CHAPTER TWO
"Class, I am Lydia Fairbanks. Today I will be your substitute teacher."
No one heard her. No one in fact had paid any attention to her from the moment she'd walked into the room. The 27 students were too busy beating each other up, or yelling and screaming profanities at each other, or throwing things at each other to pay any attention. One student threw a book that nearly took a girl's eye out. It smacked her on the side of the head with a sickening thump that was sure to leave an ugly bruise. She promptly responded by picking up the book and throwing it back in the direction she thought it had come from, even though she had no idea who had thrown it. It hit another girl in the face, nearly breaking her glasses.
A book bag crashed into the window, shaking the glass, but not breaking it. And for good reason. It had been decided long ago that replacing broken windows in THIS school would not only exceed the school's budget, but probably the entire school fund of the entire state. So a special, fine-wire mesh glass had been installed that was nearly impossible to break. It looked ugly, but did the job and saved the taxpayers a great deal of money. And it even let in a little sunlight as well.
A big, rough-looking kid with a scar under one eye yanked open another boy's backpack and pulled out a soda can. He shook it wildly, then pointed it point blank at a nearby student and opened the lid. The spray went everywhere. Instantly there were screams, shouts and profanity from half a dozen soda-soaked students.
"Class," said Lydia Fairbanks again in her timid voice from the front of the room. "I am your substitute teacher today. It is time to begin. Will you all please settle down?" Once again, no one paid the slightest attention to her. A shoe came flying her way, causing her to duck.
Action was clearly needed. And it was action Lydia Fairbanks was obviously incapable of supplying. She nervously straightened her hair, her knuckles white with tension. She needed this job so badly.
Turning, she pulled a compact out of her bag. It was an unusual compact, although it was just a cheap one she had found at a dollar store. It had a black case with symbols of the zodiac scattered across the cover. Opening it up, she walked over to the window and turned the compact so that the sunlight reflected off the mirror inside. She then proceeded to aim the concentrated sunlight at the students around the room.
"What the--?" exclaimed several students. Others responded with varying levels of profanity, some of which was strong enough to make Miss Fairbanks' ears turn red. But she didn't falter. She just kept pointing the compact mirror at the students one by one until she had attracted their attention, and their collective noise had subsided to a dull roar.
"Class," she said for the third time that day, "I am Miss Lydia Fairbanks. I am your substitute teacher today.
"Hey, cut it out with the light!" cried the kid with the scar. "You trying to blind me or something?"
"Is being blinded by sunlight something you've been studying here in science?" asked Miss Fairbanks innocently. Half the kids groaned. "Of course not, ugly!" said one of the bullies, who had the nasty habit of calling all teachers 'ugly.' "None of us knows what ol' man Bozley tries to teach us in here, 'cause none of what he says makes any sense. We only come here 'cause if we don't stay out of the halls, Principal Clyde calls our parents or our youth probation officer, and then we catch it good!"
Several of the students sniggered, even though they all knew it was true. They were staring at Miss Fairbanks expectantly, nearly salivating at the fight they were sure was coming. No teacher they'd ever seen responded well to being called 'ugly.'
But they underestimated Miss Fairbanks. With a faint smile, she turned to the bully who had spoken. "You can be the first one, then," she said for no apparent reason. She suddenly snapped the lid of the compact shut, and closed her eyes. The students watched, spellbound, completely clueless about what she was doing and what was going on.
Miss Fairbanks began to sway gently on her feet. "I feel the stars calling me about you, since you're the first one," she said faintly. Some of the kids laughed, but others 'shushed' them to be quiet, anxious to see what was coming next. What was this loony teacher up to?
Inwardly, Miss Fairbanks smiled to herself. She had succeeded at quieting the classroom more than its four walls had experienced in many a day.
"Yes," she said even more faintly, so her voice was hardly a whisper. "The stars are calling your name ... calling your name ... calling--"
"Armpitface Arnold!" yelled a kid with bright, yellow hair, who simply couldn't resist the temptation. Miss Fairbanks eyes snapped open, and she smiled. She now knew the bully's name, or at least part of it.
