Without a Shadow by Julie Steimle (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

My first hour class was History—and my teacher, Mr. McDillan.

The hate on his face was easy to read as he sat in front of the class while we took yet another test. Like always, Mr. McDillan glared at me over the roll sheet, narrowing his eyes like he’d rather have me for breakfast than teach me about the French Revolution. We had just finish discussing how Marie Antoinette got her head chopped off with a guillotine along with other French aristocrats. Mr. McDillan liked gory history. ‘For fun’ he had read us the story of Count Dracula, who apparently was based off some historical figure who used to stick people up on poles around his castle. Ick! However from him I learned that Romania was once called Transylvania—or at least a part of it was. I don’t really do well in History.

I could hear his chair creak. Others shifted in their seats in the room. Everyone’s nerves were really tense during the test—I could practically smell it. Sweaty palms, beating hearts—it was funny, but I could almost swear I heard them. And as I listened to the silence, I slowly heard something else. It started like a whisper, but the sound grew louder and louder, like a badly tuned radio. Though I tried to concentrate on my paper, it grew increasingly difficult to focus. I heard as clear as anyone speaking to me a voice—more inside my head rather than in my ear, but it was just as loud, that said, “Look over at his paper for the answer. The teacher won’t notice.”

I blinked and lifted my head. Searching around for the source, I half expected to see somebody. At first I didn’t, and I shook my head. But I heard the voice again, just as clearly. “Look at his paper. The teacher won’t see you.”

I lifted my head again and peered around the room. I don’t know why it happened or how, but all around me smallish, brownish, reddish things that I could not see before blurred into being then came into focus, like a camera, growing more solid by the second. The room was crowded, completely crowded. But it was not crowded with lots of ordinary big people—no—but creatures I had seen in Mr. McDillan’s grotesque and somewhat medieval history texts that he used on odd occasions. They were like really ugly cupids—except with bat wings. Most were perched on shoulders or flying around the room, laughing hysterically, practically shouting at my classmates, telling them to do naughty things. Yet none of my classmates acted like they heard them. As I fell back against my seat, one of these ugly thing flew into my face. “Come on! One little peek won’t hurt!”

I leapt out of my chair.

“Yow!”

All my classmates jumped, staring up at me. Even the ugly cupid guys stared at me, their grins forming on their faces as the anticipated the possible mischief.

“Miss McAllister,” Mr. McDillan said, rising to his feet also. “You had better have a good reason for that outburst.”

I paled, staring at him. Three of those creature thingies shouted for him to do various evil things to me. “Stake her heart!” “Fail her!” “Lock her in the closet!”

He ignored the little monsters as if they weren’t there. Other rude calls to spit paper wads at me or to call me a weirdo echoed in the room from these things. One of my classmates actually heeded that remark, and I heard the words, “You weirdo” soon after the imp had spoken.

I swallowed, looked around the room again as I realized the truth of it—no one could see them but me. I had to answer my teacher. I could see that quickly enough. I swallowed again and sat down. “I…uh…something bit me.”

Everyone leapt up onto their seats and a few girls screamed. It was a common rumor that the school had rats. None of us could prove it, but everyone believed it.

Mr. McDillan glared at me as he told the class to sit down. “There are no rats in this school. Eve, get out of your seat and go to the vice principal’s office, immediately. You are causing a disruption.”

I couldn’t disobey. I think on it now, and I truly believe that he was being generous to me then. The mini-gargoyles on his shoulder were still shouting evil sounding commands for him to throw garlic at me, or to stick me in the heart with a wooden stake. I grabbed my books and got out of there fast.

I wish I could say that things got better after that, but I really loathe lying. Down the halls, past classroom doors, into the corridor that led to the administration offices, I saw more cupid-things in so many ugly forms free-floating around those in the halls. Wondering what was wrong with me, thinking something was indeed seriously wrong with me, I hurried to where I just might gather my senses—the girls’ bathroom.

I ran into the nearest stall and locked the door. It was quiet. I could be with myself—alone. But then, as if popping out of nowhere, that ugly cupid-thing arrived, the one that had hollered at me earlier. He shouted out now. “Yeah, stay here. Who cares about Mr. McDillan?”

Grabbing the creature with two hands, I squeezed it with a shake. “I care! Who and what are you? Why are you bothering me?”

The thing yelped, its eyes going wide. It gawped at me. Or maybe it was choking. I was squeezing it pretty hard. “It can hear me!”

