I stared dumbfounded down on my paper. Ms Rose kept on talking to me about how rude I was and so on, but I never listen anyways so there really was no difference in that matter. My mind was whirling with questions.
The paper was burned. All of the places where I held my test before were burned. Singed clean off. Gone. Crumbled away to ash. How did I not notice before? There was a fine layer of white and grey dust coating the centre of my table. I blinked. At least I knew where it came from.
The top left and the bottom right corners of the test have crumbled to ash by then and some of the questions became nearly unreadable because of the brown, almost black, burn marks covering some of the inside of the paper.
"—by? Ruby, hello? Earth to Ruby! What happened?" Lena asked as she peered over my shoulder. I flinched. I didn't even notice her getting up and walking over to my desk. She gasped when she saw what happened to my test. I looked at her sheepishly from the corner of my eye.
"Yeah..."
"How did... that... whatever it is... happen?" Lena hesitantly asked.
"I really don't know. Paper combustion maybe?" I suggested. Despite the grim situation, Lena had to stifle a laugh at that statement. I gave my test one last look and sighed. Might as well make the best of this situation now and face Ms Rose's wrath. If I was going to do that, then I would go down in style!
I glanced at Ms Rose, who was still fuming and glaring at me. I could almost see the steam rising from her head, like they do in cartoons. "Or maybe", I drawled, "it is just a sign from fate that we aren't supposed to write this math test today. What do you say, Ms Rose?"
The entire class was silent and watching Ms Rose's reaction intently. Poor Melanie was still sitting on the floor. Although she didn't look nearly as miserable, now that the attention was off of her. I glanced at her and she gave me a grudging nod. Her eyes seemed to say: "Take it or leave it." Well, that's most likely the best I'm going to get from her. In her language that might be the same as a hearty hug and a thank you from someone else, other than her.
Ms Rose stumbled and stuttered over her words. "H—how d—dare y—y—you? Give me your test r—right this second! I w—will speak to you after c—cl—class is over."
I picked up my test and held it out for her to take. "Yeah, sure, whatever. It's not like I even care anymore about this stupid test and your stupid lessons." I heard Carlson mutter something in the background. His face looked concerned at Ms Rose's face. He had a legitimate cause for concern though. Her face was as red as a boiled lobster; it really looked like her head was about to explode. Lena seemed to be thinking the same thing because she started doubling over, trying to stifle her onslaught of laughter before she also landed on Ms Rose's naughty list.
Ms Rose ripped the test out of my hand. I glanced worriedly at the flurry of white ash that landed in a pile on the floor, right in front of Ms Rose's black stiletto high heels. Ms Rose scrambled to catch the test before it also fluttered to the ground because the places where I touched it, everything seemed to burn away. I frowned, this was really not going well. My test was in tatters; I could only hope that my answers were still intact.
While pointing at the door with a finger, Ms Rose started talking again. The bun on the top of her head quivered dangerously in time with Ms Rose's furious shaking. She seemed to have gained some semblance of control though. "Go outside, Ruby, and think about the disturbance you have been to the class today. You too, Melanie. You have both caused enough trouble for today. Speak to me after class is over."
I stalked past Ms Rose and muttered: "I think that the class is thanking me instead." I felt a tinge of satisfaction when I heard Ms Rose gasp in anger. John was chuckling and giving me a thumbs-up. Lena was staring at me with a shocked expression.
"And everyone else: get back to work right this second! You only have a couple of minutes left, thanks to these two troublemakers," Ms Rose announced with an aggravated voice to the class. I noticed that when she became angrier, her voice would sound even more nasal.
I walked over to Melanie and bent down slightly towards her. Her green eyes were looking up at me through a slightly tangled curtain of blond hair. "Did you pick up your pencil yet?" I looked over at Ms Rose. She looked like she was ignoring us, as if she was too disgusted by our presence to even bother looking over.
