mouthing, Whew. He gave me the faintest smile of relief and then began to pull books from his bag.
In that moment I realized I was standing in front of a room full of living people. I suddenly recalled the stereotypical adolescent nightmare: standing naked in front of a classroom of your peers. I certainly wasn’t naked, and these living beings weren’t exactly my peers; but I still felt horribly exposed. I had the unpleasant sensation that the students were all staring right at me even though most of them just looked bored as they watched their teacher start to write on the chalkboard behind me.
Only then did I realize I hadn’t been around this many members of the living world, and all in one place, since my death. So many breathing, blushing, heartbeating people made me nervous. Made me curl protectively into myself.
I glanced up at Joshua. He too was staring around the classroom with a look of wonder. After he analyzed each classmate, he turned his eyes back to me. Wow, he mouthed. I frowned at him, confused. Ever so slightly, he rolled his head in a circle, gesturing to the entire classroom, then nodding emphatically back at me.
I understood. He was coming to the conclusion that he really was the only person who could see me. In the park, he’d listened to me and believed me … in theory. Here, the theory had been put to the test. A test that proved I was invisible—a ghost.
I nodded in confirmation. To underscore his sudden realization, I spoke aloud, “Weird, huh?”
No one but Joshua looked up at me. Wow, he mouthed again, and grinned.
That grin spoke in full paragraphs, telling me exactly what Joshua thought about his new friend’s state of being. The grin set off the warm little ache in my chest, a welcome sensation in the face of my insecurity; the grin was all the reassurance I needed.
Braver, I smiled back. I put one hand in front of my waist and bowed to my bored, unaware audience, then clapped loudly as if to thank them for their kind attention to my performance. Still, no one looked at me.
A brief memory entered my mind: that of my own voice, screaming at unseeing strangers, just after my death. Something about that remembered anguish, in comparison to this moment, made me inexplicably light-headed and almost giddy. I began to pace back and forth in front of the classroom, folding my arms behind me like a general.
“You’re probably wondering why I called you all here today,” I intoned in my deepest boardroom voice.
Joshua snorted and shook his head. “Weirdo,” he said aloud.
“What was that, Mr. Mayhew?”
Ms. Wolters’s shrill voice cut across the room as she spun away from the chalkboard. Joshua coughed and hacked, trying desperately to cover his error.
Unfortunately, some of his classmates, including the big, red-headed boy next to him, mistook Joshua’s actions as the intentional mocking of their teacher. They began to laugh, joining in the supposed fun. Ms. Wolters, believing herself to be at the receiving end of some unheard joke, stood as straight as the piece of chalk she now gripped. Her glare looked no less than murderous.
“Mr. Mayhew, since you seem to have such a keen grasp on this material, please come to the board and tell us what the order is for this differential equation.” She practically spat out the words.
Joshua shot me a panicked look. It was painfully clear from his face that differential equations weren’t exactly his specialty.
“Oh, God,” I moaned. “I’m so sorry. I’m a moron.”
He shook his head slightly, trying to tell me no despite the fact that I’d obviously gotten him into trouble. He slid out of his seat and walked sluggishly to the chalkboard, hardly looking at Ms. Wolters as he took the chalk from her thin hand.
I hurried to his side, fluttering my hands uselessly. I stared up at the complex math problem in front of him, only to see it was a tangled mess of numbers and letters and symbols. Oh no, I thought as I struggled to keep my eyes in focus while staring at the equation. Just looking at all the d’s and 3’s and x’s and y’s, I felt my breath start to mirror Joshua’s in rapidity.
He stared at the equation on the board too, his face a total blank. He seemed pretty smart … but maybe not this smart. Not without some warning. Not in the face of this monster problem.
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