by JT Clay
She clicked out of Apocalypse Z and scrolled through some of her other sites to see what had been happening for the last – wow, for the last six hours. Midnight already. Time flies when you’re killing things.
India was having elections. Vanuatu had had another earthquake, poor bastards. The French farmers were on strike again. She followed a link to a New York paper and scanned an article.
“Weird,” she said, then reached for her little black book. She flicked to a new page, scribbled the date, the location and a few words, then surfed on.
Chapter Three
Q tingled. She could not wait to get to class. She hadn’t felt like this about a Monday morning since – well, since ever. But today was special. Today was the day she’d had the epiphany that would change her life.
The Blue Ogre had his telephone number.
She’d worry later about whether he liked her or not. Her first mission was to get that number. Q pedaled as hard as she could. Such was her rush, she almost broke into a sweat around the fifteenth kilometer.
*
“Your hair’s nice today, Mrs Mason,” Q said. “It’s hardly blue at all. And your scalp looks great under there, really healthy. That medicated shampoo’s working well.”
Mrs Mason glowered as if she found this very hard to believe, which was fair enough. She spun around and scratched a word on the blackboard: “Sap!”
Q took a step back, as if the woman had struck her. So, that was how they’d play today, was it? “And what else do trees have?” Mrs Mason asked the class. “Very good, Karen. Leaves!”
Q took the hint and slouched off to the back of the room. She squatted next to Hannah’s desk. This morning, she had tried everything on Mrs Mason. Flattery. Bribery. Asking outright for Rabbit’s number. She had failed.
“I don’t know what to do,” Q said to her friend. “I have to get Rabbit's number. I made an oath that I would never again give up on my fate.”
“Rot!” Hannah said.
“How can you say that?” Q said.
Mrs Mason smiled and added “rot” to her list of things that could happen to trees.
Q shifted and continued. “I dunno if it’s our history of conflict or her innate resentment of the younger generation that will one day replace her, but Mrs Mason refuses to help me.”
“It might be because you ratted her out to the principal,” Hannah said.
“Maybe.”
Mrs Mason spun around. That wrinkly body sure could pivot quickly when in a rage. “Quentin! I hope you’re not distracting the class again.”
“No, Mrs Mason.”
“Didn’t I ask you to hand out the pipe cleaners?”
“Yes, Mrs Mason.”
Q shambled around the room, handing out craft supplies and trying to think her way around the problem. It was hopeless. How could she force Mrs Mason to give her Rabbit’s number? A simple death-by-three-hundred-paper-cuts combo might work, but it wouldn’t comply with Occupational Health and Safety policy. She pictured the Kindy Koalas’ reaction to the teacher’s assistant torturing information out of the Blue Ogre, and smiled. Violence was so much easier than this thinking business. And she was so good at it! Q sighed. A gift you couldn’t use was a curse.
That was good. She should write that down.
“Hannah,” she said. “Can I borrow a pencil and a bit of paper?”
Hannah frowned but handed the items over. “Don’t get me in trouble again,” she said.
Mrs Mason swiveled.
“Who is it who keeps talking back there? Quentin!”
Q smiled her goofy smile, guaranteed to put any assailant at their ease before she delivered the kill blow. She summoned up all eighteen years of training, formed a fist of kung fu power in her belly, focused her chi and mentally hurled it straight at the enemy. Mrs Mason returned Q’s eye contact, impassive.
Then she exploded into a fit of coughs. She doubled over and put her hand to her mouth.
Q grinned. She was good! “You should go and have a nice cool glass of water, Mrs Mason,” she said. Red-faced, the older woman stumbled out.
Q shook her head. “The wrath of Mrs Mason is truly wrathy,” she said.
“I dunno about that. I think she’s pissed at you, Quentin.” Hannah said.
“Hannah Banana!” Q said. “Since when did you use language like that?”
Hannah dropped her head. “Sorry. I mean, I think she’s pissed at you, Q.”
“That’s better.” Quentin contemplated. “You know, I might have to try something drastic.”
*
Q placed her right heel down eight inches in front of her left toe and rolled the rest of her foot onto the carpet, then took another step. The floor creaked. She froze.
She had to remember her training. She held her breath in her throat and listened, trying to discover if she had been detected. She heard no one. Hopefully, that meant no one heard her. She continued until she was standing right in front of it. Her destination. No, her destiny. Mrs Mason’s staffroom pigeonhole.
She hunted for the trap that she knew would be there. What was it this time? A strategically taped hair that, once displaced, would alert the old girl that someone had been rifling through her papers? A bomb?
She found it after a brief search: one piece of pink paper lay on top of another with the faintest of pencil marks drawn across both sheets. If anyone disturbed the pile, the line would be broken. Q relaxed and checked once again that she was alone. She should be, at four fifty-five on a Monday afternoon, but she couldn’t afford to get busted. She searched through the rest of the papers. She would know it when she found it.
“Victory!” Q said. She held the key to the lock of the door to the rest of her life. It didn’t look like a key. It looked like a purple Post-it note with clunky handwriting scrawled on it, but looks could be deceiving.
There it was, deliciously, unbelievably, miraculously there. A ten-digit number – the direct line to a preschool rock god.
