Spirit King: Return of the Crown

by Dashiel Douglas

  After a few seconds, she burst out of the principal’s office. Her eyes darted around before locking in on D’Melo’s door. She made a beeline toward it.

  D’Melo’s chest tightened. He hurried back to his desk, launching himself into his swivel chair. He overshot and sent himself rolling past the desk. He scooted back, feeling cartoonish. He made it just in time to recline in his chair, trying to look casual.

  She entered like a Midwestern tornado. D’Melo’s heart thudded against his ribs.

  “Are you D’Melo?” she snapped, without the courtesy of any one of society’s customary polite greetings.

  “Ahhh, yeah,” he gulped, his mind unusually flustered.

  “I was told you’re the person I need to talk to.”

  D’Melo didn’t really hear anything she was saying. Her voice receded to the background, lingering faintly, because, at that moment, everything besides her sparkling emerald green eyes was irrelevant. They held an extraordinary mix of intimidating power and melting tenderness. They were kind of like an army invading a country while eating soft-serve ice cream.

  She slid her backpack off her shoulder and rested it on the desk, but it landed precariously and promptly toppled to the floor. D’Melo shot chivalrously from his chair.

  “I can do it,” she said, asserting her self-sufficiency. When she rose, the strands of hair that had been dangling obediently in front of her left eye now broke ranks and tickled her nose. She blew a sharp upward breath to settle them back home.

  “So,” she dove right in, “my family pays taxes.” Her eyes burned a hole into D’Melo’s face. “And those taxes are used to operate this school, right?”

  “Ahhh, yeah,” he managed, fidgeting nervously with his loosely twisted hair.

  “So don’t you think I should be able to have a vegan lunch option so that I can eat?” she asked, without really asking. She tucked the wayward strands of hair behind her ear.

  D’Melo noticed that her pupils were haloed by a delicate hazel ring that flared out in streaks, like the golden blossom of a dawning sun.

  “Ahhh, yeah,” he murmured, forcing himself back to the conversation.

  She paused, probably baffled by D’Melo’s less-than-sane behavior. “But there wasn’t a vegan meal today. So I haven’t eaten. You can see I’m wasting away here,” she said, sliding her hand down the front of her body, which didn’t help D’Melo regain his sanity one iota.

  “Ahhh, yeah,” he mustered again.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you’re the student council president? Because so far you’re not really impressing me with all this, ‘Ahhh, yeah’ stuff.”

  D’Melo finally snapped out of his stupor. He straightened in his chair. “Well, we probably don’t have vegan food because you’re the first vegan in the school.”

  “Is that right?” she said.

  He could feel her baiting him like a Venus flytrap coaxing in its prey for the kill.

  “That’s interesting,” she continued. “Because I asked around. And guess what I discovered?”

  D’Melo held out his chin, attentively.

  “Well, it turns out there are at least six other vegans and even more vegetarians in this school.”

  “What?” D’Melo said, dismayed. “But no one ever said anything!”

  “That’s because people don’t want to cause trouble. They just accept that they have to bring their own lunch, even though they have a right to a school lunch. I’m sorry, but I won’t sit idly by and let this continue.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry. You’re right,” D’Melo said contritely.

  She furrowed her brows and bit her ample bottom lip. She was clearly suspicious, maybe expecting pushback disguised in disingenuous remarks about how she was going to die without protein.

  “Okay, let me see what I can do,” D’Melo said. “But in the meantime, you may want to bring your lunch. This kind of thing can take time. Last year, we asked for more books. Three months later, we finally had enough for everyone. But don’t worry, I got this.”

  She tilted her head, perplexed. “You got what?”

  “What do you mean?” D’Melo uttered, just as perplexed.

  “You said, ‘I got this.’ You got what?”

  “Oh!” he said, surprised. How could she not know what that means? She must not be from this area . . . or this universe for that matter. “It just means, I’ll take care of it.”

  She shrugged. “Then why wouldn’t you just say that?”

  D’Melo’s intrigue was growing by the moment.

