CHAPTER SEVEN - An Explanation that Wasn’t
The next 24 hours were the longest I had ever been through in my life. I kept jumping every time I caught even a glimpse of a shadow. My brother Adrian quickly figured out that something was wrong, and all night long he kept sneaking up behind me and yelling ‘bloody murder!’ in my ears. The first time he did it, I nearly went through the ceiling. After that, I tried to belt him every time he did it, but he was too quick for me. I couldn’t get him to stop until I told him I’d hidden his favorite DS game in a box full of cereal. He then poured out all our cereal on the kitchen table, and got bawled out and sent to bed early by Mom. (He didn’t think to look in the oatmeal, so his game stayed hidden)
Finally, around 9:00 o’clock, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had to talk with someone about what had happened! But I knew if I went to my parents they’d think I was crazy, and if I told Adrian he’d just laugh in my face.
So I suddenly found myself doing something that only a week before I never thought I’d do in my life. I picked up the phone and dialed Poindexter’s number.
“Hello!” said a sudden gruff voice on the other end that sounded like an older and meaner version of Donny. “I’d like to speak with Donny,” I squeaked. There was a moment of silence, then Donny’s rough voice came on, “Yeah! What is it?”
Did he always answer the phone like that? But then again, maybe since he was a bully, the only calls he got were death threats.
“It’s me,” I almost whispered, suddenly feeling embarrassed at having called. “Blake Drywater.”
“Oh,” said Donny in surprise. “What’s up?” he asked in a softer, friendlier voice.
Suddenly I didn’t know what to say. After all, admitting you’re scared to someone who’s bullied you in the past is almost like saying, ‘why don’t you just come on over here and hit me in the face?’
But Poindexter was different now. At least he seemed like it. After all, he’d tried to save me from Skinpeeler in class.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally Poindexter said, “That was weird today, wasn’t it? I mean, that Skinpeeler guy threatening us, and taking us to that stinky place.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Weird. I don’t know why he started coming after me. I had no idea where Mr. Marlin was.”
“He probably just picked you at random,” said Poindexter. “He’d better not try it again!” his voice was rising in familiar tones of anger that I had heard so often in the halls of school. But for once, that anger was not directed at me.
“Too bad it’s so late,” I said. “If it were earlier, you could come over or something.” I was suddenly amazed at what I had just said. I had just invited over my former worst enemy!
“Yeah, it’s too bad,” agreed Poindexter. “You ought to come over and hang out some time. We could feed my Piranhas. I’ve got three in a fish tank in my room.”
Somehow I wasn’t surprised that Poindexter’s favorite pet would be a Piranha.
“That’d be cool,” I agreed. “Let’s do that sometime.”
“Sure thing,” said Poindexter. There was another awkward moment of silence. Then he said simply, “Well, be seein’ ya. Don’t worry about nothin’ tonight. What Mr. Marlin did at the end of class should protect all of us.”
“Sure,” I said, hoping he was right. “See you tomorrow.” Then we hung up.
The call to Poindexter had helped, but I was still jumpy. Especially after all the lights were out that night. I lay in my bed clutching the comb Mr. Marlin had given me, staring worriedly into the dark. My science teacher was a wizard! A real one! And an evil wizard had come to my classroom and tried to mess around in my mind! The horror of that dark place where he took us kept coming back to me. It had reeked of fear as much as of stench—a fear so real, it could touch me. I seemed to feel it reaching out to touch me now, causing me to pull the covers over my head every few minutes, even though it was so hot I felt like I was about to suffocate. The fear kept bouncing back and forth in my mind like a tennis ball, until it finally settled down like a lump of play dough in my stomach. I probably slept about two minutes the whole night.
The next day I looked and acted like a zombie. Mom almost kept me home from school because I looked so bad. But when I screamed I had to go, she changed her mind (mainly out of shock that I actually wanted to go to school). Nothing was going to keep me away from Mr. Marlin’s class today. Maybe his explanation of what was going on would help.
