Twilight in the Land of Nowhen

by Nury Vittachi

  It took a long time for her to explain what the different bits meant.

  The patient should be trained to habitually keep his zygomaticus muscles contracted.

  The first thing I had to do was learn about my zygo-maticus muscles.

  ‘Place four fingers from each hand on your cheeks, close to the outer edges of your mouth,’ she said. ‘Now twitch your cheek muscles individually, left, right, left, right. That’s it!’

  I felt like an idiot.

  ‘Keep going! You’re strengthening the muscles that draw your lips upwards and in the direction of your ears, your zygomaticus muscles. Can you feel them?’

  I had already nodded before she finished the sentence.

  ‘You see, Simon, when you feel happy these muscles automatically contract, lifting the edges of your lips. But we can deliberately contract them, and trick the amygdala into feeling happy. I want you to practise until your natural expression is a smile.’

  She turned back to the book and squinted through her glasses.

  At the same time, he should practise lifting his or her levator labii superioris and activating the lower lateral orbicularis oculi pars palpabraeus.

  In other words, to develop a natural smile I also had to move two other groups of muscles. The levator labii superioris turned out to be my upper lip muscles. I practised twitching those in front of Ms Blit’s mirror. It made me think of Elvis Presley, a dead singer my dad adores. The lower lateral orbicularis oculi pars palpabraeus are the muscles around your eyes. I worked out that if you crinkle the cheek muscles at the bottom of your eyes, it makes the top half of your face look as if it’s smiling.

  ‘Eat it?’ I asked Ms Blit, incredulous.

  She gave me a pencil. ‘Eat this,’ she said. ‘Well, okay, just bite it, sideways.’

  I placed the pencil in my mouth, so that I looked like a pirate carrying a knife in his teeth.

  ‘Putting a pencil in your mouth activates the zygo-maticus muscles,’ she said. ‘I want you to bite on that and smile with your eyes and do all the other stuff, too.’

  I bit down hard on the pencil for a while, until I thought I could work my zygomaticus muscles. I twitched my upper lip. I crinkled my eyes. I kept my elbows firmly pressed against my sides. I practised slowly nodding my head. I glanced at Ms Blit and at the air above her head. Then the bell rang. Break was over.

  I left the sanitation block and walked back into the classroom, a Steadtler Norris HB clamped firmly between my teeth. I was totally calm, relaxed, friendly and overflowing with smiles.

  I was about to launch a whole new me. This was going to be brilliant.

  13

  It was catastrophic.

  Oh, I tried hard enough. I smiled as much as I could. When my cheeks got tired, I put the pencil in my mouth again. I showed my teeth to Trudie Stig. I even beamed at Poison Cloud, although he was now studiously ignoring me. (I kept my eyes away from Eliza Marshmallow so I wouldn’t have to smile at her.)

  Mrs Stoep was looking at me strangely.

  ‘No,’ I said to her.

  ‘Something wrong with you, Master Poopoo?’ she asked.

  I had a slight coughing fit. Ms Blit had suggested my doing that before answering questions, because it would help get my answers into sync.

  ‘I’m just fine, just fine, just fine,’ I said. I was starting to feel uncomfortable so I stuck the pencil back in my mouth. My zygomaticus muscles immediately twitched my smile back on. Got to keep that amygdala calm.

  Mrs Stoep went back to marking her books.

  If I was going to grin all the time, I figured might as well focus on someone who I actually wanted to smile at. I kept my gaze fixed on Trudie, who was even prettier than Eliza, and not nearly so mean. I made my eyes as big as I could until my oculi muscles started to ache.

  When the bell rang to mark the end of the school day, I stuffed my books into my bag and walked fast, until I was a few steps behind Trudie. I didn’t have the nerve to actually talk to her, but I wanted her to know that she was the only girl lucky enough to receive beaming zygo-matics from me.

  Suddenly she turned around and caught my eye. It was working! She walked straight towards me.

  ‘Yes, yes, I have,’ I stammered.