  “Well, thanks,” she said, her tone much softer. “I appreciate you trying to help.” She hoisted her backpack and turned for the door.

  D’Melo couldn’t help himself. “Hey, I can show you around if you want,” he blurted.

  She hesitated. “Sure, thanks.”

  For a resource-poor school, Lincoln Downs High boasted several interesting clubs. He first brought her by the sports, chess, and math clubs—each of which he was president.

  “Is there anything you’re not the president of?” she quipped, earning a grin from D’Melo.

  “Well, actually yeah. The Zen Club.”

  “Wow. That’s really progressive. I’ve never heard of a school having a Zen Club.”

  “We needed a safe and peaceful place for students to meditate anytime during the day. Life in this neighborhood can be stressful.”

  “So who’s the president of the Zen Club?”

  “Well, technically, there isn’t a president. The head of the club is called the Zen Master.”

  She peered up at him. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

  D’Melo grinned.

  “Show off,” she said, pursing her lips. “Hey, you haven’t shown me the Environment Club.”

  D’Melo’s face blanked.

  “What! You don’t have an Environment Club?” The fire returned to her eyes. “Do you realize that our environment is under siege?” she asked, but again, without really asking. “Our planet’s warming by the minute. Our oceans are dying. Over a million species are at risk of extinction. And it will be irreversible by 2030!”

  “I hear you. But, to be honest, folks in this neighborhood don’t think much about the environment. People focus more on trying not to catch a bullet on their way to the grocery store. Plus, there aren’t a whole lot of trees in Lincoln Downs.”

  Her eyes widened. “I know you didn’t just reduce the environment to trees. How do the people in this neighborhood feel about having air to breath, clean water to drink, or uncontaminated food to eat?”

  D’Melo shrugged abashedly.

  “How do I start a club?” she said.

  “I don’t want to be a doubting Thomas, but I don’t think anyone will join it.”

  “I don’t care,” she replied obstinately. “I’ll be the whole club then.”

  “You need at least three people to register for a club to be approved. I’ll announce it in morning. Hopefully, some students will show up.”

  “You do the announcements too! Is there anything you don’t do around here?”

  D’Melo searched his mind sincerely. Not finding much, he said, “Well, this school and community have been very good to me.”

  “Well, I’m impressed with your commitment,” she said. “Thanks for the tour.” She pivoted to leave.

  “Hey,” D’Melo said. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  A tint of embarrassed pink rose in her cheeks. “I guess I just kinda tore right into you, didn’t I? Sorry.”

  D’Melo spread a tiny space between his finger and thumb. He put it to his eye. “Maybe just a smidgen.”

  She pretended to unscrew the top off a container. “Clunk,” she said, motioning as if dropping something inside it. D’Melo scratched his head, bewildered. She explained, “That was a good w
ord you just used, ‘smidgen’. So I put it in my good word jar.” She cupped her hand to show D’Melo an imaginary jar and then abruptly started to leave again.

  D’Melo cleared his throat. “But—your name?”

  “Oh yeah.” She tapped her forehead as if trying to jump-start her brain. She shot out her slender hand. “I’m Zara. Zara Zanič.”

  D’Melo’s ample hand swallowed hers. “It’s nice to meet you, Zara.”

  “You too, Mr. President… of everything!”

  Zara exited the school with a stumble. She clutched the metal rail along the steps. Her backpack flung upward, its weight nearly flipping her over the railing. She gathered herself and sauntered off, seemingly without a care about how she must have looked to her new schoolmates.

  D’Melo had never met anyone like Zara. He found it difficult to pin her down—she was focused yet aloof, powerful yet fragile, elegant yet goofy. She was a walking dichotomy. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, as she bounced across the bustling street.

  The next day, after no one showed up to his student council office—surprise, surprise—D’Melo nabbed Marley and Kazim and dashed to the club rooms. He was glad Zara was still there. She was sitting by herself, tapping her fingers exasperatedly on the desk.

