Fallen Goddess

Part 2

Even before I got electrocuted, I was having a rotten day. I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more that I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be palying some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr - a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip - had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Pauline reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

It got so I almost believed them - Mrs. Pauline had never existed.

Almost.

But Maryline couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Pauline to her, she would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew she was lying.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Pauline with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in the cold sweat.

The freak waether continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windws in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado down only fifty miles from YancyAcademy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Bs to Fs. I got into more fights with Amelia Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nigel, asked me for the millionth time why I was too laszy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following weel, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to YancyAcademy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Maryline, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I weird how he'd survive next year without me.

I'd miss Latin class, too - Mr. Leonard's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do better.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Leonard had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.