“Don’t let us keep you,” he said and let her drift out the door. “One last thing. Miss Tindal needn’t do those lines at all, need she?”
Ms. Abernathy turned in the doorway and a hint of her old rancour flared in her eyes, but before it could take root, Mr. Greenleaf fixed her with another of his glacier-melting smiles and she stammered, grinning, “Of-of course not!”
“Fine! See you in the staff room for lunch then? Maybe we could have a cup of tea together?”
“Yes, that would be-” Her response was cut off when Mr. Greenleaf shut the door firmly. For a second or two she stood framed in the window of the door looking mildly confused. At last, she turned and wandered away with a look of pure mystification on her face.
Mr. Greenleaf turned to find the entire class staring at him with undisguised awe. He grinned and sketched a comical bow then glided smoothly back to the front of the class. “Chemistry is a wonderful discipline. Chemistry is in everything. It allows us to manipulate the very essence of the universe. All things are connected, and the study of these connections is what human beings call science. Shall we get down to business?” Mr. Greenleaf picked up the chemistry textbook from his desk and began leafing through it.
Brendan was as shocked as everyone else, but he felt something stirring inside him. He had never seen Mr. Greenleaf before, but he couldn’t help feeling that he recognized him from somewhere. What the teacher said resonated within him. He couldn’t help himself. He raised his hand. Mr. Greenleaf pointed at him and Brendan blurted, “How did you do that? With the chalk and the bird. How did you do it?”
Mr. Greenleaf looked up from the book. He fixed Brendan with his gaze and his mouth quirked into a sly, not unfriendly grin. “The world is full of surprises, Brendan. Things are not always what they seem. People are not always what they seem. The trick is to be open to seeing what is really there.” He winked.
Brendan sat with his mouth hanging open, unable to respond.
Mr. Greenleaf snapped the book shut and tossed it onto the desktop with a thud. “Valences! Who can tell me what they are?”
Belinda’s hand shot up immediately. The class commenced but Brendan hardly noticed. He was feeling strangely dizzy. The substitute teacher had made him feel disoriented and he couldn’t concentrate.
“Wake up!”
“Huh!?” Brendan blinked.
“Class is over,” Dmitri said. “Time to go. Didn’t you hear the bell?”
Brendan sighed with relief. He was more than happy to get out of that classroom.
^27 While a nice sentiment, this statement is not true. There are many boring subjects. I would list them but then you would be bored.
^28 A perma-frown is a facial feature that displays permanent disappointment and disdain that many persons develop in conjunction with their jobs. Usually it is manifested as a deep furrow between the eyebrows and perpetual turndown at the corners of the mouth. There are rumours of a special plastic surgery facility that specializes in providing management officials with the perma-frown but these rumours are unsubstantiated.
^29 A black hole is not really a hole at all. It is a superdense sphere of matter that is the result of a star imploding. Gravity is so strong on the surface of the sphere that even light can be sucked into it. More tests will be required before it is known if disapproval would suffer the same fate.
^30 Baleful is a word meaning evil or full of suffering. Not to be confused with baleful in the sense that “the barn is baleful,” that is to say full of hay bales. I doubt you would confuse the two as someone’s eyes could hardly shoot out bales of hay, but still… it doesn’t pay to overestimate the intelligence of one’s audience.
OPINIONS
Brendan stood up and followed the flow of students out the door and into the crowded hall. He cast a glance back at Mr. Greenleaf, expecting the man to be watching him, but the substitute was leaning on his desk chatting with a gaggle of girls. Even Belinda, usually terminally shy outside of academic situations, was standing with the others, albeit at the back of the group. The gawky girl was obviously quite smitten with the new teacher just like every other female.
Well, not exactly every other female. Kim slammed her chemistry book into her knapsack and stomped out of the room without a backward glance. “Let’s get outta here,” she grumbled as she walked past Brendan. Dmitri and Brendan shared a bewildered look, waited for Harold to catch up, and then followed Kim out the front door.
They caught up to her at the bike racks where she was tying her bag to her scooter with a bungee cord.
“What’s your problem?” Brendan demanded.
“I haven’t got a problem,” Kim snapped. Seeing the look on Brendan’s face, she sighed. “Don’t like that guy, that’s all. He bugs me. Don’t know why.”
Brendan got the feeling she wasn’t telling the whole story, but he didn’t press her. “Who wants to go to Papa Ceo’s for a slice?”
The suggestion was met with immediate approval from Dmitri and Kim, but Harold’s face fell. “I’m not supposed to eat things outside of mealtimes.”
Brendan sympathized. His own mum would flip if she found out he’d been eating pizza before dinner. She railed at him about eating greasy food making his acne worse. How could it be any worse?
“You don’t have to eat anything,” Brendan insisted. “You can just have a diet pop… or a salad or something.”
Harold thought about it for a moment then nodded. Brendan was relieved. He didn’t care about the pizza, really. He just wanted to hear what the others had thought about the new teacher and his incredible chalk trick.
They set off across Queen’s Park Crescent by the Royal Ontario Museum. The giant weird crystal perched on top of the limestone building looked like an alien spaceship. 31 Many people didn’t like the new crystal but Brendan thought it was kind of cool. He’d been inside the structure on the night of the opening and had wandered all over inside. His father was playing in a jazz quartet for one of the parties, so while his dad played, he explored. The odd angles of the ceilings and walls had been really neat.
They turned away from the ROM and headed south to Hoskin Avenue. Brendan was about to broach the subject but Harold beat him to it.
“What do you think of this Greenleaf guy?” Harold asked. As he walked along, he was sketching in his book with a pencil. He was always drawing and he was quite talented. In a few strokes, a hummingbird appeared on the blank page. Brendan marvelled anew at Harold’s gift. He wished he had some comparable talent. If he did, he certainly hadn’t discovered it yet.
Kim grunted but didn’t say a word.
“He certainly made chemistry more interesting,” Dmitri said. “He has a very interesting teaching style.”
“Those tricks he pulled were amazing,” Brendan opined. “The chalk changing colour and the hummingbird? Cool.”
“I’m sure he must have had the chalk up his sleeve,” Dmitri said, “Or in a false pocket in his vesk.”
“Vest,” Brendan corrected. “Not vesk.”
“Vest!” Dmitri repeated. “Right.”
“And he totally shut down Chester, that’s for sure,” Harold said with a grin. He had flipped the page in the sketch pad and was feverishly carving a portrait of Mr. Greenleaf with a lump of charcoal on a fresh sheet of white. “I bet he’s a magician!” Harold offered, “and maybe he had an accident during a show. Like he accidentally sawed a woman in half for real. On stage. That would be wicked, right?”
“I think that’s highly unlikely,” Dmitri commented.
“Still, it’d be wicked, right? Am I right?”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Kim suddenly cut in. “Who cares. He made a bird appear! Big deal. You guys act like he’s some kind of genius. Anybody can learn a magic trick. He buys a book at a joke shop and you guys think he’s Gandalf.”
Brendan frowned. “Oh, yeah? Like you could do a magic trick.” It was a lame thing to say but he was just annoyed.