THE 10% SOLUTION

THE 10% SOLUTION

You probably think I asked for it, but I’ll tell you my side of the story if you really want to hear it and I’ll try not to cry. All I ever wanted was to have friends like other kids, but that was impossible because my mother was crazy. 

Mom was two months preg when she read that article in “Best Parents Magazine” that made her go schizo. It said that every year fifty thousand kids get kidnapped.  I know, that’s mad bonk …It would scare anybody, but Mom spent the next seven months imagining every terrible thing that could possibly happen to me until finally she saw a stranger lurking behind every bush. “Even if it kills me,” the Queen of the Drama Queens would tell me, “I’ll always protect you.” 

When I was two she put me on the leash. I’d gotten away from her before, I guess, and been returned by helpful strangers, which really freaked her out. I’ve forgotten a lot, but I’ll never forget the yellow butterfly in the park. I wanted it so badly I just took off running after it. About ten feet out that leash ran out and I got yanked backwards right off my feet.

 “Next time you’ll know not to run off, where I can’t protect you against Stranger Danger,” Mom scolded, looking down at me as I struggled against that retractable dog leash with the locking button.  

No, I don’t need a tissue, just give me a minute.

Mom’s paranoia got really intense when I started school. She was a freak with those antiseptic wipes. One mother noticed her wiping me off every time her kids came near. “What’s up, Peggy? You think my kids have germs?”

“Little children spread disease, Darlene. Yours are no exception.” 

After Darlene spread the word, those playmates disappeared. I was already forbidden to visit kids from divorced households because perversion lurked everywhere and I might find myself alone with somebody’s father. Now I was just alone.

  

Mom swore I’d thank her someday for keeping evil away and she wasn’t above humiliating anyone to make her point. Once, a man tried to get around our shopping cart, excusing himself to me as he squeezed by. “She’s only thirteen!” Mom shrieked at him. “She hasn’t even gotten her PERIOD yet, you PERVERT!”  I can’t even! I really thought I’d die.

Another time at McDonald’s a kid started choking. This man runs up behind him and starts giving him that Heimlich maneuver and the kid spits it out, which was cool until Mom starts screaming, “That man just raped that little boy!” She’s jabbing at her cell, calling 911when the kid’s mother slaps it out of her hand.

“You idiot! That man just saved his life!” she yells. The two moms get into it, and we get thrown out. Oh my God! Outside she actually announces that mothers as vigilant as her should be thanked, not criticized. Yeah, thanks Mom, for embarrassing me again in public, and making me die of shame. Am I right?

Even Mrs. Dunlap, our librarian, got reamed just for finding me a book.

“Where’d you get this?”  Mom snapped, snatching the book away.

“Umm…Mrs. Dunlap,” I say.

“Fiction or non-fiction?”

“Fiction,” I whisper back, scared she’ll make a scene. Of course she does. She gives Mrs. Dunlap hell for giving children books without parental consent. After that, I tried not to go anywhere in public with her, ever again.

When I got to middle school without the boogie man getting me, I thought Mom would back off,  maybe start trusting me to be smart and stay safe. I’d made a friend, Shirley, who was shy like me. Whenever she visited, Mom would recite her list of places it was unsafe to go alone. 

One day, Shirley and I walked to the mall without telling her. We were goofing around, taking selfies at the Kidz Zone when I see my mom charge towards us like some cyberman from Dr. Who.

Her red hair is sticking straight out like this fiery crown, and her mouth is all tight. Even her perfect clothes seemed twisted and weird as her rigid body marched closer. She looked like someone who needed an exorcist!

“How many times have I warned you about coming here alone?’’ She shrieked so loud we could hear her fifty feet away. “You KNOW this is where all the PEDOPHILES come looking for young girls!”

Everyone’s staring, and Mom’s face is redder than her hair.

A man with kids says, “Hey lady, calm down, nobody’s gonna…”…that’s all he gets out before she whirls on him.

“Who the hell asked you, mister?” she barks. “Get the hell away from these girls before I report you for stalking my daughter!”

 The man knows he’s got a mad whack on his hands and hustles his kids away leaving my mom to drag me out of there. I thought I’d die. I can’t even!

I don’t see Shirley anymore. I really don’t blame her.

Now I’m in 8^th grade, and finally a boy in my English class named Jacob starts talking to me. At first I was so shy I could hardly speak, but for some dumb reason, he didn’t give up. I had track team after school, and he asked if he could wait and walk me home. All I could think about was what my mom would say.

 All through practice I tried to figure ways to approach Mom about Jacob without her going ballistic. Usually running helps me think, especially while listening to tunes on my ipod, which, by the way, is something Mom always warns me never to do because you can’t hear someone sneaking up behind you.

