“Not unless you can work miracles. ”
She heard the Poe book slide against the table and then the sound of pages being flipped in chunks. Isobel peeked up at him with one suspicious eye, watching as he settled at last on the
“Ultima Thule” portrait of Poe.
“He sure was a weird dude, wasn’t he?” he murmured, more to himself, Isobel thought, than to her.
She raised her head slowly, staring hard at her father.
“Weird-looking, too,” he commented.
Isobel’s hand shot out. She gripped her father’s arm. He looked at her in alarm.
“Dad,” she said, her eyes scanning his face. Her grip on him tightened as she recalled something her father had said before, on the drive home from the library that first day she’d met with Varen. “Dad, do you really want to help? Really?”
His eyes softened, brows slanting. Her own eyes widened. “Yes, Izzy,” he said with a nod, sounding almost relieved. “I really, really do. ”
“Omigod,” she said, rocketing out of her chair, pressing one palm to her forehead, a flood of ideas filling her head all at once. She shook her father’s arm before letting go, flying to the wall next to the garage door, and taking his car keys off their hook. “I have an idea,” she said. “Walmart!” she shouted. “You have to take me to Walmart, right now!”
“Okay, kiddo, okay. We’ll go to Walmart. ” He stood, uncertainty written across his features, and Isobel rushed to him, hugging him, then shoved his keys into his hands.
He spread his arms questioningly. “Well, aren’t you going to fill me in?”
Isobel flung open the garage door, clambered down the stairs, and opened the passenger door to the sedan. “On the way,” she said. “Get in. ”
Isobel was late to school the next morning, missing two whole periods. Nobody took class seriously on a big game day, though (nobody but Mr. Swanson, of course), so she doubted that she’d missed anything vital. Carting along her boom box, she moved through the decorated halls hung with poster-board signs and blue and yellow balloons, peeking into classroom doors, hoping on the off chance that she’d catch a glimmer of silver chains or black boots. She had no idea what his schedule was outside of fourth-period English, but it would be a huge relief just to know he was in the building. She wanted to let him know that they at least had a game plan. She could give him a heads-up. Most of all, she wanted to see him. She needed to talk to him.
But that would all have to wait.
Nearing her U. S. history classroom, Isobel decided she couldn’t spare the time to keep looking. The rule for all county high schools was that to participate in any after-school functions, like a play, a club, or especially a football game, you had to be in school for at least half the day. Isobel wasn’t going to push it by waiting until fourth period to show her face. They had a pep rally last period, and she couldn’t be certain if that hour really counted or not.
Hitching her bag higher on her back, Isobel grasped the door handle and went in, her yellow late slip crumpled in one hand.
She froze in the doorway as a sudden barrage of hoots, hollers, and desk pounding trumpeted at her appearance. Oh God, she thought, what now? Then someone from the back stood up, cupping his hands over his mouth, and shouted, “What’s up, Tren ton?”
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Relief washed over her. Chicken Soup for the Cheerleader’s Soul.
She beamed, posing (albeit a little awkwardly with the boom box still in one hand), and shot her fist into the air. Even Mr. Fredenburg put down his chalk to applaud. She’d almost forgotten she’d worn her cheer uniform that day, blue skirt with yellow pleats over blue Trenton sweatpants, yellow turtleneck under her blue-with-yellow-stripes shell top, a yellow H for Hawks emblazoned on her chest. This was normal, she reminded herself as she made her way through her personal parade to her seat. Normal, normal, how she loved thee. She was still Isobel the cheerleader. Isobel the flyer. This was what it was all about.
Tonight, even if she failed the project, even if it was for the last time, she would get her spinning lights, her weightless suspension, her gasping crowd—tonight she would fly.
U. S. history ended fast, bringing the bell for the between-class break all too soon. Isobel found herself moving through the throng of blue and gold enthusiasm toward Mr. Swanson’s class.
A group of sophomores with their faces painted pranced by, laughing together, the girls hand in hand with their letter-jacket boyfriends. Streams of blue Silly String slung out from nowhere, catching in hair and on clothes, spraying the lockers and walls. Lost in the shuffle, Isobel could hear Mr. Nott’s cries for order.
