Glimpse

by Steve Whibley

  I jumped back and cringed.

  “Are you Dean? Dean Curse?” the woman asked.

  None of the other hallucinations had talked. I sighed in relief. “You’re real.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Nothing. Sorry. Yeah, I’m Dean.”

  “Oh wonderful.” She pulled out a notepad and pen. “I’m Regina Nelson from the Gazette.” She cleared her throat and added, “Would it be okay if I interviewed you for a piece?”

  “I’m not interested.” I made my way onto the porch and turned to lock the door. When I turned back to the reporter, I was greeted with the flash of a camera. “Wha…?”

  “How many muggers were there, Dean?” she asked, cutting me off and stuffing her camera into her handbag.

  “T… two,” I said. I gestured to her bag. “I don’t want to be in the newspaper. Maybe you’d better interview the guy who was actually mugged.”

  She jotted a quick note and lifted an eyebrow. “I tried. He’s not doing too well. And by the looks of your face, I’d say you didn’t have an easy go of things yourself.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal.” I checked my watch: 8:25. “Darn it! I’m going to be late. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have to go.” I started running, but yelled over my shoulder, “Please don’t use my name in the paper!” When I hit the end of the driveway, I broke into a sprint and made it all of five steps before the pain in my ribs slowed me to a light jog.

  I gave up. I’d never make it.

  ***

  The buzzer announcing the start of first period sounded from the PA just as I ran through the main entrance. I was late.

  I inched open the door to my history class and tried not to notice when the room went suddenly silent and all eyes, including the ones belonging to Mrs. Farnsworthy, turned to me.

  Mrs. Farnsworthy had to be at least fifty. She wore pleated skirts and solid-colored cardigans every day without fail, as if they were part of some dress code that only she knew about. She had a strange accent too, though you only really noticed when she said certain words, or when she got really upset. It always reminded me of the Soviet terrorists you see in old James Bond movies. She placed her hands on her hips and beat out a steady rhythm with her foot.

  “Are you about ready to start, Mr. Curse?”

  I gulped. I nodded as I sank into my chair.

  “Good. Because we wouldn’t want to inconvenience you by starting before you’re ready.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Farnsworthy. I’m only late becau—”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t want to hear it.” She smoothed her hair with her palms and then returned them to her hips. “Maybe you can tell the class who fought in the War of 1812?”

  “W… what?”

  “1812, Mr. Curse. If you’re going to come late to my class, I’ll assume it’s because you’ve already read the material and didn’t think it necessary to come on time.”

  I had no idea what happened in 1812, but racked my brain to come up with something that wouldn’t make me seem overly stupid. Colin was trying to whisper the answer from the desk behind me, but he sounded more like a hissing snake and only made me more nervous.

  “Um… Vietnam and… uh… Korea?” I had a feeling that I was wrong when most of the class started laughing. In my defense, history just wasn’t my thing. And plus, if your history teacher spoke like an ex-KGB spy, and she was glaring at you from across the room as if she were preparing to attack, you’d have a hard time answering too.

  “Vietnam and Korea?” She cocked her eyebrow. “No, Mr. Curse, though perhaps the British and the Americans would have preferred it that way.” Her expression soured. “One more interruption”—she raised a single finger as if I had no idea how many one was—“just one more and you’ll have detention. Understand?”

  I nodded and hunched in my chair.

  “Where were you?” Colin whispered after Mrs. Farnsworthy returned to her lecture.

  I shook my head and made a subtle gesture to tell him to be quiet.

  “Okay, tell me later,” he said. “But if she comes after you, remember to stop, drop, and roll. I’m pretty sure that’s not just for fires. It works for crazy teachers too.”

  I coughed to stifle my laugh, only to have Mrs. Farnsworthy glare at me from across the room. Apparently, in her book a cough was enough to get me detention.

  The thing is, I don’t act out in class. I do as I’m told, and I follow the rules. I’ve only gotten detention twice in my whole life, and both those times were because of Colin. So what happened next was really out of character for me.

