Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

It happened after one of these shit-most days of school, and more of the same on my shitpile job, that I kind of blacked out and threw some punches at the dash of Mrs. McCobb’s car. Scaring the living piss out of her. All she’d done was ask if I had a nice day. I don’t know why that set me off, but I landed my punches and she got quiet. Finally she said she was worried about me. I said maybe she should worry a hell of a lot more. It was dark, and I couldn’t see her face, which helped. “You’re so scared of Haillie and Brayley getting tormented at school,” I said. She said “Yeah.” Sounding scared. Like she knew what was up. “Well, take a look at me.” I let her have it then, told her about the slam books, the getting shunned, all of it. Kids pretending to sniff around me, asking did somebody shit himself. “And guess what,” I said. “They know who I’m living with. It’s getting around.” I felt her going stiff over there behind the wheel, the McCobb family name going down. On Sunday she took me to Walmart. I got new jeans, T-shirts, belt, shoes, and also a new toothbrush, which I hadn’t had in a while, ever since Brayley launched mine into the toilet on accident. Those kids loved to goof around in the downstairs bathroom. I thanked her, and she told me not to tell Mr. McCobb we’d spent almost everything I earned at Golly’s that month. But at school the next day in my new clothes I still felt horrible. Not even proud. Embarrassed honestly, because nothing would change. Now they’d ...