Q committed the number to memory. On her way out, she stopped by the school counselor’s pigeonhole and retrieved a child’s drawing that had another purple Post-it note attached, and left.
*
She stood at the front of the hall, back straight, jaw set. The crowd was not promising. They were soft. They were undisciplined. Most of them wore pink. It was time to take this rabble and turn it into an army.
“All right, Lethal Littlies!” Q said. “Line up!”
Twenty girls stopped talking and arranged themselves into rows.
“Now partner up!” Q said. “We’re gonna practice taking each other from behind.” Keep going. If they understood that, it was their parents’ fault. “Hannah, come up front to demonstrate.”
She watched her friend stride to the front of the class, full of confidence. Q had been training Hannah for two years and was thrilled to see her spar at a third-grade level. The girl had true leadership potential, if only she’d step up and start taking the initiative, or at least watch more films in which other kids did.
As they bowed to each other, Q wondered why she enjoyed teaching kung fu in the evenings to the same demographic that made her want to eat her own liver during the day. Was it the informal structure? The ability to interact with the kids on an equal footing without the artificial hierarchy of school? The opportunity to thump the stuffing out of things?
A few parents dribbled in and stood at the rear of the hall. Q smiled at Ellen Flinders, whose daughter, Peach, had distinguished herself by mastering the Three-Prong-Fiend-Fend in two weeks. Ellen fiddled with her hair.
Q stood behind Hannah. “I’m going to grab Hannah’s shoulders, like this. Now she’ll get away like we practiced last week. Ready? Ow, you—! That was excellent. Everyone have a go.”
She wandered between gym mats, making an adjustment here, issuing a cautious word there. They picked it up so fast!
At seven o’clock, Q called the class to the front of the hall for their final bow and repetition of the
self-defense mantra: “Talk! Run! Think! Fight!”
She dismissed them and began packing up, wanting to be home as fast as possible. She was so distracted, she almost missed the conversation between two of the fathers about the burger chain that had been closed down in Los Angeles after several unexplained deaths.
“Weird,” Q said, reaching into her back pocket. She had started the little black book soon after Linda’s death and had been logging odd world events ever since. Linda’s death was a shock. She wouldn’t be caught out again.
“Miss Lamprey?”
Ellen Flinders marched over to her. Q assumed her best combat parent stance, which was similar to the one she used on dogs with dominance issues.
“Miss Lamprey, I’m afraid Peach can’t continue.”
“That’s a shame. She’s good,” said Q. “Has she found something else?”
The woman’s eyes flickered. Ah. Peach hadn’t found something else. Her mother had. “Her friend at school is learning judo,” Ellen said. “It’s not as aggressive and they get these lovely uniforms.”
A paparazzi parent – she was in it for the pictures. “The gi is cute, Ellen, but it’s only good to train in if you make sure you always get attacked while wearing one. I’m going to ask you a question that will affect your relationship with Peach for the next twenty years. Do you want her to look good or be effective?”
“She’ll be happier elsewhere,” Ellen said.
Peach was showing her new friend Charlotte how to do a knee/elbow/head kick combo. Both girls were giggling.
“Whatever you say,” Q said. She had to go. There was something she needed to do.
Chapter Four
“Hi honey,” her father, Bruce, said as she walked into the lounge. He was sitting in his recliner, big toe protruding through his worn sheepskin slipper, his eyes gummy. He must have woken up as she unlocked the door. “Class okay?”
The television was on too loud. Q reached for the remote and turned it down, then sank to the floor and cuddled the dog. Comfort was a warm kelpie.
“Class was fine,” Q said, hollow, thinking of the failed phone call she’d made after training. She should have known it would never work. She wanted it too much.
“You’re pale,” her dad said. He picked up the remote and flicked through stations. “You’re not coming down with something?”
“I’m fine,” Q lied. “One of the fathers gave me grief about Seema before training. Apparently she broke her uncle’s finger on the weekend when he was showing her a magic trick.”
“That’s no good.”
Q snorted. “My girls only use their powers for good,” Q said. “I told Seema’s dad he should ask to see the magic trick.”
Bruce grimaced. He had never been able to accept life’s unpleasant aspects. She wandered out to the kitchen and stood in front of the open fridge, morose. Jingle jelly single-os. Chilled marshmallow spread. Chocolate milk. She didn’t want any of them. She had called the number and it was not his number. Even sugar couldn’t save her now.
“I made you dinner,” her father called from the lounge. The television began screaming again. He must have found a show he liked. It sounded like the one about the six out-of-work models who have to learn carpentry and then build their own catwalk.
Q found the slice of pizza he’d left on a greasy cardboard square torn from the lid of the box. Three circles of limp pepperoni looked at her like the eyes of some sad animal left behind by evolution. “There must be more,” she said.
“There’s more in the fridge,” Bruce called out.
Q sighed. She couldn’t even do melodrama right.
*
School the next morning was as bad as she had feared. Not only did Q know she had lost her one true chance at happiness with the lust of her life, but she knew that Mrs Mason knew, too. The woman kept saying cruel things designed to make Q realize that she would be alone forever, like “Clean the board,” and “Have you finished marking the animal pictures yet?” and “Who’s on playground duty today?” Jab after jab after jab. Q didn’t know how much more she could take.