Surprisingly, the dullness and normalness of school calmed me down better than anything else so far. Maybe it was just being with so many people that made me feel safe from being attacked. I kept nodding off in math, making my teacher, Mr. Harris, glare at me so hard it looked like the blood vessels in his eyes would pop. Thankfully, my English teacher, Mr. Gordon, was less concerned. I happily snored my way through his class, to the irritation of everyone around me.
Finally it was time for science. As I rushed down the hall I realized too late that I had taken the wrong route—Mary Ellen Paul was standing right there in front of me.
“Is it true that some mysterious, ugly old guy in black clothes pretended to be your substitute in science yesterday?” she blurted out.
“Uh … yeah,” I stammered, not knowing what else to say.
“Cool!” she cried happily. “I wish I’d been there!”
“Look,” I said, shoving my way past her roughly, “I’ve got to go.”
She grabbed my arm, obviously not finished with her questions. “What did he look like?” she cried gleefully. “They say he had a scar the length of his face, and he threatened to kill you all! That is so awesome! Tell me about it!”
“Mary Ellen, I’ve got to go!” I yelled, stamping on her foot. The pain caused her to let go of my arm.
“Aw, c’mon!” she yelled after me as I darted down the hall. “You’re no fun at all.”
I rushed breathless into class, five minutes early. Like the two days before when Mr. Marlin had taught us, everyone else was already there. I have no idea how they got there so fast. (Except Poindexter. He could bulldoze his way through the hall like a tank and get anywhere in about 2 minutes)
“Gee, Drywater,” said Tyson, who was obviously in a cruel mood, “they should change your name to snail slime, you’re so slow. What took you so long?”
“I ran into a friend,” I mumbled as I took my seat.
He looked at me in shock. “I didn’t know you had any!” Then he gave me a sly look. “Was it your girlfriend?”
The exhaustion of the last 24 hours made me temporarily take leave of my senses. “Get a life!” I yelled at him, throwing my pencil in his face.
The class was suddenly so still you could hear a pin drop. Nobody did that to Tyson, and expected to live to tell about it.
He just looked at me for a minute, making me squirm. He was obviously thinking up the best way to desecrate me. Everybody else was squirming too, in gleeful anticipation of what he would do to me.
Unexpectedly Poindexter spoke up. “Lay off him, Tyson,” he said gruffly. “Unless you want me to shove his pencil up your nose.”
Tyson looked at Poindexter in shock, as if he had just been betrayed. Poindexter had just broken the bullies creed—to never interfere with someone else’s bullying. He scowled at Poindexter, but Poindexter just stared calmly back at him.
Then Tyson just shrugged his shoulders and looked away. After all, what else could he do? You don’t argue with a tank like Poindexter. Everybody went back to trying to act normal, without looking at either one of them.
The bell rang. We all looked up to the head of the room expectantly. Where was Mr. Marlin? Surely he had to be there today. He said he would be—and with a full explanation of what was going on.
The minutes started to tick by. This wasn’t a good sign. He should have been here by now. The other kids started to talk in low murmurs, to cover their nervousness. “Did you get a whiff of that stench, in that weird dark place yesterday?” said one. �
��Yeah, it smelled just like my brother’s room!” said another.
Suddenly there was a shadow at the door—it was Mr. Marlin! There was a collective sigh of relief as he entered the room in his same old lumpy grey suit.
“Good afternoon,” he said, surprising us all, since it really was afternoon. “I can tell by the bored looks on your faces that you are anticipating another typical day of science. I apologize for my absence over the last few school days, but it was just one of those times when nothing came up, so I had to get away.”
He pulled a whiteboard marker from his pocket while several in the class, screwed up their faces, trying to figure out what he had said.
“Now,” he said as he began to scribble meaningless markings on the whiteboard that didn’t make any sense, “if you’ve done your homework properly, you should be up to page 51 of your text. That means that today we get to study the fascinating life cycle of the earthworm. Will everyone close their eyes please?”
We all looked around at each other, not knowing what to do. He was supposed to explain about the evil wizard we saw yesterday! What was all this drivel about earthworms and closing our eyes?