  ‘You’ve been staring at me all afternoon,’ she said. ‘With, like, this weird expression on your face.’

  She wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Oh?’ I said.

  ‘You know something, Mr Poopoo-head?’ she said. ‘Yesterday I thought you were weird and obnoxious, but I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said.

  ‘Now I think you are weird and obnoxious and creepy. Stay away from me or I’ll report you for stalking.’

  She turned and walked away.

  14

  Dad was out when I got home from school.

  He’d left a note saying that he was out with Melly, but promised to stay home the next evening and play online computer games with me.

  I ate cereal for my dinner and watched television until I fell asleep about midnight.

  I arrived at school at 8.15 the next morning and headed straight for the toilet block.

  ‘No, it didn’t,’ I complained bitterly as I stepped through the door of the secret room.

  Ms Blit looked at me sympathetically. ‘I guess from your expression that it didn’t go so well,’ she said.

  ‘It had better,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s hope the next exercise works better for us.’

  Care and Maintenance of the Fabric of Time, first edition

  6.3: Alleviation of displacement:listening

  In an experiment designed to slow the worsening of displacement levels, some patients recorded remarkable drops in the hypersensitivity of their amygdalas simply by adopting the role of active listener. It is easy for sufferers of displacement to perform this role, and it is gratefully received by virtually all social groups.

  The key is for the patient to take an interest in all manner of things. The effort of paying attention to what may seem to be a boring monologue will be paid back by the gratitude of the listener.

  There is an additional benefit. When people talk about their hobbies or special interests, they are more likely to talk in long paragraphs. This is of great advantage to the displacement sufferer attempting to have a normal communication.

  15

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said.

  ‘Repeat after me,’ said Ms Blit. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said.

  ‘Not bad but put the emphasis on the tell.’

  ‘Tell me all about it.’

  ‘Perhaps try: “Tell me all about it.” ’

  ‘Tell me all about it.’

  ‘Try putting the emphasis on all.’

  ‘Yes, I think I have.’

  ‘I think you’ve got it.’

  That morning, Mr Little the English teacher made us sit in pairs and work on newspaper reports about a sports event—one from the point of view of the winner, and one from the point of view of the loser.

  Nobody chose to work with me, of course. Much to a girl called Melanie Peet’s disgust, Mr Little made her be my partner.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. I looked over her head and to the left, counted to two, glanced quickly at her eyes, looked down, and then looked up at her again.

  I wondered if she might be my Secret Sharer, but decided against it. She was staring at me with a look of extreme pity and disgust. I sat there with my zygomaticus muscles at full extension, helped by two pencils in my mouth. I whipped them out and said: ‘Yes, it is.’ I shuffled around in my seat and pointed my knees directly at her. ‘Hello, Simon Poopoo. Your name is really stupid.’

  ‘It means appetiser in Hawaiian. Sorry.’

  ‘You’re disturbing me.’

  I looked at her eyes for as long as I could. Then I looked down at the table top, then up again at her face, and then over her shoulder and to the right, and then down again. She had some sort of fanc
y flat-tipped pen, and was writing in a sort of gothic style.

  ‘Nice pen,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a calligraphy pen. Now if you would just shut—’ ‘Yes, I’m really interested in that.’

  ‘What? Calligraphy?’

  Melanie didn’t say anything for a while. Then she gave me a sort of careful, sideways look.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, zygomaticusing like mad and nodding slowly.

  ‘You’re interested in calligraphy?’

  I just kept nodding. It seemed the safest thing. After three seconds, I said: ‘Tell me about it. Tell me about it. Tell me all about it.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, holding out her weird pen and pointing it at some of the letters she had drawn. ‘Well, this bit is called the ascender. The middle bit is called the waist. That bit that goes down, like the tail of the y, that’s called the descender. These corner bits are called serifs, and the filled-in bit inside the serif is called the bracket. If you make the thicks and thins separate by using pressure, instead of changing angle, it’s called copperplate writing. That’s because people used that style for writing on copper sheets.’