Melanie grumbled something and reached for her pencil. She was about to wrap her fingers around the wood, when suddenly the pencil slithered across the floor. I stared after it, wide-eyed. Meanwhile, Melanie just sighed and scrambled after it. How did that happen? Did the pencil just move by itself? Maybe Melanie touched it and I just didn't see it. Yeah, it might just be Melanie trying to trick me.
"This isn't funny, Melanie. You pushed the pencil across the floor, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't! Look!" she loudly whispered. With that she held her hand out and slammed her palm down on top of the pencil. Or she would have if the pencil hadn't rolled away a split second before her palm touched it. She repeated this several times, each time she seemed to become more and more desperate. I felt kind of sorry for her again. Melanie looked exhausted for some reason. The shadows under her eyes seemed to have deepened. Her normally straight blond hair was getting kind of frizzy and tangled. It was as if she had a halo of fuzzy blond hair around her head.
Quickly picking up the pencil without a problem, I turned to her. "We should probably get going. Ms Rose would otherwise become even madder when she realizes that we are still in the room." It's true enough: she was sitting at her large desk, which was covered with papers and several flower pots which belonged to another teacher. Ms Rose was leaning back on her chair and had her eyes closed. She might be sleeping or meditating; it was kind of hard to tell the difference.
Melanie grunted in agreement and we both slipped through the door into the darkened hallway. The lightbulbs were off again. Melanie slid down the wall next to the door, pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in her arms. "This is horrible, a horrible, horrible day..." I heard her murmur.
I quietly walked over to her and sat down beside her. I stayed quiet, but I knew that she was aware of my presence. Melanie glanced up and gave me a quick look and immediately stared at her sneakers again. Her eyes were slightly red and looked slightly teary. "Thanks, by the way, "she said.
I cocked my head questioningly. She snorted. "You know what I mean..." Melanie took a deep breath and looked unflinchingly into my eyes. "You know... for standing up for me. Saying something against Ms Rose. You didn't have to do that, but you still did. Why?"
I looked up at the ceiling. The lightbulb was flickering. "Because... I don't really know. Honestly. I guess it just made me angry to see Ms Rose act as if she was so much better than us. I actually thought that she was an okay teacher before all of this. Now she is just behaving like the stereotypical mean teachers I always read about in books. And the thing is," I said, shifting my gaze back to Melanie, "I know that you didn't cheat. I saw that you didn't do anything. It was just wrong of her to suddenly become this mad and accuse you of something you didn't do." Even though you kind of deserved it.
Melanie said nothing for a long time and I started getting a little unnerved, when she spoke up again. "I didn't expect you to do that." The corners of her mouth twitched upwards slightly. "Don't get me wrong: you are still a weirdo and you always will be but— "
"Geez, thanks," I muttered and rolled my eyes.
"—but you are at least a nice weirdo. Oh, I want my pencil back. It's still mine after all."
I looked down at my hand. "Oops. Right, sorry." I dropped the pencil onto Melanie's outstretched hand.
Zoom! CRACK!
I yelped and rubbed my eyes. Dust clouded my vision and invaded my lungs. Melanie and I both coughed. "What... what just happened?"
"Does it look like I have a clue? For all I know, a nuclear bomb could have just blown up somewhere in the school!"
"If that were the case, I doubt that we would still be alive." I blinked several times and finally the dust settled on the ground. Where did the dust even come from? I looked around, trying to find the origin of the sound. My gaze landed on the other side of the hallway, directly opposite where we were sitting. Oh... That can't be good.
The pencil was embedded into the wall until roughly half of it was stuck inside the wall. A concrete wall. The end of the pencil with the eraser was snapped off and laid a couple of centimetres away on the floor. A huge crack spider webbed all the way up to the ceiling. The lightbulb had stopped flickering.
"The pencil almost split the wall in half. Melanie? Are you listening?" I turned to her.
She looked like she was pressing herself into the wall, as if trying to make herself invisible. She had her eyes squeezed shut and was chanting under her breath: "No, no, no, no, no! This can't be happening. It's not real. It's not happening. It can't be real!"
