In Memoriam

by Michael Beaulieu

  “Mademoiselle Emma c'est à vous de décider,” Mr. Boisvert says, now standing beside my desk, having snuck up from behind me.

  “À moi de décider quoi?” My leg begins to tremble under the desk. That always happens when a school teacher really puts me on the spot. Stupid nerves.

  “De décider quelle saveur de glace est votre préférée.”

  Oh, I can answer this easily! “Je n'ai pas de saveur préférée, mais je préfère le glace de Ben et Jerry.”

  Mr. Boisvert smiles and several students actually laugh. I should make it a point to be funnier. That’s one of the best ways to make people like you. I’m tempted to add that I hate Haagen Daz, but I do eat it at the mall so that wouldn’t be entirely truthful.

  A few minutes later the bell rings. As we’re getting up, I glare at Brian-the-asshole and he flinches. Big time. I suppose that’s all the payback I need. [As much as I’d like to see his eyes bleed.]

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SHAR

  Biology. Normally, it’s one of my favorite classes, but today we’re dissecting frogs. The teacher, Mr. Solomon, warned us we’d be doing so today and I wanted to fake sick and stay home, but my parents never fall for that. Well, rarely. Sometimes my mother lets me stay home when I’m PMSing, but she knows that doesn’t happen until next week.

  Class just started and Mr. Solomon is walking around with a jar of frogs and plastic salad tongs he’s using to get them out of the formaldehyde. I so do not want to do this. It’s actually something I’ve been dreading since I started high school. Em and Li, too. But I’ll probably be the only one of us to actually hurl.

  January, Pete and Jim are in this class with us. We’re all seated at the same long lab table, Li across from me, Em across from Jim and January across from Pete. Normally, we’ll be lab partners with our significant others, but today we’re working individually so that everyone has to cut up a poor frog.

  Mr. Solomon places one such amphibian on my disposable board that we’ll be pinning them down on. I do not thank him. Li says “thank you,” but sarcastically, prompting Mr. Solomon to raise an eyebrow. Still, a second later he’s giving Emma her frog. She doesn’t say anything either. I don’t know if the others say anything because now I’m fixated on the poor frog in front of me.

  This is going to suck, Em says telepathically.

  I frown. I know. These poor amphibians. Why couldn’t we cut up mice? They’re gross, but I wouldn’t feel as sorry for them.

  True, that, Li says and half-smiles at me.

  I force myself to smile back, but I’m feeling the urge to cry. This sucks. I can’t do this.

  A girl on the other side of the room pukes. Then the guy next to her pukes. Thank Goddess, I can’t smell the puke or I’d definitely do it, too. But instead of praying for the puking to stop, I wish the frogs would spring to life. That would be super awesome. Please, Lord and Lady, get me out of this already.

  Another two students puke at the same table as the first two. One of them pukes so hard he nearly falls over. Good thing Mr. Solomon just got on the intercom and asked the office to send a custodian. He should probably have them bring extra of that gross-smelling cat litter type stuff they pour on vomit.

  “We’ll get through this,” Li says, aloud but quietly.

  “I just wish these frogs would spring to life,” I say.

  “Careful what you wish for,” Em says. “But that would be wicked ostrich.”

  Ostrich. I haven’t heard that word in a while. A couple summers ago, Li, Em and I decided to use the word ostrich in place of words like awesome, great and cool. It started because Em was PMSing and said she felt like she had an ostrich inside her, which was so random and weird and Li and I thought it was the funniest thing ever. So, it just kind of became our thing for a while. Drove our parents crazy. We only used it when we were talking to each other, but just overhearing us was enough to make Juliana scream one time. (“Will you kids stop using that fucking word already?”) So loud, she actually startled us. I was so frightened my whole body jerked then trembled. Kind of like it does now when I have a premonition. Needless to say, we never said it around her again after that. Thinking about it now, I wonder if she accidentally used magick when she yelled at us. She wasn’t a practicing witch then, but you never know. It was still in her blood even if she wasn’t using it.

