The Scattersmith by David James Kane
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Red faced and sweaty, I ran into class puffing from the three flights of stairs I had hiked up to get to my classroom. I was ten minutes late.
"Good afternoon," said Mrs Dixon. She cradled a bundle of paper to her chest with her puffy, be-jacketed arms. From the way no-one looked at her, I could tell my teacher was nursing the test papers. "Nice of you to join us. Finally."
Some kids at the back broke into snuffling giggles. I mumbled an apology and I plonked myself down at my desk in the middle of the L-R quadrant at the back left of the cavernous, freezing classroom.
Mrs Dixon was the youngest teacher at the school - in her mid-twenties at most - and had started at Quakehaven Public a few months before I arrived. Her husband, Quakehaven's sole subscriber to Yarn Yarns, was much older and had decided to retire from the army to live in his late parents' house in the North of town.
Before Quakehaven, both Dixons had lived in Guam, where Mr Dixon's unit was stationed. Mrs Dixon, a trained biologist as well as teacher, had studied the life cycle of tropical mosquitoes for an American university. She had yet to acclimatise to Quakehaven Winters. Although as thin as a sparrow, she resembled a large, pink tennis ball swathed in layers of felt and furry coats and cardigans. Her nose, always running, would not have looked out of place on a clown.
"OK, class," Mrs Dixon said, her voice muffled under a fluffy white scarf. "Now that Master Lee has graced us with his presence, the test will begin in a few minutes. Everyone, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths while I get organised. There's no need to be worried - if you've studied, that is."
Most of us shifted nervously in our seats, tense with pre-exam jitters or guilty at our lack of preparation, or both. Joke, who was neither nervous nor ill-prepared, squeak-tittered uproariously as if Mrs Dixon had uttered the world's most fabulous joke. Mrs Dixon smiled at her favourite student indulgently.
Despite always assigning us tonnes of homework, I liked Mrs Dixon. She was an outsider, like me. Sure, she had a few odd quirks, like seating her class in alphabetical quadrants, but letting us sit wherever we wanted within them. Sometimes, she'd burst into laughter when Mark or Nicky made a rude joke in the troublesome L-R quadrant, or start sobbing when reciting sad poems to the class. She didn't hide her feelings. And she really cared about us, even the bad kids in the S-Z quadrant, in the back right corner of the classroom.
Unzipping my school bag, I pulled out some stumpy, chewed-up lead pencils, the orange and white exercise book from Mum, and my brand new calculator; and arranged them on the table. I opened the exercise book to a fresh page and gasped: instead of normal white pages with faint red or blue lines, the pages were dusty pink, embossed with love-hearts and wide-eyed portraits of manga lambs gamboling around the floral borders! I flicked the book open to its middle pages and recoiled. A plump baby unicorn reared before a bejeweled blonde princess clad in a white, diaphanous gown. On closer inspection, the unicorn appeared to be knighting the princess with the tip of his rainbow-hued horn while a court of silky white rabbits applauded. Horrified, I flipped back to the slightly less girlish lamb page. What was Mum thinking!
"What a pretty book, Patrick," cooed Mrs Dixon, smiling and sniffling simultaneously as she placed the grey exam paper onto my desk. "No extra points for the cute animals, though, I'm afraid."
I blushed and closed my eyes. There was no way my short study session would be enough, especially since I'd spent most of it pondering Mr Seth and the trunk. Then someone thumped me on the shoulders. Hard!
"Hey Paddy-fields!" whispered a familiar voice close behind me. It was Mark. "Grand entrance this morning. And, my, my, what a pretty book," he sniffled, mimicking Mrs Dixon. "You auditioning for teacher's pet? I thought pumpkin-patch had that all sown up!"
"Shut up, Mark," I whispered back, keeping my eyes closed, my head facing forward.
"Why don't you ask her out on a date, or are you worried that Mr Dixon might mow you down with his AK47? Or even worse, stick you with his knitting needles!"
Next to me on the edges of the S-Z quadrant, sat Tim Kroker, almost too big for his desk. He leant over, trespassing into L-R territory, and guffawed. "Mr Dixon would stitch you right up!"
It was actually a pretty good line for someone who'd repeated the year twice. But I almost missed the joke as his foul breath, like a mix of old sneakers and burnt hair, buffeted my nostrils. "Less jokes, Tim," I complained, waving my hand in front of my nose to ward off the stench, "more breath mints." The stink was so strong, even Aaron Alexander would be able to smell it all the way at the front left side of the A-F quadrant.
Tim cursed at me and pulled back into his own territory. He raised his left, bandaged hand to his shoulder and, for a moment I feared he was winding up to punch me.
Then Mark did it for him, whacking me on the ridge of my shoulder blade, even harder than before. "Where's my present, Paddy?"
"What are you talking about?" I said, dragging my chair around on two legs to face Mark.
"My present, remember. For my birthday."
"How could I forget," I said smirking. "An event we'll all remember for a lifetime." From the front row of our section, Nicky turned around and smiled, her straight white teeth contrasting pleasantly with her freckled face.
"Shut up," scowled Mark, sticking his tongue out at Nicky. "I'm waiting for my present."
"Look," I said, trying to sound reasonable. "We've been through this before. The invitation clearly said 'no presents'. You already have everything you need from your dad."
"It's not want I need, Paddy. It's what I want. And my true friends, like Timbo, got me a present. Well, his mum did, anyway. To make up for the complete hash she made of my event."
I glanced over to Tim, expecting him to react to Mark's sledge. But his eyes were riveted to his test paper, like the grey paper was hiding the mysteries of the universe.
Mark scraped his chair forward under his desk, almost within kicking distance. "You owe me compensation, Paddy."
"What?" I asked, planting my feet on the ground in case I had to push back in a hurry.
"Pain and suffering," he said. "Nervous shock from exposure to poverty. From your thieving, pumpkin side-kick. I think I'm allergic to it."
"He's not a thief, Mark," I said. "And he's not my sidekick."
"You might be right," said Mark, suddenly smiling, his famed dimples re-pocking his cheeks like buttons on a sofa cushion. "Though I guess I could let you make it up to me now."
"What?" I said, confused by the sudden appearance of 'good Mark'. "How?"
"Let me copy your answers. I was too busy slaying Kraken with Ninja-pirates to study for the test.
"Kraken?" I asked, confused. "I thought the game was about dragons?"
"Only on the basic levels," smiled Mark. "I could let you watch me play in Kraken-mode later if you share your answers."
"No," I said, silently thinking that the last thing Mark wanted to do was copy me on the maths test! "We'll get busted."
"We'll get busted," parroted Tim, attempting a girly soprano, but failing miserably. Tim's voice half-broke last year, and he sounded like a hyena gargling gravel.
"You'll get busted if you don't let me," said Mark, his smile fading like over-washed jeans. He smacked his fist into his hand. "But not by Dixon."
Tim drew his index finger across his throat and laughed, a little too loudly.
"Enough, boys," said Mrs Dixon. She'd finished handing out test papers to the H-K section and was waddling back to her desk at the front of the classroom. "Eyes front, Patrick," she said, her words muffled by a mouthful of wool. She spat out her scarf and continued: "Test conditions start now. No more speaking. Everyone, if you haven't yet done so, turn off your mobile phones and put them in your bags. You're allowed to have two pencils on your desk, a ruler, an eraser, a work book and your calculator. This test has a duration of 45 minutes. No-one will leave until I have collected all the papers. Any questions?"
Apa
"Good luck to you all," said Mrs Dixon. "You may now begin."