Mathilda Miracle chpater 1

Mathilda gets expelled for turning a fellow student green

"Got yourself in a wee bit of trouble again, Miss Miracle?" Mrs. Irish asks as she wipes away a drop of water from a spider plant beside the principal’s couch.

A wee bit? Try an expulsion-worth. Escape is possible, always possible. I’ve been plotting ways out since I walked in the front door of this school three years ago.

Take the obvious escape routes. They’re all too easy to forget. Front doors. Rear doors. Side doors. Emergency doors. Windows. Next, opt for the ventilation system. Connected to every bathroom and closet. A bent wire from the wayward end of a spiral notebook and a good kick ousts any access panel. Or, a leap from the middle window of the English wing into the cafeteria’s soft topped dumpster. I can handle smelling like tuna fish and sour milk. There’s the "secret" Janitors' stairs to the roof. So much for the “privacy” it affords my promiscuous peers. Of course, I can get out by the dead-bolted iron door in basement opening to the Tunnels. I don't believe in unbreakable locks. 

Finally, my mind. Available in all situations, even this one.

Escape is possible, but this time pointless. It took less than 20 minutes for my crime to go global at National School 1 (N.S. 1), Calaxia Central High. I overheard Leona The Mouth  mention “the latest Mathilda miracle,” to Silent Nils and he responded with the longest sentence fragment he’s used all week “Green as a Grass…er.” Their conspiratorial giggles quelled any desire to flee punishment.

"I turned Dag Grasser green. Not just any green, either. More of a neon.”

A vertical line between Mrs. Irish's shaggy eyebrows wrinkles in confusion. 

"Luminol,” I explain. She doesn’t get it. “In chemistry class. We were learning about chemiluminesence. In layman's terms, how different chemicals emit light.” Still doesn’t get it. “Like a glowstick or a firefly.” 

Her wrinkle flattens horizontally across her brow. She gets it. 

“So Grasser’s my lab partner, and I told him that we’d make an alcohol instead, and he was all into that, but on one condition: he had to drink it. ‘Alcohol?!? You could do that???’ ‘Oh, it’s easy.’ That idiot had no idea. This wasn’t an ordinary alcohol derivative. Just a few milliliters is enough to turn the tongue green. When the bell rang, that amoeba brain thing goes to his girlfriend ‘Watch me get wasted before history’ and downed the whole flask.” 

Mrs. Irish tsks. "Miss Miracle, that sounds very dangerous, encouraging your classmate to drink some chemical concoction."

"It wasn't just any concoction." I can't help bragging. "You won't find caritol-5,2,2 in a textbook. I made it special for the last Apocalyptic Zombie Competition this past Halloween.”

She raises a suspicious eyebrow at me. Adults never grasp the important things in life. 

“I had to beat Soren Ott for best costume. The year before, he got one more vote and won. The shame! So I needed something special, that je ne sais quoi of the undead. I was sure a black tongue and teeth would seal the deal, and, well… I got green instead. But my ‘concoction’ as you call it is perfectly safe for human consumption. I tested it on myself.” I put my hand up to my mouth to reveal the best secret of all. “There’s one side effect. It turns excrement indigo.”

"The brain on you! Think of all the good uses you could put it to!" 

"This is! This is!” I try to narrow my eyes with sinister glee. "They say he turned bright green in the middle of English. The teacher asked the class who could define a simile and someone yelled out ‘Green like Grasser.’”

Mrs. Irish stifles a laugh with her yellow rag. “I’d give three Saturdays to have seen young Mr. Grasser’s face!" 

Speaking of faces, the door to Principal Zorn's office swings open and Mrs. Miracle has an all-business-no-nonsense one on. She smiles and straightens her black skirt with professional politeness. Her eyes shoot me a warning to do the same. She adjusts the cream coloured scarf around her shoulders and shakes Principal Zorn’s hand. I’m sure I’m not expelled, just suspended. I didn’t oversstep. Whew.

"Shall we go, Mathilda?" Mrs. Miracle snaps her purse under her arm and is out the office door. 

I stand to follow the blur of black and white as it speeds to the hall, but Principal Zorn blocks me, intent on exercising whatever authority still remains after a tete a tete with Mrs. Miracle. He thrusts his chest forward, hands on his hips, pelvis tucked. I internally hum “Let’s do the time warp again.” He clears his throat the way he usually does before addressing a gym full of 2500 disinterested students at a pep rally. "Miss Miracle, you can thank your mother for convincing me that three days is punishment enough. Quite frankly, I’m shocked. You’re one of our best students at Central.”

“The best,” I correct him under my breath.

“This isn’t the first time either. I fear this incident will go on your permanent record and be visible to admissions committees during your college application process.”

“Pity,” I think. I hope I didn’t say that out loud. It would be too rude, even for me. I know it can’t be easy to wear Principal Zorn’s shoes with 2000 mixed-class students to worry about plus one Mathilda. Still, I can’t let him get away with a futile threat to keep me in line. Everyone knows I can enter the chemistry program at Calaxia University any time I choose. 

Mrs. Irish waves her rag to keep it on the down low. Humility has never been my strong suit. I keep my tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth.