  “Now we’ll begin pinning the frogs to your boards,” Mr. Soloman says.

  I tug at my hair so hard it hurts, trying to distract myself. It doesn’t work. I’m not doing this. These frogs should be alive somewhere, not getting butchered here. There’s no need for this. We could’ve just watched a DVD of someone doing it instead and learned just as much.

  So mote it be, Em says, prompting Li to elbow her.

  Mr. Solomon continues talking, but I’m tuning him out. January and Pete are pinning their frogs down and Lia picks up a pin to start on hers.

  FUCK! I’m not a big fan of swearing, but, seriously, FUCK.

  I look at my poor frog and wish it still had a heartbeat. That it was still breathing. That it was still alive. That it would turn over and escape so I wouldn’t have to desecrate it.

  All of a sudden, a lump in my frog’s throat moves. And it starts breathing. I look at Em as it turns itself over. What the hell did I do?

  Oh my Goddess, Em says.

  Li shoots me a look. Stop. Stop before it’s too late.

  Em grimaces. She’s right. You should stop.

  “Holy crap!” January yells.

  I look over and see that her and Pete’s frogs are struggling to get unpinned. What have I done?

  Em and Li’s frogs flip themselves over. And they start leaping down the table.

  Other students are watching, laughing and pointing. Great. They might as well all come to life right now.

  Shit. No. I didn’t mean that. Goddess, no.

  Mr. Solomon comes over and looks at us angrily. “That is not funny, girls. Collect these live frogs at once and put your dead ones back on your boards!”

  He thinks we smuggled in real frogs and switched them as a prank. Em says.

  I guess that’s for the best. Better that than people accusing us of witchcraft.

  But then people start yelling and laughing and jumping out of their seats all over the room as more frogs are resurrected.

  “Quiet down!” Mr Solomon screams. “You’ll stop this nonsense at once or you’ll have detention for a week! Do you hear me?”

  “It’s not a prank,” a female student says to him.

  “Yeah, they just did that on their own,” the guy next to her says.

  Mr. Solomon’s forehead wrinkles as he scrutinizes the scene.

  January and Pete unpin their frogs, which quickly leap off the table. I think I’m about to get glared at by all my friends, but they get off of their stools and back away from the table.

  For fuck’s sake, act shocked! Li says.

  I slide off of my stool, careful not to crush a frog under it.

  It’s so loud in here now. Some people are squirming while some think it’s hilarious. One girl apparently has a frog phobia and goes running from the lab.

  Mr. Solomon is standing by the intercom, wide-eyed with his mouth open, jaw dropped.

  Please, Lord and Lady, just make this stop. Make them vanish into the heavens. I pray so hard.

  Pray it stops, Em says.

  I shrug. I am.

  Em half-smiles. Let’s all pray it stops together then. Everyone.

  I’ll lead us. It’s the least I could do.

  Li smiles at me and nods. Jim, January and Pete nod, too.

  I take a deep breath before I send out a prayer to our whole group. Lord and Lady, we thank you for restoring life to these frogs. But please make them go away now. Don’t kill them, though!Please just make them go away.Teleport them to a pond or something. Please.

  Wait! Jim says. If they just disappear, there’s no denying that witchcraft was used here and there will be a whole investi
gation.

  But we have to do something! Em replies.

  What? I ask.

  Both doors to the lab open. The janitor walks into the room, sees what’s happening and looks at Mr. Solomon, who just shakes his head. Principal Clarke bursts through the other door, surely having heard the commotion.

  “Everyone be quiet at once!” Principal Clarke yells. “Remain calm!”

  Everyone quiets down. Then she hurries over to Mr. Solomon. “Care to explain this?”

  Mr. Solomon is speechless.

  I use our gift of enhanced hearing to listen.

  “Clearly it’s some kind of prank,” Principal Clarke insists, her face as red as a beet is purple. “Why haven’t you gotten it under control?”

