CHAPTER FIVE - The Substitute
The next day, just as before, everyone was in science class long before the bell rang. I ran all the way around ‘B’ hall and back again, so that I wouldn’t run into Mary Ellen Paul, who I was sure would want to ‘chat’ again. When I arrived at my desk, panting and breathless, I was once again the last one there, even though it was a full seven minutes before the bell was going to ring.
“So, did you try your text book last night?” said Mark Stratton to me as I sat down.
“Yeah, but no luck,” I said sadly. “Although I read the whole section on asteroids again, nothing happened.”
That wasn’t exactly true. Something HAD happened—I had actually gotten interested in what I was reading—and enjoyed it! But I wasn’t going to admit that to anybody (which is why I hid in the garage when I read it, so no one in my family would see)
“Same with me,” said Stratton sadly. “Do you know what I think?” He lowered his voice, confidentially. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but said, “What?” anyway, since I figured that was the polite thing to do.
“I think the magic is in HIM! Mr. Marlin.”
“Of course,” said Poindexter from the other side of me, who had lived true to his rude self and listened in to our conversation. “He’s a wizard, like I said yesterday. Didn’t you see him reading that wizard magazine?”
“But wizards aren’t real!” said Heidi Kirchner firmly.
“Neither are jump ropes that take you to England, and text books that make you think you’re being eaten by a shark!” replied Poindexter.
At this point, an argument broke out, with many in the class arguing that he was a wizard, while others argued that he wasn’t. Secretly we all knew that Poindexter was right. Or if not right, mostly right. Whether Mr. Marlin was a wizard or not, he sure could work some amazing magic.
The bell rang. There was still no sign of Mr. Marlin. What bizarre things awaited us today? After two days of incredible excitement and unexpected happenings, it was anyone’s guess.
And then suddenly, the very last thing any of us had expected—or wanted—happened. Mr. Hornsby walked into the room. He was a much younger teacher—probably in this 30s—and unlike Mr. Marlin, his suit wasn’t lumpy.
“Good afternoon, class,” he said cheerfully. And unlike Mr. Marlin, he was right—it was afternoon.
“Mr. Marlin is out today, so I’m substituting for him, since I don’t have a 6th period class of my own.”
There was a collective groan from everyone in the room.
“My goodness!” said Mr. Hornsby in surprise. “I don’t usually get a response like that from a class. Mr. Marlin must be well loved by you all.”
“Well loved?!”said Poindexter with a look of distaste on his face. I could see a similar look on the faces of others in the room. We respected and appreciated Mr. Marlin—but to say we ‘well loved’ him was going a bit too far.
“Well, let’s get down to business,” said Mr. Hornsby in a business-like tone. “If you’ll open your text books to page 93, you’ll see a discussion of the basic periodic elements. Today—“ and with a flourish he produced a number of test tubes from under his suit jacket—“we’re going to do a little chemistry. Mix up a few brews and concoctions. Groovy, eh?”
We stared at him in dismay.
“My, you are a strange bunch,” said Mr. Hornsby, scratching his head. “My other classes go gaa gaa over test tubes and mixing chemicals. I think they like to see if they can mix up something that will blow up the school—or at least taste good if you drink it.”
At the mention of blowing up the school, I saw Poindexter’s eyes light up. I could see why Mary Ellen Paul liked Mr. Hornsby. He was more entertaining than your ordinary teacher. But he still couldn’t compare with Mr. Marlin.
“Now, if you’ll look at page 93, you’ll see that we have elements called nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon …” My eyes started to glaze over. When big words that didn’t mean anything started getting thrown out by teachers, that’s when my mind started to shut down. Looking around me, I saw a similar reaction from my fellow students. It was going to be a long hour.
And it was. In fact, it was a long rest of the week. For the next three days, we had Hornsby again as our substitute. He wasn’t bad, and once Clyde Steel did succeed at mixing up a brew that poofed and made a lot of smoke, and that gave us all hope that it might actually blow up the school. But we all yearned for Mr. Marlin to return. Why on earth was he gone for so long? We’d only had him for two days. We’d seen more of our substitute Mr. Hornsby than our own teacher!
And then the first week of school was over. The weekend that followed seemed endless. Never in my life had I been so anxious for a weekend to be over. Usually when school was on, I would waste half my weekend wishing that it would never end, since when it did I’d have to go back to school. But, weird as it was, I actually WANTED to go back, to see if Mr. Marlin was there.
Monday morning finally came. But since science was my sixth period class, I still had to wait through a whole boring day of math, English and other stuff before science class finally rolled around.
I could tell I wasn’t the only one who’d had a rough weekend. When I saw Poindexter in the hall right before lunch, he had big circles under his eyes, from lack of sleep.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, sixth period arrived—and so did Mr. Hornsby as our substitute again.
