Crystal Grader by Tag Cavello (read my book txt) 📕

“No,” Crystal, still angry, told her. “I didn’t feel like that then. I don’t feel like it now, either. I’m not one of his chippies, Luce.”

The other laughed. “Who said anything about being a chippie? By reading his books we’ve been paying him all this time.”

“That’s not what I meant. I—“

“Good morning, everyone.”

The audience fell dead silent at the official greeting from Jarett Powell. His hands, perhaps wishing for a pair of stress balls, squeezed the podium with white-knuckled fervor. A tight smile gleamed on his face. Based on these observations Crystal surmised that public speaking did not fall neatly under this man’s list of abilities. Good. He deserved to squirm a little for ignoring her.

“I’m very pleased to be here. Thank you for having me. As I understand it, all of you are hoping to be writers one day.”

Nervous giggles from some of the girls, coughs from the boys. Crystal crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap. Her anger began to cool. Whether everyone in the audience wanted to write one day she had no idea. She only knew her own intentions in that arena. And for the sake of them, it was time to stop seething and start listening.

“If that’s the case I’m here to help,” Powell went on, “but right up front I want to say this: Don’t let the dream of writing be the only egg in your basket. That goes triple for the aspiring novelist. A very famous author of science fiction once said that wanting to be a writer is like wanting to be a pirate. It’s an absurd, crazy idea to pursue. Let me add to that by saying you might have a better chance at becoming a successful pirate.”

Laughter, mostly from the girls, echoed over the basketball hoops. From here Powell elaborated further about how difficult it was to achieve fame as a writer, counter pointing himself from time to time with talk of effort and reward, ethic and achievement. Afterward came his opinions on how to construct a good story. He spoke of theme and voice, conflict and character development. Crystal knew most if it already from Miss Reingold, the teacher she had so recently wanted to see put to death by any kind of convenient, slow torture available.

Powell’s lecture maintained a crisp, direct style, delivered with a voice deep enough by far to penetrate any distractions coming from things like the uncomfortable chairs, or the rumbling of hungry bellies at this near-to-lunchtime hour. His big mistake came at the end, as Crystal had known it would. Like any good speaker worth his salt, Powell at the conclusion of the lecture welcomed his audience to ask questions. Unlike any good speaker, he was not ready for these questions. At all.

“Fire away,” the painfully ignorant author said, grinning.

In less than five minutes all hell broke loose. In fact principal Dodder had to come forward at the very first question—asked by one of Crystal’s cheering mates—and nip things in the bud. Or rather, try. But as poor Mr. Powell soon discovered, nothing short of the Hoover Dam was going to stop these girls from getting the data they craved, especially with the object of their enchantment so cornered and helpless.

“In your book Pursuit of the Dove you had Zoe go to bed with Jack instead of Tristan,” the mate pounced. “How do you think the book would have changed had she chosen Tristan instead? And what would the scene between them have been like?”

“Yeah!” one of the other girls cried out.

Powell looked absolutely flabbergasted. “Um…wow. Well, in the first place—“

“I think we can refrain from pressing Mr. Powell for certain details that are…inappropriate for the climate we maintain,” Dodder broke in, raising his hands.

“Aw!” another girl pouted.

Not that she needed to worry. The slack was almost immediately picked up by the rest of the cheering squad, as well as the majorettes and the tennis players. The auditorium began to buzz with excited voices discussing what should be asked next, while a few of the other girls, like drowning swimmers, gave frantic signals for attention.

“What if Tristan had just taken Zoe on the night he gave her the piano lesson?” one of them demanded to know before Powell could even look at her.

“Um…well, Tristan was a man who knew how to restrain his passion. If you recall in chapter twelve—“

“Yeah but she wanted him to! I could tell by the way you described her eyes!”

“Well perhaps that’s why she chose Jack instead.”

“She chose Jack but she’s always thinking about Tristan! Right? Right?”

“It’s very possible,” Powell, with cheeks flushing, conceded.

“I knew it!”

“Me next! Me next!” A red-haired girl squealed.

This time old Dodder raised his hands as high as he could for control. And it didn’t help a damned thing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if we could go about this in a more orderly fash—“

“In The Girl and the Grotto the merman was, like, breathing air into Marisa’s lungs so she didn’t drown while he kissed her underwater. That was so cool! Could a strong enough guy really do that?”

“Yes,” another girl proclaimed in Powell’s place. “Trust me, Carol, the answer to that is yes.”

“All right, that’s enough!” Dodder said.

But his efforts to slam the door on the ruckus were hopeless. Most of the girls broke out laughing at the way Carol’s question had been answered, and the sound of it was like a gun fired at the tape of a footrace, with the sprint soon becoming a stampede that Powell could in no way stand against.

“What makes a heroine good enough for the hero to want her? I mean really want her.”

“Eloquence and femininity. And…you know, some other mature qualities.”

“In The Blood of Venus Nadine listened to Roger scream after shooting him—was that meant to mirror the screams she gave while he shot her?”

“Shot her? Oh you mean…shot her. Probably…not. I think she just wanted him to die.”

“What do you think was going through Marisa’s mind the first time the merman saw her naked?”

