The Tiger Rising

Chapter 7

It turned out to be an extraordinary day in almost every possible way. It started with finding the tiger, and it ended with Sistine Bailey sitting down next to him on the bus on the way home from school. Her dress was torn and muddied. There was a scrape down her right arm, and her hair stuck out in a hundred different directions. She sat down in the empty seat beside him and stared at him with her black eyes.

“There isn’t anyplace else to sit,” she said to him. “This is the last empty seat.”

Rob shrugged.

“It’s not like I want to sit here,” she said.

“Okay,” said Rob. He shrugged his shoulders again. He hoped that she wasn’t going to thank him for saving her.

“What’s your name?” she demanded.

“Rob Horton,” he told her.

“Well, let me tell you something, Rob Horton. You shouldn’t run. That’s what they want you to do. Run.”

Rob stared at her with his mouth open. She stared back.

“I hate it here,” she said, looking away from him, her voice even deeper than before. “This is a stupid hick town with stupid hick teachers. Nobody in the whole school even knows what the Sistine Chapel is.”

“I know,” said Rob. “I know what the Sistine Chapel is.” Immediately, he regretted saying it. It was his policy not to say things, but it was a policy he was having a hard time maintaining around Sistine.

“I bet,” Sistine sneered at him. “I bet you know.”

“It’s a picture of God making the world,” he said.

Sistine stared at him hard. She narrowed her small eyes until they almost disappeared.

“It’s in Italy,” said Rob. “The pictures are painted on the ceiling. They’re frescoes.” It was as if a magician had cast a spell over him. He opened his mouth and the words fell out, one on top of the other, like gold coins. He couldn’t stop talking. “I don’t got to go to school on account of my legs. I got a note that says so. Mr. Phelmer — he’s the principal — he says the parents are worried that what I got is contagious. That means that the other kids could catch it.”

“I know what contagious means,” Sistine said. She looked at his legs. And then she did something truly astounding: she closed her eyes and reached out her left hand and placed it on top of Rob’s right leg.

“Please let me catch it,” she whispered.

“You won’t,” said Rob, surprised at her hand, how small it was and how warm. It made him think, for a minute, of his mother’s hand, tiny and soft. He stopped that thought. “It ain’t contagious,” he told her.

“Please let me catch it,” Sistine whispered again, ignoring him, keeping her hand on his leg. “Please let me catch it so I won’t have to go to school.”

“It ain’t a disease,” said Rob. “It’s just me.”

“Shut up,” Sistine said. She sat up very straight. Her lips moved. The other kids shouted and screamed and laughed and called to each other, but the two of them sat apart from it all, as if their seat was an island in the sea of sweat and exhaust.

Sistine opened her eyes. She took her hand away and rubbed it up and down both of her own legs.

“You’re crazy,” Rob told her.

“Where do you live?” Sistine asked, still rubbing her hand over her legs.

“In the motel. In the Kentucky Star.”

“You live in a motel?” she said, looking up at him.

“It ain’t permanent,” he told her. “It’s just until we get back on our feet.”

Sistine stared at him. “I’ll bring you your homework,” she said. “I’ll bring it to you at the motel.”

“I don’t want my homework,” he told her.

“So?” said Sistine.

By then, Norton and Billy Threemonger had spotted them sitting together and they were moving in. Rob was relieved when the first thump came to the back of his head, because it meant that he wouldn’t have to talk to Sistine anymore. It meant that he wouldn’t end up saying too much, telling her about important things, like his mother or the tiger. He was glad, almost, that Norton and Billy were there to beat him into silence.