Chapter 10: What I Told The Counselor
The counselor's office didn't look like the rest of school. It was at the end of the hall past the nurse, and the light was softer there, and there was a rug on the floor that was blue and gray with little stars. There was a low table with a box of crayons and a stack of white paper and a jar of goldfish crackers that was closed with a lid.
Her name was Ms. Patel and she had a calm voice. She didn't sit behind a desk. She sat in a chair next to me at the little table and she said my dad knew I was talking with her today and that it was okay to just color if I wanted to. I picked a green crayon. My hands were a little shaky and I tried to keep the line inside the paper.
That morning I wasn't wearing my pajamas. I was in jeans and a light blue t-shirt with a pocket on the front, not the same pocket as my pajamas but I kept touching it anyway. I had put two crackers from breakfast in there when Lauren wasn't looking, and I could feel their edges through the fabric.
Ms. Patel didn't ask me fast questions. She let me draw for a while. She asked what I liked to eat at school and I said pizza. She asked if I ate breakfast today and I nodded. Then she asked very quietly, "Maya, can you tell me what dinner is like at home? Is there enough food for you?"
I kept coloring. The crayon made a soft scratch sound. I didn't look up right away. I could hear the clock on the wall ticking and kids laughing outside on the playground. My stomach made a small noise and I pressed my hand over my pocket without meaning to.
She noticed. She didn't reach for it. She just said, "It's safe here. You can tell me the truth. There's no trouble for telling the truth."
I swallowed and my voice was small. I had said it before to my dad in the kitchen, but saying it to someone else felt heavier.
"She said food is a privilege," I said.
Ms. Patel didn't interrupt me. She wrote it down on a yellow notepad in neat handwriting. She wrote my exact words. I watched her pen move.
She asked gently, "Who said that, Maya?"
"Lauren," I said. I whispered it. "She has a notebook. She writes down when I can eat. If I'm good. If I'm not good I get corn. Just corn."
Ms. Patel nodded and kept writing. Her face stayed calm but her eyes got softer. She asked if I ever felt hungry at night and I nodded again. I felt my eyes get hot but I didn't cry.
Then I remembered the crackers. My fingers were still on my pocket. I pulled them out slowly, two small square crackers with salt on top, a little crumbled at the corners from being in my pocket.
"I hide them," I said. "Like the strawberries. In my pajamas I hid strawberries. I put them in my pocket because I'm scared to be hungry. If I don't hide them there won't be anything later."
I showed her how I did it, how I slipped them in quick and pressed my hand over them so no one would see. My hand was shaking a little more now. I thought she might tell me not to do that, that it was bad to hide food.
She didn't. She looked at the crackers in my palm and then at me, and she said, "Thank you for showing me, Maya. That was very brave."
She wrote that down too, exactly what I had shown her and why I said I did it. When she was done writing she turned the notepad so I could see, and she read the words back to me softly to make sure they were right. I nodded.
"You did the right thing by telling the truth," she said. Her voice was steady. "You are not in trouble at all. I'm proud of you for telling me. I'm going to help your dad keep you safe and make sure you have enough food every day. That's our job, the grown-ups' job."
She didn't promise that Lauren would come talk to her. She didn't say she was going to call anyone right that second in front of me. She just closed her notepad and slid the jar of goldfish crackers a little closer and asked if I wanted some now, with no rules.
May you like
I took a small handful. I ate one, then another. She let me sit there and color and eat, and she didn't write anything else while I was eating. After a few minutes she asked if I felt okay to go back to class, and I said yes, but when I stood up I held my pocket again even though it was empty now.
I felt two things at once walking back down that hall. Lighter, because someone had written down what I said and believed me, and heavier too, because now it was written down and couldn't be unwritten. I wasn't sure what would happen next, but for the first time that week my stomach wasn't tight with keeping the secret alone.
