the real world marched along, for the moment at least. Regardless of what went on in the supernatural realm, I had an English paper due in a couple of days. As I plugged away at it without enthusiasm, my dad came halfway up the stairs and peered through the banister rail. “Mom and I are thinking about Chinese food for dinner. Are you in?”
“Yeah.” My stomach growled at the thought. Those three bites of cheeseburger hadn’t gone far. “I want egg foo young and an order of spring rolls.”
But instead of going back down the stairs, he came up to the study. “Did you and Justin have a fight?”
“The shouting on the lawn was a clue.”
I groaned and slithered down until my butt was nearly hanging off the chair. “I was such a brat.”
“Probably.”
“You’re not supposed to agree with me.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re my father.”
He bent over and kissed the top of my head. “That only guarantees that I’ll love you when you’re a brat, not that I’ll never think you are one.”
I sighed, deeply. “That’s fair, I guess.”
His curious glance fell on my desk. “What’s this?”
I spun the chair with my foot. “My theory that the microcosm of the American high school is represented in the lands that Gulliver encounters in his travels.”
“Interesting theory, but I was talking about this.” He held up the sketch I’d made that morning, of the symbols engraved on the brazier.
“Oh.” How much to tell him? If I spilled it all, he might believe me. And then he’d lock me in my room and call for a priest. That would put an end to my Nancy Drew–ing.
So I parceled out a little of the truth. “I dreamed about an oasis, with tents, and a woman at the well. There was a campfire, and those symbols were carved in the brazier that held the coals.”
Dad raised his brows. “Interesting. They look Assyrian, or maybe Babylonian. That’s not really my area.”
“I thought they looked Hebrew.”
He considered them again. “Perhaps the same family. I can ask Dr. Dozer if you like. She’s done a lot of work in the Middle and Near East. Went on some expeditions there, before the first Gulf War.”
I stopped listening after the name “Dozer.” Stanley. How could I not have seen it before?
Dad had stopped talking, expecting an answer. I backtracked to his question. Thank God for mental TiVo. “No, thanks. Let me do a little more research, okay? It could be just nonsense.”
He laid the paper back on the desk. “Okay. You know I’ll help you however I can.”
I smiled up at him. “I know.”
He headed for the stairs. “Egg foo young and spring rolls,” he confirmed before he left.
I rooted through piles of paper and books until I found the flash drive where I’d stored those pictures from the week before. I plugged it in and clicked on the folder marked “in_case_of_death.”
The first photo popped open, showing Stanley’s face frozen in terror, his long legs hooked over the brick wall of the elevated walkway, while Brandon and Jeff, laughing like maniacs, held him suspended over the two-story drop. Brian stood back, looking torn and miserable, and the Three Original Jessicas pointed and twittered like the birdbrains they were.
Of the seven people in the snapshot, four had something strange happen to them. Only Karen wasn’t in the picture. Did she not fit the pattern, or was I not seeing the whole thing?
I clicked “print” and picked up the phone to call Justin. Then I stopped. I wasn’t angry with him anymore, but my pride still stung. We’d both thrown a lot of darts, and maybe his were more just than mine. It was all very complicated, even more so because I was unsure if this was a friends and colleagues argument, or a guy/girl thing.
I had guy/girl thoughts about Justin, but I had no idea if he thought about me that way. When he met Brian today, his careful neutrality could have meant anything from “Me, Tarzan. You in my tree,” to “Maggie’s like a sister to me.”
Brian, on the other hand, hadn’t quite thumped his chest, but when I accidentally agreed to Monday’s date, he was pretty clearly thinking “guy wins girl.” If only I didn’t have this picture of him, standing by and doing nothing while his friends terrified Stanley.
I stared at the photo, studying the faces, frozen in that pivotal moment. Stanley Dozer. “You’ll all be sorry,” he’d said. Had he found some otherworldly alternative to a black trench coat and an AK-47?
I tossed restlessly in bed. Time had dilated somehow, and my paper was due tomorrow. Besides the Swift theme, I needed to write an article about Jeff Espinoza’s accident, finish two chemistry lab reports, and compose a one-page essay for civics. No wonder my brain felt feverish and overheated.
I didn’t remember getting up, but abruptly found myself at my computer, facing a blank document on the screen, my paper not even begun. I wondered briefly how I could have forgotten to start the darned thing; some deep, muted voice in my head said that wasn’t right. Something was off about this whole scenario. But the immediate panic of the looming deadline drowned out all logic. I had to get cracking.
Let’s see. Jonathan Swift. Irishman. Satirist and misanthrope.
I typed the title: Satire for Social Change. So far so good. Too bad I’d waited until the morning it was due, not to mention the seven chemistry reports and a six-page essay on the judicial branch of government.