  I was taking notes when it started. Like before, the color drained from the room and left it a dreary gray. I gripped the edge of my desk and drew a series of shallow breaths, not entirely sure if I was having another hallucination or a stroke, but praying desperately for the stroke. That’s when things got even weirder. One second Mrs. Farnsworthy was droning on at the front of the class, and the next moment she was standing—Whoosh!—right next to me. Only not really, because… well, she was in both places, as if a twin had sprouted from her and transported magically across the room to kill me or, worse, to ask me another history question. Either way, for the second time today, I was on the verge of wetting my pants right then and there.

  Shaking, I looked at the Mrs. Farnsworthy beside me. She had that same blank stare as the other hallucinations. Slowly, she started twisting and contorting her face. Her mouth widened and then, just like the others, she screamed. Shrieked is a better word, actually. She shrieked bloody murder. It seemed doubly worse than the other hallucinations because I knew her. Her features continued to distort, twisting like some human pretzel.

  I reacted entirely on instinct. When you see something like that, no matter how hard you try, you can’t think. Really, though, I only did what any other kid my age would’ve done. I leaped out of my chair and screamed too. I jumped back so hard that I hit Colin’s desk and sent his books clattering to the floor.

  Once again, the class was silent. My mouth dropped when I saw that Mrs. Farnsworthy’s screaming twin had vanished. There was now only one of her standing at the front of the class.

  She seemed to have forgotten all about history. I only realized that the room’s color had returned when I noticed a slight hue of pink inching up her neck like a thermometer measuring rage. She clutched the front of her beige cardigan.

  Mixed expressions crossed the faces of the rest of the class. Some kids seemed amused, others horrified. One thing seemed certain: I was once again the only one who had seen anything. I glanced back at Colin. His face was white and his mouth kept opening and closing as if he were a fish blowing bubbles.

  “S… sorry, I… uh… I…” I searched through all the excuses imaginable to explain my outburst, hoping that I could come up with something before the pink hue, which had now crested Mrs. Farnsworthy’s cheeks, climbed to the top of her head. “A rat,” I said finally. “I saw a rat.”

  There were a few stifled gasps.

  “A big one.”

  Reggie Sung was out of his chair before I finished my sentence. Reggie was the biggest baby in our grade. A few months ago someone had bumped into a light switch by mistake, and when the lights flicked back on three and a half seconds later, we found Reggie hiding under his desk. This time he sprinted to the back of the room and started hyperventilating.

  He started a chain reaction. The gasps turned to shrieks as the other kids, particularly the girls, started seeing imaginary rats all over the place. Some even resorted to standing on their chairs. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so traumatized.

  Mrs. Farnsworthy glanced at the floor to her right, then left, then slapped a nearby desk. “All right, all right,” she said. “There are obviously no r—”

  “There’s one!” Colin yelled, pointing somewhere beside Mrs. Farnsworthy.

  You wouldn’t have thought anyone could move so fast or jump so high, but I blinked and she was on her desk, half crouched, peering ov
er the edge at the floor below with a ballpoint pen clutched in her hand like a dagger. I heard wood crack when she stomped a foot on the desk to bring the class under control.

  “Class!” she bellowed. “As we seem to have a… rodent… problem”—a visible shiver rolled up her spine—“you’re all to go to the library, understand? Read chapters ten and twelve.”

  Just then, Jessica Barnes, seated just a couple rows in front of Mrs. Farnsworthy, shrieked, swatting frantically at something that had apparently attached itself to her leg about mid-calf. She leaped onto her desk only to shriek again. Mrs. Farnsworthy jumped in reaction, nearly falling off her desk in the process, and I swore I could hear the wood groaning in protest.

  “Out!” she bawled. “Now!”

  Chapter 6

  No one spoke to me in the library, not even Colin, though he kept opening his mouth like he was about to say something. I could understand his confusion: he was the one who played pranks on teachers and students, not me.

