Darren gazed out the classroom window at a cluster of hornets hovering between white flowers on the pyracantha bushes. A cool breeze wafted into the classroom, carrying with it the subtle, but unmistakable scent of honeysuckle. Normally, this would be a pleasant way to start first period, but Darren sat at his desk, white-knuckling the metal support bar at his side and dreading the sound of the bell, the bell that would summon all students to first period. All students, including a witch that would sit in front of him.
Okay, he thought. She doesn’t know who I am or what I am. At least, I don’t think so. She doesn’t know I know she’s a witch. She doesn’t know I saw her floating in the gym. Wait! Mike had asked her yesterday if she’d been floating in the gym. Mike had as good as told Samantha he was a Pessum Ire, the sworn enemy of witches, the guy who was supposed to destroy her with fire. This was completely crazy; his grandfather was almost three-hundred years old, and he was supposed to kill this really cute girl at school. What little breakfast he was able to put down this morning was struggling to escape the same way it had gotten in.
A student dropped into a nearby seat. Darren jumped, then scowled at the innocent bystander. Two girls wandered over by the windows where one showed the other a picture on her cell phone. The bell went off like an air-raid signal. Darren flinched, bumping his knees on the desk top. The two girls giggled at him.
More students drifted in. None of them was Samantha. He checked out each face, as if America’s most wanted might be among them. Finally a dark face with a silly expression, wearing white sunglasses, appeared around the edge of the doorway. Mike peered into the room with only his head visible at waist height. He looked like he was scaling the wall at a perpendicular angle and had just reached the top to look over it. “Ah, there you are. You didn’t wait for me at your locker. What are you doing in here already?”
“Nothing,” Darren stammered. “Just… ready for first period.”
“I see.” Mike swept into the room and did a side-glide down the aisle as if it were a dance routine. “Early-bird and all of that.” He said each word distinctly, clipping his consonants and giving Darren a dramatic flourish as he dropped into the desk next to his.
“So,” Darren began, attempting to change the subject, “did your black sex-kitten show up to school yesterday?”
“Funny you should ask that.” Mike gazed over the top of his sunglasses. “Another little bird told me her first day will be today. And she’s going to be in my Art class.”
“Nice,” Darren replied automatically, his attention still on the doorway.
“Oh, yeah. I’m pretty sure I know what I’ll be sketching the rest of this term. Mmm hmmm.”
A few moments ticked by, and Mike examined Darren curiously. “You’re afraid of her again.”
“What? Afraid of who?”
“Afraid of who?” Mike mimicked. “That blonde bombshell you can’t stop obsessing about, you doofus. You’re back to floating-ghost mode, aren’t you? You’re afraid she’s going to come in that door and bewitch you. Although, she’s already done that apparently.”
As if on cue, Samantha bounced into the room, her textbook held close against her chest. Her hair bobbed along her shoulders in waves and curls. She smiled at them and floated down the aisle to her seat. She placed her book on her desktop, sat down, and gazed right at Darren. “How’s my new squeeze this morning?” She giggled.
Mike chuckled. Darren summoned a pathetic attempt at a smile and produced a laugh that should have placed him in jail for false impersonation.
“Good, good. You?” He was vaguely aware that he was hyperventilating, but nothing was going to tear that smile away from his face.
“What’s wrong with him?” Samantha asked Mike. “He looks frightened.”
“Oh, he’s terrified. When a cute girl likes him… well, you can just imagine what you’re putting him through, you she-devil!” He winked at her.
“A what?” Samantha gasped and turned white. “I assure you, I’m not a devil of any sort.”
Travis interrupted by plunking down in his seat. He glanced over at Darren and asked, “What gives? Are you dating Samantha now?”
Mr. Whitmore had followed Travis down the aisle with several papers in hand. “Sorry to interrupt,” he too, addressed Darren, “but I’m splitting up you and Mike on The Crucible assignment.”
“Why?” Mike demanded.
“First, because you always do assignments together, including homework. I’m never sure whose paper I’m reading half the time. And second, Samantha needs someone to partner up with and Travis’s partner switched classes. So, I’d like you to partner with Travis, and Darren with Samantha.”