The excitement was catching.
A new spirit seemed to have seized and shaken the school, like it always did on a big game day, and Isobel found herself desperately wanting her slice of the fun. Boys hooted as she walked down the hall, a group of them clearing a path for her, shouting, “What’s up, Tren-ton?” and banging on lockers between chants. A rhythm of “What’s up, Tren-ton!” bang, bang followed her all the way to the stairwell. Isobel tried to keep her smile in check when what she really wanted to do was get rid of the stupid boom box and turn cartwheels down the hall to the beat of the lockers and the rhythm of shouts. This was her element and she wanted in, the cheerleader inside her screaming and jumping to cut loose. She would, she assured herself.
But before she could, there was just one thing left to do: Operation Finish This Poe Thing So My Life Can Go On.
Isobel walked resolutely into her English classroom, her heart fluttering when she saw everyone gathered together in their groups, doing last-minute prep work before the bell. She saw Mr. Swanson and looked away quickly, pretending not to have caught his eye. Varen wasn’t there. His chair was empty.
She took her seat, setting the boom box on her desk. Where could he be? Would he seriously leave her on her own? Only now did she allow herself to become fully aware of her jangling nerves. They seemed to splinter all the more now, with her plan unraveling. She remembered Mr. Swanson’s warning. Both partners had to be present.
And then he appeared in the doorway. Isobel shot up from her chair, almost knocking over the boom box. He looked a little bedraggled, wearing yesterday’s black jeans and, she thought, yesterday’s T-shirt turned inside out, his eyes hidden once more beneath dark sunglasses. His hair was more ragged than usual too, giving him a wilder look. The sight of him stirred up something powerful and scary deep within her, the sensation intensifying when she thought about what she’d resolved to tell him that day. Would he listen?
The noise of the room grew louder. She might have thirty seconds left before the bell, thirty seconds left to let him in on the plan. She waited for him, but for some reason, he turned away, moving not toward her, but straight for Mr. Swanson’s desk.
Wait. What was he doing?
Isobel tore down the aisle to the front of the room.
“Oh yeah,” she said, inserting herself between Varen and Mr. Swanson. “I forgot. We wanted to ask if it was okay if we used a boom box. ” She flashed Mr. Swanson her most convincing custom-made cheer-ready grin.
Mr. Swanson glanced between them, wearing an expression close to alarm. Maybe it was her cheer uniform next to Varen’s undertaker look. Isobel could sense all eyes fixed on them from behind, and she had the childish urge to turn around and stick her tongue out at everyone.
Mr. Swanson shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it be?” he said, his expression morphing into bemusement.
“See?” Isobel said, turning to Varen. “I told you. ” His shielded gaze met hers. She stared at him pointedly, her tight smile reflected back at her through the sunglasses. The sound of the bell filled the room, followed by the scraping of chairs. Time was up.
She leaned in, whispering quickly under the noise cover, “I know you don’t want to do any talking, but you have to do the death part, because we didn’t get that far. I’l
l start. Jump in if you can and follow my lead. ” She slipped away from him, taking her seat on the opposite end of the room.
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“Shades please, Mr. Nethers. ”
Isobel watched as Varen made his way to his own chair. He moved slower than usual and this time didn’t bother lifting away the sunglasses at Mr. Swanson’s behest. Maybe, she thought, he hadn’t heard him ask? That seemed unlikely, though, since lately it had become a sort of start-of-class ritual between them, a show of their mutual respect. Isobel watched him sink into his desk, almost as though this action took more effort than normal. A quick glance out of the corner of her eye told her that Mr. Swanson was watching too. And so, it seemed, was everybody else.
Varen settled into his seat. A moment passed by in which Mr. Swanson seemed to deliberate on whether or not to repeat his request. To Isobel’s relief, he did not. Maybe it was Varen’s uncharacteristically disheveled appearance. Or maybe Mr. Swanson knew something, or suspected something. Whatever it was, he didn’t ask again.
