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

It looked ever so much different in the afternoon sun. White with green shutters, two stories high, it seemed to smile down on its guest with an almost curious expression in its shiny windows. Why hello there, little girl, Crystal heard it say. How did you get back here?

She recognized its architectural style as Georgian, not from any real interest in the subject matter, but because her history teacher at school, Mr. Lowry, liked to ramble during class sometimes about the old houses of Huron County. Did he know about this house? she wondered. Making a mental note to ask him, she made her way across the parking area. The house loomed larger and larger.

Little girl? Are you going to knock on the door?

She stopped. At the upper west curtain a man with a white beard was scowling at her. The man was not Powell. He wore a blue hat and a uniform with gold epaulettes on the shoulders. To Crystal it looked very old fashioned—the clothing of a civil war officer. She shook her head, blinked…and the man disappeared.

Little girl? Little girrrrl?

The house, very large now that she was so close, smiled on. It was a nice house. Beautiful, even. So why did it look like it was hiding something? Why did it make her spine tingle as if spiders were crawling on her back?

“Forget it,” Crystal said out loud. “I don’t scare easy.”

Of course not. Don’t be scared of me.

Her sneakers scuffed over the asphalt to a concrete walkway that led up to the front door. Like the shutters, the door was green. In the center of it was a rather charming antique hand-crank bell. Without hesitating, Crystal turned it. A sound like a cartoon fire alarm rang on the other side.

Instant barking came from in back of the house. Crystal braced herself for whatever reaction she might get. Seconds later Chubby appeared. When he saw her his run—much to her relief—became a trot, his snarl a smile.

“Hey boy,” she said, still a little uneasy with the creature. “Anybody home?”

Chubby woofed and wagged his tail. He wanted another treat, and Crystal had time to wish she had brought some Milk-Bones just before the door opened to reveal Powell, dressed in baggy jeans and a polo shirt with a v-neck collar. Blinking up at him for a few moments, it was plain to see that either she or the dog had woken him from a nap. His hair stuck out at the door’s transom in tangled tufts. His eyes were bleary. Or maybe he’s drunk, Crystal thought. Didn’t all authors drink?

“Hi,” she sang.

“Hello,” Powell replied, dead-pan. His eyes wandered over her shoulders, perhaps to search the trees for a parent or other suitable guardian.

Crystal left him to it. She had plenty of time yet to get back to school for the JV basketball game. Standing on tip-toe, she flashed him another smile. Chubby sniffed at her skirt.

Finally Powell’s gaze returned to its proper place.

“What can I do for you today, Miss…uh, Genesio?”

“You remembered my name,” she chirped. “How sweet!”

“Well…”

“Did I wake you up?”

“Yes as a matter of fact.”

“My bad. I’m sorry. I just wanted to drop by and say thank you again for helping me during the fire at school.”

The comment earned her a smile. At last, a smile.

“There wasn’t a fire, Crystal. Remember?”

“I make no confessions,” she winked, “when not under the advisement of a lawyer.”

“Smart kid. And you’re welcome. But Crystal”—he gestured towards the trees behind her—“you should know that this is private property. I don’t just let people come walking back here whenever they feel like it.”

“Of course you don’t,” she said. Her eyebrows went up playfully for a moment. “I’m not people, though, Mr. Powell. I’m an impressionable young girl thirsting for knowledge from her elders.”

“Crystal, we’ve talked about this already. I—“

“You are a brilliant author of romance novels who hasn’t taken on a student in…how long?”

“Years.”

“Great!” she beamed. “Time to break the streak.”

“I don’t think so.” He looked down. “How’s your ankle?”

“My ankle?”

Somewhere in Crystal’s heart a girl started rubbing her hands together in anticipation. Powell’s concern for her health allowed for an unexpected opportunity. It was one she meant to capitalize on.

Bending her knee so as to balance on the ankle in question, she said: “It feels a-okay, Mr. Powell.” She then raised her fist to strike a full-on cheerleader pose. “I’ll be fine for the game. Don’t you think?”

“I think the injury to your ankle and the fire have something in common. Neither one of them ever existed.”

Her foot dropped. “Perhaps you’re right. But if you want to find out for sure you’ll need to get to know me better.”

“It isn’t that important. I told you—“

“How sturdy is this porch railing?”

Powell’s train of thought derailed. Bemused, he blinked at the wooden newel post behind her.

“What? Why?”

“Because I feel like warming up a little, that’s why.”

With that, Crystal jumped on top of the banister and began to pace back and forth with her arms held out. As always, the trick of maintaining her balance came with almost zero effort. She didn’t even need to look down. Her eyes, instead, were trained on Powell, who now looked wide awake and in the throes of a panic attack.

“Are you crazy? Get down before you fall!”

He stepped forward, no doubt meaning to catch her in case the need arose. Crystal responded by taking two steps back, her shoes never missing a beat on the narrow rail.

“I don’t fall, Mr. Powell,” she smirked. “Not from balance beams anyway. I’m the best girl on my squad.”

“You’re going to put me in the hospital with a coronary. Please get down.”

“Tutor me and you’ve got a deal.”

“No.”

“Okay then.”