“It’s not fair!” said Poindexter in the hall after class. “If we get assigned to a teacher, we have a right to have them in class, even if we hate their guts. Why is it the lousy teachers never get sick, and the good ones are gone a lot?”
“Let’s go complain to someone!” said Sally Snarch.
“Who would we complain to?” asked Johnny Geake. “Maybe we should just go ask at the office where he is, and why he hasn’t been coming in.”
Poindexter looked at Geake with something that bordered on admiration. “That’s a good idea, Geake,” he said in wonder. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Geake’s chest puffed out in pride. A compliment from Poindexter was like an extra gift of money from an aunt you forgot existed.
We all headed for the office. When the secretary saw us all come in, and knowing our collective reputations, she turned immediately and called out, “Mr. Clark! Some students are here to see you!” Mr. Clark was the principal.
Mr. Clark came ambling out of his office. He was such a calm guy, nothing got him worried—even the time Poindexter and some others succeeded at plugging up all the bathroom toilets, and sewage flowed down the halls.
“What can I do for you?” he asked casually.
“Go on, Geake,” said Poindexter with a shove. “It was your idea.” It was against Poindexter’s grain to ask any favor of a principal, no matter how small.
“We want to know why Mr. Marlin hasn’t been coming to school,” said Geake. “He’s our science teacher.”
“Gee, that’s a good question,” said Mr. Clark, who obviously didn’t know the answer. He turned to the secretary and asked, “Why hasn’t Mr. Marlin been in?”
The secretary’s brow furrowed. “He’s called in sick every day,” she responded. “But he’ll never tell me what his sickness is. And he sounds perfectly healthy each time.”
“That’s strange,” said Mr. Clark, scratching his chin.
“His sick days for the first quarter of school are almost used up,” said the secretary. “He’ll have to come in soon, or be docked in his paycheck.”
“That’ll motivate him,” said Mr. Clark, turning to head back to his office. “Don’t worry, kids,” he said with a wave of his hand, but without bothering to turn around. “He’ll be back soon.” Then he was gone.
“Gee, Geake, what a dumb idea,” said Poindexter after we left the office. “We don’t know any more than we did before.” He gave Geake a shove.
“But we did learn that he seems to be faking a sickness,” said Sally Snarch. “Why woul
d he do that?”
“Hopefully, he’ll be here tomorrow,” said Poindexter with a shrug of his shoulders. Everyone just looked at each other then, not sure what to do. Finally we just went our separate ways, without saying another word. We weren’t sure yet if we were friends, or if we ever would be. After all, I had never had a friend like Poindexter before. Truth was, I didn't really have any good friends at Millard Fillmore Middle School, although there were a few kids I'd talk to sometimes. But they were all kind of wimpy and had noodle arms like me. In contrast, Poindexter was a known bully, and had arms that looked like a bodybuilder.
The next day we were all in science class when the bell rang. None of us ran to get there as fast as we could anymore, since the days of substitute teaching had gone on so long. But we all made sure to be there at least by the time the bell rang, just in case.
After the bell rang, we just sat and looked at each other. Where was Mr. Marlin? Where was Mr. Hornsby? The minutes ticked by. Had we been forgotten? A wild hope started to spring up in each of our hearts. It was the dream every kid has, that never comes true—that their substitute won’t show up and the office will forget about them, and the class will then have the whole hour to themselves, to tear the classroom apart.
Five minutes passed, then six, then seven. People started looking around at each other and grinning.
“Don’t you think maybe we should tell the office?” said Geake.
“NO!!” a dozen voices said at once, while several fists were waved in his face. “Do that, and I’ll kill you!” threatened Poindexter, while cracking his knuckles.
Eight minutes passed, then nine. Our wild hope was coming true! No teacher or substitute today! Exciting as Mr. Marlin was, there was something even more exciting in the idea of going a whole class period with no teacher.
Some in the class already were convinced it was true. Tyson and Poindexter, doing what came naturally, went straight to the only forbidden place in the room--the teacher's desk. They started rummaging through all the drawers.
"Gee, I don't think you should do that," said Geake, coming up to join them. In response, Tyson yanked something out of a drawer and tossed it in Geake's face. It was the blank magazine Mr. Marlin had been reading last week.
"If anyone comes in, we'll tell them it was your idea," said Tyson with a cruel grin. Geake started to mouth a reply, but suddenly said, "Hey, this magazine's not empty after all. There's something written on this page."
Everyone in the class came up to see. Sure enough, while the rest of the magazine was empty, there was something written on one page in the middle. It was a poem, although a very strange one.
From the heart of the stars came the stewards of light,
Who danced briefly on earth, then left beings of sight.
Sandmen of dreams, gnomes of the earth,
Shifters of moonbeams, pixies of mirth;
Monsters of beauty, phantoms of thought
Mermaids of sea, dragons of naught.