  The rest of the class kept whispering and nodding in my direction. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say some of them looked impressed. But that was impossible. I’d caused the biggest scene ever. A few months back, Seth Brookfield, a kid from my algebra class, fell asleep and woke up calling for “Mommy.” People still teased him about that, and my outburst was way worse. No, this was going to be bad. I was pretty sure I had set myself up for several weeks of relentless teasing. What will it be? I wondered. Rat Boy? Rodent Kid? Screamy McScreamerson? Okay, that last one probably wasn’t going to stick.

  But I had bigger things to worry about. I was still reeling from that hallucination. Something was very, very wrong with me. I even considered calling my dad and telling him to arrange a visit to the shrink.

  When the bell for break finally rang, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. “You gonna tell me what happened in there?” Colin asked as students spilled out of the library and made for their lockers.

  I wondered if I could play dumb. “What do you mean?”

  “C’mon, Dean,” Colin prodded. “You look like you’ve been clobbered by the girls’ field hockey team, and you were screaming like you just saw your mom naked.”

  “Argh! Why do you always have to use such disgusting analogies?”

  “Because I know that if I say something like that, the image will automatically jump into your head.” Colin laughed. “You just thought about your own mom naked!”

  “You’re really disturbed, you know that?”

  “Well, it sounded like you were the one disturbed. C’mon, spill already. It’s not like you to make a scene. I mean, it was a genius way to get out of class early, and you had at least half the class fooled for a bit. Especially Mrs. Farnsworthy.” He laughed and then got serious again. “But you were screaming for real and it wasn’t about rats. Right?”

  “It’s a long story. I don’t really know where to begin.”

  “Whaddaya mean? I figured you dozed off or something and were dreaming. That’s not what happened?”

  “No. Not exactly.” I glanced over one shoulder and then the next. “What if I told you that one second I was listening to Mrs. F drone on about the British, and the next second I saw her standing beside me, clear as day, screaming like she was on fire?”

  “She was on fire?”

  “No. She was screaming like she was on fire. You know, like a crazy, terrified, soon-to-be-dead scream.”

  “Oh. Well, it would have been a better dream if you saw her burning alive.” He looked up at the ceiling. “That would be one big fire.”

  “Argh. Are you even listening?”

  We made it to our lockers, but instead of opening his, Colin shoved his history books into mine. He had his own locker, but it was filled with rotting food and dirty clothes. It made me seriously regret that my locker was next to his.

  “Yeah, of course I’m listening. But the only one who screamed was you,” Colin insisted. “Well, you screamed first, anyway.” He turned and poked me in the chest. “So either you really saw her, you’re on drugs, or you’re nuts. I kinda hope you’re nuts. I’ve always wanted a crazy friend.”

  “Mission accomplished,” I muttered.

  “Well, it was good timing anyway. We only had five minutes of lecture. That was great.” He slouched against the lockers and watched the mob of students pass by. “You gonna tell me why you look so beat up?”

  I was just about to tell him what happened when a heavily accented voice over my shoulder cut me off.

  “Hey, Rat Boy.”

  I’d been expecting it and turned to see who would be the first to start what was sure to be a long line of name calling and sarcastic digs I’d be experiencing for the next week. When I recognized the culprit, though, I smiled. “Very funny, Lisa. Nice accent.”

  Colin nodded. “Yeah. You sound just like a drunken leprechaun.”

  She opened her mouth to speak but rocked back when I turned to face her. “God, Dean. What happened to your face? Is that why you weren’t in school on Friday?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She forced a smile. “Did it have anything to do with the vicious rodent attack that everyone’s talking about?”

  “It was awful,” Colin said without missing a beat. “The beast was as big as a dog and came straight at Dean. Razor sharp teeth. No one thought he was going to survive.”

  “Must’ve been awful.” She smiled and jabbed me in the shoulder. “You gonna be okay?”

  “He will once he gets the image of Mrs. Farnsworthy out of his mind,” Colin added.

  “Oh gosh, did Colin make you think of her naked or something?” Lisa asked.

  “No. But you just did!” Colin laughed. “Dean was thinking about her burning to death.”

  “What!” Lisa gasped. “That’s a horrible thing to think about.”