“But that’s not fair!” Mike complained. “How do you know Darren and I haven’t already started our project?”
Mr. Whitmore merely glanced dubiously down at Mike.
“We might have! You wouldn’t know.” Mike’s argument sounded weaker by the moment.
Mr. Whitmore handed them each a copy of the assignment, then turned and walked back to the front of the room. Mike called after him, “He’s afraid of her!” He pointed to Darren. “Pair me with the cute girl!”
“Well, Darren?” Samantha ventured. “Are you going to be all right with this?”
“Sure, when do you want to get together?” He sounded like he was setting an appointment for a root canal.
“I’d invite you over tonight, but our place is a mess.” She scrutinized him for a moment. “Darren, are you okay? Is it because you have a girlfriend? Am I making you nervous?”
Darren noticed she didn’t apologize for making him nervous, merely pointed it out. “No. Actually, I like you. It’s not that, and it’s not Andrea. Although, I’m sure she wouldn’t like me going to your house. It’s just I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
The bell rang, beginning class and mercifully ending their conversation. Mike shook his head at Darren.
Samantha patted his hand. “It will be okay.” It seemed to him as if her face twitched, like a muscle spasm under her eyelid, but as soon as she turned around in her desk, a shiver shot down Darren’s spine, followed by a pleasant calm feeling draping over him like a blanket. And the thought occurred to him that it was silly to be afraid of her. In fact, he was suddenly anxious to spend some time with her and work on the assignment.
Mr. Whitmore called the class to attention. “We’ve read through a good part of this play. And remember your projects on The Crucible are due next Thursday, a week from today. Right now, however, I want to have a discussion about how this could happen. How could a group of people turn on their own neighbors and friends, accusing them of collusion with the devil, and have so many people believe their assertions?
“From what we’ve read to this point, we know these are very religious people. They have a good deal of faith in what their leaders say. But there is also doubt among many of them. And they soon discover that if they express their doubts, they too will be accused of being a witch. So, of course, many lose their nerve to speak up or defend anyone. Could something like this happen today? Could we ever become wrapped up as a society in a witch hunt if you will? Could one group accuse another of something ridiculous based on superstition and paranoia that creates such an environment of fear that no one dares defend common sense for fear of being accused of being part of the problem?”
After several moments of self-conscious silence, a girl in the front of the class spoke up. “I think you would have to be very superstitious to believe in things like these people did. I don’t think it could happen today, not with witches, because we all know there’s no such thing.”
Samantha’s hand shot in the air, and Mr. Whitmore pointed to her. Darren had the sickening notion Samantha was going to tell the class that witches existed because she’d been one her whole life.
“I think it’s wrong to suppose people in the seventeenth century were more superstitious than we are today,” Samantha said. “We’re just superstitious about different things. And the things we are superstitious about are things that we accept as readily as the people in The Crucible accepted religion or witchcraft.”
“Interesting,” Mr. Whitmore mused. “Things like what, Samantha?”
“For example, science,” she said confidently. “Today we believe in science much like those in an earlier period believed in religion or magic. Science is always true. It’s infallible to us. If science reveals a so-called truth, it quickly becomes a common belief and is no longer doubted.”
“Can you give us an example of what you’re talking about?” Mr. Whitmore urged.
“Sure,” Samantha replied. “In the 1950’s, thalidomide was considered an effective drug to lessen the effects of morning sickness in pregnant women. Later, after thousands of birth defects, science had no choice but to look closer at the drug and its effects on pregnant women. Women started off believing it was safe to take because science had sold them on the benefits. They had faith in the product because they had faith in science. Once science proved to be wrong, horribly wrong, science then labeled the drug as dangerous, and it was pulled as a legal drug.”
As soon as the subject of science was broached, Darren knew Felix Brody would have something to say. He did. And he didn’t wait to be called on. He merely spoke as if he were the last authority on the subject.
“Your logic is flawed.” Felix held his erudite, skinny head erect, while his voice oozed with condescension. “The FDA never approved thalidomide in this country, and very few birth defects in the United States were attributed to its use. And it was science that then forced the FDA to exercise greater caution and conduct more extensive and strenuous testing practices on all drugs in the future. Drugs in this country are safer to use than in any other country in the world.”