  D’Melo introduced his friends. “This is Marley, and this is—”

  Kazim cut short D’Melo’s introduction. He seized Zara’s hand and cooed, “Mmm girrrl, I’ll hug a tree with you anytime.” He lifted her unaccommodating hand to his lips. Zara slipped out of his grasp just before he kissed his own palm.

  “I’m Kazim,” he murmured, in his best suave voice. “But you can call me Pimp Daddy.”

  Zara glared at him through the top of her eyes. “Well, as lovely as that name is, I think I’ll stick with Kazim . . . if anything at all,” she said, a little snarky, a little playful. “And, D’Melo,” she said, gathering her papers. “You were right. No one came to sign up.”

  “What do mean?” D’Melo threw his hands out to his sides. “What do you think we’re here to do?”

  A hint of a smile gleamed in her eyes. She slid the sign-up sheet across the desk.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said excitedly. “Principal Jamison assured me that the school will have at least one vegan option for lunch every day.”

  “Wow!” Zara said. “How’d you get that done so quickly?”

  Marley chimed in. “When Jamison wasn’t going to do anything—”

  D’Melo shook his head vigorously at Marley.

  “Please, Marley, continue,” Kazim said, smirking. “This sounds like it’s gonna be interesting.”

  “D’Melo went to the head of the school board’s house,” Marley said, ignoring D’Melo’s nonverbal plea. “In exchange for her support, she said D’Melo would have to give her children basketball training. “And he agreed,” Marley shot D’Melo a disapproving glare, “even though he knows he’s already stretched thin.”

  Zara’s eyes softened. “Aww, that’s so sweet. Why would you do all of that?”

  “Yeah, D’Melo,” Kazim goaded. “Tell us. Why would you do all that?”

  D’Melo gritted his teeth at Kazim, Oooh, man. You’re really pushin’ it!

  “Zara has a right to have meals she can eat,” D’Melo contended.

  “Ohhh, I see,” Kazim said sarcastically. “You’re such a righteous fella.”

  Kazim and Marley trifled home while D’Melo stayed behind to help Zara finish the club paperwork. She thanked him for his support, which he shrugged off humbly.

  “Well, I better get home,” she said.

  “Where’s home?” D’Melo asked, trying hard to sound like someone who didn’t have an ulterior motive.

  “I live two blocks from the Lincoln Downs Health Clinic.”

  “Oh, that’s close to my house. I’ll walk you,” he chirped, a bit more excitedly than he had intended. “You know,” he clarified, “just to make sure you get there safely. This can be a tough neighborhood.”

  “That sure is a gentlemanly act, my kind sir.” She played along in a Southern belle accent. “I mean, making sure lil’ ol’ helpless me gets home safely.” She batted her long lashes.

  “Nah, I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”

  “I’m messing with you, dude.” She motioned toward the door with her head. “Come on. Walk me home.”

  D’Melo found himself so intrigued by Zara that he was actually uncomfortable. A million questions jostled in his titillated mind. He didn’t know where to begin, so he blurted, “Why are you vegan?”

  “It’s a pretty rough story,” she said.

  Zara explained that when she was six, her mother brought her to the pig slaughterhouse where she worked. Not a minute into her visit, Zara burst into crushing sobs. Her tender heart couldn’t bear the sight of pigs locked in cages scarcely larger than them, unable to do as much as even turn around. They were forced to eat off the same cage floor on which they excreted their bodily waste. The pigs that succumbed to the dreadful conditions were tossed into a dumpster as thoughtlessly as someone would discard an empty milk carton. The stench from their rotting corpses lurked putridly in the country air. Zara then realized why her town reeked of death.