“I can see by your quick response that you’re all far ahead of me,” he said, his back still to us, while he continued to scribble nonsense on the board. “But you’ll have to keep them closed longer than a mere blink, you know, if you really want to see what it’s like to be a blind earthworm and not see. Don’t you see?”
There was more confusion, but one by one we closed our eyes.
“Now,” continued Mr. Marlin, “as soon as everyone has their eyes closed, we will be able to get a real feel for the life of earthworms. Miss Peterson, you’ve got to keep them closed—a twitch is not enough. That’s right. And you, Mr. Harrison. Please close your eyes, and try to keep your Adam’s apple from bobbing up and down so much.”
I felt silly, sitting there with my eyes closed. What was going on?
“Has everyone got their eyes closed?” asked Mr. Marlin. We could still hear him scribbling away at the whiteboard. “Keep them closed, please. That’s right. Tightly closed.”
My nose twitched. It certainly smelled a lot like dirt in our classroom all of a sudden. Had everyone come in with a bunch of mud on their shoes?
“You may now open your eyes,” said Mr. Marlin. “That is, if you can.”
I tried to open my eyes—and couldn’t do it! In horror, I suddenly realized I couldn’t open them because I didn’t have eyes anymore!
But even without eyes, I somehow knew that I was completely surrounded by dirt! The dirt was packed up tightly against me on all sides, and I found that I could hardly move a muscle.
“Don’t panic!” came Mr. Marlin’s reassuring voice. “Don’t try to thrash about. If you do, you may alert some enterprising bird, or boy searching for fish bait of your presence. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Mr. Marlin, sir,” came the voice of Geake through the dirt from behind me. I could imagine him jumping up and down in his seat as if he needed to go to the bathroom, but of course I couldn’t see anything. “Are we earthworms?”
“A very astute observation,” said Mr. Marlin. “It’s obvious you’re headed for college someday, Mr. Geake. Yes, we are all earthworms. Isn’t the dirt wonderful? Doesn’t it just send shivers up and down your spineless spines to rub up against it?”
I had to admit it did feel rather pleasant for some reason. But at the same time, it was hard to fight down the feeling of panic and claustrophobia that I felt at being helplessly surrounded by dirt.
“Now, I have brought you all here for another reason,” said Mr. Marlin’s voice from the dirt in front of us. “Which is that Mr. Skinpeeler will not think to look for us here, and we may therefore discuss yesterday’s little adventure without fear of being overheard.”
There was a buzz of voices from the dirt around me. Suddenly questions started flying through the dirt like peas in a lunchroom food fight.
“Who was that guy?” “What was all that business about your hiding with one of us, all scrunched up and little?” “How come that dark place was so stinky?”
I could imagine Mr. Marlin holding up his hand to ward off the questions. “One at a time, please,” he said. “In fact, none at a time. Let me simply explain the situation, and then all your questions should be answered.”
“You see,” he began slowly, and it sounded like he was groveling back and forth through the dirt in front of us as if he was pacing in front of the classroom, “as you have no doubt guessed, I am a wizard.”
“I knew it!” cried Poindexter triumphantly.
“I can tell by the bored expressions which I can’t see on your wormy faces that this announcement is almost enough to put you to sleep. So, to help you along the road to slumber, let me just say that Mr. Skinpeeler is also a wizard, and came searching for me as he said. I wanted him to do just that, which is why I was absent from school all those days. I knew an enemy wizard was about, but did not know who it was. I knew if I waited long enough without showing up, he would come looking for me, and I would then know who I was up against, and how to deal with him.”
“But why does he want to find you?” questioned Geake in his squeaky voice.
“Please, Mr. Geake, you must try to rouse your curiosity and not simply sit blandly without asking any questions,” said Mr. Marlin. “It’s this way: I have in my possession a particular potion that he wants. It has unusual powers for anyone who drinks it. It tends to increase their native abilities many times over. I suspect Mr. Skinpeeler thinks that if he were to drink it, he would become the most powerful evil wizard in the world, which would of course make him rather a pleasant dinner guest, don’t you think?”