Suddenly I got so anxious I couldn’t breathe and everything started spinning, and I staggered and fell. Coach came running over. “Try to relax, Carrie,” he told me while dialing for help. “Panic will only make it worse.” The doctors were clueless, and naturally, Mother blamed Coach for “not taking better care of his charges” and pulled me off the team. Now, the only world I had left was on Facebook.

I don’t have any good Facebook friends yet, only acquaintances, but I’d friended Jacob just last night, and was excited to find his first message; “Hi Carrie. Thanks for friending me! I had fun talking to you yesterday. Maybe we can meet tomorrow and study for our English test together. Let me know.”

Under that was a reply. A reply from me, but not by me…

“Hi Jacob, I know you probably think because I’ve been talking to you, I’m easy, but I assure you, I’m not…”

I froze. Had my mother broken into my Facebook page and answered Jacob’s post as me? How’d she get my password? I ran screaming to her bedroom. 

“Of course I know your Facebook password. I know all your passwords. I know all your keystrokes,” my mother stated calmly over my melt down. “That’s what good parents do to keep stupid children safe! I’ve spent half my life protecting you, why would I stop now that you’re a teenager and most at risk?” 

I never knew I could get this mad. She really believed I was just another stupid girl with no idea what’s good for her, who wouldn’t know trouble if it ran right over her, and that I was going to end up just another one of her stupid freaking statistics.

I flipped! Thirteen years of anger just bubbled up. I screamed at her that I’d known FOREVER that only 10% of those kidnappings that have haunted her all these years were even remotely likely to happen to me because 90% are actually perpetrated by non-custodial parents, who I’d never have to worry about because she was such a slut we didn’t even know who MY non-custodial parent was! I saw her flinch and knew I’d scored.

I shoved my earphones into my ears and slammed out the door, and started running. I barely heard my mom call after me, “See? You’re even too stupid to listen to me about jogging with earphones. I’ll be identifying your body in the morgue!”

I’d rounded a third block when some endorphins kicked in and I hit stride. I shook off some hate and saw the clear blue sky and fluffy clouds overhead, and pretty soon I was killin’ it.                             Out of my head, into my body.

Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” was pumping through my earphones and my legs were just really crankin’ when suddenly something rough, like burlap, came crashing down over my head and tightened around my neck and I was yanked backward onto the pavement. 

I hit it real hard, but I was so overpowered by terror that nothing much sunk in except that my breath was coming out in little squeaks and someone was dragging me off the curb and that my mom’s horrible predictions were coming true. I peed right through my leggings, and I remember the awful warmth of it, and wondered how I was going to die, and if I’d be raped first, like my mother promised. My earphones came loose, letting in the sound of an engine running.  

I got shoved into a van and the door slammed shut and I just lay there, frozen, as someone tightened one of those plastic tie things cops use for handcuffs around my wrists. Then we lurched forward and there was just the sound of traffic. I wanted to scream, but I was just too freaking scared to do anything but cry.

How could I be so dumb? I was going to be a statistic, just like Mom always feared. I sobbed uncontrollably, wondering what would happen next, terrified to find out.

Finally the van turned and stopped. Then it pulled forward and stopped again and I heard a garage door come down. This scared me even more because now I believed I was really trapped. 

I think fear just won out over courage because I didn’t even struggle when my kidnapper pulled me out and pushed me down. Finally, in pure panic mode I just started begging for my life. “Please…don’t hurt me…please…just let me go…I won’t tell anyone…please…I want my moooother!”  That kind of surprised me, but, Hello! It was true! 

The only response was a silence so deep I thought my heart would explode, so I just waited, blind and terrified. 

Someone snipped my wrist tie.

This was it then.

Fingers fidgeted at my neck and the bag loosened. I just sat, hands in my lap. Frozen. I never tried to pull that bag off. I was too afraid to see. When it was finally ripped off me, I couldn’t focus at first on the hideous face of my captor.

“MOMMY!” I cried, and just started blubbering.

“I told you if you jogged with your earphones in, you wouldn’t be able to hear anything coming up behind you, you smart-ass little BITCH!” She took my face in her two hands and spit. 

I’m not really sure what happened next, sir. Maybe I blanked out. I only remember holding out my arms to her and seeing this tiny flash of victory in her eyes. Maybe after that I just lost control of my hands around her neck and couldn’t let her go. I don’t know. Next thing I do know, I’m sitting at the end of our driveway smelling like shit,  the opener in my hands with the sound of a garage door going up and down, up and down. That’s it. 

I’m not a bad girl. I’ve always just tried to be happy and make others happy too. And, how right was I not to worry about that mad bonk statistic that frightened Mom so? When you think about it really, it was only that remote 10% I needed protection from.

I’m so tired. Will it make you happy, Officer Craig, if I just sign your papers now?

- by taree Belardes @03/15/15

NYC Short Story Competition 2015

Genre; Drama

Subject; Overbearing

Character; A thirteen year old girl

Time limit; 3 days

Word limit; 2,000