Period.

By Ginger Keller Gannaway

Viv watched the large wall clock’s red second hand make its way toward twelve while she said one more Hail Mary before the lunch bell clanged. She slid her unused loose leaf papers into a folder and placed the morning’s textbooks in the metal cavern beneath her wooden desk. She straightened her hard plastic headband and used her good right hand to smooth her long hair that had become more frizz than waves when she entered eighth grade. She used the hem of her plaid skirt to clean her cat-eyed glasses and waste enough time to be the final kid to leave class. Viv watched her teacher pull a folded handkerchief from a secret pocket in her long black habit and use it to brush chalk dust from her lap. Viv wished she could shake off the awkwardness of getting pimples and growing breasts and armpit hair as easily as her teacher cleaned her clothes, but everything about eighth grade sucked gutter water. When she got her period in October, school got even more pas bon.

For once, Viv’s weak left arm and limping left leg were not her main source of embarrassment. Her mild case of cerebral palsy became a forgettable back seat passenger when her menstrual cycle drove her life down dangerous roads each month. She was not allowed to use tampons, and the garter belt and sanitary pads could not handle her extra-heavy blood flow.

In 1968 St. Ann’s Catholic School lumped grades K through eight into the “elementary” category, and eighth grade was taught solely by Sister “Frog,” a five-foot tall Irish Carmelite nun with flappy jowls, enough wrinkles for two great-great grannies, and a mouth frozen in a perfect upside-down U. Her real name was Sister Mary Margaret Mary, but away from adults kids referred to her as “Frog.” She basically taught English and math all day, every day. When students were not diagramming sentences, they were mastering division of fractions. Once a month Frog might teach a lesson about Jacques Cartier or the life cycle of a mosquito. 

Viv’s class of twenty-three boys and twelve girls sat in scarred wooden desks arranged in strict rows. Girls wore uniforms of blue plaid skirts, white button-down shirts, knee-high socks, and saddle oxfords. Boys wore pleated khaki pants and tucked-in collared shirts. Two years before Viv’s hard time served with Frog, her brother had been in the same class, and things had not gone well. Frog addressed all students by their last names, and when calling on Viv, she spat out “Guillory” through clenched teeth as if the bad taste of that name reminded her of rotten potatoes or the devastating storm that had killed her father, the only person who had shown young Mary Margaret any kindness. 

As a tall girl, Viv sat in the back row and tried hard to remain unnoticed by Frog’s squinty eyes and keen ears. “I can hear the grass grow,” the nun bragged while revealing small yellow teeth. Students had their lunch break attached to a short recess, so the long mornings seemed sadder than a Cajun on Ash Wednesday. If a kid needed the bathroom during that morning stretch, he or she had to raise a hand and ask Frog for permission “to go.”

Unfortunately, Viv believed the term “flooding” was coined to describe the first four days of her week-long period, so no way could a single Kotex last for the three and a half hours before lunch. Plus Viv felt that her shyness made things worse because just thinking about raising her hand to get Frog’s permission to go to the bathroom made the blood flow stronger. And even if Sister Frog said, “Yes,” Viv would have to bring a fresh pad to the bathroom without using her purse because taking a purse told everyone that a girl was “on the rag.” If Viv could position a bulky pad into the waistband of her skirt and master a tight-thighed walk to the front of the room and out the door without letting it fall between her legs and to the floor, then her future felt livable. She needed a laignappe prayer before even raising her hand so that her morning pad would not be so blood-soaked that a red trickle ran down her inner thigh toward her white knee socks.

First Frog had to say, “You may be excused,” and sometimes bravery was not Viv’s friend, so she waited til lunch to go to the bathroom. She would shuffle her books and be the last one to leave class and she prayed not to see a blood smear on the desk’s wooden seat. 

Last night Viv had seen the worst movie ever made: Night of the Living Dead. Neither a bloody-fanged vampire nor a big-headed Frankenstein compared to the slobbering undead hordes lookin for human flesh! She had rushed into the Liberty Theater’s lobby before the movie ended — something she never did. But when that young girl who’d been bitten by a zombie later started eating her own mother’s intestines, Viv could not just squeeze both eyes shut. The crunching, grunting sounds of cannibalism forced her out the theater towards Big Jim’s usher chair. That scene would haunt Viv for the rest of her life. 