Zorn’s requisite talking down begins. “Our institution and our sister schools accept the brightest students in the city. No, not just the city… the brightest in our nation. I hope for your sake that this is the last time you deviate from what a teacher requires of you in class. Especially chemistry. And I mean that, Mathilda Miracle, especially chemistry. Or else, expulsion."

He is shaking with discomfort. Most of the best and the brightest are like silly sheep who never do anything interesting or fun. I’m the only one who bothers to shake it up around here. I lower my head trying to seem recontrite for his sake, for Mrs. Irish’s sake. "I understand. It won’t happen again." I add as deferentially as I can, “Sir.” 

He waves his hand to send me off and mops his bald head with a handkerchief.  Freeeeee-dom! Three days off! Plus the weekend. Five days of unlimited possibilities! Suspension is the best. 

I sling my backpack over one shoulder and jog to catch up with Mrs. Miracle’s purposeful strides at the far side of the building. She stands out in her tailored black suit against the eye-numbing pastels of the building. Her blonde hair doesn’t even move, swept up in an up-do braid. The tap-tap-taping of her slender stiletto Pedrists on the faux pink marble indicates what she thinks about being summoned away from her lab bench. That unconditional acceptance, well, everyone knows my my mother is head of chemistry at Calaxia University. Everyone knows I am something of her protege. Kind of. Well, everyone knows that I don’t exactly demonstrate the conduct befitting of one. 

Using the car mirror, Mrs. Miracle applies fresh red lipstick, wipes away a smudge, and then turns to me. "Whatever prompted you to make a classmate drink a carotene and luminol derivative and tell him it was an alcohol?"

"Technically, I’ve got a hydroxyl functional group on the compound."

Dagger eyes. Talking down #2 is coming. Of the two, this is the one I have to take seriously.

”I’m lightyears ahead of them in class. Ms. Danelaw always sticks me with that moron Grasser because she thinks” " I try to imitate the chemistry teacher’s dramatic Immigrant accent " “‘He’ll benefit immeasurably from your experience and vice versa.’ What kind of immeasurable benefit can I possibly get from an idiot like him? He’s the only one getting anything out of this. I’m being used, my talents wasted on that sludge-for-brains Plebeon moron.”

"Such snobbery, Mathilda! I'm appalled to hear you talk that way. Your father would be too.”

“You don’t get it. Grasser is the worst kind of Plebeon. He wastes his life flexing his overly-developed muscles to impress everyone, telling stupid jokes to vapid Plebeon bubble-heads, and failing every class because he thinks being mediocre is cool.I showed everyone what he really is -- green.” 

"It sounds like someone else I know who spends all her time flexing her muscles and telling jokes trying to look cool.”

"It's not hard."

"Oh, the cheek on you! The election is just days away and we need to be on our best behavior for Uncle Julius. Imagine what people would think heading home from work today, watching the six-o-clock Tubeway Vision News state that Julius Coronus’ niece poisoned an innocent Plebeon boy at school. Things look bad enough in the polls for the Sentrist candidates after those scandals. Don't you care about your Uncle?"

Ugh. Next week, the most contentious election in Calaxia’s history stands between Uncle Juilius’ 25th year in the Calaxian government, 10th serving as the Minister of Industry, Research, and Development on the High Council of Magistrates. Uncle Julius taught me everything worth knowing: how to ride a horse, how to throw a punch, how to pick locks, how to start a fire with a flint. I would just be Mr. and Mrs. Miracle’s perfectly-groomed, flawless exemplar of Sentrism if not for his influence. It hadn’t crossed my mind that mucking around with Grasser might endanger his election bid. I would rather swallow hydrochloric acid. 

"I don't know what to do with you, Mathilda. You're the one who found the girls at Magden Academy prissy and... What word did you use to describe my alumnae?"

"Antiseptic."

"Antiseptic. Well, it’s your choice. You insist on attending this integrated public school with your friends. I don’t have time for this sort of nonsense. I can't be running downtown from work to talk to your school principal because your lab partner doesn’t pass your standard of intellectual rigor. Some have more, some have less, and as Sentrists, we must be humble and generous with our gifts.”

I don’t take the bait. She is about as humble as a peacock. 

She switches tactics. “If you're not challenged, darling, and you'd rather be around people who are more of our calibre, your father and I are more than willing to send you somewhere more appropriate.”

"I thought you didn't like my snobbery. Who are these people who are 'more of our calibre?'"

Mrs. Miracle does not answer. She stares at the road ahead, her lips line tight. We drive out of the city centre and up the foothills to our home in Upper Mount Summit. 

Grounded for life, probably. At least I know all the escape routes. 

Author's Note

anything at all...!!! please!!!!!

Reviews

[Dan Means]

I really like it. Your vocabulary is good and varied but it doesn't feel like you are trying to show it off. Which I find often happens. To put it simply you can afford the 20 dollar words but you don't use them when a 2 dollar word will do. The writing feels, at least a little bit distinctive. Criticism... obviously I don't yet as the reader understand the world in which the character is living. There is no way I could but that should definitely be first priority in my opinion. A basic explanation of your fictional world. Speaking for myself I have a short attention span until I trust that it's going somewhere and that I'm not gonna have to fight every page to understand what's goin on. And on that note I'm not yet convinced. OMG though the character names are fantastical. Mrs Irish and Mathilda. WONDERFUL :)