I opened the door to the math classroom slightly and poked my head through the gap. Everyone was looking around confused, probably wondering what that noise was. Whispers filled the air. Ms Rose ignored me of course. She was standing at the front of the class room and asked everyone to hand in their tests. I pulled my head back and let out a breath I didn't even realize I have been holding. Thank the people who built this school! The thick walls seemed to have dulled the noise somewhat, so it at least didn't sound like an explosion.
I walked over to the crack in the wall and tugged at the pencil. It was stuck tight. "It won't budge." Melanie just stared at me wide-eyed. I ran a hand through my hair. "Care to explain how that happened?"
Melanie said very quietly: "I don't know." She sounded miserable. "It started during the math test. Everything I tried to hold or grab of just seems to move away."
I nodded thoughtfully. "So basically, it's like two north magnets pushing each other away." I sighed. "Strangely enough, I believe you. Weird stuff happened today. So, are you going to get up and help me pull this pencil out, or are you just going to sit there and wallow in self-pity?"
Melanie grumbled and pushed herself up. I grabbed onto the splintered end of the pencil and pushed one foot against the wall. Melanie wedged her hand into the crack and tried to help pull the pencil out that way. With a sound very much the same like nails being dragged along a chalkboard, the pencil came loose and Melanie and I ended up tumbling onto the floor. Grunting, I pushed myself up and stared at the reset of the pencil Melanie was holding in her hand. It was a miracle that none of the other teachers, who normally taught around this time in the other classrooms along the corridor, had heard anything or bothered to check if they did.
The pencil looked like a mutated sunflower. The wood had splintered into every possible direction and the lead was completely demolished. Melanie stood up and walked over to the crack in the wall. She stared at it for a long time. I rubbed the wolf charm on my bracelet. How were we supposed to fix the wall before anyone else noticed?
I turned to Melanie to share my concern. She looked like she was about to snap. Like her pencil did. Hehe. "Umm, Melanie, how are we—"
"Don't talk to me! Can't you see? All of this," she gestured at the wall, all the way up to the ceiling, "and this," she pointed to the mutilated pencil at this time, "is your goddamn fault! If I wouldn't have met you, tehn none of this would have happened!"
I was taken aback. I knew that Melanie was still possible harbouring a grudge against me because of her ruined sock, but I had absolutely no idea what she was on about right now. "What are you talking about? I wasn't the one who rammed a pencil into the wall! What did it ever do to you anyway?"
"I. Didn't. Do. It. Get that into that thick skull of yours, weirdo! And don't pull that whole innocent charade over me; you know that it's not gonna work! You know what you did. You are the reason I am like this!"
"I've had enough of this. Just tell me what how I am the reason for this? Why should I be responsible for a pencil that has suddenly evolved into a sentient lifeform?" Which you kind of killed, by the way.
Melanie fumed. "Don't think that I didn't see what I did to your test paper, "she hissed at me. I stepped back. "I saw how the paper turned into ashes. As if you burned it into fragments." She laughed harshly. "Others might be fooled but not me. Not me, you hear? I heard some Tiffany whispering to John, that you must be pretty angry at Ms Rose to cause you to cut up your paper. They all believed that you snipped up your test! But I don't believe that!" She narrowed her eyes at me. "Because I saw it. Your fingers were glowing every time before another part of the test crumbled to ash. What are you staring at me for, weirdo?"
"My fingers were glowing? I—I didn't e—even notice..."
"Oh, shut up! You knew very well what you were doing!" She lowered her voice, but it didn't sound any less menacing. "All I know for sure, is that you somehow did this to me! I always try to stay away from you; I could always feel that you were weird and freaky. And now: look at me! This is what happened! You did your weird voodoo thing and it somehow affected me."
"This is crazy! Why would—"
"The only thing around here that is crazy," Melanie said deathly calm, "is you."