The Tiger Rising

Chapter 24

“Where’s the prophetess?” Sistine asked him as soon as she stepped off the bus. She was wearing a bright orange dress with pink circles all over it. Her left knee was skinned and bleeding, and her right eye was swollen.

“Huh?” said Rob. He stood and stared at her and wondered how she could get into so many fights in only half a day of school.

“Willie May,” said Sistine. “Where is she?”

“She’s vacuuming,” said Rob.

Sistine started walking purposefully toward the Kentucky Star. She talked to Rob without looking back. “My mother found out that I was wearing your clothes to school,” she said. “She took them away from me. I’m in trouble. I’m not supposed to come out here anymore.”

“You know,” said Rob, “you don’t always got to get in fights. Sometimes, if you don’t hit them back, they leave you alone.”

She whirled around and faced him. “I want to get in fights,” she said fiercely. “I want to hit them back. Sometimes, I hit them first.”

“Oh,” said Rob.

Sistine turned back around. “I’m going to find the prophetess,” she said loudly. “I’m going to ask her what we should do about the tiger.”

“You can’t ask her about the tiger,” said Rob. “Beauchamp said I ain’t supposed to tell nobody, especially not Willie May.”

Sistine didn’t answer him; she started to run. And Rob, to keep up with her, ran too.

They found Willie May vacuuming the shag carpet in room 203. Sistine went up behind her and tapped her on the back. Willie May whirled around with her fist clenched, like a boxer.

“We need some answers,” Sistine shouted over the roar of the vacuum cleaner.

Willie May bent down and turned the vacuum cleaner off.

“Well,” she said, “look who’s here.” She kept her hand balled up, as if she was still searching for something to hit.

“What’s in your hand?” Sistine asked.

Willie May uncurled her fist and showed Sistine the bird.

“Oh,” said Sistine. And Rob realized then why he liked Sistine so much. He liked her because when she saw something beautiful, the sound of her voice changed. All the words she uttered had an oof sound to them, as if she was getting punched in the stomach. The sound was in her voice when she talked about the Sistine Chapel and when she looked at the things he carved in wood. It was there when she said the poem about the tiger burning bright, and it was there when she talked about Willie May being a prophetess. Her words sounded the way all those things made him feel, as if the world, the real world, had been punched through, so that he could see something wonderful and dazzling on the other side of it.

“Did Rob make it?” Sistine asked Willie May.

“He did,” said Willie May.

“It looks alive. Is it like your bird that you let go?”

“Just about exactly,” said Willie May.

“I . . . ,” said Sistine. She looked at Willie May. Then she turned and looked at Rob. “We,” she said. “We need to ask you something.”

“Ask on,” said Willie May.

“If you knew about something that was locked up in a cage, something big and beautiful that was locked away unfairly, for no good reason, and you had the keys to the cage, would you let it go?”

Willie May sat down on the bed. A cloud of dust rose up around her. “Lord God,” she said. “What you two children got in a cage?”

“It’s a tiger,” Rob said. He felt like he had to be the one who said it. He was the one who found the tiger. He was the one who had the keys to the cage.

“A what?” said Willie May.

“A tiger,” said Sistine.

“Do Jesus!” exclaimed Willie May.

“It’s true,” said Sistine.

Willie May shook her head. She looked up at the ceiling. She let out her breath in a loud slow hiss of disapproval. “All right,” she said. “Why don’t you all show me where you got this tiger locked up in a cage?”