TWO WEEKS TO PREPARE. After just one day of substituting. My only references Dr. Tony Mendez and a thirteen-year-old, so unobtrusive, so unremarkable, he could virtually disappear into his surroundings. What had Dr. Matt been thinking asking me to take on this experimental class? What had I been thinking by accepting?
Actually, I’d been thinking about Jason and kids like him, how lonely and afraid they must feel. As I had, until I’d learned to accept rather than fear my psychic abilities. But I’d been lucky. I’d had help. From my psychiatrist, Dr. Tony Mendez, and my sister Maya.
Who would help these Indigos if not me?
Showing up at West Coast Middle School as a substitute teacher confirmed my intention to control my own narrative and contribute in a meaningful way. Agreeing to take on an after-school class of Indigos clarified that intention. Now, it was time to put up or shut up, trust I was the right teacher for the job.
I’d give myself one day to fret over my decision before getting to work. Because work it would be. To come up with a way to implement my teaching objective. Maybe I could call on Dr. Matt’s nephew, Shawn, for help. He seemed to have full confidence in my abilities. Maybe he had a plan.
So, here I was back at Bayfront Park. My last visit had been in June with Truus, my adoptive mother, the day she’d called me a pagan squaw. She’d been referring to my Native American background—Esselen, to be exact, a Bay Area tribelet that has nearly dropped out of modern consciousness. Something she’d planned to keep secret; along with the fact that she’d adopted me. Which had seemed easy enough at the time. After all, my hair was blonde, my eyes blue, and my real mother had died after giving birth to me. But secrets have a way of wiggling free, like babies who have just learned to crawl. It’s only a matter of time.
As before, I headed for The Great Spirit Path sculpture, intending to reread this visual poem of rock clusters for inspiration. The four stanzas of the poem, conceived by Menlo Park artist S.C. Dunlap, stretched over a three-quarter-mile trail. So, I had some walking to do. I took a brochure from the box installed along the path and scanned the numbered illustrations for the section of the poem that had inspired me most. Then I walked past the first forty-one rock clusters to number forty-two: Rest here.
I sat in a lotus position, eyes closed, and took a deep breath, asking for nothing, expecting nothing. A cool breeze circulated around me, and yes, even in January with cloudy skies, the air currents felt comforting as they lapped at my face and ruffled my hair.
I stood with the reluctance of someone leaving a holiday dinner, sated and ready for a nap, then walked to the next stone cluster: Talk here. And talk I did. Or rather, I prayed. “Send me your guidance, oh Lord, because I may be in way over my head.”
I moved on to the next cluster, then the next, until I stood in the center of a large Medicine Wheel. To the Great Spirit everywhere.
That’s when, just like in June, a hawk screeched from above. No gift of great wisdom. No directions from my dead mother (She was good at getting me into trouble not out of it). But one thing I’d learned over the past ten months was to pay attention. Messages come at the most unexpected times in the most unexpected ways.
“Ms. Veil?”
A voice after all; one I hadn’t heard before.
“Excuse me, Ms. Veil.”
I opened my eyes and twisted toward the sound.
“Are you okay?” A young boy stood nearby with a bike balanced between his legs. Black hair, no expression besides calm awareness.
I didn’t recognize him, yet he knew my name. “Yes. I’m fine. How about you?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“Are you here by yourself?”
The boy eyed me through what appeared to be a yellow glow. “My uncle fell back to meditate.” He fiddled with the handlebars of his bike as if he had something else on his mind.
“Sorry. My brain’s in a fog this morning. I—”
“You subbed in my first period class yesterday.”
My mind scrambled for a name but came up blank.
“You know, when the overhead blew.”
I slapped the dirt off my jeans. “Yeah, that’s one for the memory books all right.” I stepped toward him and reached out my grimy hand. “Sorry, but with all the commotion, I don’t remember your name.”
“No problem. If I’d wanted your attention, I would’ve gotten it.” He let go of the handlebars long enough to shake my hand. “The name’s Shawn.”
Great. The principal’s nephew; how was that for a sign? “Nice to meet you.”
He turned and glanced behind him. “My uncle and I come here a lot. It’s pretty cool, especially now that the winter bird population is at its peak. The bay is the most important west coast stop on the Pacific Flyway.”
The kid sounded more like a monitor for the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory than a potential school dropout.
“This used to be a landfill,” he said.
I scanned the hills covered with grasses, bushes, eucalyptus, and pine, marveling at the transformation. “A good conversion of resources, I’d say.”
He didn’t respond, just looked at me as if thinking about what I’d said. Which blew me away, of course. I wasn’t used to thirteen-year-olds thinking about what I said. Listening would have been nice, but even that was asking a lot. In fact, listening was a talent even I hadn’t mastered. Which was inexcusable, considering dead people talked to me all the time.
“I hear you’re going to be our after-school teacher,” he said. “If you need any help” —he looked back over his shoulder— “um…”
I didn’t know my number one fan well enough to confide that I had no clue where to begin.
“That’s easy,” Shawn said. “Just show up.”
Had he read my mind?
He laughed at the expression on my face. “We need a place to hang out, you know, with fellow minds, away from the others.”
Just show up? I shook my head. If only it were that easy.
“It is,” he said.
If he was reading my mind, I was in more trouble than I’d realized. How many of my future students could do that?
“Usually only me,” he said. “And Codi, but not all the time. It’s easier out here, where there’s less interference. In school, there’s energy shooting in all directions, so it’s hard to concentrate. Take Jason, for example. He’s an energy robber.”
“Energy robber?”
“I tried to help when he started drawing on all that energy you were sending out yesterday, but things kind of backfired.”
“The overhead.” I said.
“And the world map and posters. We have this problem with control.” He spun the pedal on the bike with the toe of his sneaker. “You can block it, you know.”
“Block what?”
“People getting into your head.”
I nearly choked on all the breath I’d inhaled at his disclosure. “How?”
“I can teach you,” he said, “but it’ll take time.”
“How much time? There are only five months till June.”
He laughed. “Here’s Uncle Matt now.”