An Apple for the Creature

by Harris, Charlaine

  “Begin immediately,” the bird-woman said and I turned over the sheaf of papers that lay on the desk.

  Algebra, the first one was headed. Algebra, I thought. It’s been ages since I did algebra. How long had it been, exactly? So long ago I couldn’t remember studying it at all. Why couldn’t they have told me the subjects in advance? Then I could have studied up.

  I focused on the first problem. If x and then a squiggly sign I didn’t recognize to y, and then a + b in brackets, can we say that z is greater than x is? I blinked, stared at it again. It made no sense, even if I did know what that squiggly sign meant. Surely you couldn’t have so many unknowns in one problem. But the other kids seemed to be working away as if they weren’t fazed at all.

  I moved on to the second question. Draw a graph to show that x/y might tend toward infinity in the circumstances z squared is less than 100. Again it made no sense to me. I had done well enough in algebra, surely, but I’d never encountered anything like this. The thought struck me that perhaps this was some kind of advance placement exam for math whizzes. Well, that wasn’t me, anyway. I’d never claimed to be a math whiz. My strengths had always been in the arts—reading, writing, history, languages, that was where I shone.

  I turned over the algebra sheet and flipped ahead to see how much of the exam was math. Then I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw pages of writing ahead. World history. Good. I’d ace this part.

  Discuss the treaty of Nebrachshazar in fourth-century BC and how it affected the development of cuneiform writing for the Babylonian people.

  Are we justified in saying that there was peace in Persia in the year AD 731?

  Which Chinese emperor did more to hinder the spread of the Taoist philosophy—Yin Fu Cha or Tse Wong Ho?

  My heart was racing now. My throat was so dry I couldn’t swallow. I didn’t know any of this stuff. I’d never learned it. Our version of world history didn’t stretch much beyond the Spanish conquests in the New World and some more memorable kings of England.

  Another subject. There must be another subject I could do. English. Right. There was an English paper.

  Which little-known imitator of Shakespeare also wrote a play that took place in Windsor? In what ways was it similar to the Merry Wives? Discuss the passages that were borrowed from Shakespeare.

  Give examples of seventeenth-century treatises with a Roundhead slant and contrast them to similar works favoring the Cavaliers.

  Early-twentieth-century Bulgarian Romantic poets—what do they all have in common?

  “This is stupid!” I almost said the words out loud, then swallowed them back at the last moment. There was not one question I could begin to answer. I was going to fail hopelessly. I would be put in remedial classes with all the dummies I so despised. I saw myself clearly—sitting in class while some idiot asked a dumb question and the rest of us had to wait while the teacher explained it all over again. Now I’d be in class with kids like that.

  No, I wouldn’t. This had gone on long enough. I wasn’t going to stick around here one moment longer. I’d go to the office, call my parents and tell them to come and get me. I rose to my feet.

  “Where are you going?” the bird-woman demanded.

  “I’m not staying,” I said. “I don’t want to be here. This school isn’t right for me.”

  “Not as smart as you thought you were, huh?” she said. “Fine. I’ll tell the principal that you refused to take the entrance exam. I’m sure she’ll be wanting to meet with you anyway. We don’t tolerate lack of cooperation here.”

  “Ooh, she’ll get detention,” someone hissed.

  “Who said that?” The bird-woman looked up sharply. “You, boy. Did I say no talking after the examination has started or not?”

  “Yes, ma’am, you did.”

  “Then take your things and go. Your chance to redeem yourself has just ended.”

  “But I didn’t mean . . .” he stammered. “Just let me finish it. I almost had it finished this time.”

  “Rules are rules. Go.” She pointed at the door.

  “You can’t expect me . . . You can’t make me . . .” he blurted out. “It’s not fair, you know.” His face looked a picture of misery. No, more than misery, torment. But he dragged his feet all the way to the door and it clanged shut behind him.

  “Anybody else have something they’d like to say?” She turned back to the room.

