True Talents(11)

THE THINKING HERO

DENNIS WOO





A LITTLE CLASS

A bell woke me.

“Good morning,” Torchie called from across the room in a disgustingly cheerful voice.

I coughed a couple of times as I sat up, wondering why my lungs felt like I’d spent the night in an ashtray. The answer sat in the bottom of my wastebasket. I stared at the charred ball of burned paper that had once been a student handbook.

“Hey, are you trying to kill us?” I asked Torchie.

“I didn’t do nothin’,” he said.

“Right.” There was no point arguing. We’d just get into one of those did-not, did-too things that don’t go anywhere. So I dropped it and got ready for my day at Edgeview.

My first class after breakfast was math. When I reached the door, Cheater waved to me from the middle of the empty room. “I got us some seats,” he said.

“Thanks.” I plunked down next to him. “I was afraid I’d have to stand.”

“I’m not going to copy off of you,” Cheater added. “Everyone says I do. But I don’t.”

“Fine.” I didn’t care if he copied from me.

Torchie grabbed the seat on my other side. He’d sort of attached himself to me. That was okay—! didn’t mind sticking with someone who knew what was going on. And, compared to a lot of the kids I’d seen, he was reasonably normal, if you didn’t count his slight problem with fire. Besides, he was so relentlessly friendly that being mean to him would be like kicking a puppy. He didn’t act like those kids who ask, Will you be my friend? Now, those kids I don’t mind kicking. With Torchie, it was more like he was saying, I’m going to be your friend.

I didn’t see any point fighting it.

Bloodbath wasn’t in my math class, but I saw three kids just like him sitting in the back row. They all had that same deadly look. One had rings in his nose and in both eyebrows. He might have had a ring in his tongue, too, but I really didn’t want to get close enough to see for sure. I didn’t even want him to catch me looking in his direction. His buddy had a tattoo of a skull on his forehead. It looked like he’d done it himself. Just the thought of a needle being jabbed over and over into my flesh made me shudder. I wondered if his pea-sized brain realized the humor of putting a skull on the outside of his own skull. Probably not. The third beast in that cluster of thugs had GRUNGE tattooed on the back of each hand. As far as I could tell, none of them carried any books to class.

“Here comes Mr. Parsons,” Torchie whispered as the teacher stepped into the room. “Careful. He’s got a bit of a temper.”

A teacher with a temper? Now, that was a shock. I watched Mr. Parsons walk to his desk. He looked pretty much like any of a million other middle-aged math teachers, except for the long strands of hair that he’d combed over the top of his head from the side. He was wearing a rumpled green jacket, rumpled green pants, and a blue tie—not a bow tie, but I still didn’t trust him.

“Good morning, class,” he said.

There was no answer, but about half of the kids at least glanced in his direction. One kid—I learned later that they called him Flying Dan—was running around at the back of the room with his arms spread out like airplane wings. Another was carving something on his desk with his pen. At least he was doing that until the pen snapped from the pressure. A couple kids stared out the windows. And I guess I was looking all around the room at everyone else.





Mr. Parsons cleared his throat. I faced forward and tried to escape his notice. Be cool, I told myself. Just sit back and get through it. That was my plan.

“Well, now, I see we have a new student,” Mr. Parsons said, glancing down at a sheet of paper he’d taken from his lesson book. He scanned the room until his eyes landed on me—not a tough trick to pull off, since I wasn’t a moving target like Flying Dan. “Martin, why don’t you tell the class something about yourself.”

I shrugged. “There’s really nothing to tell.” I hated the whole new-kid song-and-dance routine—stand up, stutter a bit, say something totally stupid, sit down. What did he think I was, a dancing dog?

“Come on, don’t be modest. Surely you have something interesting to share.”

I shook my head. At least I wasn’t the center of attention. In this class, there was no center of attention. I was just one bubble in a glass of cola, clinging to the side while a giant soda straw of a teacher tried to stir things around and suck us up.

Parsons shuffled over to me and smiled a thin smile. His upper lip was nearly the same pasty color as his forehead. The head reminded me of the belly of a dead fish. “Now, Martin, one of the basic things we’ve discovered at Edgeview is that the students must learn to be open and honest about themselves. Open and honest. That’s the key. Please, stand up and share something.” He leaned over and patted me on the shoulder, then returned to the front of the class and crossed his arms. His whole body said, I’m waiting.