  “I saw a few of them come to life,” he says quietly, like he can barely get the words out.

  “What do you mean, you saw them come to life? Clearly, the students brought these creatures to school as a sick gag.”

  He shakes his head no. “I wish it were so.”

  Em looks at me like she wants to drive stakes through my eyes, but I glare at her and she starts laughing. It looks like half the students are fighting back laughter now.

  “I guess they didn’t use enough formaldehyde,” Mr. Solomon says.

  “Well, clean this mess up!” Principal Clarke says to him. Then she turns her angry eyes on the class. “Everyone will catch these frogs immediately!”

  Jim starts laughing then the rest of us do. But instead of giving out detentions, Principal Clarke just flees the scene.

  The phones, Li says.

  I didn’t notice them before because I’m so used to seeing people with phones in their hands, but now that Em has said that I see that more people are recording and taking photos of the scene than not.

  “Everyone back into the classroom!” Mr. Solomon shouts. “Now! File out of the lab and into the classroom!”

  Other students are quick to start marching, but our group... January and Pete are busting a gut. Jim’s still laughing, too. Li, Em and I are just exchanging worried expressions.

  I hear someone’s foot stomp and look over to see that Byron Landry, the would be rapist, has just stomped on a frog.

  “He deserves a broken knee, but don’t,” Li whispers in my ear.

  LIA

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I say to Shar as we head for our next class along with Emma. “And you encouraged it,” I say to Emma.

  “Sorry,” Shar says. “I’m wicked sorry.”

  Emma shrugs. “I didn’t think anything would actually happen.”

  “And I did?” Shar snaps at her.

  I glare at them both. Now Shar’s eyes go all sweet like a little kitten’s, but her lips smirk. Just enough to notice it, but Emma and I both do, since we’ve all known each other for nine years. I’m about to say something when we notice that half the students are laughing, either because they’re watching what happened on their phones or people are telling them about it. Son of a bitch.

  Emma swallows hard enough for the three of us. I doubt that was black magick, but who do you think they’re going to blame? When they figure out there was plenty of formaldehyde in with the frogs?

  Shar bites her top lip. The witches?

  Both of my girls look petrified now. Deep down, I am, too. This is one of the worst things Shar – well, both of them, I suppose – could have done.

  I don’t know what got into me, Shar says. I just knew I couldn’t dissect one. I just couldn’t. And I got upset and prayed without thinking. I mean, how could I have known we could resurrect things. It’s not like this has happened before.

  Emma’s eyelids blink faster than usual. Yeah, there isn’t even a resurrection spell among the newly translated ones in the Book of Shadows.

  Guess we’re off the grid then, I say.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LIA

  We’ve all just sat down at the lunch table. Jim didn’t get meat today so as not to gross Emma out. I guess that’s sweet.

  You should tell him if he really loves you he’ll become a vegetarian, I say to Emma – and only Emma – telepathically.

  She looks at me and shrugs. He changed his appearance so he could stay in the area and be with me. I think that’s proof enough.

  Yeah, good point, I admit. I guess Jim really is the perfect boyfriend. Sometimes I wonder if he’s too perfect though. If it seems too good to be true...

  Everyone knows about the frog thing already. Some clown who had the numbers for all the students here sent us all a link to one of the Youtube videos. It was clearly made by someone in class, and I’m pissed at whoever it is, but everyone was filming it. I even filmed a little of it so I’d look like I was as dumbfounded about what happened as everybody else.

  So, which one of you brought the frogs back to life? January asks us all telepathically.

  It was me, Shar says.

  Before anyone says anything else that bitchy lunch lady appears at the end of the table. Right next to Shar and I. I see that she’s wearing a name tag today, which reads “Angelina.” But, trust me, she’s no Angelina.

  She puts her hands on the table as she speaks. “So, it seems the lot of you do have nut allergies. So, I wanted to apologize for my attitude yesterday.”

  “No worries,” Shar says. Because, of course, Shar naturally wants to make everyone feel better. Even strangers on the street. She’s that caring, that much of an empath.