  Heads went down and everyone scribbled frantically.

  “I have something I want to say,” I said. “This isn’t the Dark Ages. You don’t get the best out of students by intimidating them.”

  There was a collective gasp.

  “Oh, we will enjoy having you here, Miss Weinstein,” the bird-woman said. “We will find you a delightful challenge.”

  “Too bad, because I’m not staying.” I walked to the door and went to pull it open. It wouldn’t budge. That boy had opened it easily enough and there didn’t appear to be any kind of lock.

  I turned back to the teacher and she was grinning now, her face lit up with amusement. “You don’t get it yet. You will. Now go back to work. I say when this exam is over.”

  I stood by the door. “Would you please open this door. I want to go home.”

  “Unfortunately we don’t always get what we want, do we?” she said, going back to the papers on her desk. “We get what we deserve.”

  “I don’t deserve to be treated like this. None of us do.”

  She glanced up briefly. “Have you never treated others as if they were beneath you? Have you never gloried in your power over them?”

  “No, never.” I blurted out the words but an image flashed across my mind—and I heard someone say, “Texas Chemicals versus Rodriguez.” What on earth did that mean? And yet it seemed vaguely familiar, something I had heard or read about before.

  The bird-woman went back to her work and I went back to my desk. I turned over the next page hopelessly. Then suddenly I saw questions that I could do. U.S. Government and Constitution. I looked down the page.

  What preceded the constitution, and why was it unworkable?

  Yes, I could do this. I started to write furiously.

  Which amendment . . . Yes, I knew that. I’d obviously just found the few stupid pages before and now I was back on track. They’d see that I knew my stuff—after all, if anyone knew about Congress, it should be me, right? I stopped writing and frowned at this thought. Why should I know about Congress?

  “Ten more minutes,” the bird-woman said.

  I went back to writing and then there was a snapping sound and the finely sharpened tip of my pencil broke off. I stared at it in dismay. I tried to write with the stub but it was impossible.

  A bell rang, jangling loudly above our heads.

  “Leave your papers on the desk and file out in silence,” the bird-woman said.

  Reluctantly I left my unfinished government paper and joined the line. I saw a couple of kids take a look at me and then snigger. I joined them as they walked back down the six hundred hallway to the stairwell and fell into step beside a studious-looking girl. She was wearing glasses and was dressed in a dorky manner, like me, so at least I figured she’d be someone I could talk to.

  “Hi,” I said. “What was that exam all about? I mean, did you know that crazy stuff?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I read the study sheets ahead of time. It was a cinch.” She went to walk on ahead of me.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m new here and I don’t like it.”

  “Don’t like it?” She looked as if she was about to smile. “That’s funny. Do you think anyone likes it?”

  “Then why put up with it? There are plenty of better high schools around. Normally, I go to Oakmont. It’s great. Very modern. Very academic.”

  “I don’t know of any Oakmont.”

  “Near the civic center and the freeway.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is the high school.”

  “Well, I’m not staying. C
an you tell me the way out?”

  “Way out?” She looked puzzled.

  “Yeah, the way out.”

  “The way out?” she repeated, and she started to laugh.

  “What’s wrong with you? Do you happen to have a cell phone on you so I can call my parents?”

  “Cell phone?”

  There was something seriously strange about this girl, or about this school, or both. “The office then, so I can call my parents to come and get me.”

  “Nobody can come and get you, don’t you know that yet?” She pushed past me and almost ran to escape from me. I followed her down the stairs, staying close to the handrail because a tide of students was coming up.

  “Out of the way, freak.” A boy in a letter jacket deliberately knocked into me. Luckily I held on or I’d have gone tumbling down.