"Shut up, maggot breath!" yelled Arnold at yellow hair, launching a book at him. Yelling and shrieking suddenly pierced across the room as everyone started throwing things again. Miss Fairbanks snapped her eyes closed and started to swoon. "Arnold, Arnold," she whispered.
"SHUT UP!" yelled scar face with his considerable lungs. "I want to hear what the loony teacher's saying!" Although Miss Fairbank's eyes were still closed, she distinctly heard the sickening thud of a fist smacking into flesh, as scar face backed up his words with muscle. She cringed, and it took all her will power to avoid opening her eyes to see who the groaning victim was.
"Arnold, Arnold," she whispered again, her voice barely audible. Once more the class was quiet as a tomb, straining to hear her every word. Slowly Miss Fairbanks opened her eyes to see all the class gaping at her. They clearly thought she was nuts, but were very interested just the same. With great effort, Miss Fairbanks avoided a smile, and slowly opened the compact.
"My stars!" she cried out in what to her was a loud voice, but to the students of Inner City Junior High School (who were used to constant screaming) sounded more like the tiny voice of a flea. "Can it be? I knew the mystic compact could tell the future of any person, but this--oh, my!"
"What does it say about my future?" cried Arnold, his face creasing in worry. He raced to the front of the room and rudely snatched the compact out of Miss Fairbank's hands. He stared at it for only a second, then grimaced in disgust and held it threateningly over Miss Fairbank's head, as if he intended to shove it down her throat. "There's nothing there!" he barked. "It's just a stupid old mirror!"
Miss Fairbanks laughed lightly, even though her heart was racing with the fear that Arnold might indeed strike her with the compact. "Naturally," she said in as flippant a voice as she could muster. "The mystic compact doesn't tell its secrets to just anyone! Least of all to the person it is giving a prophecy about--such as the prophecy of your awful future that it just showed me!"
Arnold hesitated, torn between a desire to shove the compact down Miss Fairbank's throat, or give it back to her and have her tell what it said about him. In the end, his cruel nature won out, and his arm started to swing down toward her throat--but he was stopped just in time as scar face came up and ripped the compact out of his hand.
"I said shut up armpit," he growled at Arnold. "Who cares about you? I want to hear what the stupid thing says about me."
Arnold swung a fist at him, but scar face dodged and then elbowed him painfully in the ribs. "Don't take swipes at me, fatface!" he yelled, giving Arnold a vicious kick in the shins. Miss Fairbanks winced once again, and fought to resist the urge to do the normal adult thing and either start lecturing scar face, or showing sympathy for Arnold's pain. She knew that neither action would end well.
"Here, toots," said scar face flippantly as he tossed the compact in Miss Fairbank's face. "See what it says about me." Arnold was limping painfully back to his seat.
She looked at him solemnly for a moment. "Very well," she said slowly. "If you insist. But be warned--the mystic compact never lies, and what it says is often not pretty."
"Is it as ugly as you?" yelled yellow hair, unable to resist the temptation once more. Miss Fairbanks ignored him, and once more closed her eyes and swayed on her feet. "Oh magic, mystical compact, reveal the future of this poor, misguided child--"
"Child!" chortled ha
lf a dozen voices at once. "That's no child! That's Bobby 'antpant' Vance, leader of the Leeches street gang!" This time Miss Fairbanks could not resist a slight smile. Once more, she now knew his name.
Slowly she opened her eyes. Half the class were looking at her with barely contained glee, while the other half were looking rather worried. Good. She now had half of them convinced. That was enough to keep the other half in check, at least for now.
But she also knew the show wasn't over yet. And that it would have to be a good one to keep the wolves at bay for 35 more minutes ...
Slowly Miss Fairbanks opened the compact. Then she started to tremble so badly she nearly dropped it. "No!" she croaked. "It cannot be!"
"What is it? What is it?" Bobby fairly screamed as he danced in agitation in front of her, looking as if he really did have ants in his pants. A girl at the back of the room tittered, then instantly regretted it as Bobby peeled off his shoe and sent it sailing in her direction. It hit her hard enough to knock her hairpins off.
"My, oh my," said Miss Fairbanks, shaking her head sadly while continuing to stare at the blank mirror inside her compact. "How terribly, terribly sad." She looked up at Bobby and sighed. "I am so sorry for you."