Bound to service and the molding of hope,
Of earth's mortals, struggling to cope.
Governed half by wizards, and half by elves,
They were left quite alone, but not by themselves.
For one Steward of Light remained as well,
Their hearts to control, their story to tell.
"Weird," said Poindexter as he read slowly through the poem. He had to mouth each word, since reading was not something he did very often.
"I think I hear someone coming!" said Geake suddenly. Tyson shoved the magazine back in the desk, and in a flash all of us darted back to our desks. Once there we tried to look around casually with as much innocence as we could muster.
Suddenly there was a shadow at the door. And then a person appeared that none of us would have ever expected.
It wasn’t Mr. Hornsby, or Mr. Marlin. Rather, it was a person who actually looked like a wizard! He wore a long, black cape that came almost to his ankles. On his head was a pointed wizard’s hat, tipped a bit to the left side. He had a flowing grey beard and mustache. And in his hand, he held a wand—not a mere pencil like Mr. Marlin used, but a real, honest to goodness, wizard’s wand.
But as remarkable as his clothes were, what was really striking about him was his face, especially his eyes. His face was like one big scowl, with eyes that glowed like molten lava. He looked downright evil. He made Poindexter’s and Tyson’s cruel grins look like a smiling baby.
“Good afternoon,” said the stranger, in a slithering voice that made my skin crawl. “My name is Mr. Skinpeeler, and I’ll be your substitute today.” He looked at us all with a glare that could have melted granite.
Johnny Geake started to raise his hand, but thought better of it when Skinpeeler turned to stare at him.
“Now, for our first assignment today, we’re going to play a little game,” he walked down the aisle between the desks, and as he passed mine, I felt an icy coldness brush by that felt like it came from a deep freeze.
“The name of the game is, ‘Let’s find out where Mr. Marlin is hiding,’” said Skinpeeler. “Who would like to go first?”
He looked around at all of us, expectantly. His eyes finally settled on Sam Bowly. “Well, Mr. Bowly?” he said with a curl of his upper lip. “Where is your teacher?”
Bowly jumped like he’d been stung. How had the substitute known his name?
Suddenly, Skinpeeler started to laugh. “You little children, how pathetic you are! Of course I know your names! I know all about you!”
The cold, icy feeling I felt before, seemed to be shooting right down my spine, all the way to my toes. This guy was pure evil—and he seemed to be able to read our minds! What on earth was he doing here, as our substitute teacher? The terror in my mind was so deep, I didn't even have the strength to twirl my pocket watch.
“Gee, Mr. Skinpeeler,” said Poindexter in a voice that sounded almost like it belonged to a whipped puppy. “If you know all about us and can read our minds, you must know that we don’t know where Mr. Marlin is.”
Skinpeeler turned fiercely on Poindexter, and for a minute, it looked like he was going to let him have it with his wand. “Don’t play games with me, child!” he finally said in a savage voice. “It’s true that I know about you, but there are parts of your minds that are hard for me to reach. One of you is hiding him. I know it!”
“But we're not hiding him!” cried Johnny Geake, with an incredible display of courage. “We were asking for him at the principal’s office just yesterday, and they didn’t know where he is either. He’s been calling in sick.”
Skinpeeler paced slowly over to where Geake sat, and hovered over his desk, making Geake sink lower and lower. “Fool!” he said at last, in a voice barely above a whisper. “I know he’s been calling in sick. And I’ve been to the address he told the school he lives at. It’s a vacant lot. He doesn’t live in a normal house like you.”
Skinpeeler turned and went again to the front of the class. He stood there glaring at us for over a minute, making us squirm so much we felt like worms on a fishhook.
“I happen to know something you don’t,” said Skinpeeler at last, in his quiet, deathly voice. “Mr. Marlin, as you call him, has been staying with one of you. And he’s hiding with one of you right now, in miniaturized size. He could be as tiny as a seed and hidden in your pocket, and you wouldn't know it. But even though your conscious mind wouldn’t know it, your subconscious mind would. And that’s why I’m here. To look deep inside each of you. Because one of you KNOWS where he is!”
A feeling of horror was starting to creep up my feet, through my convulsing stomach, all the way to my head. What was he talking about? How could Mr. Marlin be tiny, and be staying with one of us? And why? None of it made any sense!
“What if we don’t want you looking deep inside of us?” demanded Poindexter. I could tell he was mad—just like that time when he slipped and fell on the step coming into school and everybody laughed (for about two seconds, before he sta
rted belting them all).
“Little boy,” said Skinpeeler with a sneer, “I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with. Perhaps a small demonstration will convince you that I’m serious, and that it would be very unwise to trifle with me.” And with this, he waved his wand in a circular motion—and the world turned upside down.