>>Chapter Three

“Darland Elementary.”

My lips twitch. “You’re sure?”

Sara, next to me, dressed in a sophisticated lawyer suit, I stare at her. She reads my mind and snaps, “It’s not a lawyer suit,” again.

We’re standing in front of Darland Elementary. After some measures of blackmail, persuasion by the Queen Trickster, Sara Klein, in two days, we managed to pinpoint that the little boy named Adrian Marcus-Evan (thank God for the feminist mother). Now all we have to do is get me into the school… as a teacher.

I groan at the thought of being back in school again.

Reading my mind again, Sara throws me a sharp look. “It was your idea.”

I grimace at her at the obvious. “If it was your idea, I’d know it was too stupid to follow.”

Her lips twitch. “Fine, you go on by yourself.”

I grab her arm before she turns and leaves. “Agh, no, Sara. Not stupid. Not stupid at all.”

For a moment, we stare at each other. Then both take a deep breath simultaneously, straightening up. Two best friends, gone back in time, like little girls, taking our first steps into what has been said to be hell we’ve heard for years, hand in hand.

I haven’t been to a job interview for years. I’m sweating my makeup off.

We sit anxiously (me, at least – Sara is always at full-blown confidence) in front of the principal of this school, Mr. Rock. Come to think of it, he does look like a rock. I stare at him reading my résumé that Sara prepared overnight, squinted-eyed.

His hair is steel gray, his face pale and lined with a permanent look of… well, a permanent look, whatever expression he may carry.

His spectacled-eyes flash up from the résumé. I cringe at his steely look.

He smiles and I breathe. “Well, Miss Carton, you are certainly qualified. But may I ask why you’re taking up this job?”

I open my mouth but Sara answers instead. “Well, Principal Rock, she has been unsuccessful in many jobs because of her fickle-mindedness. We are looking to settle her down and at the mean time, be inspired to become a writer once again by the younger generation – to see through their eyes and look at the world from another fresher perspective –”

He nods as she talks. I hope he doesn’t notice me nodding too.

“It’s essential that she finds herself again. And maybe this job is just what she needs. With a suitable amount of work load and a chance to connect with people, she –”

Suddenly, he holds up a hand. Sara stops. “Miss…”

“Klein.”

“Klein, yes. I am now fully aware of why you want Miss Carton to do this. But I would like to hear from Miss Carton herself.” He transfers his attention to me. “Miss Carton, please.”

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. He raises an eyebrow slowly.

Shit. I’m doing a terrible job. I’m gonna lose this job. Wait, why do I want it anyway?

The silence in the office echoes in my head.

Oh, Adrian. Right.

“I want to be able to help the students.”

Mr. Rock nods, encouraging me to go on.

“I want to be able to see into their lives, like Sara said. But this is so much more than being a writer. This is about understanding humanity then reaching out to it. These children are the future generation, what we will be depending on.

“I’ve been a child before. And I spent way too much time alone, because I was friendless. I had no figure to look up to. I wandered around a lot. My father died.”

His brow crumples. I’m sinking into personal information. I’m pretty sure it’s not very safe, but I’m going to take that risk.

“And my mom went a bit… nuts. I wasn’t in control of the things around me that happened. And even though my elder brother was the one looking after the family, I couldn’t expect him to take care of me. He certainly didn’t have the time for it. I turned out okay. But who’s to say that every child will turn out the same? I may be no counselor or psychologist or… anthropologist –” I gesture to a stone-faced Sara. “But I know I can do something. I want to reach out.”

He’s nodding now. I breathe easier and continue to speak my mind.

“Sara’s right. I want to become a writer again, that’s true. But I have my eye on something else, altogether. While I was working as a writer, I have lost some perspective of life. Life itself. Of what other people see in it. Children, especially. Adults tend to take them as nothing but immature and… say that they lack knowledge. But the simplicity they see is the most insightful thing there is.”

He holds up a hand, now nodding very surely. “Yes, Miss Carton. You have said enough. You’re hired.”

What? I’m coming back to school?

Sara’s stony face lightens. She doesn’t miss a beat. “Thank you, Principal Rock.”

He nods at Sara and turns back to me. “You will start on tomorrow. But feel free to explore the school and familiarize yourself.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rock,” I stutter. I’m coming back to school.

I’m no more than dazed as I walk out of the office with Sara whispering urgently at my ear about making sure how I’d find Adrian’s class, go through his schedule, like some kind of lunatic stalker.