Samantha listened patiently and smiled benignly as he ‘corrected’ her. She then simply said, “Fen-Phen.”
“Oh, please!” Felix sounded exasperated. “The combined drugs fenfluramine and phentermine were approved by the FDA only because they had been approved individually.”
“Actually, Fen-Phen as a combined drug was approved by the FDA,” Samantha clarified. “Studies then found it was responsible for causing heart valve weakness in 30% of those who used the drug regularly. But this study was hardly scientific. The findings, which were released before the FDA could review them, caused the drug to be pulled from the market. The FDA did not do the study. Interestingly enough, the drug ostensibly responsible for heart valve failure, fenfluramine, was found in a study of a thousand Europeans to have no significant effects. But my point is we simply believe what we hear if it has been approved by,” and she used air quotes as she said, “science. And it doesn’t seem to matter if science changes its mind. We go right along with it, having, as it were, faith in it.”
“Science and religion are not the same things,” Felix countered. “Science is backed up with studies and empirical evidence. It can be proven over and over again.”
“My point is simply that science,” Samantha continued smoothly, “cannot be relied upon with any more assurance than religion could three-hundred years ago. Yet, we superstitiously go along with it, at times at great risk to ourselves.”
“The examples you’ve used have each been disproved by the proper application of the scientific method.” Felix smugly crossed his arms in triumph.
“Explain if you would,” Samantha said, looking harmlessly over at the smartest student at the school, “the phenomenon of global warming.”
Felix shot Samantha an incredulous and hateful glare.
“Assuming that global warming itself can actually be proven,” Samantha concluded.
“Of course it can be proven! No one believes global warming isn’t actually taking place.”
“Believes?” Samantha’s voice rose as she threw the word back at him.
“Okay, take belief out of it. It really doesn’t matter what one believes. The truth is that it is taking place. This has been scientifically proven.”
“The same science you claim has proven the rise in global temperatures, and I’m talking about the ground readings as well as satellite atmospheric readings, has also found that global temperatures have been dropping since 2002.”
Felix was flustered. His expression was unlike anything Darren had seen before. He reacted to Samantha’s tidbit like a secret he didn’t think anyone else was aware of but himself. “That doesn’t disprove global climate change!”
“Yes, but the climate is always changing. It’s ridiculous to claim it isn’t changing, so science has reached no new conclusions if it doesn’t claim either heating or cooling.”
“You’re twisting the conclusions that have been reached. Drastic global change is occurring because of the increase in carbon dioxide, the majority of which is coming from industrialized nations, like the United States. Our way of life is actually destroying the climate.”
Samantha smoothly continued her argument. “Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increased from 2000-2006, compared to the amount it increased by during the 1990’s. Yet, despite the emission rates and concentrations, there has been no net warming in the twenty-first century. In fact, there has been a decline.”
Unable to stand it any longer, Felix, red in the face blurted, “And where do you get this information?”
“From an EPA report, March 2009, by EPA analyst Alan Carlin. This is a government source, a government sanctioned department of science.”
Not to be outdone Felix, exasperated, played his last card. “Each of the examples you used to support your arguments was undermined by human misunderstanding of science. It was not science itself to blame. It was people.”
Samantha smiled and stood up at her desk. “Thank you. You completed the argument.”
“What?” Felix was stumped, his head cocked to one side and an expression of total disbelief on his face. Darren found it hard not to laugh. Mike laughed right out loud at it.
“Global warming is a scientific fact only to those people who agree with it. They have made an interpretation, where others have made a different one. Science is not to blame, it was the interpretation men put upon it.” Samantha ignored Mike’s guffaw. “Therefore, is religion wrong in saying witches must be killed? Or, as is the case in this play, did men simply misinterpret, or miss-apply, their knowledge of their own religion. Because as the play makes quite clear, these girls were not real witches. It was all a hoax. Therefore, I submit that their superstition was responsible for the deaths of these people, not their religion. And it is our superstitious belief in science that was responsible for the thousands of thalidomide birth-defects, and the use of Fen-Phen, and the current religion of faith that continues to bang the gong that we are all doomed to a fiery death in a few short years because we drive cars and exhale on a regular basis.”
