Watch, Decide, Act
by James Van Pelt
Sylvia North watched Wyatt Timmons crying at his corner desk. Front seat, far right row. Head low, dark hair draped over his eyes, but the quiver in his shoulders, and his hands clasped in his lap gave him away. That, and his essay Mr. Ruffin handed back with a large red “F” circled on top.
“Some of you did quite well,” said Mr. Ruffin. He smiled at the class. “The fifth grade teachers next year will be impressed. A talent with words is magical.” He paused. “Of course, if you are unhappy with your grade, I encourage you to rewrite.”
As far as Sylvia knew, no one had ever rewritten an essay for Mr. Ruffin.
Sylvia slipped her hand into her desk where she kept a collection of cootie catchers. Her Mr. Ruffin one was near the front. She pulled the paper device from the desk but kept it below the surface where he couldn’t see. “M, A, G, I, C, A, L,” she whispered as she manipulated the toy, opening it a different direction with each letter. Inside the cootie catcher were numbers. Mr. Ruffin said “magical” three times today. Threes ruled. The unfolded flap under the number three said, “Take out your notes.” She put the cootie catcher back and grabbed her notebook.
“Take out your notes,” said Mr. Ruffin.
Today Mr. Ruffin reviewed strong verbs and weak ones. Sylvia already knew about strong verbs. They made spells work like focus or tremble or believe. For Wyatt Timmons she wanted him to feel better. He lacked good verbs. His silent sobbing burned her skin. His quivering disturbed the air like waterdrops falling into a pool.
She surveyed the room. Everyone contained magic only she could see, the fuzzy, glowing verb shapes moving in their heads and hearts. Maria, who wore braided hair in a rope down her back, and wrote lefthanded, her notebook turned at an angle so she could see her words, held persevere and create. Possible choices for Wyatt, but a whole spell took three parts, so she decided to find the rest.
Threes. Threes. Threes. Morning, noon, night. Baby, woman, grandma. Mix, bake, eat. Sylvia loved threes.
Marvel characters covered Leon’s notebook. He sketched Captain America shields and Thor hammers and Ironman helmets in the margins. Glowing support and organize swam in him like eager fish. One of those could be helpful.
Sherry wouldn’t do. Her gloomy shapes of retreat and surrender would make matters worse, while Freddie’s avoid and blame weren’t helpful either.
Sylvia searched for a third glowing verb. A strong verb by itself would slither away. She couldn’t hold it, but three clung together if their puzzle-piece edges meshed. They’d nestle into Wyatt snug as happy rabbits in their underground home.
Marcus contained escape. Cindy pulsated with blame. Linda’s verbs tumbling inside were shush and lie.
Where was the third verb? Sylvia even checked Gregory, who scared her a little. He clenched his pencil in his fist, drawing spirals on his page instead of copying the notes Mr. Ruffin wrote in bright letters on the white board. She didn’t know the name for the verbs inside Gregory. He said sir and please and thank you when he talked to Mr. Ruffin while a coiled rattlesnake, buzzing its warning, circled Gregory’s heart like his penciled spirals. Buried beneath the scary stuff scurried flee and hide and plea, like lost, frantic toys.
Sylvia shivered.
Petra sat in the back and never spoke but liked pink. Her pink tennis shoes matched her pink bracelet. She shone with share and forgive. That would do! A blend of Petra’s forgive, Leon’s organize, and Maria’s persevere could sooth the sad. They’d certainly improve Wyatt’s loathe and quit.
Finding verbs was one thing. Acting was another. She raised her hand, “Can I pass out the newsletters today, Mr. Ruffin?”
He glanced at his watch. Friday newsletters went out after grammar and before math. The class had just a few minutes of language exercises left.
“Aren’t we the eager beaver,” he said. “Sylvia will distribute today’s newsletter while you finish your worksheets, class. Be sure to take them home to your parents.”
Sylvia hadn’t considered how her idea would work when she volunteered. She must travel the classroom, but borrowing magic and inserting magic involved contact. How would she touch the kids without seeming weird?
Sylvia brushed her finger across Leon’s hand as she dropped the newsletter on his desk. A static electricity snap connected them when she siphoned a bit of organize. “Thanks,” he said, without looking up as he rewrote the sentence, “The horse was running the race” to “The horse ran the race.”