  I closed my locker and turned to my friends. “I didn’t see her naked and I didn’t see her burning to death. Freaking out in class is not something I’ll be living down anytime soon either.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lisa asked. “I heard the story from a group of girls in the hall and they were saying that it was brilliant.”

  “W… what?” I said. “They did?”

  Lisa nodded. “Yep. No one’s making fun of you. I think they’ve all realized by now it was just a prank.” She stepped closer. “But I’d like to know what really happened.”

  I nodded. “Fine. But this is the last time I’m saying it, so just listen, okay?”

  “Dean,” Lisa said, reaching out for my arm, “you’re shaking.”

  I could feel the sting of moisture behind my eyes and tried to blink it away. I was seeing things. Something was wrong with me, and I really didn’t want my friends to think that I had totally lost it. At least Lisa and Colin wouldn’t make fun of me—well, Colin might, but only until he realized I was serious; then he’d want to help. Since I had no idea what was going on with me, help was exactly what I needed. I cleared my throat.

  “Hey, Dean. See any more imaginary rats?” There was no mistaking that sniveling voice: Eric Feldman, aka spoiled-rich-kid-who-buys-his-friends, aka douchebag extraordinaire, aka… well, you get the idea.

  I turned slowly and watched Eric and his posse plow their way through the crowded hall. Students slowed and looked between me and Eric as though we were engaged in some invisible game of tennis. I sighed. I’d known Eric since he moved to Abbotsford in third grade. He had been a jerk even back then. Colin tricked him into eating yellow snow one winter and ever since we’d been at the top of his list of people to bully.

  Colin stepped forward. “He thought he saw one, but it turned out to be your mom. I’m sure you can see how he confused the two.”

  Laughter erupted from the students who had stopped to watch, and their voices caught the attention of even more people until it seemed the entire school, or at least the entire ninth grade, was watching us.

  Eric took a quick step forward but skidded to a stop when
Colin clenched his fists and took a step of his own. Eric wasn’t a tough kid. Actually, he was pretty much the definition of prissy. He even walked around on his toes most of the time, but that was probably because he was a bit smaller than the other kids in our class. Colin and I—even Lisa for that matter—could probably take him in a fight. Eric’s best friend, Rodney Palmer, however, was a different story. Rodney was a Neanderthal goon who would frighten even a grown-up. Today, however, Rodney wasn’t at school… Actually, he hadn’t been in school for three days―a fact that had clearly slipped Eric’s mind. Rumors had been circulating that Rodney had been picked up for shoplifting, which sounded pretty believable. Considering the type of thug he was, if there were rumors that Rodney was on the run after killing a cop, most everyone would have believed that too.

  Rodney’s absence, combined with a general distaste for Eric, spurred Colin’s confidence. He seemed ready for a fight. Eric wasn’t.

  The crowd fell silent as Eric and Colin squared off against each other. Colin had a crooked smile and looked far too pleased. Eric, on the other hand, kept glancing over his shoulder at the gathering masses while he bit nervously on his lower lip.

  “Get ‘em, Colin!” someone shouted from the crowd. Another shout followed, then another, and before long, the whole crowd was egging the fight on. Some of the shouts were in support of Eric—who was looking more nervous by the second—but most were for Colin. No surprise there: Colin was one of those kids who was pretty much friends with everyone. This was good for me too, since that meant when he was around no one was looking at me.

  I smiled. Colin was about to come through again. Eric Feldman getting his butt kicked was just the thing to make everyone forget about the whole rat debacle. I thought it was going to happen too, until the first buzzer sounded over the PA system and Mr. Shepherd came charging down the hall and commanded us all to class.

  Lisa grabbed me by the shoulder. “We’ll meet you here before lunch,” she said as the crowd dispersed.

  Second period was social studies, and it would have been the best place to sit and think about what was wrong with me. My teacher, Mr. Webber, was hands down the oldest teacher in the school. He had a bald head and age spots all over his face and arms. His wrinkled skin sagged like loose clothes. His hearing wasn’t very good either, and as a result, he never asked the students many questions. He just stood at the front of the class pointing at various spots on his pull-down maps, entirely unaware of what was happening behind him.