Brendan whirled to find Dmitri staring at him. His rapid movement caused him to lose his balance. He tripped and fell against the door, which rattled loudly in its frame.
“Nothing,” Brendan whispered. He grabbed Dmitri by the strap of his knapsack. “Let’s go get some fries. I’m hungry all of a sudden.”
“What? Fries? I don’t…”
Brendan pushed him along the hall and through the closest door to the cafeteria just as the auditorium door swung open. Brendan breathed a sigh of relief. I don’t think they saw me.
Dmitri was staring at him as if he were insane.
“What?” Brendan demanded, trying to lighten the mood. “I really wanted some fries.”
The rest of the day crawled by for Brendan. He went from class to class in a daze. He couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything his teachers were saying. More than once, he was reprimanded for not paying attention. His goal became to simply make it through the day and go home as quickly as possible.
He was determined to ask Kim about Mr. Greenleaf. She obviously knew the guy better than she said she did. Why had they been talking about him in the auditorium? If Dmitri hadn’t come along he might have heard something important.
He planned to wait for Kim after school and have it out with her. So he was quite disappointed when the close-of-day bell rang that she managed to slip out of physics without saying anything to him. He got caught in a clot of students, trying to swim against the current. In his typical clumsy way, he managed to drop his bag and spill the contents out everywhere underfoot. By the time he chased down all his pencils and pens, hurried down the main stairs, and burst out the front doors of the school, Kim was long gone.
He stood there, at a loss. He realized that he didn’t even know where she lived. He didn’t even know which direction she took. She drove a scooter and wore a silver helmet, he knew that but nothing else. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he knew very little about her. She had attached herself to their little group on the first day of school two months ago and had defended them from the worst of the first-year hazing.
He headed down the steps for the walk home. The sky was still bright but darkness came early at this time of year. The air was crisp and fresh. He took a deep breath and finally started to feel like himself when he felt a sudden burning on his chest that took his breath away. Before he could react to the sensation, a hand fell on his shoulder.
“Going my way, Brendan?” The smooth musical voice sent a shiver down his spine.
He looked up into the face of the substitute, Mr. Greenleaf.
^32 Pantsing was invented in ancient Persia only moments after the first pair of pants were invented. Pantsing is achieved by gripping the trouser leg of the victim, usually from behind, when said victim is unaware, and tugging the pants down firmly until they rest around the victim’s ankles. Experts are able to include the underpants in the action. As an added level of humiliation, the Pantser should wait until the Pantsee is engrossed in a conversation with someone he or she is desperate to impress.
A LONG WALK HOME
The instant Brendan felt Mr. Greenleaf’s hand on his shoulder, the itch in his chest suddenly flared. He gasped involuntarily and clutched his chest.
Mr. Greenleaf’s face showed obvious concern. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Brendan mumbled. He forced himself to ignore the burning itch and lower his hand. He smiled weakly. “Must be allergies or something.”
Mr. Greenleaf dropped his hand from Brendan’s shoulder and the boy felt an instant lessening of the discomfort. “Where are you off to now, Brendan?”
Brendan shrugged. “Home.” Brendan instantly regretted admitting his plans. “It’s quite a long walk; through the park and across the U. of T. campus, then down into the market.” He tried to make it sound far to discourage Greenleaf from walking with him.
“Ah, the same way I happen to be going. Shall we stroll together for a while? I don’t want to cramp your style. I’m just across the park, okay?”
Brendan shrugged again. “I guess.” He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t want to let it slip that he’d heard anything in the auditorium. Add to that the display in chemistry and the strange way he’d been feeling, he would rather not have had any company on the walk home, let alone this weird guy, but he couldn’t think of any way to get out of walking with him. He started out across the street and the substitute matched his stride.
He glanced sidelong at Greenleaf as they waited at the crosswalk for the green light. What’s the deal with this guy? To Brendan and all of the kids he knew, there were some things that just weren’t done. One of them was being seen walking around with your teacher after school. Teachers and students were supposed to move in different circles, and those circles were never meant to overlap. That was a law of nature and every high school kid respected it. But here I am breaking the Universal High School Code.
“Coming?”
The light had turned green while Brendan was musing. Mr. Greenleaf was looking back at Brendan from a few steps out into the crosswalk. His grey eyes twinkled with amusement.
After crossing busy Queen’s Park Circle, they ambled down the path that led under the trees of Queen’s Park.
“Parks…” Mr. Greenleaf broke in on his thoughts. The tone of his voice was bitter. “They always make me a little sad.”
“Sad?” Brendan looked around but didn’t see what was so sad about the green grass and stately old trees. Squirrels clustered around people sitting on blankets. The grey furry creatures begged for scraps, scrambling for crusts of bread and potato chips.
“Sad.” Mr. Greenleaf nodded. “Parks are a pale, tame version of the way the world used to be. Before the buildings and the cars and the roads, the world was green and lush, untamed and unpredictable. There were wild creatures. You never knew what might happen. It was darker and more alive. The trees and the rocks were more than objects, they had voices of their own.”
Oh my god. Brendan’s heart sank. He’s a nutcase. I’m stuck with a nutcase in the park. He quickly scanned the area to make sure that if this weirdo were to do something to him, there would be plenty of witnesses. He was relieved to see that quite a few people were taking advantage of the last warm days of the fall. People were walking dogs, couples were strolling the paths hand in hand and there were joggers and a woman with some twins in a double stroller. Brendan relaxed.
“You think I’m crazy.” Greenleaf chuckled. “I don’t mean they spoke out loud. Well, not all of them anyway. Still, they had their ways of reaching us.” He stared off into the distance for a moment as they walked along the path toward the other side of the park. Suddenly, derisively, the man growled, “Now even the poor squirrels forget their natural distrust of man. Their nature has been subverted. Now they beg for handouts instead of running and hiding from man.”
“Free bread is hard to resist,” Brendan said. They were passing a park bench where an elderly man in a baseball cap was holding crusts of bread out to the grey squirrels. The squirrels would actually scrabble up the legs of the man’s jeans and sit on his knee while they ate the bread. Most people thought it was cute, but Brendan had to admit there was something kind of pitiful about the way they begged for the food. The squirrels were fat and almost tame. 33
There was ferocity in Mr. Greenleaf’s tone that belied his cultured, elegant manner. Brendan turned his gaze on the park surrounding him and tried to imagine it as a wilderness filled with danger but couldn’t quite manage it. Granted, the squirrels could be quite vicious if you didn’t fork over a crust of bread in short order, but that hardly counted as dangerous.
“Brendan?” the teacher said suddenly. “You spell it wrong.”
“Huh?” Brendan grunted. “What do you mean, wrong?”
“In the old Irish language it is spelled B-r-e-a-n-d-a-n.”
Brendan said, “Yeah. That’s how my parents used to spell it, but when I got to school everyone kept spelling
