Kallie’s pride hurt worse than her hand.
She tried to cover the red spot where a giant blister was forming. She insisted she was perfectly fine, but Mr. Bent sent her to the office for treatment all the same. The head secretary, Mrs. Hewlett, had a quick look at Kallie’s hand.
“It doesn’t appear too bad,” she said, patting Kallie’s head as though she were in preschool. “Have a seat in the health room. We’ll get a cool compress on it. You can rest for a while, and we’ll see if the swelling goes down.”
“But I’m fine. I don’t want to stay,” protested Kallie, adjusting her glasses and smoothing her hair. “I’m missing science class.”
“No buts.”
Mrs. Hewlett ushered her into a small room just off the main office. It had a cot, a small refrigerator, and a shelf full of medical supplies. She wagged a finger sporting a rather long red nail.
“Mr. Bent was very firm when he called down. He wants you thoroughly looked after.” She got a few sheets of paper towels and ran them under cold water, and told Kallie to hold it on the burn. “One minute on, one minute off. I’ll be back in ten to check on you.”
Kallie sat on the edge of the cot. She didn’t want to think about how many students had lain there ill. It was probably full of bacteria. She couldn’t bear the thought of all the microscopic ecosystems thriving there.
She stood and paced, counting the seconds. One minute on. One minute off. One minute on …
“This is all Anna’s fault,” Kallie muttered between tight teeth. She had put the box completely out of her mind until Anna had brought it back up. And now here it was again, whirling round her head.
The box. The pieces. The Bunsen burner was definitely a sort of flaming cylinder. Was it yet another coincidence? Kallie’s stomach began to churn.
Mrs. Hewlett had left the door to the health room slightly ajar. Kallie could hear her prattling on with her assistant, the short and curly-haired Miss Mallory.
“Such an awful thing,” clucked Mrs. Hewlett.
“No surprise, with what’s happened, they’d want to give her a fresh start in a new town…” said Miss Mallory.
“Good thing no one knows her here. Much easier that way…”
Kallie couldn’t help but listen. She loathed gossip. But curiosity was an unfortunate side effect of a scientific mind. She wondered whom they were talking about. She’d seen several new faces in some of the younger as well as the older grades.
“But that Winslow woman? I mean, honestly…”
Kallie gasped. The Winslow woman? They were talking about Anna. She slunk closer to the door and opened it a smidge farther.
“Such a lovely girl. I’d take her myself if George would let me,” said Mrs. Hewlett. “But you know how he is…”
Kallie stood, listening wide-eyed to the rest of the conversation. She had forgotten all about the one minute on, one minute off. Her heart began to flutter in her chest, threatening to fly away.
When the topic shifted to Miss Mallory’s new puppy, Spartacus, Kallie stepped backward. Her knees wobbled as she sank down onto the cot. The germs no longer seemed important. Neither did her hand. It had begun to throb, but she paid it no mind.
Science class was finished by the time Mrs. Hewlett put a small bandage over Kallie’s blister and dismissed her. She made her way to English class, where everyone had begun working on their dioramas.
As soon as she entered the class, several students, including Anna and Pole, stopped what they were doing. They came rushing toward her.
“Are you okay?” asked Queenie.
“I thought for sure you’d gone to the hospital,” said Grace.
“I’m fine,” said Kallie, awkwardly brushing away the oglers. “Really.”
“Back to work,” said Ms. Beausoleil. “It’s only a blister. She’s not grown a third arm.” She winked at Kallie, who was grateful to slip out of the limelight.
Searching the room, Kallie was pleasantly surprised to see the pillows had been stacked in a giant heap in the back corner and round tables had been brought in. It was still a far cry from the neat rows of desks Kallie preferred, but it was a step in the right direction.
Each table was littered with construction paper, glue, boxes, cotton balls, tissue paper, wood chips, and an inordinate amount of glitter. Anna pulled Kallie to a table with all their purchases plus a shabby shoebox, dented on one side. At least she had remembered to bring everything.
“Come on,” said Anna. “We need to get going.” She was sculpting something out of clay that may or may not have resembled Mr. Tumnus.
Kallie used a sharp pencil to carve triangles from Styrofoam.
“What are you doing?” asked Anna.
“Making stalagmites and stalactites. What does it look like?”
Anna giggled. “There aren’t any of those in Mr. Tumnus’s cave.”
“Says who? And anyway, my cave is going to be realistic—that’s the only reason I agreed to it. And real caves have stalagmites and stalactites.”
“Okay,” sighed Anna, shaking her head. “I’ll make the furniture and the décor.”
They worked for some time before Anna leaned in and whispered, “So what are you going to do about the bewitched story bones?”
Kallie had been trying to glue jagged Styrofoam triangles to the ceiling of their shoebox, but they kept falling off. She frowned. “There’s no such thing.”
“But the Bunsen burner,” said Anna. “You know—the flaming cylinder…”
“It’s the power of suggestion. Just like Pole said. If I hadn’t put that thought in your head, you’d never have made the connection.”
“Maybe,” said Anna. “But aren’t you even a bit worried?”
“No,” snapped Kallie. She was about to say something else, but then she thought about the conversation she’d overheard. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Her voice softened, and she tried to sound cheerful. “Let’s just get to work. We have two periods to complete this ridiculous project, and I don’t want to have to spend any more time on it than necessary.”
Kallie worked diligently until she got all the stalagmites and stalactites to stick to the inside of the box. It didn’t look very cavelike being all white. She’d need to paint it. She kicked herself for not having thought to buy paint and a brush when she had been out shopping with Anna.
Anna kept peering up at Kallie and grinning. She had made an acceptable likeness of Mr. Tumnus as well as a lopsided sofa, a lumpy chair, and a crooked lamp. She set the clay aside to dry.
All the while, Kallie thought about what she’d heard in the office. She thought about what the woman in the shop had said about her sweater. And she thought about the box of bones and the next picture—the coffin.
If there was truly power to suggestion, Kallie hadn’t stopped it at all. In fact, like a runaway train, it was gaining momentum.