Both her momentum and the class’s general dislike for Felix led to the applause that erupted. Mike and Darren both took to their feet and got several others to jump up as well in a standing ovation.
Mr. Whitmore attempted to calm the class down and get them back in their seats, but it took awhile. It didn’t help that he smiled broadly as he tried to get control of the class. Then, half laughing he said, “Samantha, you better be careful. You’ve just come dangerously close to proving that witches actually exist.”
Oh no! Darren thought. Here it comes.
“They do.”
Only it wasn’t Samantha who said this.
Everyone glanced back in the right hand corner of the room where Tiffany sat. Her dish-blonde hair hung lifelessly around her tan face. Her hemp shirt had slid to one side, revealing a tattoo on her shoulder of a large ankh, the center of which was filled with the image of an ocean and a golden sun setting into it.
“I’m just saying,” Tiffany drawled. “Witches have existed since the Bible. They aren’t evil. Most of us only use white magic.”
Darren rolled his eyes, and Mike smiled so big in anticipation for her comments, his teeth were in danger of blinding the teacher. This was one of those great days to be in class. Tiffany, a self proclaimed Wiccan, had been making comments throughout the entire Crucible unit. There was no way she was going to be left out of this discussion.
“What?” This time it was Samantha who’d been surprised. “Are you saying you’re a witch?”
Becca, a shorter, dirtier version of Tiffany, spoke up. “We are followers of Wicca. So, yes, we are witches. But not like they’re portrayed in books. It’s more a natural thing, nature’s way of participating with the universe. All those other images of witches are bull-crap.”
Darren caught a quick glimpse of Mr. Whitmore suppressing a grin and shaking his head.
“We only practice white-magic,” Tiffany continued. “Occasionally, if we need to, we ward off those who try to bind others and cause a disruption in the natural order of things.”
“Oh,” Samantha replied. “I see.”
Without thinking, Darren tapped Samantha on the shoulder and said, “I should have warned you about them.”
“How ironic, given the subject we’re studying right now.” She smiled at him and turned back in her seat.
“Yeah.” He laughed.
After a few moments passed, and Darren remembered his conversation with Atavus the night before, it occurred to him it wasn’t as ironic as it sounded.
***
At lunch Darren sat next to Andrea, who was unusually quiet. She glanced up at him every so often as if she were about to say something, then changed her mind. Mike sat on Darren’s other side, peering out at the lunchroom entrance. T.J., Tony, and Seth sat across from Darren and Andrea, talking with Lindsey and Sandy who were at Andrea’s left.
The group’s banter had just begun as usual at their table. Darren was still thinking about how funny first period had been and about the things Samantha had said, when he saw her with a tray of food, heading toward their table.
Darren couldn’t deny something was drawing him to her. He liked and hated this feeling. His fear of her had abated, despite all the things he’d learned about himself from Atavus. Samantha may be a witch, but it seemed impossible that she could be a danger to anyone. Atavus had had only bad experiences with witches. He’d never met anyone like Samantha, and if he did, it would change his mind about them.
As she approached, Darren saw the two Wiccan’s from first period, Tiffany and Becca, along with four other girls and a couple of boys. They were at the other end of the lunchroom, their eyes glued on Samantha’s every move. And as their eyes followed her, their lips appeared to be reciting something in unison.
“Hi,” Samantha said, taking a seat next to T.J. “What’s going on?”
Andrea looked up, and her eyes grew narrow at the sight of the cute blonde girl.
Having missed Andrea’s reaction, Darren answered Samantha. “Those two.” He nodded in the direction of the two witches and their friends. “I’m not certain, but I think they just cast a spell on you.”
Samantha glanced over her shoulder at the two girls and their posse, who quickly became seriously interested in their food. She turned back and smiled. “I’m not too worried about them. I don’t believe in Wicca.”
She turned her attention back to Darren, and he felt as though someone with really cold breath had just breathed down the back of his shirt. It made him sit up straighter. He was about to say something about it, but a sudden ruckus across the room prevented him.