  The pigs that were unfortunate enough to survive to maturity—and therefore ready for slaughter—were suspended upside down on a revolving conveyer belt. Every clink of the metal bearings against the stainless-steel track brought them one step closer to the horrific death awaiting them. The bearings ticked, ticked, ticked, like the second hand on the clock in a prison execution chamber. As their trembling bodies rounded the final bend, their executioner, draped in dark plastic overalls dripping warm crimson, came into view. They now knew their misery-filled lives would end at the keen tip of a blood-soaked blade slicing through their throats. Their humanlike cries echoed in vain, bouncing from wall to wall and fading lifelessly into the chilly sterile air before ever finding a sympathetic ear. In a last-ditch plea for their lives, the pigs gazed haplessly into the eyes of the brandisher of the killing blade. But instead of the mercy their instincts must have yearned for, they found only a dark void where a human soul had once lived.

  As their motionless bodies continued to clink along the conveyer belt, their bellies were ripped open and insides yanked out. The most tasty pieces of their pale pink flesh were then carved for the market. All that remained was slopped together and flung into a meat grinder.

  “From head to hooves,” Zara emphasized. To keep her fury at bay, she tried to make light of it. She lifted cupped hands into the air and twisted them. “Get your hotdogs here!” she yelled from the side of her mouth, mimicking the vendors at baseball games. “And if you’re not a hotdog fan, no need to fret,” she shouted, still in character. “We also have bologna, sausages, and scrapple!”

  D’Melo swallowed hard, trying to push down the acid rising from his nauseous stomach.

  Over the past summer, Zara had interned at an organization that publicized animal cruelty. She went into the pig factory, pretending to visit her mother. Fitted with a hidden camera masquerading as a shirt button, she surreptitiously videoed the “den of evil,” as she called it.

  The video was featured on the local news. This led to the livestock company being sued by the people suffering from diseases caused by the factory. The company was also forced to provide more humane treatment to the pigs.

  Zara’s eyes flared angrily. “I think a better punishment would have been to string the factory owners up and have them experience what the pigs went through!”

  D’Melo was jarred by Zara’s extreme acrimony. While he admired her verve and righteousness, he found himself distressed by it. A part of him longed to be a rabble-rouser like her, but the thought of upsetting the balance of his life left an anxious pit in his gut.

  “Wasn’t your mom upset that you exposed her company?”

&
nbsp; The fire in Zara’s eyes faded into sobriety. “No,” she said dismissively. “My mom has always supported me, even when I go overboard.” A mischievous grin surfaced on her face. “Which happens on occasion.”

  Zara stopped at the corner of Cherry and Waldorf. “Okay, this is me,” she said.

  D’Melo eyed the building, puzzled. “But this is a drugstore.”

  “Yeah, I live with my grandparents in the apartment above the shop.” Zara pointed to the window on the second floor—the same window from where the light emanated when Jeylan was vandalizing the store. D’Melo’s heart hammered tumultuously. The world around him imploded in an instant, squeezing oxygen from his lungs.

  Meanwhile, Zara launched into the story of her grandfather, Tomáš Zanič (pronounced Tah mahsh). Although his family was German, he was born and raised in Nečzia, a mountainous country in Eastern Europe. He came to America to study pharmacology. After graduating, he worked for years at the drugstore. Without any notice, the store owner abruptly decided to sell the shop. Tomáš bought the store, although the owner cautioned him against it. “The blacks are taking over,” he said. To this Tomáš replied facetiously, “Really, I hadn’t noticed. It just seems like new people are moving into the neighborhood.”

  Zara shook her head, admiringly. “My grandparents stayed in Lincoln Downs when most of the other white families fled. Throughout my childhood, my grandfather would often say that if you run from a challenge, you can never be a part of the solution. They love this community. You couldn’t drag them away from here.

  “You know,” she continued, matter-of-factly, “some guys vandalized the shop the other night. They painted ‘Racist Nazi’ on the wall.” She paused to peer through the store window at her grandparents painting feverishly over the hateful scrawl. “I wish I could tell those guys how wrong they are about my grandfather.”

  Then Zara turned somber, as she recounted her great grandparents’ experience with the Nazis in Germany. Tomáš’ family spoke out vehemently against the discriminatory treatment of the Jews. Because of that, they were scorned in the streets, even by their own friends. And one night, their house was broken into by masked men, who threatened them at gunpoint. But this only steeled their resolve.