He called the first group. Todd and Romelle popped in a DVD, which turned out to be a music video about Mark Twain’s life. It was a good idea, so good that Isobel wished she’d thought of it. It wouldn’t have taken that long, and they could have used a song from Varen’s collection.
Soon it was the next group’s turn with Walt Whitman. Next, Richard Wright, then Washington Irving. Between each presentation, Isobel kept trying to catch Varen’s eye. Why wouldn’t he look at her? She thought about passing a note but then decided it was too risky.
“Isobel and Varen?”
Isobel stood, her heart speeding up. She glanced toward Varen, but he didn’t need the cue. He’d stood mechanically, and now they both made their way to the front of the classroom.
Isobel handed him the stereo and cord. When he took them from her, the little red light next to the control buttons on the boom box lit up. White noise fuzzed, then spiked, and Isobel stopped, confused, because she knew she’d taken the batteries out that morning to make the player lighter to carry.
She stared at Varen as he moved to the front of the classroom, the radio jumping through stations. He set the boom box on Mr. Swanson’s desk, and in the moment before he took his hands away, a woman’s soft voice broke through. Far-off and fuzzy, it sounded as though it was coming from an old, scratched-up record. “—centrate,” it said. “Treat it all like an empty page. ”
With a stab of unease, Isobel realized that she’d heard this voice before—coming from the attic of Nobit’s Nook. It was that day she and Varen had worked together, when she’d gone back to get the Poe book and found the upstairs room empty. Right before she’d gone into the park.
Unsettled, Isobel swallowed. While Varen plugged in the stereo, she brought two chairs to one side of Mr. Swanson’s desk, taking extra time to straighten the one closest to where their teacher usually sat. She was glad Varen took the hint. He went to that chair and sat. Trying to forget the moment with the radio, Isobel rounded the desk and lowered herself into Mr.
Swanson’s swivel seat. Swanson, who had taken an empty seat out in the room, said nothing.
Isobel gathered up her stack of index cards, taking a moment to breathe. This was it.
She smiled at the classroom, reached out, and pressed the play button. Music blared—a catchy, almost game-showish synthesizer tune from a bonus round on one of Danny’s video games. Everyone stared, faces blank, Varen’s included. The music died down, and Isobel pressed the pause button.
“Welcome to another episode of Dead Poet Discussions,” she said. “I’m your host, Isobel Lanley, and for this exclusive All Hallows’ Eve edition, I have a few special guests in store for you. One of them is with us now. Please welcome Professor Varen Nethers, famous depressed dead poets historian and author of the bestselling books Unlocking your Poe-tential: A Writer’s Guide, and Mo Poe Fo Yo: When You Just Can’t Get Enough. Welcome, Professor Nethers. ”
Isobel hit the next track button, unleashing the sound of applause. Varen’s shielded gaze fixed on hers in what she thought might be a pained expression. She gritted through a smile, begging him with her eyes to just play along.
The sound of applause died down. “But that’s not all,” Isobel plowed on, trying to keep her tone encouraging, the mood upbeat.
“We have yet another very special guest with us this evening,” she went on, “all the way from Westminster Cemetery in lovely Baltimore, Maryland. ” Isobel paused, keeping her smile.
She held her arm out toward the door in a presentational gesture, like they did on all late-night talk shows.
“Please welcome to the show Mr. Edgar Allan Poe!”
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31
In the Flesh
The door swung open. Isobel depressed the track button again, and another round of applause came from the boom box. Edgar Allan Poe strode into the room. He stood for a moment, his expression a mix of grim remorse and melancholy, one hand held reverently over his heart.
Her mom had done a good job with the white makeup, Isobel thought. His paleness and the circles under his eyes looked too real. Then again, they had stayed up most of the night, so they probably were real. She thought the black wig they’d gotten from the costume aisle at Walmart looked a little hokey, but she figured she’d done an okay job cutting and styling it. Her father wore the tux he’d gotten married in, and being more than just a little tight now, the pant cuffs hiked up over his black socks like high-waters. A long white dish towel tied around his neck served as a cravat, and a little hair left over from the wig had been glued onto his upper lip that morning with spirit gum. The whole getup (combined with his “woe is me”
expression) might have been genuinely impressive, if not for the plush toucan, spray-painted black, hanging limply off his right shoulder, where it had been fastened that morning with Velcro. The bird bobbed stupidly as he strode into the room, prompting an outburst of laughter and applause.