Tiffany and her friends jumped up, holding their noses and pointing at the salad Tiffany had been eating. The Wiccan had dropped the container it was in and bent over gagging. The others’ complaints and gagging noises caught the attention of the entire lunchroom.
Darren heard one of the students gripe, “Something died in there!”
And another said, “Who puked?”
Samantha smiled. “I wonder what happened over there.”
“I’d say Tiffany’s salad went bad… suddenly,” Darren suggested. Samantha simply continued to smile.
Mike and the others at their table were laughing at the flustered students across the room.
“So much for an all natural diet,” Mike quipped. “Man Tiffany is making my day.” He chuckled.
After the distraction across the room settled down, Darren looked back up from his meal and caught Samantha’s eyes. Andrea, seeing this, glared coldly across the table at Samantha.
Darren considered what had taken place across the room and Samantha’s portrayal of innocence. He had to ask her, “What about Whitmore’s question today? You don’t believe in Wicca, but do you believe in witches?”
She smiled back at him, and they locked eyes in a playful way. Mike muttered under his breath. “Dude, you are a one-note song with this witch thing.”
“What’s happened?” Tony asked Samantha. “Did you bother the two witches today?”
“First period,” Mike explained, “Samantha got this whole conversation about religion and science going. You should have heard Felix. You know how he is. She practically made him prove that witches exist. Then Mr. Whitmore, noticing her argument depended on the existence of real witches, tells her to be careful because you know, no one actually believes in witches. Next thing you know, ‘Tiffany-the-epiphany’ starts going on about only using white magic and how witches are real, because let’s face it, she’s a witch.”
The others laughed at Mike’s recap.
“Whatever she was doing over there a minute ago, it didn’t seem like white magic to me.” Darren’s eyes were still locked on Samantha who sweetly returned his gaze with a flirtatious smile.
Andrea burst to her feet, her face a flame. “Can I talk to you?” She glared witheringly down at Darren. Sandy and Lindsey, all too aware of what had disturbed their friend, shot daggers at Darren that should have killed him on the spot.
Darren broke from his trance, and his cheeks colored. He jumped up. “Sure.”
Andrea marched him over to an empty table by the windows that overlooked the outside courtyard. “In third period today, I was told you were dating someone else. I was also asked if it was true that we had broken up. I told everyone they were crazy. Things are the same between us.” Andrea’s small hands were on her hips, and from a distance, she appeared to be striking a cheer pose. Only, her open hostility ruined the effect. “I finally asked Travis who it was you were supposedly seeing now, and he mentioned the new girl, Samantha. Now, I sit here at lunch and you can’t keep your eyes off her. Why don’t you just go sit next to her? I can tell you’re dying to.”
Darren’s stomach plummeted as if he were riding an elevator with a severed cable. He knew he should express how he had no desire to sit next to anyone but her. That she was mistaken, and that Travis was an idiot and didn’t know what he was talking about. And this whole thing was a huge misunderstanding.
He kept his hands in his pockets because he didn’t trust them to hold still. There really wasn’t anything going on between him and Samantha, but he knew his feelings were… changing. He knew he liked Samantha, perhaps more than he should, but he had no idea what she thought of him—not exactly. She could easily just be flirting with him and nothing more. How had things come to this point so quickly? He’d barely even spoken with her. Now Andrea believed things were over. Were they?
“Andrea,” Darren stammered. “You have it all wrong.” He reached out and took her hand. “First of all, I barely know Samantha. Second, Travis overheard us talking and totally took it out of context. What happened is that Mr. Whitmore put us together on an assignment. That’s all. Travis mistook it for a lot more because he’d just gotten there and overheard us making plans to work on it together.” Darren stroked her shoulder. “Seriously, this is a rumor that’s gotten out of control; that’s it.”
Andrea gazed at the ground. Tears clung to her lashes. Darren reached under her chin and tipped her head up. “Honest, Andrea, there is nothing going on between Samantha and me. The only people something is going on between is us—I hope.”
A quivering smile flashed across her face. She appeared so vulnerable Darren felt a little gut-punched. He wasn’t sure how much of what he’d said he’d meant. In truth, he was confused. He still liked Andrea; he’d been dating her for more than a year. But there was something captivating about Samantha. He couldn’t deny it. However, now didn’t seem like the right time to admit his confusion.
