15. Halloween
Halloween came around, and the classrooms were decked out accordingly. Caspir's was, predictably, the scariest. When they first walked in the week before Halloween, it was pitch black, save for a single, red, flickering candle set on Caspir's desk. Caspir's himself, already normally pretty scary, looked even more phantom-like in the dark, the single flame illuminating his cloak, highlighting the shadows of his attire. In this way, he almost looked Spectre like.
He said nothing as they filed in awkwardly, unable to see to even be seated at their desks. Caspir gestured minutely with one hand for them to be seated, so they had to fumble around in the near blackness like lost sheep until they each managed to locate a chair of some description. Once the clatter of chairs died down, and there had been a silence which made the hairs on the back of Charlie's neck stand on end, Caspir spoke.
His voice was soft, almost a hissing whisper, but none of them in the room were straining to hear it. Although he was deadly serious, there was a smile in his voice which was almost menacing in its clarity and knowing. “Today, I thought we could do something a little more... seasonal. But this is still an ordinary lesson, and if you do not participate, there will be punishment.” He spoke the last word with a certain pleasure. “Let us begin.”
He raised his arms. As he did so, the room became lit, but only dimly so, by many carved pumpkins leering down at them, casting a dull orange glow which was still barely enough to see by. However, the faces on the pumpkins were not the usual cheerfully-scary ones you might expect to find when trick or treating. The faces were leering and twisted, unlike anything Charlie had seen before. He almost preferred not being able to see.
And then the first scream was emitted. Penny Richter, the pretty girl who had helped show up Isaac, had shrieked and almost fallen off her chair. In front of each of them on the desks lay some unidentified, slimy object. Charlie was guessing organs of some description. He stared at the one in front of him. A heart. A heart the size of a fist. A heart the size of a human heart.
Charlie blanched. A human heart. On his desk. He could see all the details, the arteries which led into it... If it had been an animal heart, it wouldn't have been so bad - there was something less disturbing about seeing parts of other species - but a human heart? Surely, Caspir had gone too far this time? Whose was it?
Other people, turning to see what had caused Penny Richter to scream, also began to scream. It was like human screaming dominoes. Charlie did not make a sound. He just stared at his desk in disgust. Phoenix, on the desk across the aisle from him, had also kept silent. She had leant close to examine the heart, and then gently began prodding it with the end of one of the tools laid on the desk beside her.
Her face showed a mixture of utter revolt and intrigue. She looked up and saw Charlie looking at her. She pulled a face, then turned back to the heart on her desk. Jason had turned around from the desk in front of her, and they started talking animatedly, Phoenix still prodding the heart with the end of the tool she was holding absent-mindedly.
“Silence.” Caspir did not raise his voice above a hissing whisper, but immediately the classroom went silent. “Yes, that is a human heart in front of you.” His mouth twisted into a sickening smile. “And today, you will be dissecting it.”
Next to Charlie, there was a loud retching sound, then a splash. He winced as something splashed onto his leg. Try as he might, it was impossible not to look.
Beside his desk, there was a large puddle of vomit, which was shiny in the orange glow of light. Beside this puddle, a shaking and pale Peter pushed his glasses back up his nose in an attempt to maintain some sort of respect. Slowly, he got to his feet and apprehensively turned to face Caspir, whose face was unreadable – partly because most of it was obscured with the hood of his thick cloak. The only visible section of his face was his mouth, which was a hard line.