Oh, wait. I am.

“Cafeteria.”

“I don’t want to eat here anyway.”

“Gym.”

“Why do I need to know this? I’m not a P.E. teacher.”

“Theatre.”

“Assemblies are here? God. Gotta skip those.”

“Loo.”

“Ugh. School toilets. Glad I’m not using the teachers’ ones.”

“Library.”

“Let’s get out of here – the librarians already glaring.”

“Art classroom.”

“Why are we here? Oh, wait. I’m teaching art? But I thought I wasn’t qualified.”

Sara’s fist shoots up and smacks me on the head. “It’s elementary art class. You just ask them to draw. You don’t have to all that qualified.”

“But what if a Picasso turns up in my class?”

“Then you tell the principal he should be transferred to a higher level class. Besides you’re only teaching the first and second grade students on Art.”

“Shouldn’t there be better qualified teachers altogether?” I muse.

“You’re a substitute, remember?” she reminds me as we walk down a shadowy corridor.

“Does that mean they only call me in when they need me?”

“I guess you can sit around on the other days. You can always write while you’re at it,” she suggests.

The bell rings. “Agh!”

A swarm of midgets – I mean, kids – plunge out of class and came knocking into us. Considering their size, they’re pretty strong. Sara and I hold on to each other, absolutely terrified. They push past quickly, heading towards the doorway out of hell. There is a lot of noise – screaming, laughing, shouting, crying.

There is one particularly loud voice. A man shows up, red-faced, shouting for the kids to calm down. He looks as if he’s in his early thirties, with a head of caramel hair swept back into a suave look, tall and perfectly fit. But despite all that, the creepy expression on his face is going to stop me from getting to know him better.

He looks over, and I feel both me and Sara shrink and freeze. She is absolutely cowering in my arms.

His face softens and the features look even more striking, handsome like a classic Hollywood actor. One thought strikes me, oh, no, he’s one of those.

And I know it. I know Sara’s getting ideas.

Sure enough, she is removed from my arms, through with cowering, so ready to pounce. My stutter footsteps and I follow her as she strides forward confidently.

“Sara Klein. You must be a teacher here?” she says with a huge smile, hand forward ready to be shook.

He nods. “Don McHale, Science professor.” He looks over at me, making me feel complied to introduce myself too.

“Una Carton. I’m the new substitute teacher.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Strange. I didn’t know they were hiring.”

Sara cut in. “They weren’t. But Una here needed a job anyway, and Mr. Rock certainly found her intriguing.”

He nods slowly. “Well, I look forward to working with you.”

I look at the hand he raised. Hesitantly, I reach out and shake it. His grip is tight and I don’t like it one bit.

“Another thing – I suggest you steer clear of Coach Tyler.” He looks me up and down with a look I immediately despise. “Has his eyes out for a girl like you.”

My eyes bulge as he walks away, laughing, because I’m entirely unsure of whether or not that was a joke. Sara and I exchange a look. Mine tells her to not be stupid and steer clear of the guy (hidden message: he’s an asshole) and hers telling me to shut up and not steal her man (hidden message reply: he was joking).

Just one of those days.

The windows stare at me. I stare back at it. I immediately dislike it. It looks sad.

But I walk to the door anyway. I reach into my pocket and pull out a set of keys. I insert the biggest key into a ridiculously large keyhole of an ancient-looking lock. It clicks open. The lock falls to the floor with a loud clang. There is no knob on the gigantic wooden door.

I push it, and it opens with a thunderous-sounding creak.

It is white. At first, it is completely white and I turn on the spot, realizing all my surroundings have been erased and I can’t see what I’m standing on, where I’m standing at or where I could possibly go.

Then a color spreads over the floor, red – like a carpet, and not blood. Then the color of rocks and stones spread across the sides, building walls. Things begin materializing – furniture, here and there: framed pictures on the walls, expensive-looking tables, empty wine glasses on those tables, luxurious couches and a fireplace with photos standing on it.

I take a step towards the fireplace, to get a good look at the photos.

A flame bursts alight in the fireplace, shocking me. I take that step right back. The fire blazes brightly, turning from red to a mystic-looking purple. It shrinks in its place.

I feel compelled to step forward again, to stare into that fire. When I follow the urge, I find myself looking into a room exactly identical to this.

But there is only one thing that’s different. One huge difference.