“Why were you looking across the table at her?” Andrea’s liquid brown eyes bore straight into his, and a tear slid down her cheek.
Darren squeezed her hand. “Andrea, all I was thinking about is how I need to talk to her so we can set up a time to work on this assignment. I was just waiting to ask her, and that’s all. Then all that business with ‘Tiffany-epiphany’ happened.”
She swung their hands a bit, reminding Darren of kids playing Red-Rover. He suspected she might be somewhat mollified. A small smile formed on her lips. Casting her eyes sideways in a shy gesture, she said, “You didn’t come by my house last night. You weren’t…” she trailed off.
“At her house?” Darren finished for her. “I don’t even know where she lives. No, I left Tony’s last night and was going to come by your place, but I ended up worrying about Atavus. He and I got talking until late, and I was afraid to call you. I’m sorry.”
“You could come by tonight. Help me with the posters to advertize the state game.” She gazed up at him, her eyes clearing, along with her mood. Darren was once again struck with how cute she was with her short dark hair, dark eyes, and beautiful skin. She was shorter than Samantha by about an inch, but she was slim and had a playful confidence about her that had won his heart over in the first place. And now she was back, charming him all over again.
“Okay, but I can’t stay long. We have practice in the morning.”
“On a Friday?” she asked.
“Yeah, Coach doesn’t want us to lose our momentum. State is all next week.”
“All right.” She smiled again. “We better get back to the table.” She glanced at him through her long lashes, and instinctively Darren leaned down and kissed her.
“Oooooh!” howled his friends.
Darren grimaced and rolled his eyes, primarily at Mike who was sitting on top of the table like a kid watching early morning cartoons. T.J. and Tony clapped and hooted at them. Seth nodded. Lindsey and Sandy had their hands to their mouths, as if they had just seen the ending to an extremely romantic movie.
Samantha smiled too, as if glad to see two old friends getting back together again. But Darren didn’t want to be seen looking at her, so he wasn’t sure if there was more to her response than what he’d glimpsed.
As soon as they returned to their friends, Mike hopped down from the table. Staring at the doorway, he held his hands out behind himself as if he were holding back a crowd. “Hold it! Everybody, just hold it.”
They all glanced from him to the door of the lunchroom where a strikingly beautiful black girl made an entrance.
“That’s her! The girl I told you about.” Mike was breathless, which was totally unlike him.
Darren’s eyebrows shot up. She was everything Mike had claimed she’d be. And Darren and his group were not the only ones to focus on her. The entire lunchroom stopped what they were doing or saying to gaze at her.
The mysterious girl wore a short cherry-red ruffled halter-dress topped by a yellow leather cropped jacket with ruche half-sleeves. She wore several long necklaces and a silver engraved cuff on her left arm. Heeled yellow strap sandals completed her look.
“She looks like a super model,” T.J. whispered.
She glided to the beverage machine, seemingly unaware that the entire lunchroom was locked on her every move. Sandy and Lindsey shared a wide-eyed glance at each other, mouths agape, then stared back at the dazzling beauty. They knew an attractive girl when they saw one, and this girl had just recalibrated the scale.
From the machine, a bottle of diet Coke landed in her long slender fingers; she stood back up and smoothed one of her long, loosely curled tresses behind her ear. Her pouty lips curved into just a hint of a smile, and her beautiful dark eyes quickly scanned the room. Once again, acting as if none of the attention mattered to her, she moved with feline grace toward the lunchroom exit, as if she had completed her tour on the catwalk and was now going back stage to change into another stunning design.
The moment the girl was gone, the lunchroom broke into talking. Darren hadn’t even noticed how silent it had become while she was in the room, but now the sound of buzzing comments was deafening.
“She was amazing!” Lindsey said to no one in particular. “Like a model from a magazine.”
“Her skin isn’t darker than yours,” Darren pointed out to Mike. “She’s more the shade of Halle Berry or Zoe Saldana.” He quickly peered at Andrea and added, “Not that I noticed or anything.” Andrea playfully punched him in the side.
