NECROMANTIC

two.

It happened in science class, my first lesson of the morning, Friday.

We were dissecting frogs. A terribly atypical American high school experience, that, up until that day, I thought was something they only did in the movies. I mean … who actually thinks cutting up a dead amphibian is really that productive, or fun, or that we can truly learn anything from it beyond what we can read in textbooks? I mean, my opinion was most likely largely biased, what with me being a vegetarian (something I’d been from the age of eleven, when I watched a history channel documentary on the wholesale slaughter of cows and chickens in order to make burgers and nuggets, and, if you pardon the awful pun, haunted me since. Aside from the cruelty … could you imagine if there were ghost chickens and cows?), but still. It was just plain stupid.

And I said as much when the teacher, Ms Schultz deposited a shiny silver tray with the green creature on, belly up, legs spread out as though it was enjoying a lazy rest, in front of me.

My opinion on the matter simply elicited an eye roll, and a weary huff of breath from Ms Schultz, as it did most of the time (I was one of her bothersome students, because I frequently had opinions, and as we are all aware of the American education system, anything remotely free-thinking, strong-willed and unique is bad. But I was a bothersome student with decent grades, so there was really little she could do when I spoke out, after she’d gotten bored of responding, other than roll her eyes and sigh). “It’s on the syllabus, Miss Cohen. You really think it’s such a barbaric practice, take it up with the school board.”

“I didn’t say barbaric.” I said, pushing the tray away from me. “I said senseless. And it may be on the syllabus, but there’s also a section which states that if the experiment is against a student’s moral or religious beliefs, the student does not have to partake.”

She sighed again, frustration evident in this one. “Ok, fine, don’t partake, Miss Cohen.” And even though she stopped herself from saying it, I knew she was going to finish with a I really don’t care. She set her lips in a thin line, gave me a withering glare, and strode away, to distribute more frogs from her silver push tray. She didn’t take mine away, though. Probably some act of defiance against me.

I didn’t mean to be a pain in her ass, really. We just … clashed. And she wasn’t innocent when it came to antagonising me, as I was to her. We both gave as good as we got.

So I used one of my fists to prop my chin up, twirling a lock of my hair around the finger of my other hand, staring with pity at the deceased frog. I wondered idly if he was born in the wild, captured and killed, or if he was born and bred for death. Poor little guy.

I glanced over the room, to catch my best friend, Maemi’s eye, and she shot me a sympathetic look. I gave her a grimace, then a smile back, and she nodded knowingly. We used to sit next to one another before Ms Schultz split us up (apparently, though my attitude didn’t affect my grades, she had reason to believe Maemi to be incredibly impressionable, and therefore, it would affect hers) but little did our dear teacher know, Maemi and I had eye contact and facial movement communication pretty much down. However, before we could communicate anymore, Charlie, the boy beside her, tapped her shoulder and asked her a question. So I went back to hair twirling and moodiness.

“It’s not all bad,” a voice said beside me. Anya Gregori, the girl who sat beside me now. Sweet, slightly plump, with white blonde hair that fell in angelic waves, big blue eyes, and a permanent smile, showing off the pink-and-blue braces on her teeth. I looked over at her, and she gave me one of her smiles, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, and twirling the scalpel in her fingers round and round. “I mean … I feel bad for the frog, but that’s what I want when I die. For my body to go to science. Help people learn and stuff.”

I smiled back at her. Anya was the kind of girl who would say stuff that if anyone else said, you’d roll your eyes and retort sarcastically. But to do that to her would be kicking a puppy. “That’s very noble of you, Anya.”

She shrugged. “My mum’s a nurse, and my dad’s a mortician. I’m kind of used to death, and figure I should mean something when I’m gone.”

I’m kind of used to death, too, Anya. We should make a club or something. I bit my cheek. “I just want to move on.”

Anya beamed, patting my shoulder. “I don’t personally believe in a heaven, but … I’m sure you will.”

I didn’t mean that, of course. I meant … I just didn’t want to be stuck around, like the ghosts I saw all the time, in an unrelenting, unresting limbo. I just didn’t want to be dead and trapped in the world of the living, where no dead things belonged.

I was glad she didn’t understand what I really meant. I didn’t wish what I could do upon anyone. Even Ms Schultz.

“Okay, class,” Ms Schultz was at the front of the class, having finished her rounds of dealing out the frogs, and she clapped her hands together. “I trust you all have your textbooks open to the right page. Just simply follow the instructions before you, and if anything goes wrong, or you need my assistance, just call on me,” she looked over at me, and the look she gave me clearly said everyone but you. “So … have at it. And remember to take notes as you go, of course.”

I sighed, as every other student put scalpel to belly, pushing in hard enough to break the soft skin and slice, and tore a page out of my notebook, uncapping my biro pen, starting to doodle. I didn’t even realise what I’d drawn until Anya nudged me and said ‘you’re super talented, Sarah,’ then ‘but you have kind of a dark sense of humour, don’t you?’ , and I glanced down – on the page, I’d sketched the frog before me, only instead of the vacant, glazed look in had in its open eyes, they were shut, and it had an almost peaceful expression on its face. And in its webbed hands it held a bouquet of daisy-like flowers.

I bit my lip, and shrugged. “I guess I do.”

After Anya turned away from me, back to her own experiment, I balled the paper up, and shoved it into my bag, capping my pen and setting it with a click down onto the desk. I tapped my fingers. I plaited a lock of my hair. I couldn’t look away from the frog.

And that’s when my mind wandered. When I thought about what the frog would be like, alive, its blood running through it, its tiny heart pumping, its belly stretching as it croaked, and my hand, unconsciously hovered closer, closer, till it was over the frog, and I felt my throat tighten, because this poor frog didn’t live just for me to poke around at its insides –

There was a shift. Not a physical one … but one that I felt. My heart hammered, and my bones seemed to thrum.

And then it twitched.

I gasped, my hand flying backward, holding it close to myself, clutching it. I waited, a second more, to see if it would do anything else, and when it twitched again, I grabbed Anya’s shoulder – probably quite hard, judging by her gasp, and wince – and said “Did you see that? Tell me you saw that!”

“Sarah… my shoulder,” she said, looking at me with a worried, pouty expression, and I quickly dropped it. “Saw what?”

“It … my frog, it moved!”

Anya looked at me for a beat longer, before giving me a soft, knowing smile. “Sarah, that happens sometimes. When a frog dies, if there’s static, it can move. I know it’s freaky but…” she glanced down at the frog, and her words ran dry. Because right then the frog blinked its eyes, and its belly sucked in, shaky, before it popped back out, and it let out the loudest ribbet I have ever heard in my life.

I didn’t scream. Anya, did, however, a scream louder than the frog’s croak, loud enough for Ms Schultz to get to her feet, and rush over, for everyone to stare. And for their mouths to drop open at the frog who sat up on my tray, and then hopped across the desk.

No, I got to my feet, stumbling backward, until my hip crashed painfully into the desk behind me. And my hand felt like it was burning, or maybe that was in my head, I don’t know, but it felt that way, and I looked down at it in horror, before gasping out a ‘I have to go,’ and rushing out of the classroom, all the way to the bathroom, where I crashed into a stall, and threw up my breakfast.