  This is like a nightmare, I muttered. Nobody will tell me how to get out. An exam with questions I can’t possibly answer. Then I stopped halfway down a flight of stairs, making those behind me barrel into me and start cursing. And I actually laughed. A nightmare. Of course. It was the classic nightmare that had plagued me all my life—the exam I was perennially late for. The exam with questions I couldn’t possibly answer. The strange building with no way out. That was it. I was dreaming. Now it all made sense. I’d been in some kind of accident and I was in a coma or something. And I’d wake up and everything would be back to normal again.

  I finished the flight of steps with an almost jaunty tread. All I had to do was keep reminding myself that it was all a dream and I could handle anything. The students now seemed to be streaming along a different hallway.

  “Where is everyone going?” I asked, hopeful that it might be the end of the school day and time to go home.

  “Lunch, stupid,” a skinny freckled-faced boy said.

  I followed along, although I didn’t feel hungry. The cafeteria was a huge subterranean room that echoed with noise, the clash and clatter of plates competing with the shouts of students. What’s more, it smelled terrible, like drains and boiled cabbage. I stood in line with the rest and inched my way toward a counter. Someone took a tray, so I did. A plate was banged down in front of me.

  “Stew?” a helper behind the counter asked, and before I could answer, a great ladle of grayish, glutinous stuff was slopped into my plate. The helper gave me a toothless grin. “Vegetables?” she asked and dropped some gray boiled cabbage on top of the congealed mess.

  “Wait,” I said, fighting back revulsion. “Is there a choice? Pizza maybe?”

  The toothless grin widened. “Do you want it or not?”

  I was pushed forward to where an old woman sat at a cash desk. “Five dollars,” she said.

  “Five dollars? For this—” I went to say “crap,” then swallowed down the word at the last second. Then I remembered. “I don’t have my purse with me.”

  “No matter. Put it on your tab, Miss Weinstein.”

  How did they all know my name with all these thousands of students?

  I carried my tray and looked around for a place to sit. Hostile stares or stupid giggles greeted me. I found an empty table far in a corner and sat down. I’d really have to do something about the way I looked. If this was a dream, I’d dream myself better looking. Better still, I’d dream Sally Ann into my dream and she could help me get back to my real self. I sat alone at that table and thought wistfully of Sally Ann, the first real friend I ever had. The only one who cared about me when I was a fat, clueless freshman and other kids picked on me or teased me. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d never have changed. I might not even have lived because when she came into my life I was seriously thinking of suicide. I’d started reading up on how many pills it takes to kill a person and I’d begun stealing my mother’s sleeping pills and my dad’s heart medication. Then she’d arrived and suddenly everything was fine.

  “Hey, you.” A figure loomed over me. She was a gorgeous blonde, wearing a cheerleading outfit. “You’re sitting in my seat.”

  “I didn’t realize we had assigned seats,” I said.

  Her friends had come up behind her now, more cheerleaders and a couple of jocks in letter jackets. They burst out laughing.

  “Are you totally clueless?” the blonde said. “This is the table we want and so you move. Got it?”

  “Why should I have to move?” My fighting spirit had returned.

  “Because we say so and we count and you’re nothing. Go on, beat it.”

  “And if I won’t move?”

  “I do this,” the girl said and before I could dodge she grabbed my head and rammed it down into my plate. Hot rancid fat went up my nose and I coughed and gagged. I fought to sit up as she held me down.

  “Let her up, Tracy. Or she might die,” one of the other girls said and they roared with laughter.

  The girl released me. “Got the message?” she said. “Go on, get lost.”

  I got to my feet, wiping my eyes with my hand because I didn’t seem to have a napkin.

  “You guys need to learn that bullying is not acceptable,” I said. “I’m going right now to report you to the principal and to make an official complaint.” I looked around, noticing that the cafeteria had become suspiciously quiet and that other kids were watching us. I turned to them. “What’s wrong with this place?” I demanded. “Don’t you realize that it’s so much nicer if we all get along? If we can’t be kind to each other in a school, in a community—what chance do nations ever have to live in peace because the whole of society is at war. Gangs, cliques, police brutality—what do they achieve except to make one person feel superior and others angry and inadequate?”

