The Tiger Rising

Chapter 3

Nobody wore pink lacy dresses to school. Nobody. Even Rob knew that. He held his breath as he watched the girl walk down the aisle of the bus. Here was somebody even stranger than he was. He was sure.

“Hey,” Norton called, “this is a school bus.”

“I know it,” the girl said. Her voice was gravelly and deep, and the words sounded clipped and strange, like she was stamping each one of them out with a cookie cutter.

“You’re all dressed up to go to a party,” Billy said. “This ain’t the party bus.” He elbowed Rob in the ribs.

“Haw.” Norton laughed. He gave Rob a friendly thud on the head.

The girl stood in the center of the aisle, swaying with the movement of the bus. She stared at them. “It’s not my fault you don’t have good clothes,” she said finally. She sat down and put her back to them.

“Hey,” said Norton. “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean nothing. Hey,” he said again. “What’s your name?”

The girl turned and looked at them. She had a sharp nose and a sharp chin and black, black eyes.

“Sistine,” she said.

“Sistine,” hooted Billy. “What kind of stupid name is that?”

“Like the chapel,” she said slowly, making each word clear and strong.

Rob stared at her, amazed.

“What are you looking at?” she said to him.

Rob shook his head.

“Yeah,” said Norton. He cuffed Rob on the ear. “What are you staring at, disease boy? Come on,” he said to Billy.

And together, they swaggered up the aisle of the bus and sat in the seat behind the new girl.

They whispered things to her, but Rob couldn’t hear what they were saying. He thought about the Sistine Chapel. He had seen a picture of it in the big art book that Mrs. Dupree kept on a small shelf behind her desk in the library. The pages of the book were slick and shiny. And each picture made Rob feel cool and sweet inside, like a drink of water on a hot day. Mrs. Dupree let Rob look at the book because he was quiet and good in the library. It was her reward to him.

In the book, the picture from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel showed God reaching out and touching Adam. It was like they were playing a game of tag, like God was making Adam “it.” It was a beautiful picture.

Rob looked out the window at the gray rain and the gray sky and the gray highway. He thought about the tiger. He thought about God and Adam. And he thought about Sistine. He did not think about the rash. He did not think about his mother. And he did not think about Norton and Billy Threemonger. He kept the suitcase closed.