“Well…he was awe-struck, as I recall, so I guess she would’ve liked that.”

“How do I get my boyfriend to kiss me the way Jack kissed Zoe?”

“Um…”

“Do boys usually want the girl to make the first move?”

“That depends, I think…”

It was Miss Reingold who came to the rescue, nudging Powell out of the way with a pat on the shoulder and a smile that dropped to the floor as soon as she had control of the microphone.

“Enough,” she told everyone, stone cold. “Sit down. Quietly.”

Much to Crystal’s disappointment, the girls complied. But then she too could not help but follow the teacher’s command; in seconds she was back in her seat with her legs crossed. Pity. If only Dodder had possessed the confidence to take on today’s task alone the fun might never have ended.

“Very good,” Miss Reingold said. “Now then. Mister Powell will…hopefully allow for the questions to continue, though I wouldn’t blame him if he’d rather not.” She glanced in his direction and received an assenting shrug. “These questions will come one at a time, and only after the student has raised his or her hand, and only—and this is a big only girls—if the question is in regard to writing or the mechanics involved with writing. Do I make myself clear?”

Silence amongst the folding chairs.

“Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Miss Reingold,” came a suitable number of voices.

“Wonderful. Mister Powell, I’m so sorry…”

Powell gave another shrug, as if to say oh heck, we were all young once, then he re-commandeered the microphone and assured Miss Reingold vocally that no harm had been done. But Crystal could just bet on how scared he was to call on the next girl. Indeed, his hand shook a little when he pointed to Betsy Silver, who had tentatively waved from her chair at the end of the second row. Her question, however, proved innocent enough.

“Where do you get your inspiration?” she wanted to know.

Powell’s reply was instantaneous. “I don’t. For me there’s no such thing. I have to make myself sit down in front of the typewriter every day.”

Crystal turned her head to look back at Betsy. The expression on her face suggested disbelief at what she had just been told.

“So you don’t really like writing?”

And with a sad smile, Powell answered: “No. Not very much.”

“Then why,” Betsy asked, more bewildered than ever, “do you do it at all?”

“Because it’s all I have, Miss. It’s all I have.”

***

For that answer alone, Crystal decided to give him detention. It would be a piece of cake to pull off.

Everyone stood up when the lecture was over. The line going back to class got close enough to the stage curtain that she could slip behind it, unseen, and make her way back to a shadowy hall wherein rows of vacant lockers lurked. From their forbidding visages she was deposited into the art wing, where she had earlier seen Powell retreat to via a wider, more heavily used route. Three classes were held in this part of the school: painting, shop, and home economics. None of them, for the time being, interested Crystal in the slightest. It was the room at the end of the hall, near the back door, where she would dole out her punishment.

She walked without a sound to the very last locker, the very last shadow, and stopped. This would make a good hiding place from which to pounce. The detention room lay directly in front of her. And on the right, in case something went wrong, an escape hatch: a back door that let onto the football field.

Except nothing was going to go wrong. As far as Crystal was concerned, it never did. Things sometimes happened that forced her to change her plans. Change, but not abandon. Oh no, not ever. A bit of chaos always made the game more fun anyway.

With a grin Crystal reached up and pulled the fire alarm.

At the sound of the bell, all movement in the school froze. Then, from everywhere around her, hurried footsteps. Shouted instructions.

Crystal moved forward one step. Looking left into the art wing, she could see but a single individual—tall, dark, and handsome—at the far end. Powell. Everyone else seemed to be making their way towards the parking lot at the front of the school. Perfect.

“Young lady!”

Screaming, Crystal whirled on her heels. Behind her stood a scrawny, aging man wearing dusty shoes and a dirty jump-suit.

“Shit-Shit!” she cried.

“Shit-shit is right!” the old man, oblivious to the nick-name, huffed back. “Girl, you have gotten yourself into a world of trouble! Pullin’ the fire alarm for no reason! Creatin’ a ruckus!”

“I didn’t!”

“Bullshit you didn’t! I saw you! Now come with me to the prince-pal’s office!”

He laid his hands on her shoulders, which repulsed her even more than the filthy, flatulent way he smelled. On instinct, she tried to jerk away. The janitor’s fingers bit down hard. Crystal screamed again, this time in pain. Her knees buckled. Shit-Shit didn’t care. He spun her around and shoved her into the hall, where she crashed straight into Jarett Powell’s chest.

“Easy there,” he said, catching her up effortlessly as the wind on a kite.

And for the second time that day, everything in Crystal’s world came to a freezing halt.

How she wanted to just keep falling into those arms that closed around her, bore her up, and shielded her from the toxins of that blubbery-lipped janitor! Indeed, it was all she could do not to leap fully into his embrace as the creature behind her began his accusations afresh.

“That girl is in trouble!” she heard Shitty bark from the depths of where her head lay buried in Powell’s chest. “She pulled the fire alarm and caused a panic!”

“Oh I don’t know if anyone’s panicking,” Powell replied. “Miss?”

Blinking, Crystal looked up. The eyes staring back at her, golden brown, gave no sign of recognition from their previous encounter. But then, as she later came to discover, Powell was a man