  There was dead silence and the thought struck me that I’d made this speech before. I saw myself on a podium and the crowds were cheering and applauding. “I made this speech when I was running for Congress,” I said and even as the words came out I realized how ridiculous they sounded. The kids burst out laughing. I was about to go and find a bathroom that wasn’t inhabited by a wolf pack when someone near me called out, “Hey, Joshua! Dave’s looking for you.”

  And it was as if I’d been struck by lightning. Dave. That name meant something to me—I’d been married to Dave and our baby son had been named Joshua. Suddenly I saw it all clearly—the apartment on the Upper East Side and the sun streaming in through the window with the view of Central Park and Dave saying, “It’s no use. It’s not working, Amy. You’re married to your ambition, not to me.” Then he put a hand on my shoulder. “It was never the same after Joshua died, was it?”

  I stepped out into a deserted hallway, digesting this vision. I wasn’t really in high school. I was grown up and I’d been married and Dave had left me because Joshua had died and he couldn’t handle it. And I was a successful lawyer who was running for Congress. And I wore high heels and designer suits and had my hair styled by the best stylist in the Village. And I remembered the accident now—driving too fast because I was late and the van that came unexpectedly from my left. . . .

  A hand grabbed my shoulder. “The principal wants to see you,” a voice said. “This way.”

  “Fine,” I thought. What could the principal do to me? I’d tell her she was only a figment of my imagination and pretty soon I’d wake up.

  Down the stairs we went. It was hot and stuffy down here and it crossed my mind to wonder why the principal chose this part of the school for her office. The boy who had been escorting me knocked on a door. It read, “Ms. Fer. Principal.”

  “Enter,” said a voice.

  “The girl you wanted, Ms. Fer,” the boy said and shoved me inside. Ms. Fer was sitting at a polished mahogany desk. She looked like an older version of me—immaculately dressed in a black suit and white blouse, hair streaked with gray but perfectly cut, face still unlined, gold pin in her lapel, long red fingernails.

  I was horribly conscious of how I must look—the purple sweater now streaked with congealing stew, my hair sticky, my face a mess.

  “I don’t really look like this,
” I said. “Some bullies jammed my face into my plate.”

  “I heard you caused a disturbance in the cafeteria.” Her voice was low, smooth and commanding.

  “I caused? Listen, I was sitting there, minding my own business.”

  “I hear you’ve been nothing but trouble since you arrived, unprepared, this morning. We don’t tolerate troublemakers here.”

  “Then expel me. I’m not staying anyway. And if you really want to know, this isn’t the real me. I’m not even a high school student any longer. I’m grown-up and successful and I look great and you’re just in my hallucination, so I don’t really care what you say.”

  “So you never really looked the way you do now?” She leaned forward as if she was interested.

  “Well, yes, I guess I did. When I first went to high school I was overweight and a dork and clueless about clothes and I had no friends. And people picked on me, just like here.”

  “You were desperately unhappy.”

  “Yes.”

  “So much so that you were thinking of taking your own life.”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “But you decided not to.”

  “I made a friend. And she took me under her wing. She rescued me.”

  “Tell me about this good friend of yours.”

  She leaned forward, smiling encouragingly, seeming to give the impression that she was on my side, a pal.

  I found myself smiling, too, at the memory. “Her name was Sally Ann. She was Chinese American—really attractive and petite—and spunky. She wasn’t afraid of anyone. You should have seen the quick answers she came up with to the bullies and jocks. She could wipe the floor with them.”

  “A bad girl, then?”

  “No, not bad. Stretched the rules a bit. Taught me how to sneak out of class undetected, how to write my own excuse notes. That kind of thing. Oh, and taught me how to smoke. But nothing too terrible. It was just that my whole world changed when she took me under her wing. She told me she could make me popular like her and it was true. By the time she left, I was in with the popular kids and I never looked back.”