Seth silently nodded, then in a low voice said, “That’s the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.” Shelley didn’t say anything, but the look she gave her boyfriend should have reduced him to fragments.
“Yeah,” Mike quickly agreed. “But don’t get any ideas. She’s already taken. She’s mine.”
“Oh, how do you figure?” Tony demanded.
“You might have noticed in this white-bread school of ours that she and I are two of a kind.” Mike grinned as he considered the possibilities.
“Oh, just because you’re both black?” Tony wanted to know.
“No.” Mike shook off his reverie and smiled down at Tony. “Because we’re both beautiful people.” He thought a moment and added, “Beautiful black people.”
That comment made them all smile, so no one noticed the particularly pleased grin on Samantha’s face. Nor had they noticed earlier when the beautiful girl had surveyed the room, that Samantha had given her a subtle nod in Mike’s direction.
***
Generally Mike enjoyed art class. He excelled at a lot of things, for example Taekwondo, fencing, or in this case, art. He could sketch with reasonable accuracy, mix colors, use oils, charcoal, pencils, pens, watercolor—it didn’t matter. Mr. Grayson, his art teacher, usually commented favorably on his work and looked forward to putting several of his pieces in the exhibition they held each year.
Today was going to be an even better day than usual. The new girl would be there, and he was ready to begin his masterpiece. He purposely waited until the last possible moment to make his entrance into class. With less than ten seconds before the bell rang, he sauntered to his seat, sunglasses covering his eyes as he panned across the room. He found her sitting by herself on a stool at a table. As the bell rang, he picked up his stool and art supplies and joined her. The other students watched him with a mixed reaction of fear and awe. The girl didn’t look at him, merely kept her gaze forward as if bored with everything.
As per Mr. Grayson’s regular habit, he silently took roll as the students talked. Mike turned to face the girl and focused his full attention on her. He peered over his sunglasses, and let his stare work its magic. The beautiful girl, for her part, didn’t flinch or acknowledge him in any way. She remained completely aloof.
“What’s your name, girl?” Mike asked.
“You talkin’ to mi, mon?” Her voice was smooth and musical, and her unexpected Jamaican accent momentarily threw Mike off his game. She leveled a cool look with her beautiful eyes on his and waited for him to respond.
“Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you.” He smiled his toothy grin that always worked on girls.
“I be Serena,” she cooed, in a sultry cadence. “And what be your name?”
A dizzy giddiness swept over Mike. This girl’s face and accent were almost too much for him. Almost. “I be Mike.” He smiled again at her.
“Irie, mon. Irie.” She tossed her head, shaking her hair back into place and jangling her descending silver hoop earrings, creating a slight wind chime sound.
Clearing his throat, Mr. Grayson, a man so skinny with protruding features that made most students immediately think of Ichabod Crane, called the class to order. “Class, today I want you to continue with the charcoal drawings you began the other day.” He turned his attention on Serena. “Young lady, you can begin the assignment now. The charcoal pencils are at each table, and you can use the model in the center of the room.” He pointed at a series of objects on a table: seashells, a cone, a picture frame, and a child’s model airplane, all casting long shadows from an overhead light. “You may also select another subject if you wish, as long as it is not sexual, vulgar, or violent in nature.” He handed her several leafs of Strathmore 500 Series Charcoal Paper.
Serena nodded, and Mr. Grayson moved on to other students in the class.
Mike smiled and opened his own pad of Strathmore Paper. He kept his position angled toward Serena and began sketching her.
“You gwen to remove de dahkers?” she asked, pointing to his sunglasses.
“Yeah.” He chuckled and set his sunglasses down on the table.
Serena arched her long neck away from Mike. After several moments, she slowly turned her attention back to him.
“Don’t move,” Mike ordered. He glanced up quickly at her and back at his pad of paper, his hand moving quickly across the page.
“You drawin’ mi portrait?”
“Oh man, am I drawing your portrait! Turn back ahead, please. This is going to be a three-quarter view.”
A slight smile crossed her lips as she gave him a sideways glance. Slowly, she turned back toward the objects on the center table and began her own sketch.
Mike worked away for several minutes before asking, “So, you’re from Jamaica?”