This Monday morning Viv had awoken from zombie nightmares with bad cramps and soiled panties. She predicted a morning of cowardice in Frog’s class. It would be a “wait until lunch” day, and Viv did see the dreaded smear on her seat when she stood up. As she spit into a Kleenex and wiped the evidence away, Frog headed out the room and said, “Hurry up, Guillory! No lolly-gagging.” Viv jammed a Kotex in her skirt band as the janitor entered to clean up. He carried a portable radio that let out music from the local Cajun station. The zydeco…zydeco…zydeco sounds surrounded Viv.

The janitor’s face was ashen and slack-jawed. He dragged his left foot as he struggled to walk between the rows of desks. Then he looked toward Viv. His dead eyes and moronic groans made her shudder as blood dripped down his chin. He shuffled no more than two feet before Viv  opened the nearest long, low window and climbed out the building. She heard the frustrated growl of the janitor behind her as she ran toward a large wooded area in front of her. In the distance to her right was a farm house ablaze with light. To her left, seven or eight mangled zombies headed her way. Viv sprinted towards the house and only paused to grab an axe leaning against a tree. As she got nearer her destination, the zombies’ “Arrrr,” “Hurmmm,” and “Rawww’s” got louder. Viv ran with more urgency but tripped on the inevitable tree root. Remembering that zombies are as slow as the minutes in an Easter high mass service, she kept her fear in check. She got up and dusted off her scraped knee without letting go of the axe in her left hand. Of course, she beat the undead to the house’s front door, but when she banged on the door, she heard grunts from inside. Were zombies already “living” there? So she ran to the back of the house only to see Janitor Zombie resting on a log nearby. How the hell did he get there faster than she did? A quick peek around the corner at the mixed bunch dragging their feet towards the front door told Viv to head to the barn. Janitor Zombie got up and followed Viv, but then he fell on the same root that had tripped her and lost an arm in the fall. Viv swung open the barn door and heard only animal sounds within. She closed the barn and started dragging hay bales in front of the door to keep the approaching ghouls from getting in. She rested on the last hay bale and took a few deep breaths of relief. The smell of manure and oats and hay comforted her. A grey speckled mare neighed a greeting.“Hey, buddy,” she told the horse before a thud and a long groan came from outside. Viv stood and searched the barn for weapons. A pitch fork rested against the mare’s stall and a shovel, rake, and hoe were to the right of the barn door.  She gathered the tools into a pile near an empty stall and grabbed a half-filled bucket of water. She used her hands to gulp down some water before offering some to the horse. She petted the horse and listened to more thuds and groans outside. The other zombies must have joined Janitor. Viv spotted the ladder to the hay loft and climbed up to get a view from higher ground. Looking out the small square window, Viv thought the undead were comical. A large woman with half of her left arm missing was pushing her way to the barn door. A guy in his eighties was hitting her with his cane and a teenager grabbed her right arm so hard it came off in his hands. Teenager used the bloody appendage to bang the Big Woman over the head, and the whole crowd dissolved into a demented mosh pit of pandemonium. Viv laughed out loud, and several rotting faces looked up. Viv could not let out a second laugh because the supposedly stupid zombies started making a human ladder towards her. Big Woman was the base, next came Janitor, and a suited guy helped push Geezer up onto Janitor’s shoulder. Twin mechanics were the next climbers followed by a woman in high heels whose footwear knocked off ears and noses as she ascended. Last were Teenager and his girlfriend. Viv descended the ladder in a flash, picked up the pitch fork and ax, and raced to the empty horse stall. She thought of hiding under some hay, but as she moved the loose hay around, she discovered a large cardboard box. She opened it and stared at a bloody pile of rags. “What the hell!” she thought as a banging sound surprised her.

The bathroom stall knocks continued. “What’s your problem?” said an angry seventh grader. 

Viv finished rolling her soiled Kotex in toilet paper and said, “Ok, ok. Just a sec.”  She flushed the toilet, pushed past a petite girl, tossed the sanitary napkin in the trash, washed her hands, and realized the paper dispenser was empty. She dried her fingers in her unruly hair, turned around to use the mirror to check the back of her skirt for stains, pulled up a sagging knee sock, and left the bathroom hoping she had time to get a lunch tray before the cafeteria workers closed the line to prepare for the high schoolers. Three weeks before Christmas break, and Viv took long steps and prayed a fast Glory Be in hopes that she’d have an afternoon of invisibility.

Ginger Keller Gannaway grew up in south Louisiana, and even though she now lives in Texas, she will forever have a Cajun soul and a need for beaucoup bon temps. She taught public school English for 33 years and now co-writes a blog (sittinuglysistahs.com). She has published in Pigeon Review, Breath and Shadow, Short Beasts, Mobius Blvd., and Persimmon Tree.