  She looked at me suspiciously, to see if I was leading her on, but I kept my head bobbing up and down like one of those toy dogs people put on the dashboards of their cars.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course I can,’ I said.

  ‘Can you do joined-up writing? Teachers call it cursive writing, but we call it running hand. What I like is doing the serifs, although it takes a long time. See?’

  She drew some elegant letters.

  ‘There are all these different types of serifs. There’s bracketed, unbracketed, clubbed, cupped, hairline, beaked, rolled, hooked, slab, wedge and tick.’

  I nodded for fully ten minutes until Melanie finished telling me everything she knew about calligraphy, which, if you ask me, is an incredibly stupid way of writing since it takes hours and hours to write a single sentence. My neck hurt from nodding.

  It occurred to me that I might be achieving something. Melanie Peet was clearly a boring, moronic idiot with an irritating, idiotic hobby, but at least I was actually communicating with a fellow student. And a girl, no less. To be honest, I didn’t feel less tense than usual, but I guess I had to start somewhere.

  Mr Little collected our worksheets—I had done almost nothing on mine. He held up Melanie’s worksheet, declaring it to be the best, even though she had only written a few lines.

  At the end of the lesson we returned to our original seats. I noticed Melanie looking at me. She wasn’t exactly smiling. But she wasn’t exactly not smiling, either. That seemed to be progress. Maybe I didn’t have to be hostile all the time to cope with the world.

  At recess I raced down the corridor and turned the corner, heading for the toilet block. But I found my route was blocked. Eliza Marshmallow and her friends stood in a line.

  ‘No. No, I’m not, Eliza Marshmallow,’ I said.

  Eliza walked in a slow circle around me. ‘You’re up to something, aren’t you Poopoo?’

  I tried to get my zygomaticus muscles to work. They wouldn’t. I felt around in my pockets and pulled out a pencil.

  Eliza took a step back as if I had pulled out a weapon. Then she noticed it was a pencil and her eyebrows rose. They rose even further when she saw what I did with it—I laid it between my teeth. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I mumbled.

  ‘I’ve met a lot of weirdos in my time, but you, Poo-for-brains, are positively the weirdest.’

  Her friends glared at me.

  ‘He’s mad,’ said a girl whose name was Elly something. I noticed, with surprise, that Melanie Peet was in the gang.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Mr Little liked your serifs and stuff, didn’t he?’

  Melanie turned to Eliza. ‘He’s horrible. I had to sit next to him in class just now. He pretends to be interested in what you’re talking about, but he isn’t really.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Eliza. ‘I nominate a new candidate for Void of the Year. Kid Poopoo.’

  The others whooped with glee. I felt my face turning red. My fingers crunched up into fists. My pencil snapped in my mouth.

  ‘You’d better make sure you’re at school on Friday,’ Eliza added. ‘Because I have a feeling you are going to win the title by a huge margin—and no one is ever going to let you forget it.’

  ‘No, what?’ I asked.

  She sneered in my face. ‘Do you know what happens in the Void of the Year competition, Poopoo-head?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘We’re going to invite the nominees for Void of the Year onto the stage. If any one of the voids refuses to turn up, they automatically get the title for the next twelve months. If all the nominees actually do turn up, we’ll decide who the title-holder will be. And do you know how we’ll do that?’

  I dreaded to think.

  Eliza grinned. ‘We’re going to do a quiz. With the way you talk complete rubbish all the time, I’ll bet you’ll enjoy a quiz.’

  16

  I pushed past Eliza and her gang and raced to find Ms Blit.

  By the time I reached the toilet block, my right arm was completely invisible. Ms Blit leaped to her feet. She made me sit down and take five deep breaths before I said anything. As my heart stopped pounding, my arm started to reappear. Soon only my pinky finger remained invisible. I told her that I was giving up the program. It was a disaster. If anything, it was making things worse. Before, I was considered a miserable nobody, not worth paying attention to. Since I started Ms Blit’s program, people actually hated me. I was fast becoming Public Enemy Number One.