Thesis sentence: Jonathan Swift was a real good writer. When he rote stuff for the Irish noospaper, it pissed off the government and they said, we can tacks you all we want, because we’re English, and we have a big army and a cool flag.
Class started in fifteen minutes, and at this rate, I wasn’t even going to be able to start those ten lab reports. I scrolled up and looked at what I’d done so far.
What the Hell?
Who wrote this crap? An illiterate twelve-year-old?
I deleted and tried again: Jonithen Swift rote about stuff that was bad and made fun of it, and it was real funny, and made people think …
I shoved back from the computer, rejecting the words there. They were moronic. Infantile.
“How did you get in this class?” asked Ms. Vincent, appearing at my desk. I wanted to ask what she was doing in my room, but I saw we were actually in her classroom, complete with the cartoon pencils and erasers dancing over the chalkboard.
“You should never have been allowed in AP English,” said Vincent. “You’ll have to finish the year in that class, over there.” I turned to where she pointed; a door led to another classroom—this one filled with three football players (in uniform), a couple of Drill Team Barbies (doing their nails), a few stoners (stoned), and a pimple-faced, greasy-haired boy wearing a Wal-Mart smock, who pointed to a desk beside him and said, “You can sit by me, Maggie.”
I turned to Ms. Vincent to protest, but all that came out of my mouth was gibberish. She looked at me pityingly and I ran from the room, into B Hall.
Halloran was there and I tried to tell him there was a terrible mistake with my schedule, but only nonsense words spilled from my lips. “Very funny,” he said. “That’s what you get for pretending you’re so much smarter than everyone else.”
This wasn’t true, and I told him so, but still I could only speak Martian.
“Stop horsing around, Quinn,” he barked, “or I’ll put you in detention until the end of the year.”
I ran the B Hall gauntlet of mocking laughter, sick heat spreading through me at the jeers and taunts. I found Karen, stitches on her head, and I tried to tell her what was happening. She looked at me in sweet-natured confusion. “I don’t understand, Maggie. Is this a joke?”
“It’s the thing I value most …” But of course my words made no sense to either of us.
At the end of the hall, Stanley and Lisa stood side by side. “You did this,” I yelled at Stanley. “It’s not funny!”
“Sorry, Maggie,” Stanley sneered from his towering height. “I can’t understand you. I don’t speak loser.”
I grabbed him by the plaid western shirt and pulled him down to my level. I wanted to hit him, to hurt him. To punish somebody for the panicked terror seizing my mind. “Take this curse off me!”
“You’re dreaming, Maggie.” Lisa’s sensible voice. Just as it had while I was wigging out about the locker room photo, her droll practicality cut through my rioting emotions to the rational person inside. “Wake up now. Everything will be fine.”
I turned my head to look at her, a bubble of hope rising in my chest. “Bewop?” I said.
“Yeah, really.”
And with an abruptness that was almost anticlimactic, I woke up.
The room was dark, except for the nightlight casting shadows on the wall. I snaked a hand out from the covers, irrationally afraid something waited to grab it. The bedside lamp was more effective, and I sat up to cast my eyes suspiciously around the room. I didn’t see or smell anything, but I could feel the sweat of panic drenching my nightshirt, and the dampness of tears on my face.
So, what had I learned from the dream? That I prized my communication skills above all else. And I was probably more proud of my brains than I ought to be. Sobering thought. Perhaps it wasn’t so much a question of what they—okay, what we—valued most, but where our vanity lay.
I forced myself out of bed and to the computer; a jiggle of the mouse brought it to life. I let out a breath as I saw my nearly completed English paper on the screen. Then I sat down, opened a new document, and poised my hands over the keyboard.
I typed: “To be, or not to be. That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or by opposing, end them.”
I got up. Paced the room. Sat down. Read the words on the screen. They looked exactly as they should.
Then I entered: “The core dilemma for Hamlet is the question we all face: Do we endure the crap that life dishes out, or do we fight against it, even if it would be easier to just lie down and let fortune have its way?”
Not the most eloquent, but when I looked back at what I’d written, it didn’t say: “Trouble, bad. Sleep, good.”
I got up from the desk and rubbed my hands over my tired face. To sleep, perchance to dream. Screw that.
Walking to the window, I paused a moment, then brushed back the edge of the curtain. I saw no shadows other than those cast by the pecan tree, rustling lightly in the breeze.
I’d always thought Hamlet was a dumb play about a guy who can’t make up his mind. I mean, I face the same drama in the lunch line. But at that moment I understood: When it comes to the big stuff, it is hard to decide whether to let things just happen, especially when its to other people, or to take a stand and cause yourself a world of trouble.
The dream could have just been the egg foo young, or the pot of my fears stirred by the events of the day. But no. I hadn’t seen fire or smoke in the dream, but I’d felt the threat. I’d been warned, told to let slings and arrows have their way.
Like that was going to happen. Old Smokey had no idea who he was messing with.