  “But then,” not Angelina says. “I took a second look at your allergies and some of them didn’t sit right with me.”

  “Well, we can’t help what we’re allergic to,” Emma says.

  “But I have to question whether you’re all actually allergic to these things. Because, collectively, the list of allergies you have sounds like something a teenage boy would write to crack wise.”

  Emma crosses her arms in front of her. “Well, I’m really allergic to the things in my records.” Then, telepathically, Emma tells our group, We have to hypnotize her. Push this: Our allergies are real.

  “Our allergies are real,” Shar and I say at once. Then we all start trying to make her really believe it by pushing that on her. Our allergies are real. Our allergies are real. There’s enough of us doing this that it should definitely work, not to toot my own horn or anything. Our allergies are real.

  “If they’re not legitimate allergies I’m going to find out,” faux Angelina says.

  Our allergies are real, we all continue pushing at once. Our allergies are real. Again and again.

  I think we need to say it out loud now, Emma says. Slowly and calmly.

  “Our allergies are real,” we all say together. It kind of comes out sounding like we’re stoned off our rockers. Speaking of which, I’ve been dying to smoke out. Emma and Shar don’t know this, but I got stoned a few times at school last year. I just randomly walked in on some girls smoking and they offered me a hit and I surprised myself and took it. And I loved the way it felt. I think Shar would like it, too, if she really gave it a chance. But I bet she’d be expecting it to make her paranoid so she’d probably freak out. I remember that Emma did try it once, but I can’t remember if she liked it.

  So faux Angelina just stands there, totally looking like someone who was just hypnotized.

  “Our allergies are real,” we all say again.

  “OK, OK,” she says. “Your allergies are real.”

  “You believe us?” I ask.

  She nods. “Yes, your allergies are real. I believe you. I’ll leave you be.” And off she walks.

  “Whew,” January says.

  “That was a close call,” Emma says.

  Pete wipes sweat off his forehead. “Too close.”

  “Next time, maybe try not to be so funny,” Jim says to him.

  “So, what’s gonna happen with this frog shit?” January asks impatiently.

  Not out loud, Emma says. She’s addressing January, but she says it so we can all hear it. But she has a good point. We definit
ely do not want people overhearing us talk about magick. Even if we call it Candy at school. Especially not when born again amphibians are involved.

  But, seriously, what’s gonna happen? January asks.

  I’m about to say it’s out of our control now when some dude with spiked hair and mascara stops and talks to Pete, leaning over the table.

  “So, that’s it?” the dude asks Pete, raising his voice. “You just sat with us for a week and pretended you were our friends until your fellow Catholes showed up?”

  “It’s not like that,” January says, sticking up for her man.

  “It’s not,” Pete says. “I still want to be friends with you. But, sure, I value my friendships from our old school, too.”

  The dude practically sounds like a bully. “So, why don’t you come sit with us since you sat with your old friends at lunch yesterday and I’ve seen you sitting together in classes all day.”

  January glares at Pete. Hard. If she could shoot hot lasers out of her eyes she’d be burning holes in him right now.

  “I can’t. We have something important to discuss,” Pete says. “But I’m free after school if you want to hang out.”

  Spiked Hair thinks for a moment. “I suppose that works. A few of us are getting together to work on a project. We could use you.”

  Pete sees January glaring at him and she must say something to him telepathically because he swallows hard and you can see a frog burrow down his throat. OK, maybe it’s too soon to joke about that.

  “Yeah, sure,” Pete says.

  “Good,” Spiked Hair says and walks over to the table where his friends are eyeballing him from. Most of them are wearing all black. A couple have binary code on their shirts, which I’m sure they can all read just fine. They look like a club of hackers. I mean, Pete said him and January were sitting with the computer nerds, but these kids look far more sinister than your average nerds.

  “You don’t have to hang out with them,” January says to Pete, sounding more than a little peeved. Bet they were supposed to have sex after school.