Isobel stood up from the desk and reached out to shake hands with the fake Poe. Then her dad took the open chair next to Varen, who stared, his grip tightening on the armrests of his own chair. Her dad seemed to get the message and didn’t offer to shake.
“Welcome, Mr. Poe,” said Isobel, trying to get past the tense moment. The room quieted down, everyone eager to see what would happen next.
“Thank you, thank you,” Poe crooned in a goofy Southern accent. “Always a pleasure to return to the realm of the living. ”
Isobel flipped through her stack of index cards to the one she needed first. She’d written almost all her questions out in a backward fashion, giving the facts first, asking for confirmation rather than information. It couldn’t, after all, come off looking like her dad had done the work. He hadn’t, either, Isobel reminded herself. Mostly he’d spent the night goofing off, parading around the living room, answering every single question with “Nevermore!” and coming up with ways to incorporate horrible Poe puns. Given the way he was currently hamming up the part, Isobel couldn’t help but wonder if he’d remember a single authentic thing she’d told him.
“So, Poe,” she began, “how’ve you been these past one hundred and fifty plus years since your untimely and mysterious death in the fall of 1849?”
“Weary. ”
“And how’s Night’s Plutonian shore these days?”
“Dreary. ”
More laughter. Isobel watched as Varen’s head turned slowly toward her father. She couldn’t exactly tell with the sunglasses, but she somehow knew that he had to be staring down the false Poe with one of his most penetrating “you are the essence of lameness” expressions.
Isobel plowed on. “I would just like to say that we are so glad to have you here on the show today, Mr. Poe and Professor Nethers. ” She plastered on a big cheer smile. “Mr. Poe, your major works include such stories as ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ ‘The
Tell-Tale Heart,’ ‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ and ‘The Masque of the Red Death. ’ All of these feature themes of death and elements of the supernatural. Is it also true that you are considered to be the father of the modern detective story?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Poe, gesturing loosely with one hand. “Indeed I am. I hear that I am also considered by many in this day and age to be ‘America’s Shakespeare. ’” Her dad beamed at Varen. “Isn’t that correct, Professor?”
This was the part that had caused her the most worry. This was the part she’d wanted to warn him about but hadn’t gotten the chance. But they’d had to think of some way to involve Varen so he wouldn’t just be sitting there, some way that he would pick up on. This part, Isobel remembered, had been Danny’s one and only contribution, suggested during the ten seconds he could stand to keep his game on pause.
“Uh, yeah,” Varen said, shifting in his seat.
She nodded, pressing on, “Perhaps your most famous work, though, was and still is the narrative poem ‘The Raven. ’ Can you talk a little bit about your success with that particular piece?”
“Indeed,” Poe said, crossing his legs, leaning back in the chair. He raised a finger to brush the tarred crest of the limp fake raven. “That poem became more widely read than I could ever have dreamed. My success was, I must say, nothing short of stupendous. I became a sort of . . . literary Elvis, if you would. ”
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Varen blanched at the comparison.
“You disagree, Professor?” asked Poe.
“No,” he said, “except that Poe never made any money off ‘The Raven. ’”
Poe sat up, gripping his seat, the bird jiggling. “Certainly I made a profit!”
“Fifteen bucks. ”
An outright burst of laughter broke through the room.
“That, sir,” Isobel’s dad said, leaning back in his seat and straightening his jacket, “is beside the point. ”
“So it’s true that you were very poor,” Isobel went on, ad-libbing.
“In terms of money, yes, I was poor,” her father said, glowering in Varen’s direction. “I see that since my death, America has changed little in its obsession with the dollar. ”
“Is it also true that you drank to excess?” Isobel asked, flipping to the next index card.