A couple stands in the room, arm in arm, smiling at their surroundings. The couple turns around and I see their faces.

My heart drops to the floor – not literally, of course. But as I felt that, I begin falling forward into the fire. I fall splat onto the carpeted floor.

The couple stares down at me. The woman wears a look of a strange mixture of pity and cruelty. The man shakes his head, after showing surprise, embarrassed.

That’s when everything disappears, and I sit up, gasping for air in a dark room.

My room, I realize. I try to slow my breathing as I buried my face in my hands. Sweat sprouted everywhere through that dream. I feel wet but sticky.

I have that dream all the time. Once every month, at the least. It used to be much worse, nearly every night.

That house is Michael’s house.

Before Michael moved to New York, I was the one who went house-hunting. The real estate agent made a mistake, and scheduled two sessions to take a look at the house at the same hour. I walked into the house to find a happy couple there, excited. Not just any couple. But him, with his newly-wedded wife.

The real estate agent apologized profusely. But in the end, they left hurriedly, having another house to look at. And I didn’t complain, because I could barely look at him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him open his mouth several times, but seemed to think better of it.

Even so, I admitted to Michael that this was the best house, and he bought it. But I never went inside again.

I prod my head outside my room door. The sun is still not up, but Sara has already left. She has to work overtime and she said that she’d rather walk in the morning than at night. So she left at five. I told her she was insane. She said for me, she is.

I look at the clock – it points to six thirty-nine. I stand there for a second, trying to remember the day.

Wednesday, my brain tells me. It’s working early today, after that shock.

But my heart has closed off. And it tells me it wants to go to sleep. So I let it, spending the rest of the morning sitting by the glass doors that open to the balcony, watching the city come to life and my heart struggle to stop.

“You had that dream again, didn’t you?”

The quiet voice that comes from behind me startles me. I turn around, snapped awake from some sort of trance.

Sara stands at the door of the apartment, with her head against the doorframe, arms tightly crossed, worried eyes on me. I let the tense muscles of my mouth relax and slowly twist into a smile.

“Welcome home.”

She sighs and moves from her position, stepping into the apartment. She removes her coat and shakes her head while she’s at it. I look at her with curious eyes.

She props herself down on the coach, facing the TV instead of me, which is rather strange, considering she’s going to speak to me. “Do you know what time it is?”

“What?” No. I look at the clock. Seven-thirty? “Seven-thirty. Why are you home so early?”

She throws me a scathing look. “Why’s the sun not up?” she snaps.

I pause.

Then I spring to my feet. “Oh my god!”

“Yes, Una – it’s seven-thirty p.m.” she says exasperatedly. “You’re still in your pajamas and I bet you’ve been there since you were awake – which is well before seven-thirty?” She has those crazy eyes again. The ones she gets whenever I’m up to something absurd. And because I know her, I know it’ll soon disappear like always, and she will blend herself into whatever plan I’ve concocted.

I look down at myself, still in my PJs and feeling just a little bit sticky. “I’ll go take a bath.”

As I walk to my room and shut the door, Sara is shouting all like a mother of a teenager, “Oh, you better! –”

The wonderful thing about this apartment is that we each have our own bathrooms. Which is filled with whatever crap you can possibly imagine there being. Sara’s is filled with candles, soft pillows – God knows what they’re for – and in the corner, sits a good old stereo, with tons of products, all the free samples she gets from working in ChicFlick. Mine has a stereo like Sara, with lots of novels, magazines, notebooks, papers and pens scattered around, and a collection of bubble bath – Sara calls it witch’s potion because of “all the chemicals they put it in – can you imagine!”

I fill the tub with warm water and drip in a few drops of the berry-scented one. As I undress, I begin to feel my tummy again. Daaammmiittt.

Even as I am lying in the bath tub, I stare at the lump enlarged underwater.

I dry up, change into a fresh set of PJs ad rush out of my room. “DESPERATE MEASURES!”

Sara, also changed, sitting down, spills the popcorn in her hands at my sudden shriek. Then she stares at me with her brows furrowed. “What?”

I jut out my hips exaggeratedly to bring attention to the tummy I hate. She stares at it for a second and then up at me. “What?”

“TUMMY!”

She laughs nervously. “God. Here we go again.”

And so we go again.

“Okay. Three – two – one – sprint!”

And with a huge huff, I take the first huge step and plunge forward full force, full speed. Down, down, down. One, two, three. Down, down, down. Step, step, step. My eyes are completely focused on my feet, afraid to miss a step.

