The first teacher I ever met catches me in perhaps the most unflattering shape of my life—slimy, blood-streaked, bruised, and shrieking. A desiccating tube streams from belly to knees. I can neither walk nor crawl, let along stand up to take my licks. In the early moments of my life a worker does her best to clean me up, make me presentable, get some clothes on me—and hand me over to the teacher, where I lie, for eternity, on her collapsed belly.

Light snapped on, covers stripped back, arm jerked.

“Get up! Get up!”

“Huh?” Ripped out of bed at god knows when in the morning.

She’s next door in my brother’s room now. “Get up! Get up!”

“Huh?”

“Get downstairs!”

“What’s going on?”

“Both of you, get downstairs!”

Socks on wood steps—we tumble down six to the landing by the bathroom. She’s got us each by one arm, yanks us to the bathroom door.

“Who touched this?”

“Huh?”

“Stop saying ‘Huh’ after everything I say! Who touched this?”

We follow her finger to the doorknob, from which dangles, by one strap, a bra.

“What?” I say.

“Don’t be obtuse. You know what I’m asking you. Who touched this!”

“What makes you think someone touched it?”

I’m living dangerous: I’ve put on my are-you-fucking-nuts? voice.

“Because I left it in a certain spot, and I can tell it’s been moved. So who moved it?”

I stare at her.

POP. In the kisser. Wipes that eye-roll right out from under my brow.

But she has to let go of my arm to do it. I’m out of reach against a wall before she can say “brat.”

“I’m going to ask you one last time. Who moved this!”

I stare at her.

She rips at my brother’s arm. His small limb is red now, chafed. “You did it, didn’t you,” she says. “You moved it.”

“No.”

“I know it was you. How many times have I told you not to touch my stuff!” With her now-free hand she wallops my brother on his butt.

“Nobody touched your goddamn bra,” I say. “It’s right where you goddamn left it.”

It probably comes out with something of a sneer attached. She releases my brother, who skids across the landing in his socks. We’re each glued to opposite walls in an effort to stay beyond her reach.

“I am sick of kids who don’t respect my things,” she says, matching me sneer for sneer and taking a step closer to me for emphasis. Now she’s in my face. “And you—

she grabs a chunk of my long hair and yanks—

“should know—

yank—

“what I expect—

kicks shins—

“when I’m gone.”

shins.

“Get back up to bed.”

Toe jabs follow us up the stairs but we miss most of them. I collapse on the other side of my door.

“DOORS OPEN” she yells. “Don’t make me come up there again!”

I bang it open. In my head I’m screaming.

BITCH!!!!!!