She pulls on my finger so I will look at her face again, and she uses her eyes to signal a signal to mine. I look where she is looking. And then I see what she was drawing. A river.
He is running down the hall. At first I make an assumption he is running to us, and then I make an assumption he is running to the bathroom because he has blood dripping out of his nose and down his lip and chin and neck and onto his shirt. Then I realize he is not running to us or to the bathroom because the Kyles come around the corner and they are running too, so I make an assumption that River is being chased by the Kyles. It is possible they are all three being chased by someone else and River got a head start, but that is not the assumption I make because the Kyles do not have blood dripping out of their noses.
River is running fast, but I can still see that in addition to the nose blood there is a scratch on his forehead and a rip in his shirt and a scrape near his eyebrow. River is running fast, but he gives a little wave to me and Mirabel as he goes by which is very polite under the circumstances. Then he is gone.
Left behind is the memory of his face which was scared and hurt, the echo of his running feet, loud on the linoleum, a dotted line mapping his path, like in a cartoon, except it is drops of blood, and Mirabel’s facial expression, which is shocked like mine must be and upset like mine must be and something else too, but I cannot figure out what because there is a howl building up in my throat, and I know it will be loud and I will not be able to make it stop, but before it can arrive, a very surprising thing happens.
Mirabel takes her hand from mine and steers right into the middle of the hallway where the Kyles are thundering down.
“Move!” shouts one Kyle.
“Shit!” shouts the other Kyle even though Mrs. Radcliffe does not like us to say swears.
One Kyle swerves to avoid Mirabel, slams against the lockers, and falls down. The other Kyle does not see Mirabel because the first Kyle did not swerve away in time, so the second Kyle runs right into Mirabel’s wheelchair and falls down too. Mirabel’s wheelchair does not fall anywhere because it is heavy, and Mirabel gives them both a look that means smug, embarrassed for them, and they should be ashamed of themselves, but they are not her sisters and were not paying attention when Mrs. Radcliffe was doing facial expression cards this week so they might not notice.
“Why did you park there? We were in the middle of kicking that kid’s ass,” says Kyle.
Mirabel does three quick taps on her tablet. “That is why.”
“Now we have to start over,” says the other Kyle.
Mirabel starts typing out a reply to that, but the first Kyle says he is hungry, and the second says he is too. They have had feelings of love for Mirabel for years, but these are not as powerful as the feelings of hunger they have had for seconds. “We’ll bring you back a donut,” they promise her. Then they leave.
But the running feet and falling down and slamming into lockers made a lot of noise, so the tutoring-room door opens, and many people look out.
I take three deep breaths to help my surprised howl stay away, and then I tell everyone about River and the chasing and the blood and the Kyles, but I can guess they do not care because they do not say anything and they all go back inside.
Except for Mab.
Mirabel looks at her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” says Mab.
“Like what?” I ask. I can see how Mirabel is looking at Mab, but I cannot see what it is like.
“Why do you even care?” Mab says.
“Care about what?” I ask.
Mirabel keeps looking at Mab the way she was looking at Mab before.
“Not his fault,” Mirabel’s Voice says quickly, so I can guess that was what she had started to type to the Kyles before they got hungry.
“What is not his fault?” I ask. I do not ask Whose fault?, even though Mirabel did not say, because I can guess it is River, and my sisters do not like when I ask too many questions.
“I never said it was,” says Mab.
“Help him,” says Mirabel’s Voice.
“How?” says Mab.
Mirabel’s Voice does not answer that question but instead answers a different question. “You can.”
“Not my problem,” Mab says anyway.
I do not say anything because that is true but it is not kind, and Mirabel does not say anything, maybe for the same reason, so Mab says, “I’m like half his size. If he can’t stop them, how can I stop them?”
“Numbers,” Mirabel’s Voice says.
Even Mab does not know what this means which it is nice when I am not the only one.