Lying Gets you Nowhere, 1985

I did not want to go to school.

My grandma was tough – whining to her was no good. But maybe I would have more luck with my mom. 

“I don’t feel good,” I said from the couch, where I was lying down and trying my best to look sick. At first, she said what she always said: “Get up and move around and you’ll feel better.”

“No I won’t. I already tried.”

She put her hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel hot.” But she left the room and came back with the thermometer. I panicked. I knew I didn’t have a fever. But that, or a missing limb, was the only excuse for missing school.

She put the glass tube under my tongue and left the room again. I tried to force my brain to think of something, quick. 

Then I heard it. The coffee maker belching and snorting. I imagined the steam rising from it, and the little stream of hot water falling into the pot. Hmm. I wonder. I raised up and looked down the hallway. Clear. I moved quickly and silently to the kitchen, where I stood staring at the coffee maker. All that beautiful hot liquid dripping down. I stuck a finger under the stream, then instantly jerked it back and stuck the scalded finger into my mouth. That ought to do it. 

I glanced behind me: the adults were still in the other room. I briefly dabbed the thermometer into the hot stream of water, then checked the reading. Still 98.6. No good. Had to leave it longer. I put the metal tip directly under the hot water and held it there. 

In an instant, the glass tube shattered into a million tiny slivers as the little BB of mercury shot across the room. With huge eyes and my mouth wide open, I stared at what was left of the tube in my hand, knowing I was about to be murdered. 

In walks my mom. She stared at the broken glass in my hand. I burst into tears. Real tears. Why was the thermostat broken? Why was I in the kitchen? Her eyes moved suspiciously to the coffee maker and back to the thermometer. 

“I don’t know what happened,” I said, choking through my tears. “I swear. I didn’t do anything.” 

“Go get dressed,” she said through clenched teeth. 

I went to school that day. And we never did find that little ball of mercury.

-Melanie Patterson

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