“What’s eating you?” Hannah said during fruit math.
“A German software programmer.” Q giggled, then sighed. She drew three oranges next to her kiwifruit. “It’s no good, Hannah Banana. I can’t even cheer myself up with my fabulous wit.”
“Must be serious,” said Hannah. “Did you call Rabid Narayan?”
“I did. It was the wrong number.” Q pulled out her mobile phone and selected the name she had so recently entered next to a love heart icon. She held the phone between them so that Hannah could share her grief.
The line connected and they heard a recording of Mrs Mason’s meat-grinder voice. “Hi. If you’re calling this number, you must be a dirty rotten thief. I trust you’ve found something interesting. I will catch you.”
“Found something interesting?”
Q jumped and swore beneath her breath. How did that woman keep creeping up on her?
“Sorry, Mrs Mason,” Q said. “I was showing Hannah my new ring tone.”
“Which is why mobile phones are banned in my classroom, Quentin, as you know.” The woman held out her hand in ridiculous demand.
“But that’s my phone!” Q said.
The hand remained.
“I’m not even a student! I’m a teacher! Almost.”
The hand remained.
Q succumbed and sulked.
“And the principal would like to speak to you, Quentin.”
*
Q sat on the kiddie chair outside Mr Macklin’s office with her knees in her armpits and her spirits around her feet. What had Mrs Mason dobbed her in for this time? Was she finally getting the sack? Could you get the sack when you weren’t being paid and if so, how did you explain it on your CV?
The principal opened his door and waved her in. Q sat in the chair in front of his desk, feeling even more awkward than she had on the kiddie stool outside. Perhaps her best bet was a preemptive confession, but which one to start with?
“Quentin. You’ve been doing your placement with us for a month now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It seems like longer.”
“For me too, sir.”
Mr Macklin flicked through the pile of papers on his desk. Q tried to read them upside down to discover which of her crimes he had documented. She hoped it was the squid ink gag. She could explain the squid ink gag.
“Natolia has some concerns about the Kindy Koalas,” he said.
Q’s belly filled with bile. Natolia was the school counselor. This could get worse before it got better. No. This would get worse, and then get worse again.
“Very bright woman, Natolia,” Mr Macklin said. “She’s got two degrees, you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Everything she knows is in her head.”
“Uh-huh.”
Mr Macklin extracted a few pictures. Q recognized them and cursed herself for sloppy espionage. Mrs Mason kept putting these drawings in the counselor’s pigeonhole. Q thought she had intercepted them all, but she must have missed a few.
“This one in particular grieves me,” Mr Macklin said.
Q considered the picture. “The sun’s pretty. And the feathers are very detailed.”
“Yes,” said the principal. “But the chickens have blood spurting from the holes where their beaks used to be.”
Q glanced through his collection of farm animal drawings. There were pigs behind bars. Calves being shot in front of their mothers. Chickens on twenty-four-hour work detail. It was a bloody, furry, feathered holocaust. Rabbit’s song, “New MacDonald,” had certainly made an impact. She probably shouldn’t have done that research to help answer the kids’ questions. And perhaps the follow-up class she led yesterday when Mrs Mason stepped out had been a mistake. Had the time for an early confession and light sentence passed? Maybe she should skip straight to the inevitable career change of flipping burgers and, thanks to Rabbit, feeling
sorry for them as she did.
“To be frank,” Mr Macklin said, “I’ve become concerned about Mrs Mason’s judgment.”
“Sir?”
“There’s these,” he said, dismissing the pictures with one hand. “And strictly in confidence, I think the woman has paranoid delusions. She keeps telling me people are stealing things from her pigeonhole.”
“Sir.”
“That’s why I’d like you to take the lead on the pandemic plan. It’s due to the department on the thirtieth and I can’t rely on your supervisor.”
Q’s brain jumped a rail. “A pandemic plan, sir? In September? Wouldn’t we usually do those before winter?”
“Excellent question, Quentin.” He shuffled the pictures of farmhouse mayhem. “I understand you teach self-defense to girls in the evenings?”
“Yes, sir,” Q said. Why hadn’t he answered her?
“You don’t teach boys?”
“No, sir. They’re not emotionally mature enough to handle their powers.”
Mr Macklin raised an eyebrow. “When does that happen?”
“Around twenty-five.”
“I see. I would have thought someone with your—talents—would have joined the army.”
“Yes, sir.” Now may not be the time to mention that she’d failed the psych test. Twice.
Mr Macklin was still talking. “Your unique background will come in handy on this project. Here’s the information.” He handed her a thick manila folder and regarded her carefully. “You’re a very odd kindergarten teacher, Quentin.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You better get back to class.”
*
The pitch of the dog’s cry grew higher with each thrash of the tail. When Q thought the kelpie would burst, she opened the front door and fended off the delirious creature.
Her father was in the recliner, asleep. He had not heard her come in, even with the whines and yips. The man had the instincts of a brick. She watched him snore, then went to the kitchen to make dinner.
