The Fourth Child by Jessica Winter (best classic novels TXT) 📕

He peered nervously into the wings. Lauren had never seen him nervous before. They could hear Mr. Smith’s voice, sounding tired and frustrated.“The city gave us a round-the-clock guard,” Stitch said. Hands in pockets, head down, pushing the toes of his Converse intothe carpet. “Two cops all the time, all night. If you cut through our yard going home tonight, you’ll probably see them.”He shrugged. “Or you could cut through somebody else’s yard, for a change. You know, it’s up to you.”

“I’m sorry you have to have guards,” Lauren said. “That’s terrible.”

“No, it’s not—they’re nice guys.” He was almost stabbing the carpet with his Converse now, like he was trying to crush a cockroach.

“Oh, I’m sure, but—it sucks that you need that.”

“It’s not the first time this stuff has happened. They used to picket us every year on Hanukkah. Right on our front lawn.Screaming ‘baby killer’ through the dining room window while we played dreidel and lit the menorah. My dad used to get somad.”

“Stitch, I am so sorry.”

“My little brother on my mom’s lap, watching them bang on the window. I remember that.” He tapped his foot three times onthe carpet and looked up at her, mouth a thin line, eyes not rheumy but gleaming, appraising. It astonished Lauren to realizethat Stitch could cry. He wasn’t going to cry in front of her right now, but he had cried before, and he would again; he wascapable of it.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Yeah, you keep saying that.”

“I also want you to know that I don’t agree with my mom about this stuff.”

“I get it.” He was looking down again, grinding his toe. “You are not your mom.”

“I think what she’s doing is messed up.”

“It’s messed up to bad-mouth your mom, though.”

“I’m not bad-mouthing her. I’m just saying we disagree.”

“Okay. Congratulations.”

Stitch turned his face and took a deep breath. Lauren stared at his profile as he exhaled. “You know,” he said, “my grandmotherdied a couple of weeks ago, and—”

“Oh, I’m so sorry—”

“I don’t need all that—”

“—on top of everything else your family has been through—”

“No, I don’t need all that. But it reminded me. There’s this old rule about sitting shiva. You probably don’t know it. You’reCatholic, right? So you wouldn’t know about this. People don’t follow this rule all that often anymore. But the old rule wasif you came to the house of the bereaved, you weren’t supposed to speak unless they spoke to you. You were supposed to bearwitness to their pain in silence. If the suffering person wanted to talk, then they could make that decision themselves. Itwasn’t up to you.” He looked up at her again. “Do you get it? It’s not up to you.”

“Lauren, Stitch—what the hell?” Christo, the accompanist, was beckoning them from the door to the backstage. “We’re all waitingfor you.”

Stitch slipped past Christo in the doorway and into the wings. Because it appeared to Lauren to be the least impossible option—because it seemed just barely plausible that she could follow familiar instructions as an interchangeable component of a large coordinated group, as opposed to being left alone and unassimilated in the silence of an empty hallway, where she would be immediately swarmed by the full volume and velocity of her current predicament—Lauren followed Stitch and Christo through the wings and onto the stage, where she took her place in the back row, pulling in her shoulders in hopes of bringing down her height by an inch or two, keeping her eyes on Deepa directly in front of her, following as closely as she could, the two-step, the turn, the pat-a-cake clapping choreography. If she could move as Deepa’s shadow, maybe Mr. Smith wouldn’t call her out for falling just behind the pace. She moved her lips. Deepa had told her that, if you forgot the words, you could lip-synch “watermelon cantaloupe” on repeat and probably get away with it.

Halfway through the second rendition of “We Go Together,” Mr. Smith out in the seats called out for Christo to stop.

“Lauren,” he said. “Come up here.”

“Bus-ted,” whispered Brendan Dougherty beside her. He was only in the back because he was so tall.

Lauren walked to the front of the stage.

“Now sing it,” Mr. Smith said. “All on your own.”

Christo played a few prompting notes. “No,” Mr. Smith called to Christo. “A cappella.”

Lauren cleared her throat. “We go together, like rama-lama-lama, ka-ding-ety-dinga-dong.”

The laughter behind her like fingers flicking her ears.

“Keep going,” Mr. Smith said.

She pressed two fingers just below the waistband of her jeans, as if to check that her diaphragm was in flattened singingposition, but actually to make sure her zipper was up. She was in the dream where you’re onstage in your underwear—everyonehad the same stupid dreams. Now everyone standing behind her would have a new dream, that they were her.

“Um—uh—” Lauren started.

“Remembered forever . . .” sang Claire, just behind Lauren, trying to find a volume at which Lauren could hear but Mr. Smithcould not.

“Claire, I did not ask you to sing, I asked Lauren to sing.”

His glasses caught the light, hiding his eyes in opaque whiteness.

“Remembered forever,” Lauren sang, “like doo-wop-sha-diddy-diddy-bing-ety-bingy-bong.”

The howling behind her, a dying moan, lions tearing open an antelope’s belly, the organs piling out, steaming, fogging Mr. Smith’s glasses.

Mr. Smith started applauding. All the boys except Stitch and a few of the girls behind Lauren applauded, too. Claire steppedcloser to her, not clapping, close enough to take her hand, although she didn’t. Abby wasn’t clapping; Lauren could almostfeel Abby’s breath on her neck. The applause died down, and then it was just Mr. Smith applauding, hard, like he was tryingto hurt himself.

“Lauren, I’ll cut a deal with you,” he said, hitting his palms together three last times. “You learn the words to this song,you show up to rehearsal on time, and you can have your ‘busted typewriter’ line, okay?”

“What?” she said.

“What?” whispered Claire and Abby.

“That was a joke,” he said, his white mask glinting. “The terms of that deal will not be upheld. Let’s take a break.”

All the worst things Lauren had