“Una – no!”

Too late.

I look up in time to knock into the wall. “Umph!”

I fall backwards, on my bum with a big thump. “AGGHOOOWWW!”

“Una! Una?” Sara comes rushing downstairs with water bottle in hand and timer in the other. She drops the bottle, letting it roll down the steps of the stairs as she hurries down and picks me up unsteadily. “Are you okay?”

I rub my head hard, eyes closed. “Do I look okay?”

“Uh…”

My eyes snap open. “Does it take you that long to figure that out!”

She stares at me, doe eyes wide. I stare back at her with an accusing look in my eyes. Then a giggle escapes her lips. “So – rry – Oo – naa – you. Look. So. Ha. Fun – ny.”

My eyes narrow. Her fits of giggle get worse as she tries harder to stop it. I roll my eyes and let it go. “Glad to be of entertainment.”

She grins. “Okay. Anyway, you made time – that was fifteen point two seconds.”

So this is my idea of a diet. To run up and down stairs in record time.

I scowl. “I need food. Hungry.”

“Should you –”

“Sara.”

She frowns, and sighs in defeat. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out… bubblegum.

My diet now consists of coffee, celery and bubblegum – you can really live off this stuff. Sara has tried to talk me out of this in the past years she has known me – and failed miserably. She has gone through all the trouble of looking for effective and proper diets, talked to nutritionists, done research – but I wanted a quick and effective way, and to do that over and over again when I had to.

“You’re gonna learn your lesson one day,” she says darkly – but I heard worry in her voice.

I make a sound that suggested nothing as I pop the bubblegum into my mouth. It hits my tongue. “YUCK!” I accidentally spit it out.

“Ugh! Sara!”

“What’s that?” I look at her in horror.

“Uh…” She checks the wrapper. Then she laughs. “Serves you right.”

“Watermelon – it’s watermelon, isn’t it?” I groan. “Ugh, that stuff’s disgusting.”

Sara didn’t miss a beat. “Hey, what’s say I go cook you up a good proper meal –”

Neither did I. “Sara, it’s twelve in the morning. Eating at that time makes you fat.” And running up and down staircases at the time makes so much sense, Una.

“You always eat at that time,” she points out.

“That was the old Una – new Una starting off now!” I enthuse.

She knocks me on the head. “I think the new Una’s an idiot.”

“The new Una and the old Una is the same person.”

“I know.” She grins.

I stick my tongue out at her. “I’ll go get the celery sticks.” And I stomp on upstairs with Sara’s light footsteps trailing behind me.

“Hey, how’re your Ma and Pa doing?” I ask as I pull open the door.

She makes a grumbling sound.

Sara doesn’t’ like to talk about her family. They’re complete New Yorkers. Sara grew up in Long Island. Her parents were too busy working to spend time with her, and often put her down when they gave all praise to her elder sister, Caprice, who is now working in Mr. Klein’s lawyer firm alongside him. She never fit it in school, “a bit of a geek,” she said. And because of what they stereotyped her as, she went along with it and got these geeky glasses she never needed and put on fake braces for a year – “so they’d stay away from me altogether.” And she had fun giving all her schoolmates the shock of their lives at the Homecoming dance when she showed up with no braces, no glasses, in the gown of everyone’s dreams with a handsome-looking older man (but she never told them that older man was really her cousin, Derek).

Derek’s the only one Sara bothers to keep contact with. He’s about thirty now and still single. Honestly, if he isn’t Sara’s cousin, he would’ve gotten a good right hook from me. He’s a bit of a laze, and he sleeps off women once in a while – and then he’d get this girlfriend who’d break his heart and the cycle begins and goes on.

But the reason Sara likes him is completely true – this man is insanely hilarious. But that doesn’t mean I have to like him.

“I can’t wait for them to see your hair?”

She snorts. “Fun.”

Her parents have always been strict on femininity. About how they should dress properly, about how they should be polite and say the right amount, about how they should have long hair.

I look at Sara’s hair. I like it. When she came back from the haircut, she has looked absolutely gorgeous with her hair in a wavy, messy, streaky type of style. But I remember when Sara’s parents made sarcastic comments on my short hair and lose hope immediately.

Beep, beep, beep.

Sara and I look at each other – my face’s blinded in horror and hers twisted in chagrin.

“Speak of the devils.”