It. I have never liked being referred to as ‘it’. The first time it happened was in first grade. Jill Saunders was making fun of my eyes and my really white skin. She said I was a ghost, and then “It’s a monster!” So, I bit her. I was a biter then. I hadn’t broken the skin or anything, but after that, my parents really got after me. They made me swear never to bite another person. I have never fought back like that since, though I had been severely tempted at times.

Here, referred to as an ‘it’ from a little monster this time, I squeezed tighter. “I AM NOT AN ‘IT’!”

But the thing just popped out of my hands and flew off with a yelp, much like a dog with its tail between its legs. I remained in the bathroom stall, my heart pounding, disbelieving all that I had just seen; and yet here I was hiding in the bathroom from bat-winged things. It took a while for me to decide to leave, wondering if it was safe, but I must have hesitated too long. I heard two girls enter the bathroom, sneaking rather. The girls whispered, but the shouts of the little monsters flying around them were loud.

“Write that Dawn McAllister is a vamp, a ho, and a slut. She deserves it for flirting with your boyfriend!” Those things always seemed to shout.

“Yeah,” another voice joined in. “And you put on that it would be better if she were dead along with her monster sister, goody-goody Eve.”

I felt all hot. My face burned red, and it was hard to control my breathing. Monster? But Dawn was my sister. She may have been a jerk at times, but no one deserved having nasty things written about her on the bathroom mirrors.

Careful to open the stall door as quietly as possible, I looked out at the two girls with the noisy cupid-things. Staring, I blinked at the girls I saw with them. Dawn’s Goth friends. My heart pounded in fury now at such two-faced, hypocritical, so-called friends. I didn’t realize I had clenched my fists, until I felt the pain. My nails had cut into my skin.

I stepped farther out and crept behind them. The girls must have been so busy writing on the mirror that they did not bother to notice me standing behind them. I looked up at their writing, thinking of all the things I would like to do to them but really shouldn’t. That yelling mini-gargoyle thing was not around to give suggestions—but at this point who needed shouting bug to think of all the evil one wanted to do to another? My anger fuelled me. 

Trying to gain control over my emotions so I did not do anything rash, I lifted my eyes to the reflection of the bathroom behind me, the two girls, and the writing.

I blinked (I was doing a lot of blinking in astonishment that day). There were the stalls, the girls and their writing—but no me. I waved at the mirror. There was nothing to wave back. All the days before this, I had a reflection. Not once had I ever not seen it. Today it just wasn’t there.

This was one of those ‘Yow!’ experiences, though I contained it better this time. Thousands of thoughts went through my head at this moment. Two topped them though. If they saw I had no reflection, they would definitely think I was a monster…and maybe I really was a monster.

What were my choices then? I could sneak out, and they would never know I was there—but that didn’t do justice to my sister or the slander they were writing on the bathroom wall. No, I had to take my other option.

“What are you up to, girls?” I placed my hands on their shoulders.

They jumped. Their screams were irresistibly funny. The permanent marker went flying. It smacked the ground, rolling under the stall nearest the door, making black scrawls on the tile. Both spun around. So I smiled a full toothy grin.

Underneath their Gothy white makeup, both girls turned a real sickly shade of ash. Then they screamed like banshees, scurrying out the bathroom as if I was about to eat them.

 Turning, I glanced at the mirror once more—and startlingly enough there was my reflection again, only now fading as if I were a ghost that had only popped out for a haunting. Seeing that was enough reason to get moving out of the girls’ lavatory as fast as I could. The vice principal’s office was a better location to hide in after all.

“Sit down.” The vice-principal directed me to a seat as soon as I stepped through the door. “Where have you been? Mr. McDillan sent me notice that you were coming.”

I frowned and looked at my shoes. “The bathroom. It was only for a few minutes.”

His face held stern disappointment. “This is very unlike you, Eve. Classroom disruption…. Normally I’d just give you a warning, but I am going to have to talk to your parents.”

I nodded, saying nothing. I had to ignore the little flying demons that shouted for him to expel me. But even I knew that my record was too squeaky clean for that. The vice principal merely sent me out of his office while he talked to my mother for what seemed like an hour. I just continued to stare at my shoes, wondering what was wrong with me. He didn’t come out of the office until after the passing bell rang and the second hour had long been under way. I ended up sitting in his office while he wrote up my first disciplinary record,