scribbling away. The artwork was a mesh of purple and pink and blue and black, with blank white circles here and there. I realized with a start it was the night’s sky. I could even see the big dipper. It was impressive for a six-year-old, and I immediately had respect for Lou.

“So, we’re going to do a little get to know you game. I’ll give your table a list of questions and you will ask each other the questions.” Mrs. Hana started passing out papers, and kids immediately started stuttering out questions.

She dropped a paper in the middle of our table, but no one reached for it.

“That’s incredibly good, Lou,” I said.

The girl froze, her crayon stopped moving across the paper. She looked at me, and gave a small smile, dimples appearing in her cheeks. “Uh, thanks,” She looked at where my tag should be and gave me a quizzical look, “Where’s your tag?”

I snorted, “That ugly ol’ thing? I threw it out.”

Her eyes lit up, “You don’t like it either?! I hate the colors! Neon yellow and suntan orange do not belong together. It looks gross!”

“My mommy would say that too. She is very picky about colors.” Jessica wiped her nose and picked at the tape on her tag.

Alejandro snapped out of his odd trance and looked around at them, his mouth slightly open. “Huh?” He said, then looked down at the paper. “What’s this?”

I snatched the sheet of questions, not wanting to have to do this stupid activity. Crumpling it up, I set it back in the middle of the table. “We’re supposed to make decorations out of it. There. That’s out decoration.”

Lou giggled, “It’s marvelous. It shall be known as the most exquisite piece of art known to mankind.” More respect grew for her at her vocabulary, and I laughed for what seemed the first time in months.

“That’s not what we’re supposed to do!” Jessica said shrilly, grabbing the paper and uncrumpling it.

Lou rolled her eyes and turned back to me, “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Jonah. Jonah Lively.” I held out a hand to her and she shook it.

“Lou. LouCiel Gray.” She smiled again and the dimples made an appearance once more.

Jessica looked from me to Lou and stumbled over to words, “Well- well I’m Jessica Murphy and my daddy and mommy are famous.” She held out her hand, but I didn’t take it. She had been wiping her nose with that thing.

“Are we saying our names?” Alejandro asked with little interest, “I’m Alex.” He didn’t expound.

I clapped my hands together, “Well, now that that is taken care of, I think I will be leaving now.” I stood up, picked up my bag and moved to leave.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Mrs. Hana called from behind me. The room quieted and I cocked an eyebrow at her. How rude of her to call me out like that!

Hitching my bag onto my shoulder, I looked at Mrs. Hana and she looked at me. “Home. I’ve had enough of this pointless charade.”

As I turned to leave, Mrs. Hana seemed to be reaching her limit. “B-but what of the cake Jonah? Don’t you want some delicious chocolate cake?”

My weakness. She had found it. That blasted cake would always come back, wouldn’t it? Grinding my teeth, I turned back to Mrs. Hana. “Fine. I’ll stay for cake and then I leave. Deal?”

It wasn’t much of a deal when I was the one winning through the whole thing, but Mrs. Hana nodded and ducked behind her desk for a second, before emerging with a perfect mirror-glazed chocolate mouse cake. My mouth began to water.

She got out a knife and it caught the light as she moved to cut the cake, the glare catching me in the eyes, and I blinked rapidly. I know I should have been concerned that my teacher had a knife in her desk in the first place, and that I should have warned the class like a sensible human being. Sadly, I’m not all that sensible, and it cost me dearly.

Mrs. Hana cut a piece of the perfect cake and put it on a paper plate with a plastic fork. She set the knife down and brought the piece of cake to me. My eyes glittered as I stared down at it and I let out of polite thank you as I sank down in my seat and began eating.

Mrs. Hana was now handing out cake to everyone, and there were happy smacking lips and joyous giggles. By the time she had gotten a small piece for everyone, there was about a fourth of the large cake left. I had finished my piece, and I wanted more. I darted forward, grabbing the knife and swinging around to cut another piece. Mrs. Hana was in the way.

As I brought my hand around toward the cake, she had run forward, trying to get the knife from me. She got in my blood circle and that made a blood circle. On her white blouse. She clutched at the wound and stared at me in disbelief.

There was silence in the room, and I turned to the class. Everyone was looking at me. “Uh, looks like Mrs. Hana got some cherry coke on her shirt.” I picked up the bottle of cherry coke that sat on her desk, and most expressions relaxed. Lou’s, however, did not. She was gaping at me and her gaze turned to Mrs. Hana as the teacher collapsed to the floor.

Her expression turned to horror as I used the bloodied knife to cut another piece of cake and I shrugged at her, scooping the piece onto my plate.

Jessica stood up, pointing at me and tears welled up in her eyes. “He hurt Mrs. Hana! Somebody call 911!”

I bolted. Picking up my cake and leaping over the groaning Mrs. Hana, I threw on my backpack and grabbed Lou’s hand. She looked at me in terror as I yanked her out of her seat and together, we rushed out the door.

“Why are you taking me with you?!” She cried.

“I need someone to hold my cake while I drive.” We skirted around a corner, and I heard shouts from behind. The door was just ahead! We could make it! I kicked into overdrive, and ran even faster, somehow managing to hold onto my cake and Lou.

“DRIVE!? YOU CAN’T DRIVE JONAH! WE’RE SIX YEARS OLD!!” she yelled at me, trying to pull away. I held on, dragging her after me. We reached the front doors and we stopped. I nodded towards the handle and Lou rolled her eyes and yanked the door open. We dashed outside and I spotted the buses. I looked back and saw a couple teachers alongside Jessica and few other students behind the glass doors. One of the teachers was on the phone, obviously calling the police. My breath hitched and I sprinted away towards the buses.

We reached bus number 204. The door was open, and a bus driver was lounging in the driver’s seat, sipping on a drink. I ran up the stairs and the driver looked at me expectantly as I stood before him. I was too out of breath to speak, but I jabbed a thumb backwards at the group of people chasing us. He seemed to have thought they needed him because he got up and ran toward them, leaving the keys of the bus on the dash.

Handing my cake to Lou, I snatched the key and jammed it into the ignition, turning it until the bus roared to life.

“Are you seriously considering trying to drive this thing!?” Lou sat behind the driver’s seat, my cake safely in her hands. She was peering at me like I was insane. Which, I probably was. I probably am.

“Well, no use in getting caught now is there?” I clicked the button to close the doors before anyone else could get in the bus, and then tried to reach the pedals, but they were too far. Apparently, this bus was not meant to be driven by a first-grader, which is completely ridiculous really.

“Lou, I need you to man the pedals!”

“But what about your cake!?”

I shook my head, “Just set it on the dash.”

She put the cake down and crouched at the pedals, putting one hand on the brakes and one on the gas. I shifted the car into drive, “Alright, let’s go!” She slammed on the gas and we skirted forward. I spun the steering wheel, trying to see what was ahead of me.

Thankfully, my house was just down the road from the school, so it wasn’t too hard to get there. The issue was pulling into the drive. I overturned and drifted towards my house. Both me and Lou screamed as we barreled into the garage, smashing my mumma’s car and the bus in the process. There was an awful crunching sound and I pressed the button to open the bus door. Nothing happened.

I grabbed my cake which, miraculously, survived the rough journey, and pried the door open. I stepped off the bus and broken glass ground beneath my sneakers.

There was an odd substance leaking from the driver’s seat of my mumma's car. I had already seen enough of that substance today. Blood pooled and dripped through the cracks of the door and I yanked it open to find my mumma, dead in the driver’s seat. Apparently, she had been about to go somewhere, and we had caught her at a bad time.

"Well that's a bummer," I said, taking a bite of my cake.

Lou threw up.