The questions started to shovel their way through the dirt once again. “How did you get the potion?” “What about all the other wizards?” “Why doesn’t he just come take the potion off you?” “Do worms go to the bathroom?”
“Please, class,” came Mr. Marlin’s voice from in front of us again. “You’re going to have to perk up and start asking questions. This silence is too much for me. Now, as I was saying—Oh, and by the way, that wet sensation is not having gone to the bathroom, it’s just that they’re watering the grass above us—he cannot take the potion from me because we are evenly matched. We’re both young wizards, with few skills as yet. If he had found me yesterday, he would not have fought me for the potion, but would have gone immediately to get his boss wizard to help him.”
“Do wizards have bosses?” came Mr. Geake’s voice. Mr. Marlin ignored him.
“However, I also have my own boss wizard nearby as well, who provides added protection for all of you. Indeed, now that we know that our enemy is Mr. Skinpeeler, my boss wizard and I are much more confident that we can foil his evil plans. So you needn’t fear for your safety.”
I wasn’t sure I felt any more secure. In fact, if anything I felt worse. Now I knew that there were two evil wizards out there trying to get at me--Skinpeeler and his boss!--not just one!
My fellow students must have been thinking the same thing. “So, how many evil wizards are there, anyway?” asked Poindexter as casually as he could, as if he had no real concern for the answer.
“Enough to fill a salt shaker,” said Mr. Marlin blandly. “The point is, now that we know Mr. Skinpeeler is our enemy, my boss wizard and I have taken a number of precautions. We had no idea he would attack you directly—that’s a very unwizardly thing to do, you see—so we have lodged an official complaint to the wizard licensing board. This is similar to one of your parents writing a letter of protest to the IRS about his taxes, and is likely to have the same result. While one would think that this complaint alone should take care of the problem, we also decided to request reinforcements, which we did. Therefore, within 20 minutes of yesterday’s attack a number of wizards from the wizmarine corps converged on your little school, each remaining invisible of course. You should be perfectly safe from now on.”
<
br /> “But why do you have the potion?” asked Steel. “If it’s that important, why not lock it away in some wizard’s tower somewhere, so it will be safe?”
“Because there happens to be a missing ingredient from the potion, which I am here to find,” said Mr. Marlin, surprising us all by answering a question directly for once. “I must have the potion with me to find it. Mr. Skinpeeler knows this, and is looking for the ingredient too. However, there is no need to let this concern you, especially since potion making and potion ingredients is not a subject taught in your school system. It is enough for you to know that my boss wizard and I have the situation under control, that we have requested reinforcements, and that you are now safe from any further attacks by Mr. Skinpeeler.”
“What about what Skinpeeler said about you scrunching yourself up small and living with one of us?” asked Mr. Geake in his annoying, whining voice.
“What’s that?” said Mr. Marlin, and I could imagine him holding his hand up to his ear. “You’ll have to speak more softly, Mr. Geake, or I’ll never be able to not hear you. As for where I have been staying, it’s enough for you to simply know that I have indeed been staying in something small that one of you owns—we wizards can do that, you know, which saves us a fortune in rent—but that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. It’s safest for you if none of you know what the object is where I’ve been staying, or who owns it.”
A dozen more questions flew through the dirt at once—everything from where the potion was hidden to whether the wizmarine corps would take any of us as recruits. “Please, class!” said Mr. Marlin firmly, and in my mind’s eye I could picture him holding up his hands for silence. “Your lack of curiosity is appalling! Given your failure to ask any questions, I shall reluctantly have to draw our worm lesson to a close. Of course, the fact that we are currently underneath the football field, and the players have just come out wearing shoes with sharp cleats that pierce the earth, it may be prudent for that reason as well to return to our classroom.”
I could hear a sudden rumbling overhead, as if a herd of elephants were stomping on the roof. The football team! I joined heartily in the screams of panic of the others in my class, as we could feel the earth being ripped to shreds above us. Above the din, I heard Mr. Marlin comment calmly, “Such a quiet class. I really hope next year they’re more lively.”