  ‘Why? What happens?’ I asked.

  She nodded slowly, and scratched her short, fuzzy hair. ‘I’m listening, I hear you. It’s important we avoid setbacks. We mustn’t make things worse.’

  I repeated my question: ‘Why? What happens if it does get worse?’ I waited for her to answer, but she didn’t.

  This was not fair. I pointed my finger at her and shouted, ‘There’s something you’re not telling me. You’re hiding something. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  Ms Blit just stared at me.

  I knew I was onto something. ‘There’s something you are not telling me, right?’

  What I said had completely wiped the fixed grin off her face. Now there was not a trace of a smile on her features, neither brave nor otherwise. She bit her bottom lip and nodded.

  ‘Well, don’t then,’ I said.

  ‘There is something,’ she said. ‘Something I can’t tell you. Something I’m not allowed to tell you. Don’t worry about it, Simon. I’m telling you all the stuff you need to know.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘And goodbye.’ I stormed out of the room and hit my head on the side of the door as I left.

  I found myself in the playground, my face in its usual grim scowl.

  Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw several people pointing me out to their friends and sniggering. I knew what they were saying: His name’s Poopoo and he’s the new leading contender for the title of Void of the Year.

  This school, like every other school I had been to, was proving to be hell on earth.

  I spent the afternoon not speaking to anyone. I didn’t smile at anyone, and I stared at the clock in the classroom, waiting for the day to end. Dad had promised to play computer games with me tonight. We had recently extended our subscription to Everworld Combat Plus Special Edition, an online game.

  That would be fun. No conversation necessary. Just big, heavy weapons and lots and lots of people on the screen waiting to be blasted to pieces.

  Now that was a worthwhile way to spend a bit of time. My fingers itched to get to the trigger and I noticed my whole hand was solid again.

  17

  At home, I noticed Dad’s business plans for his new pupu retail operation were still in a pile on the desk, where they had been a couple of days ago. It looked like he hadn’t touched them. He’d probably been working on the Breaker instead.
>
  I went into his room. He was changing out of his oil-stained clothes into something smart—well, smart by Dad’s standards, which means jeans that have less than six holes in them. It worried me. It implied that he was going out.

  ‘Dad, are you ready for Everworld Combat Plus? I’m going to beat the socks off you tonight, just you wait.’ Then, seeing the hesitation on his face, I added, ‘You promised.’

  He looked at me. His mouth opened. Then it flapped shut. Then he blew air out of it. ‘Simon. Look, we’ll play Everworld tomorrow. I’ve got to go out tonight. Melly did me a big favour today and I owe her.’

  ‘Dad, you promised me that you would—’

  ‘She did something really cool for me, for us, Simon. Look, I’ll show you.’

  He moved to a messy side-table and picked up a large, heavy, loose-leaf folder. ‘See this? This is the Aerobus Warp Corporation Manual for production of Relativity Induction C Motors. It’s proprietary information. You can’t buy this stuff; it belongs to someone and it’s top secret. She sneaked it out of her office. It’s just what I need to get the Breaker up and flying at full speed. Our car, Simon—it belongs to you and me. I’m doing this for us.’

  ‘Dad. You said you would play Everworld with me tonight. You promised.’

  But he had already put the book back onto the table and was striding towards the front door.

  ‘I’ll be back late tonight. Don’t wait up for me, kid.’

  ‘Dad.’

  When he reached the front door, he turned around.

  ‘I know it’s disappointing for you, but this is important to me, and it’s important to Melly. You’ve got to think about other people and not yourself once in a while, Simon.’

  I didn’t say anything. Then, as my father started to move again, I said: ‘Dad, will you come to school with me tomorrow? Get me moved out of Mrs Stupid’s class? I need you to do that.’

  He pulled on his gloves and smiled at me. ‘Yeah, yeah, sure. No problem. I’ll be glad to. Can’t have my boy’s education destroyed by an idiotic teacher.’