The Thirteen by Susie Moloney Page B

little Amy stood in the doorway, utterly uncertain about the order of things and needing her order, because Amy was a somewhat unimaginative child.
    Is Timmy going to die? she’d asked .
    No, honey, of course not. He’s just upset is all. It will be okay. You go climb in your bed, doll .
    And she had, of course. She always did what she was told. She was the easy one. She was … malleable. Her little doll.
    Marla could still hear the occasional sob coming from Tim’s room. He was crying in his sleep, and she was livid.
    Tim hadn’t made the baseball team. He had handed her the note, struggling to get the words out: “Mister … Crawf—Crawf—Crawford …”
    She’d read the note while Tim buried his head in her stomach and cried.
Dear Mrs. Riley-Moore:
Tim’s skills are exceptional, but unfortunately he will not be invited to play on the baseball team this year, since he is still too young. We hope that next year he will try out again, when he has reached ten years old. His skills are top-notch and we’ll be glad to see him at that time .
Yours truly ,
B. Crawford, Phys. Ed .
Haven Woods Elementary
    Asshole.
    Marla peeked in on her daughter. Amy was on her back looking like a sleeping princess, her hair spread out over the pillow. Her tiny, perfect face was smooth and serene. She would lie like that all night, never moving. Marla knew this because it was always so.
    Amy was only six, but so beautiful people stopped them on their rare ventures out of Haven Woods.
    oh my god what a beautiful child
    Men, women, other children … it didn’t matter—the girl stopped traffic.
    (she was a doll
    —but that was no fault of hers)
    She closed the door and peeked in again on Timmy. He lay curled on his side, his cheeks still stained with tears, his little nose red. His nightlight was shaped like a baseball, and just seeing it inflamed Marla again.
    how dare he Crawford the little prick little bastard prick
    She’d met the coach on one of her many trips to the school. She volunteered a lot. It was what a mother did, if she could—and Marla could.
    Crawford was a stereotype: short but built, with huge biceps and overworked shoulders. His leg muscles were equally defined (she would suspect implants, except she didn’t think the little troll made enough money). Marla figured such a man taught grade three because he needed to feel superior, and the best way to do that was to boss around the only people he was certain to be both taller and smarter than (although that was only a matter of time). He was probably jealous of Tim, a natural athlete. That was it.
    Marla paced her slowly darkening house, undoing the damage of a day with young children, picking up jackets and shoes, carrying dishes back to the sink. She picked up toys. Barbie, pretty in a party dress, shoes missing; a stuffed dog that had no name that Marla knew; a miniature bow and arrow. And—
    And a plastic man who was supposed to be on safari. Jungle Jim was his name. He wore a plastic vest with accessories that attached and detached: a canteen, a net and a tiny toy gun. A little jungle truck, like an SUV, came with him.
    Hello .
    The truck and Jungle Jim went into Marla’s sweater pocket. She started a load of laundry. She turned the lights off in the laundry room, leaving the washer to whoosh and purr.
    The kitchen, illuminated by the light over the stove, was dim and tidy. And quiet—the dishwasher cycle was complete. Marla would unload it soon.
    She stood the toy safari man at the end of the counter. His feet were broad and flat so that he could pose in his safari village with the little plastic cages for a lion, a zebra and a hippo.
    Hippos are dangerous animals. More dangerous than sharks, crocodiles or dogs. She and Tim had looked it up on the Internet. More people are killed every year by hippos than by any other animal on earth. Of course the deadliest animal was still the
    cougar
    She set the truck at the other end of the counter. She bent to