And then we were back! We were each seated at our desks, blinking dumbly at each other as if trying to get dirt out of our eyes. Mr. Marlin was still writing nonsense on the whiteboard, and the clock said it was almost time for the bell to ring.
“Mr. Marlin, sir!” said Geake, raising his hand and jumping up and down in his seat again. After our wet, under-earth experience, I couldn’t imagine that he needed to go to the bathroom.
“What is it, Mr. Geake?” said Mr. Marlin, turning to look at us as if surprised to see us there at all.
“You said you and Skinpeeler were young wizards, sir!” said Geake, in his normal, geeky way. “You don’t actually look young to me, and neither did Skinpeeler. It looks more like you should be retired already!”
Mr. Marlin looked at him for a minute, making him squirm. Finally he said, “Thank you, Mr. Geake, for that interesting observation about my age. I’m sure when your grandmother’s friends ask you to guess their age, you must certainly bring giggles to their lips with your low guesses. But to answer your question—“
He turned suddenly on Root who, true to form, was wearing an ugly green dress with massive tangles of flowers and vines on it. “Have you ever read ‘The Sword in the Stone,’ Miss Root?”
“Sorry,” stammered Root, “No, I haven’t.”
“Very well done,” said Mr. Marlin. “My, it’s going to be hard to find a book you haven’t read, isn’t it? But as I wasn’t saying, those who have read ‘The Sword in the Stone’ already know the answer to your question, Mr. Geake. In that book, it is stated quite plainly that wizards live backward in time, not forward. Which means that an old geezer like me is just a young wipper snapper, whereas all the young-looking wizards are actually just a bunch of old fogies.”
We all looked at him dumbly. “But if you live backward in time …” said Geake, trying verbally to figure out what the rest of us were stretching our brains to understand, “that means you know the future! It’s the past you don’t know! So, you already know whether Skinpeeler gets one of us, and—“
“Ah, Mr. Geake,” said Mr. Marlin with a condescending smile, “I’m afraid that answer is not correct. But, even someone as bright and charismatic as you can’t get the answers right all of the time.”
Just then the bell rang. “We’ll see all of your bright, smiling faces tomorrow, then,” said Mr. Marlin with a smile. “Have no further fear about what happened yesterday. You won’t be bothered again. Meanwhile, I wish you all a very boring evening.” He then turned to the board, tucked his marker between the folds of a marker eraser, and began to erase the board with a loud screeching sound. The eraser made bizarre, squiggly marks all over the whiteboard, which probably wouldn’t come out.
We all looked at each other. Were we safe, or not? Had he really explained things, or hadn’t he? I felt like I had as many questions now as I did at the start of class. And what was this weirdness about him being young and living backwards in time, anyway?
However, like everyone else, I got up slowly from my desk and made my way to the door. Mr. Marlin paid no more attention to us, and it was impossible to ask him anything over the horrendous screeching his marker-laden eraser was making.
Poindexter was waiting for me outside the door. Without hesitation he voiced what I had been thinking. “I still don’t get it. If Marlin knew all along that Skinpeeler guy was hanging around, why didn’t he call in the Wizmarines in the first place? And what’s this secret potion ingredient he needs, anyway?”
I just shrugged my shoulders in reply. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me either.
“Hey,” Poindexter said suddenly, giving me a playful punch on the arm that nearly sent me sprawling. “I’d invite you over to see my Piranha’s, but I’ve got to go to an orthodontist appointment. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I said casually. Poindexter was going to the orthodontist? It was almost impossible to imagine him wearing braces. But obviously, if anyone in school commented on braces after the orthodontist put them in, he’d probably rearrange their teeth so they’d need to go to the orthodontist themselves.
“See you tomorrow,” said Poindexter, sauntering off down the hall.
“Sure thing,” I called after him. “I’ll be seeing you.”
My Science Teacher is a Wizard Page 7