SCHOOL WAS OK THE next day. Classes went by in a boring blur. Lunch was fairly disgusting, as it always was. And my favorite drummer made his usual butt jokes. He seemed to think that a "feces statement" was a lot better to include in his essay than a "thesis statement."
"Get it? Get it? Feces statement!"
"Right, I got it."
Happy now, he wiggled a couple of strands of spaghetti over his gaping mouth and made monster noises.
Then there was bio. I thought about skipping. I was ready to do it. But Relly was hanging around by my locker before class and said I had to be there.
"Why? So Knacke can wave my notebook around and tell everyone I'm a cult leader? Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. Maybe he'll want to burn me at the stake like a Salem witch. I can hardly wait."
"The witches there weren't burned. They were all hanged."
"Enough, all right? I was just making a joke. I don't care about the Salem witch trials."
"Well, you'd better be in class."
So I went.
Knacke was all excited about his new fungus. He'd brought in a big hunk of rotten wood and as soon as we all settled down, he turned out the lights. He'd already drawn the blinds and taped heavy paper over the windows. As our eyes got used to the darkness, we all saw what he was so thrilled about.
A faint greenish glow was coming from the fungus. Knacke didn't talk for a while. He let us stare at the broken tree stump. Some kids were impressed. Some asked questions but he hushed them. Some wanted to come up to the front and look closer. This he was OK with.
So row by row went and got up close and personal with a hunk of glowing rotten wood.
When it was my turn, I kind of hung back. "Come on, come on, Zee," Knacke said, smiling. "This is a wonderful chance to—"
Blah blah blah. I wasn't listening. I was looking over at the Smoking Man, who sat in the corner. His face was greenish now, like he was sick from all that nicotine and tar.
I guess Knacke explained about how the fungus created its own light. And he told us about some fish and slime molds that did it too. I wasn't paying attention. Any minute, I kept thinking, he's going to go off on me, yelling about my notebook and the so-called occult crowd I was hanging around with.
Only that day it never came. He was so caught up in his glowing clump of wood that I guess he forgot about me and the phone call.
He opened the door and the light from the hallway flooded in. Squinting against it, I followed the rest of the kids out. No sneers, no nasty comments, no threats from Knacke.
And that made it worse. Passing by Knacke, I was sure this was just the calm before the thunderstorm, the smooth seas before the tidal wave hits and tears the boat to shreds.