"What is it?" screamed Bobby, dancing around with increased worry. "Tell me! Tell me!"
Miss Fairbanks shook her head glumly. "I'm afraid the mystic compact does not tell its secrets directly. It gives its answers in riddles and clues, which a person must figure out. And the riddle it gave about you looked very stark and bad indeed ..."
"What was the riddle?" shrieked Bobby, grabbing the compact out of her hand, then shoving it back since he couldn't see anything in the mirror anyway. "TELL ME THE RIDDLE!"
Miss Fairbanks shrugged. "It was a short message," she said simply. "It merely said that unless you change your life, you will end up just like the ancient Quagga."
Bobby stopped short and stared at her stupidly. "The what?" he asked.
"The Quagga," said Miss Fairbanks with a sad smile.
"Well, what the #%!*& is a Quagga?" yelled Bobby angrily. Miss Fairbanks shrugged. "I thought you knew. The mystic compact always targets its message in a way the victim understands."
"Well, I don't know what a stupid Quagga is!" bellowed Bobby. He growled at Miss Fairbanks. "Are you putting me on?"
"Why would I trifle with something so sacred as your future, Bobby?" said Miss Fairbanks seriously. "It is YOUR future after all. Perhaps you had better try to find out what a Quagga is. It seems like I heard of it once. I think it might be some kind of animal."
"Well, how'm I going to find out about it here!" yelled Bobby. "There's no internet at all in this stinking school!" Which was true. Principal Clyde had removed the wireless capacity, since all the students did all day when it was on was surf the internet or view questionable websites on their ipods.
In sheer frustration, Bobby smacked his fist into the soft belly of a scrawny kid who had the misfortune of sitting in the front row. The poor kid doubled over in pain. Miss Fairbanks bit her lip, once more fighting to resist the urge to respond as a typical adult.
"While it's true the internet is not here, we do have other resources," suggested Miss Fairbanks. She looked around the room expectantly, but all she saw were blank faces. "I'm talking about your science text books," she finally said bluntly. "I suspect they might tell you--"
There was a sudden thunder as everyone in class turned to yank out the books that none of them had opened since the school year began. "I'm going to find this stupid Quagga fast, so she can look in the mystic compact and see what it says about ME!" exclaimed a large girl with buck teeth, who had the nasty habit of slapping half the kids she met across the face for no reason.
"Yeah, right Slapface!" ribbed another girl who had a skull and cross bones painted on all her fingernails. "She's going to find out about MY future first!" A good deal of yelling then ensued as each student assured all the others that they would simply have to wait their turn, since Miss Fairbanks would obviously be telling their future before anyone else's.
"You're wasting precious time!" said Miss Fairbanks in her loudest voice, which barely carried to the second row of desks. "There will be time for everyone, but only if you quickly find the Quagga!" This announcement resulted in a flurry of ripped pages as students wildly searched their science texts for the mysterious creature who--unknown to all of them--happened to be an extinct variety of African zebra.
And so it was that Principal Clyde and his secretary Mrs. Jensen were met by an astounding, unthinkable sight as they approached the room where Miss Fairbanks was substitute teaching. Out of sheer pity, both had decided they should check up on the frail little woman, to see if she was still alive. What met their eyes was a classroom of students frantically searching through their science textbooks as if their lives depended on it!
"Is anything wrong?" asked Miss Fairbanks curiously as Principal Clyde stopped just inside the classroom door. His mouth was open so wide that a passing fly mistook it for a cave and nearly suffocated from bad breath when he flew inside. Next to him, Mrs. Jensen's eyes opened so big, her face looked like a frog that's been stepped on.
"Wrong?" jibbered Principal Clyde nonsensically, as he continued to gape at the class. "No, nothing's wrong." Then he stared at her in wonder. "How ..." he began, gesturing toward the class.
Miss Fairbanks laughed gently, with a sound like butterfly wings. "They're all very interested in science today," she said simply. "Aren't they like this normally?"
Mr. Clyde shook his head stupidly. Then a big, goofy smile started to spread all over his face. "You're hired!" he suddenly blurted.
Miss Fairbanks' heart soared. No more noodle dinners!