Marty uncrumpled the assignment and was embarrassed when she saw the F. “I told you that you didn’t do the assignment like he wanted it.”
“Not helping,” I said.
“Okay. Do you need a Kleenex?”
I wiped away stinging tears with my fingers. “No.” I sniffed. “Let’s go to science.”
Marty followed me. My fellow students kept a constant bubble of space around me. Teachers stood outside their doors and gave me the evil eye.
“A C I could understand,” I said. “But an F! Stodgy’s never given me an F before!”
“Maybe it was meant to be a motivator,” Marty said.
“Still not helping.” I controlled the quaver in my voice. An F. What would my parents say?
In the science classroom, Mrs. Lester clacked buttons on her computer, taking attendance. “Abby?”
I hid the English report in my backpack. “Yes, ma’am?”
She handed me my notebook. “You and Marty guessed right on the observtainer.” Then she saw my face and her lips grimmed.
“Hard morning?”
I didn’t look at her.
“Sit down. Science will make you forget all your troubles. Trust me.”
Mrs. Lester began typing notes on the smart board. Behind me, I heard giggling. I turned around, expecting to have a kick me sign on my back or something. They were laughing at me all right, because when I turned around, the girls around Coral were smarmy at me.
“Jo,” said Mrs. Lester, “we have a final exam soon. If you don’t stop passing Coral notes, I’m going to send you to the office. Got it?”
Jo popped her notebook back in her purse. Coral contemplated me like a cat would eye a goldfish.
“Now, today, we review the transition metals of the periodic table. Open your book to page thirty-four.”
Page thirty-four. Transitional metals. Gold, silver, platinum, tungsten. From the center section of the periodic table. Tungsten’s letter symbol is W because it used to be called wolfram, which is just a cooler name.
We started with silver. Ag. Mrs. Lester circled to the front of her desk and leaned on the edge. “They used to use silver nitrate to make film. Does anyone know where else silver was used in the past?”
None of us did. We were the eager kids sitting at the fount of knowledge, hoping to drink.
“Bullets,” one of us said. The class laughed. I’d like to point out that wasn’t me. It doesn’t always have to be me.
Bev raised her hand. “My grandma gave me a compact. It has a silver-coated mirror.”
“Very good, Bev. Mirrors, film, and of course jewelry. Where else?”
A theory was nibbling on the back of my brain. The sensation must have been what a Ritz cracker felt like pre-cocktail party. I shot my hand up. “Mrs. Lester?”
“Abby?”
“They don’t use silver on mirrors anymore?”
“No, Abby. Most mirrors are now coated with a cheaper metal. Usually aluminum.”
“When did they stop using silver in film?”
Mrs. Lester chuckled. “You’re going to have to look that one up. I don’t claim to be a silver specialist. Let’s take a look at the atomic structure of silver.”
My hand copied the notations on the board while my mind mulled over silver. I didn’t need to look up when they’d stopped using silver nitrate in film. I could guess. I guessed that it would be about the time they stopped making black and white movies.
So, a vampire like Mr. Christopher couldn’t be in the original Dracula. They had to get an ordinary guy to do it. But when color film happened, it’d be easy for a vampire, for any number of vampires to have a film career. Silver. It had to be the key.
That was the work around. I had Mr. Christopher. Dead to rights. Undead to rights? Anyway, I had him. I wanted to see him, because if there was one vampire work around, there might be several. That would explain a lot.
I was caught in a bad drama, on the outs with just about everyone. A few teachers and students treated me like a normal person, but everyone else stared at me like I was a plague victim or a gross bug which deserved to be squished.
I couldn’t give my fellow students any points for originality. People at Wolcroft think my monster obsession is odd, but I’m funny, and that usually keeps them from treating me badly. I throw their issues with me back in their face. Not anymore.
My locker had “I see monsters” painted on the outside, and inside one of my shelves was coated with mashed bananas. My Frankenstein picture was ripped in half. Bev kept asking me if I’d seen any monsters. I did my best to ignore her, but I ended up telling her I was looking at one. That got me a ton of the smarmy treatment.
In every class but Mrs. Lester’s, I received an F, or if the teacher wasn’t handing back an assignment, a reprimand. My backpack went missing in English when I went to conjugate a verb on the front board. I had to threaten Jo with bodily harm to get it back, which earned me a trip to Mrs. Cheever, who called my parents to tell them I would be staying after school again. The end of the day couldn’t come fast enough. Even though I would be in trouble with my parents, I wanted to get away from Wolcroft.
During the last period of the day in study hall, I avoided eye contact with the teachers and students, and I concentrated on my math assignment. Science is the best thing possible for a future monster hunter to learn, because you can do neat things with science. Dust for prints, test for the supernatural, useful things. I didn’t see much application for math. My mother liked math because it disciplined the
