An Apple for the Creature

“I have something I want to say,” I said. “This isn’t the Dark Ages. You don’t get the best out of students by intimidating them.”

There was a collective gasp.

“Oh, we will enjoy having you here, Miss Weinstein,” the bird-woman said. “We will find you a delightful challenge.”

“Too bad, because I’m not staying.” I walked to the door and went to pull it open. It wouldn’t budge. That boy had opened it easily enough and there didn’t appear to be any kind of lock.

I turned back to the teacher and she was grinning now, her face lit up with amusement. “You don’t get it yet. You will. Now go back to work. I say when this exam is over.”

I stood by the door. “Would you please open this door. I want to go home.”

“Unfortunately we don’t always get what we want, do we?” she said, going back to the papers on her desk. “We get what we deserve.”

“I don’t deserve to be treated like this. None of us do.”

She glanced up briefly. “Have you never treated others as if they were beneath you? Have you never gloried in your power over them?”

“No, never.” I blurted out the words but an image flashed across my mind—and I heard someone say, “Texas Chemicals versus Rodriguez.” What on earth did that mean? And yet it seemed vaguely familiar, something I had heard or read about before.

The bird-woman went back to her work and I went back to my desk. I turned over the next page hopelessly. Then suddenly I saw questions that I could do. U.S. Government and Constitution. I looked down the page.

What preceded the constitution, and why was it unworkable?

Yes, I could do this. I started to write furiously.

Which amendment . . . Yes, I knew that. I’d obviously just found the few stupid pages before and now I was back on track. They’d see that I knew my stuff—after all, if anyone knew about Congress, it should be me, right? I stopped writing and frowned at this thought. Why should I know about Congress?

“Ten more minutes,” the bird-woman said.

I went back to writing and then there was a snapping sound and the finely sharpened tip of my pencil broke off. I stared at it in dismay. I tried to write with the stub but it was impossible.

A bell rang, jangling loudly above our heads.

“Leave your papers on the desk and file out in silence,” the bird-woman said.

Reluctantly I left my unfinished government paper and joined the line. I saw a couple of kids take a look at me and then snigger. I joined them as they walked back down the six hundred hallway to the stairwell and fell into step beside a studious-looking girl. She was wearing glasses and was dressed in a dorky manner, like me, so at least I figured she’d be someone I could talk to.

“Hi,” I said. “What was that exam all about? I mean, did you know that crazy stuff?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I read the study sheets ahead of time. It was a cinch.” She went to walk on ahead of me.

“Wait,” I said. “I’m new here and I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like it?” She looked as if she was about to smile. “That’s funny. Do you think anyone likes it?”

“Then why put up with it? There are plenty of better high schools around. Normally, I go to Oakmont. It’s great. Very modern. Very academic.”

“I don’t know of any Oakmont.”

“Near the civic center and the freeway.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is the high school.”

“Well, I’m not staying. Can you tell me the way out?”

“Way out?” She looked puzzled.

“Yeah, the way out.”

“The way out?” she repeated, and she started to laugh.

“What’s wrong with you? Do you happen to have a cell phone on you so I can call my parents?”

“Cell phone?”

There was something seriously strange about this girl, or about this school, or both. “The office then, so I can call my parents to come and get me.”

“Nobody can come and get you, don’t you know that yet?” She pushed past me and almost ran to escape from me. I followed her down the stairs, staying close to the handrail because a tide of students was coming up.

“Out of the way, freak.” A boy in a letter jacket deliberately knocked into me. Luckily I held on or I’d have gone tumbling down.

This is like a nightmare, I muttered. Nobody will tell me how to get out. An exam with questions I can’t possibly answer. Then I stopped halfway down a flight of stairs, making those behind me barrel into me and start cursing. And I actually laughed. A nightmare. Of course. It was the classic nightmare that had plagued me all my life—the exam I was perennially late for. The exam with questions I couldn’t possibly answer. The strange building with no way out. That was it. I was dreaming. Now it all made sense. I’d been in some kind of accident and I was in a coma or something. And I’d wake up and everything would be back to normal again.

I finished the flight of steps with an almost jaunty tread. All I had to do was keep reminding myself that it was all a dream and I could handle anything. The students now seemed to be streaming along a different hallway.