Impossible Things (3 page)

“Victoria!” I nudged her, but she didn't budge.

Something was going on. Something seriously weird.

Four

Muffled giggles were spreading across the room. Joe was chuckling out loud; Felicia was grinning like I'd never seen before; and even Nathan, who was usually scared to breathe, had his hands pressed against his mouth. Everyone was on the edge of completely losing it and only our fear of McMoron was preventing us from collapsing into helpless laughter.

All except Victoria. She had finally turned to face me, but her face was pale and tense.

Mr. McMaran pounded on his desk.
Thwomp. Thwomp
. “What is so funny? Stop that this instant!” He stepped toward the class, his face dark with anger. He grabbed his travel mug, but it leapt out of his hand and smashed to the floor. I could barely even hear the crash over the roar of laughter in the room.

“What on earth is going on in here?” Mrs. Goldstein, the principal, came running through the door, and the laughter cut off abruptly. “I could hear the noise clear down the hall. My goodness…” Her eyes flicked around the room, taking in the writing on the board, the broken chair, the travel mug. “Mr. McMaran?”

He just stood there, shaking his head. For a moment, I almost felt a little sorry for him. He looked so confused. “I'm not…I don't…” Shaking his head, he stumbled out of the classroom, slamming the door behind him.

“Well,” Mrs. Goldstein said flatly. “Well.” She looked around the room. “Can someone please enlighten me?”

No one said anything for a minute. Then Joe raised his hand. “I don't know, Mrs. Goldstein. Mr. McMaran kind of flipped out.”

Mrs. Goldstein raised her eyebrows. “Flipped out?”

Joe just nodded. “Yeah, totally.” He nodded at the chalkboard. “That's our math exercise.”

She glanced at it and frowned.“Is his handwriting always like that?” She studied it for a long minute, and her eyebrows flew up. “Differential calculus? For grade seven? That's…odd.” She let out a long sigh. “Excuse me a moment. Please read your books, or work on whatever you were doing. I'll make arrangements.” She headed out the door.

I leaned toward Victoria. “Wow.”

“Mmm.”

“That was bizarre. He really lost it.”

She giggled. Her eyes were bright and the color was returning to her face. “Yeah.”

“Are you okay? You looked sort of funny.”

“I'm fine,” she said quickly. “Fine.” Her voice sounded funny: tight and anxious.

“You don't sound fine.”

“Well, I am.” She turned away from me. “Drop it, okay?”

I pulled back, feeling a bit hurt. “Sorry.”

The door opened, and Mrs. Goldstein stepped back into the room. “I'll be taking the class for the remainder of the morning,” she said.

By lunchtime it was snowing and windy. You might think that arctic conditions would be a reason to stay indoors, but according to Mrs. Goldstein, twenty degrees below zero wasn't cold enough for that. Everyone was whispering to each other, buzzing with questions and gossip as we funneled down the hall.
He was drunk
, I heard someone whisper.
Mrs. Goldstein was sniffing that puddle around his travel mug
.

I could believe it. Actually, it would explain a lot. But I had something else to think about, something no one else had seen: the strange look on Victoria's face while it had all been happening.

I grabbed her elbow. “Hey, come with me?”

“Okay.” She shrugged on her jacket, tugged a striped wool hat over her hair and followed me outside.

The air was basically vaporized ice. “This is abusive,” I muttered, trying to take shallow breaths. “The teachers all get to sit in the staff room. I swear, even my lungs are getting frostbite.” There was a sheltered alcove beside the stairs, and we huddled inside it, but even out of the wind it was bitterly cold. And of course, today had to be the day I forgot my gloves.

We tucked ourselves into the corner and sat down on a piece of cardboard. It did nothing to stop the cold ground from sucking every last bit of heat out of my body. I pulled my knees up to my chest. Now that I was sitting here with Victoria, it seemed a bit silly to think she somehow had something to do with what happened in class. I didn't know why she'd had that weird look on her face, but probably she'd just had a headache or something.

It hadn't looked like a headache though. It had looked like she was concentrating. Like she was
doing
something.

“Brrrr!” Victoria said, wrapping her arms around herself. “It is soooo cold!”