She did a cartwheel on the banister. Powell cried out as her legs flew into the air and the cheering skirt fell over her waist. Luckily (for him at least) the maneuver took less than two seconds to execute. Then she was standing upright again, not even breathing hard.

“One more no and you get a handstand,” she threatened, arching her brow. “Now those I can only hold for about five seconds. After that you finally get to see the girl lose her balance.”

At these words she saw something flicker in Powell’s eyes. His squint loosened; his lips came apart. The reaction caused hope to swell in her chest. It was interest. She had sparked his interest, if only for one, fleeting instant.

Then he went back to chastising her.

“You,” he said, “are the nuttiest kid I have ever met. Bar none.”

“Does that mean yes?”

He sighed.

Gotcha, she thought, for the second time that week. Only today there would be no abrogation.

“Bring me…” he began. He stopped, shook his head, ran his tongue over his lips. “Bring me something you’ve written. A piece of your work. I’ll look at it and give you a critique. And one lesson.”

“Yay!” she cheered, and jumped off the banister.

“What the hell?”

He had to catch her, which was fine. She knew he would.

***

The basketball team got clobbered later that afternoon.

Crystal didn’t blame herself, though her mind, during every jump and scream, had not been in its proper place for cheering. The other girls on the squad weren’t guilty either. It had just been one of those days—one of those awful days where the basketball gods were strongly in favor of the visiting team. At the end of the whole mess the scoreboard showed 29-66.

“Well that was fun,” Megan Holt said as they emerged from the girls’ locker room at 6:30.

“Yeah,” Crystal said, “I always get a kick out of the nail-biters.”

The other girl laughed. “Okay. Well call your friend Lucy and let’s go to the mall. Blow off some steam.”

“I’d like to. Really I would. But I need to study for that Spanish test we got coming next week.”

“On a Friday night? Get real, Crys.”

“If I blow that test I’m going to get a D for the semester. Maybe even a D minus.”

“Stop it. You’re letting Lucy turn you into one of those geek girls.”

“Nah. It’s just for this one time I need to buckle down.”

Crystal’s lip twisted as she spoke, and when she walked home alone it was with a mental middle finger raised in the direction of Megan Holt. The way she always talked about Lucy never ceased to irritate. The yuppie bitch was actually more concerned with social ladders than getting good grades at school.

Oh well. Outside of the cheering squad Megan meant nothing to Crystal.

Also, she had lied about the Spanish test.

She arrived home by 7PM. Hannah was in the living room watching television.

“Hi Crystal!” she said cheerfully.

Crystal’s bag slipped from her shoulder. “Hey. Where’s Mom?”

“In the shower. Wanna play Uno?”

“Not now.”

“Come on!”

“No. I have to study.”

She went upstairs to her room, closed the door and locked it. Her bag went into the closet, where it wouldn’t be touched until Monday morning. More important things than Spanish needed covering over the weekend. Not long after placing her feet back on the porch, Powell had issued a submission deadline: Monday afternoon. Crystal didn’t know if she could finish her lady of the manor story by then, but she meant to give it the ole college try. Payment for the author’s teaching services would also be discussed on Monday afternoon, or so she presumed. That promised to be a tightrope walk far more vertiginous than the one she’d performed on Powell’s porch.

Crystal stood in front of her dressing mirror. She took off her cheering sweater. Beneath was a small, boney torso that Lucretia often called pretty whenever they shopped for clothes. Crystal supposed it to be true. Her belly was flat, concave even, the skin smooth and soft. Of course her chest was also flat, but only for a couple more years. In fact she checked herself for progress at least twice every day.

It was time to do it again now. Her training brassiere fell to the floor. As always, the breasts beneath it were still asleep, though the nipples tended to get sharp when they were bare. Would Jarett Powell be interested in them yet? she wondered, laughing a little at the idea. Sad to say, probably not. Yet that look he had given her on the porch, the way his eyes had widened, was at least cause for hope. What had she said to trigger it? Something about losing her balance.

Find out the man’s weakness when it comes to sex.

Lucretia’s words. Sensible. Ones Crystal had taken as wisdom.

So then…where did the connection lie? What about losing her balance seemed to interest Powell so much?

She didn’t know. Perhaps the look on his face had been nothing more than imaginary play on her part, but she doubted it. By accident, he had given her a scent to follow, and follow it she would.

Her eyes went to the headboard. All of Powell’s books were there. In them, perhaps, were clues that could lead her deeper along. She could also find out more on Monday, when she saw him again, if her line of questioning proved clever enough. And if, of course, she could win over his trust.

“All right,” she said to the bare-chested girl in the mirror.

Full of confidence, the girl stared straight back. Why shouldn’t she be confident? A major piece to the puzzle of Jarett Powell—tutorship—had been obtained. As for finding the other piece—seduction—things were off to a pretty good start. And oh the stories there would be to tell, to write, when she fitted them both together.

“Time to grow up,” the girl in the mirror said.

On that pronouncement, she went into her bathroom for a long, hot soak in the tub. It was just the thing an adult would do after a productive day in the field.

6

“For the rest of that weekend she sat in her room, smoking cigarette after cigarette, not knowing what would become of her encounter on Monday. Her fears, her desires. And yes, her love. All