“Yah, Jake,” she replied. Without looking at him, she continued to sketch the objects on the table. “I be born deh.”
“And you moved to Cache Valley, Utah because?”
“Mi fadda stoosh.”
Mike stopped his drawing and stared at her completely perplexed.
“Im gotta lotta money. Im open a plant in Cache Valley for de taxes. Also, Im want mi learnin’ in de States.”
“So, where do you live?”
“Hyde Pahk,” She peered up at the objects on the table, then back at her paper. “You heard a dis place?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of this place, seeing as I live there.” He continued glancing at her and working on his drawing.
“Dis de coldest place I evah live,” she mentioned as they continued to draw.
“You think March is cold, you should have been here in January. I don’t suppose you’ve ever snowboarded before.”
She smiled and giggled just a little. “I don tink so, mon.”
“We’ll have to go some time. You’ll love it. So, what did you do in Jamaica, before coming here?”
“Same ting dey do everwhere. Mi go to de school, sing in deh choir, flex wit mi fren’.”
“You sing? That’s excellent. What does ‘flex with your friends’ mean?”
She glanced at him, smiled, and said, “Hang out.” Then she turned her attention back to the objects on the table she was drawing.
“You’re not into ganja are you?”
“Dahs mainly de Rastafarians. I no Rastafarian, and I no smoke de ganja.”
“Good,” Mike replied.
“De drugs I do are much stronga dan ganja!”
Mike stopped drawing and stared at her. What had she just said?
She glanced at him, and he realized he’d been played.
He laughed. “Nice. Very good. I couldn’t have pulled that off better myself. I thought you were just beautiful. Nice to know you’re also half-baked.”
Her smile widened as she looked ahead and continued to sketch.
The class passed quickly. They worked on their projects with intermittent talking. Mike was feeling good about his drawing of her. It was coming together better than he had hoped. After much nodding and agreeing with what he was accomplishing, Mike finally announced in a heavy French accent, “She is finished.”
“Is she, now?” Serena said, still focused on her sketch. “And is she bashy?” Mike’s puzzled expression led her to explain. “Is she good?” She gave him a flirty side-glance, then returned to her own project.
“Oh, she’s good,” Mike assured her. “She’s real good.” He examined his charcoal sketch admiringly. “I think I’d go as far as to say bashy.” He held his pad out for her to see. The sketch of Serena was excellent. He had used several different shades to create an accurate likeness of her. She inspected his work and nodded with an expression of surprise at his evident skills.
“You must be a pro. Dat cris, dat very cris.”
“Well, I hope that means you like it.”
The bell rang, and the students in the class picked up their art supplies and headed to the front to turn in their drawings. Mike waited for Serena to gather her things together. More than likely she would write the date on her paper and turn it in at the end of the term as a notebook piece.
“Hey, let me see your drawing.” They were both headed toward the door.
“Ah, it’s noting, mon,” she said, brushing her own work aside. As they passed Mr. Grayson’s desk, she slid it out of a folder and laid it gently down. Mike caught a glimpse of it and stopped in his tracks.
He moved back to the desk and stared in stunned disbelief at his own face looking up at him from the center of the page with incredible life-like detail. In the upper left-hand corner, a smaller image of him set in profile, and in the upper right, his face drawn in a three-quarter view. The images were done with such precise detail Mike couldn’t imagine how she had done them with charcoal pencils. They could have been the product of a laser printer, yet the charcoal on the page told a different story.
The thing that really caused the blood to leave his head was the fact that she had scarcely glanced in his direction. She had been facing the center of the room, intent on drawing the objects on the table—or so he had thought. His mind was jammed between gears for a moment, grappling with what it meant. It wasn’t just complimentary to him personally. It demonstrated she had some sort of freakish unheard of talent. His blood chilled as he realized what she had done was impossible. It had to be. The feeling of impossibility so overwhelmed him he’d have been no less disconcerted if his own sketch of Serena had winked up at him from the page.
Reining his thoughts back to the here-and-now, he turned to say something to Serena, but she was gone. The hall was crowded with students, and some inner clock told him he had less than a minute to make it to his next class. Quickly, he turned and rushed out the door.