“No kidding.” I pushed my thoughts aside, looked at her and laughed. “Brrrrr!” I mimicked.

“What's so funny?”

“I don't know.
Brrrr.
It sounded funny. Like something my mother would say.”

She laughed too. “Brrrr!”

It felt good to laugh with someone. Actually, it felt better than good. So probably I shouldn't wreck it by asking her if she'd done something in class. Something impossible. Definitely I shouldn't. She'd think everyone was right about me. Crazy Cathidy Thilver.

But I couldn't get it out of my head.

“That was pretty wild, huh?” I ventured. “McMaran losing it like that?”

Victoria's forehead creased and she stared at the ground for a moment. “I hate bullies,” she said, so softly that I had to lean toward her to hear.

“Yeah, sure. Me too.” I caught my breath. “Victoria?”

Her face was closed off, warning me not to pry. But I had to know. I gave her a challenging look. “So?”

“So what?” She didn't meet my eyes.

“Victoria! Come on. You can tell me.” I didn't want to say what I thought—it sounded too weird—but I was sure I was right.

“Tell you what?”

I leaned toward her. “Look, I know this sounds crazy but, well, I
saw
you! You—you made it all happen somehow.”

Victoria's eyes suddenly filled with tears. She shook her head. “Cassidy, don't say anymore, okay? Please? Just forget it.”

She wasn't denying it, and that was as good as admitting it, as far as I was concerned. “So you did do it! I knew it! That is so awesome. How did you do it?” I lowered my voice. “It was magic of some kind, wasn't it?”

She scrambled to her feet, brushing tears away with the back of her hand. “You don't get it! You don't understand anything. And don't say anything about it to anyone!”

“Victoria, don't be mad. I won't say anything, honest!” I reached out to her, but she was already running across the schoolyard.

Five

After lunch I headed straight back to the classroom and got there before anyone else. I was furious with myself for opening my big mouth. I slipped into my back row desk and slumped down, resting my head on my folded arms. Then I noticed that something was different. For the first time all year, the blinds had been opened, and even though the sky outside was gray, the room was filled with light.

A hand brushed my shoulder lightly. I looked up.

“Are you okay? What's your name?” The woman had curly red hair and a wide smile that showed a mouthful of braces. Since when do adults wear braces? Hers even had blue elastics which matched her shirt.

“I'm fine,” I mumbled. “My name is Cassidy Silver.”

“I'm Ms. Allyson. I'm subbing for Mr. McMaran.” She tilted her head to one side, suddenly thoughtful. “Silver. I don't suppose you're related to Molly Silver, by any chance?”

I nodded, surprised. “Yeah. You know my mother?”

Ms. Allyson shook her head and smiled. “Only her work. But I'm a big fan. A friend of mine has one of her paintings. I could look at it for hours.”

I nodded. I wouldn't say this to Ms. Allyson, or to anyone else of course, but I don't really like Mom's paintings that much. They're kind of weird: all browns and depressing dark colors with bits of glass and feathers and things stuck on them. And people say all kinds of stuff about them that I don't understand. After her last show, one critic wrote that she was a brilliant artist whose work “captured the frenetic anxiety of our times.” Whatever that means. Another one said that her paintings looked like kids' summer camp projects. Dad was furious about that one, but Mom just laughed.

“Are you an artist too?” Ms. Allyson asked.

“No, not really.” I hesitated. “I mean, of course I
like
art.”

“Well, you should definitely be looking forward to the big art contest then.”

“What art contest?”

“Mr. McMaran didn't tell you about it?” She raised her eyebrows. “Wait until everyone is here and I'll fill you in.”

The other students all filed in, but there was no sign of Victoria. The desk beside me sat empty. Now that a bit of time had passed, I could think of all kinds of explanations for what had happened in the morning's class: McMaran fell off the chair and dropped the chalk because he was drunk; he wrote that weird stuff on the chalkboard because…well, maybe he used to teach high school math and he just forgot where he was. Anyway, I was sure there was an explanation that didn't involve magic. My cheeks felt hot as I remembered what I'd said:
It was magic of some kind, wasn't it?

