Brendan wasn’t so sure. He thought what he’d seen was kind of spooky and disturbing. He looked over at Kim and saw that she also was not impressed.
He turned back to the front of the class to find that Mr. Greenleaf was staring right at him. The teacher raised a dark, elegant eyebrow and smiled in a lopsided, knowing way as if he sensed Brendan’s discomfort. Brendan’s stomach turned over. His hand rose involuntarily to his chest. The itch over his heart seemed to intensify. Brendan felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him.
Mercifully, the door to the classroom burst open to reveal Ms. Abernathy, the vice-principal of RD Academy. Her green flannel trouser-suit was practically bristling with indignation. Her perma-frown 28 was on full blast.
“What is going on in here?” Ms. Abernathy demanded. All noise ceased immediately, sucked into the black hole 29 of Ms. Abernathy’s disapproval. The children stopped clapping and lay their hands on their desks. Some sat on their hands just to make sure they wouldn’t be incriminated. Others looked as though they would like to make their hands disappear altogether-anything to avoid detention under the baleful 30 glare of Ms. Abernathy.
It never paid to incur the wrath of Ms. Abernathy. She was the second in command to Principal Singh who was a very jolly, easygoing sort of person. Ms. Abernathy handled all discipline. If a student crossed the line, that student ended up in her office and could suffer anything from writing lines, to extra assignments, to weeks of detention, or could even be expelled.
Her line of sight now rested squarely on the students of grade nine chemistry.
“I said… what is going on in here!”
“Uh…” Belinda started.
“UH is not a word, Miss Tindal! Write that out one thousand times! Have it on my desk tomorrow morning.”
Belinda gulped and fell silent. The rest of the class stared at their desktops and tried to find a way to exist without breathing.
“My dear Ms. Abernathy.” The warm tone of Mr. Greenleaf could not be more different from the harshness of the vice-principal’s voice. “I’m so glad you could come and look in on us.” He glided gracefully between the desks and placed his hand on Ms. Abernathy’s elbow. The VP’s face took on a blank, puzzled expression. “I’m so delighted to meet you!” Mr. Greenleaf added pleasantly. Ms. Abernathy looked down at the elegant hand of Mr. Greenleaf, pale on the green flannel of her suit jacket and then she looked up into those grey eyes. That look was her undoing.
She locked eyes with Mr. Greenleaf and he smiled a warm, lovely smile. Something happened then that no one in the class had ever seen before. Ms. Abernathy’s perma-frown seemed to waver and then melt away altogether. The corners of her mouth, so conditioned to dip downward, quivered, convulsed, and then, bit by torturous bit, turned upward. Ms. Abernathy, to the shock of the entire class, was smiling.
“Oh. I uh… oh.” Ms. Abernathy blushed and practically giggled.
“I’m sorry if the children were being noisy, but I must take responsibility for the hubbub.”
“You?” Ms. Abernathy said, bewildered.
“I’m afraid so. They were so excited by the ideas we were discussing that…” Mr. Greenleaf’s eyes swept the room and he continued, “they just couldn’t contain themselves.”
Ms. Abernathy seemed completely stymied by this idea, but another smile from Mr. Greenleaf seemed to stun her into acceptance. “Oh, I see. Well. I guess some enthusiasm for learning is a good thing.”
“Indeed, my dear Ms. Abernathy, indeed. Well put!” Mr. Greenleaf guided her to the door. “Well, this visit has been a treat. I’m sure you have many things to do.”
“Yes. Yes, of course, Mr. Greenleaf. Many things to do.”
“Don’t let us keep you,” he said and let her drift out the door. “One last thing. Miss Tindal needn’t do those lines at all, need she?”
Ms. Abernathy turned in the doorway and a hint of her old rancour flared in her eyes, but before it could take root, Mr. Greenleaf fixed her with another of his glacier-melting smiles and she stammered, grinning, “Of-of course not!”
“Fine! See you in the staff room for lunch then? Maybe we could have a cup of tea together?”
“Yes, that would be-” Her response was cut off when Mr. Greenleaf shut the door firmly. For a second or two she stood framed in the window of the door looking mildly confused. At last, she turned and wandered away with a look of pure mystification on her face.
Mr. Greenleaf turned to find the entire class staring at him with undisguised awe. He grinned and sketched a comical bow then glided smoothly back to the front of the class. “Chemistry is a wonderful discipline. Chemistry is in everything. It allows us to manipulate the very essence of the universe. All things are connected, and the study of these connections is what human beings call science. Shall we get down to business?” Mr. Greenleaf picked up the chemistry textbook from his desk and began leafing through it.
Brendan was as shocked as everyone else, but he felt something stirring inside him. He had never seen Mr. Greenleaf before, but he couldn’t help feeling that he recognized him from somewhere. What the teacher said resonated within him. He couldn’t help himself. He raised his hand. Mr. Greenleaf pointed at him and Brendan blurted, “How did you do that? With the chalk and the bird. How did you do it?”
Mr. Greenleaf looked up from the book. He fixed Brendan with his gaze and his mouth quirked into a sly, not unfriendly grin. “The world is full of surprises, Brendan. Things are not always what they seem. People are not always what they seem. The trick is to be open to seeing what is really there.” He winked.
Brendan sat with his mouth hanging open, unable to respond.
Mr. Greenleaf snapped the book shut and tossed it onto the desktop with a thud. “Valences! Who can tell me what they are?”
Belinda’s hand shot up immediately. The class commenced but Brendan hardly noticed. He was feeling strangely dizzy. The substitute teacher had made him feel disoriented and he couldn’t concentrate.
“Wake up!”
“Huh!?” Brendan blinked.
“Class is over,” Dmitri said. “Time to go. Didn’t you hear the bell?”
Brendan sighed with relief. He was more than happy to get out of that classroom.
^27 While a nice sentiment, this statement is not true. There are many boring subjects. I would list them but then you would be bored.
^28 A perma-frown is a facial feature that displays permanent disappointment and disdain that many persons develop in conjunction with their jobs. Usually it is manifested as a deep furrow between the eyebrows and perpetual turndown at the corners of the mouth. There are rumours of a special plastic surgery facility that specializes in providing management officials with the perma-frown but these rumours are unsubstantiated.
^29 A black hole is not really a hole at all. It is a superdense sphere of matter that is the result of a star imploding. Gravity is so strong on the surface of the sphere that even light can be sucked into it. More tests will be required before it is known if disapproval would suffer the same fate.
^30 Baleful is a word meaning evil or full of suffering. Not to be confused with baleful in the sense that “the barn is baleful,” that is to say full of hay bales. I doubt you would confuse the two as someone’s eyes could hardly shoot out bales of hay, but still… it doesn’t pay to overestimate the intelligence of one’s audience.
OPINIONS
Brendan stood up and followed the flow of students out the door and into the crowded hall. He cast a glance back at Mr. Greenleaf, expecting the man to be watching him, but the substitute was leaning on his desk chatting with a gaggle of girls. Even Belinda, usually terminally shy outside of academic situations, was standing with the others, albeit at the back of the group. The gawky girl was obviously quite smitten with the new teacher just like every other female.
Well, not exactly every other female. Kim slammed her chemistry book into her knapsack and stomped out of the room without a backward glance. “Let’s get outta here,” she grumbled as she walked past Brendan. Dmitri and Brendan shared a bewildered look, waited for Harold to catch up, and then followed Kim out the front door.
They caught up to her at the bike racks where she was tying her bag to her scooter with a bungee cord.