Sylvia squared the stack of flyers on his desk so their edges matched.
Maria moved her worksheet aside to give Sylvia room for the newsletter. Sylvia brushed Maria’s braid. “I like how you did your hair today.” A bit of persevere tingled on Sylvia’s fingertips.
Maria smiled. “I can show you if you want. My sister taught me. She’s in high school.”
“Work quietly, please,” Mr. Ruffin said.
Sylvia checked the rest of the students, suddenly confident she’d accomplish the mission. If she walked to the front of the next row and then worked her way down, she’d get to Petra and the final verb before passing a newsletter and the magical gift to Wyatt. All she needed was to stick to the plan.
She walked to the front of the class and started down the next row. Three seats back sat Gregory. As Sylvia put the newsletter on the front desk, she glanced up. Gregory slouched over his worksheet, but he watched her.
She paused, frozen.
His stare didn’t waver, all forehead and black eyes, like an alligator submerged in a swamp. Sylvia forced herself to the next desk, slid a newsletter onto it. Gregory waited, right hand resting on the desk’s edge, fingers curled, poised. Sylvia pictured a spider prepared to leap, an animal trap covered on a leaf-strewn path, a crouching hyena.
What if he touched her? She imagined his verbs, his sharp-toothed piranha magics that smelled of rotted vegetable, coating her throat with acidic throw-up sickness tasting like burning automobile tires, if he knew what he was doing, that is, if he knew about transfer magic as she did.
Sylvia hardened herself, her inner self, clenched her courage tight, put the newsletter on Gregory’s desk, and stepped past.
He turned slightly, watching her, but then she was beyond him, another newsletter, another one, then Petra’s desk. “Pretty bracelet,” Sylvia said, touching Petra’s wrist.
“It’s my mom’s,” Petra whispered.
And like that, forgive slid into Sylvia’s fingers and up her arm.
Maybe, she thought, it wasn’t Gregory’s fault that he was the way he was. We aren’t always to blame. A buzzing rattlesnake doesn’t attack; it warns. Stay back! Leave me alone!
She bounced a little as she dropped newsletters in Wyatt’s row, not that bouncing helped the verbs mix, not probably—but it couldn’t hurt. His back was to her. He might still be crying, but she couldn’t tell. Sylvia touched his neck as she leaned over his desk to deliver the newsletter, the verbs pouring from her to him.
She returned to her desk. Mr. Ruffin said, “The heart of a sentence beats in its verb.”
She wrote it into her notes automatically, but mostly she watched Wyatt.
He looked at Mr. Ruffin, down at his paper, and then to Mr. Ruffin again. Wyatt lifted his desk top, retrieved a writing pad, moved his paper with the red “F” to the side and began writing. For the next minutes, while Mr. Ruffin added action verbs on the board, Wyatt wrote, bold, determined, with confidence.
Sylvia grinned.
Mr. Ruffin said, “Can someone give me an example of your favorite action verb?”
Maria raised her hand. “Comfort, I like comfort.”
“Oh, that’s stupendous Maria. What a beautiful verb.”
That was the third time Mr. Ruffin said stupendous today. Sylvia grabbed her cootie catcher. “S, T, U, P, E, N, D, O, U, S” she spelled as the toy’s paper shape opened left and right and left and right. The flap under the number three said, “pop quiz.”
Sylvia took out a fresh sheet of paper, wrote her name, the date and “Mr. Ruffin’s Class” in the upper left corner as the students had been taught to do.
She held her pencil at ready. While she waited, she considered Gregory and his terrible verbs. He’d be more difficult than Wyatt, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try. She had many good friends in class. They could work together.
Mr. Ruffin said, “Okay, students, pop quiz.”
_______________
James Van Pelt has been selling short fiction to many of the major venues since 1989. Recently he retired from teaching high school English after thirty-seven years in the classroom. He has been a finalist for the Nebula, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, Locus Awards, and Analog and Asimov’s reader’s choice awards. Years and years ago he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He still feels “new.” Fairwood Press recently released a huge, limited-edition, signed and numbered collection of his work, THE BEST OF JAMES VAN PELT. He can be found online at https://www.jamesvanpelt.
I never knew that cootie catchers existed! I was rewarded not only by a fun mind’s eye trip back to the classroom but an educational lesson on cootie catchers and fortune telling on the internet. Well done!