Jeez. Victoria must have thought I was a complete idiot. Tomorrow she'd probably be calling me Cathidy and laughing at me like everyone else. I just hoped she wouldn't repeat what I'd said.

Ms. Allyson cleared her throat. “Okay, class! I'm Ms. Allyson and I'll be teaching this class until Mr. McMaran is able to return.”

A forest of hands flew up in front of me. How long would he be away? What was wrong with him? Was it true he'd been drunk? Ms. Allyson managed to answer most of them without giving us any real information beyond the official line: He was unwell and would be off work for some time. Period.

After a couple of minutes, she waved the hands down and changed the subject. “Okay, listen up. I have some exciting news for you all. There is an art contest coming up. It's open to all grade six, seven and eight students in the district. Each school will have a contest, and one winning piece of art from each school will be entered in a district-wide competition.”

Joe, who rarely participated in class discussions, sat up straight. “What do you get if you win?”

The teacher smiled. “One hundred dollars plus one year's unlimited art classes at the Thomson Art Institute.”

There was a flurry of excitement. Amber's hand flew up. She and Madeline were practically bouncing out of their seats. “Ms. Allyson! What kind of art do we do?”

“Anything you like,” Ms. Allyson explained. “Painting, pottery, sketching, sculpture, collage. It's up to you. The theme is ‘Who Are We?' So you might work on some kind of self-portrait or a work that reflects who you are in some way.”

Madeline raised her hand. “Do we get to work on it in class? How long do we have?”

“The deadline for all entries is in three weeks,” Ms.

Allyson said. “I'll give you as much class time as I can.”

Amber was looking around and smiling smugly, as if she'd already decided the prize was hers. Too bad.

I wasn't going to let Amber win. No way. I imagined arriving home and telling Mom that I'd won a contest. An art contest.
Guess what?
I'd say.
I won an art contest… I'm going to be an artist.
She'd have time to listen to that, I'd bet. I imagined her face lighting up in a delighted smile, her arms stretching out toward me, her warm voice saying,
Cassidy, honey! I had no idea you were so talented.

“Okay!” Ms. Allyson's voice shattered my little daydream. “Everyone find a partner!”

I blinked, cheeks burning. Stupid sappy fantasy. I didn't care what my mother thought anyway. I glanced around the room. Practically everyone was already paired up. Amber and Madeline were together, of course. Even Felicia already had a partner—Nathan. I stood up to look around. Was I really the only one without a partner? Newsflash: No one wants to pair up with the class freak.

I wished Victoria was here. Though, of course she probably wouldn't want to be my partner now.

“Chiaki, right? And Cassidy. It looks like you both need partners. Why don't you pair up?” Ms. Allyson ushered Chiaki into the empty desk beside mine. Victoria's desk.

I nodded at her, my teeth clenched so tight my jaw ached. My old thumbuddy. Chiaki smiled back, her face anxious beneath her dark bangs.

Ms. Allyson sat on the edge of her desk and crossed her legs. “So, before you begin thinking about your art pieces, I want you first to consider what it is about yourself that you want to convey through your art. We'll do some writing exercises, alone and with a partner, to help you get started. These exercises are to help you begin reflecting on who you are: what is important to you, how you see yourself, what challenges you face, what strengths you bring to help you meet those challenges.” She broke off abruptly. “Amber, did you have a question?”

Amber was shifting impatiently in her seat. “I thought you said we had to draw a self-portrait. How come we have to do all this writing?”

Ms. Allyson nodded. “That's a good question. First, this contest isn't about drawing a picture of yourself. It's about exploring who you are.”

I couldn't see Amber's face, but I'd bet she was rolling her eyes. Either that or her mouth would be hanging open.

“Writing can be a way to learn about ourselves, to uncover what lies beneath the surface that we present to the world,” Ms. Allyson went on. “Try to think of writing the way an archaeologist might think of a tool she uses to uncover a treasure buried deep in the earth.” Her eyes met mine for a moment.

Sitting so close to Chiaki was making me squirm, but I could have listened to Ms. Allyson all day. She wasn't like any teacher I'd ever had before.