The words over at
Three Word Wednesday are dainty, haunting and tantalize.
Notes
She mumbles in the affirmative, as to her presence in the classroom and raises the immediate attention - and ire - of her teacher.
“Emma Anne Curtis is that gum in your mouth? Again? Come up here this instant and spit it out.”
The gum is a perfectly good ruse, although it probably means another trip to detention, or God forbid another call home.
Emma could handle staying after class, writing a hand-cramping essay on the evils of chewing gum in class, but a call home could signal another beating with daddy’s old brown belt, the only thing he’d left in his dresser drawer when he moved far away from mommy’s yelling.
Mommy tended to smack the hardest before dinner, before she was really drunk and stumbly, and always on the small of the back or across her buttocks, where her school’s Tartan green and cream uniform jumper would hide the welts and bruises.
Oh, well.
Emma works the wad of gum forward on her lips, propels it tantalizingly forward with her tongue and holds it firm between clenched teeth. Before standing, she rips a piece of notebook paper – the first time she just spit the wad in the trashcan and Miss Jensen and mommy had a 25-minute conversation about manners that ended with Emma not being able to sit right for nearly a week – and encases the pink wad in crinkly, white paper.
She’s careful to keep her eyes cast down to the industrial gray tiles, which also helps hid the small protrusion in her cheek. It’s a dainty egg, a shade a pastel green, and the real reason Emma resorts to the gum trick in the first place. As the gum comes out, Emma rotates the tiny egg on her tongue, tucked it under her bottom teeth so she could talk somewhat normally.
“I’m sorry Miss Jensen, I really am.”
“Whatever am I going to do with you? No gum in class means no gum in class, young lady. I’m afraid you and I have a date after school to discuss this. And by this, I mean the absolute end.”
Emma shuffles back to her seat in the back, the egg resting now on her tongue, it’s weight taking the edge off of all the eyes that sting her like daggers. She relaxes her fists as she sits, pleased that the recent attention has moved toward the perplexing long division problems on the blackboard.
She rotates the egg with her tongue, feels the vibrations coming from it and smiles – carefully as not to spit the egg onto the desktop.
The day progresses without incident, even at lunch, where Emma is forced to remove the egg from her mouth and stash it in her armpit, lest anyone – especially that awful Eric Bond – see it and start asking all sorts of stupid questions or gets all grabby and runs away with it.
The bell rings and the class empties out to the sounds of shuffles and laughter. Emma stays behind, in her seat, a piece of paper in front of her, her pen at the ready in her left hand. The egg is stashed under her tongue and she’s hummed a hush that stops it from vibrating.
Miss Jensen approaches, rubbing her forehead with her thumb and index finger and sighs for effect.
“Young lady, this has to stop.”
A tear falls on the paper, then another. Then a cascade of drops hits like a gale, which pushes Miss Jensen’s sturdy frame into a desk.
Sobs shudder the girl’s frame, as she fights back a thick, ropey ooze of snot with the back of her hand.
“Shhhhh, it’s OK,” Miss Jensen says. “Breathe.”
Emma sucks in a breath, a snot-clogged, guttural thing, and out pops the egg, which she catches in her palm and tucks securely into her lap.
“What was that?”
Emma cries harder. She’s clutching the egg in both hands now, her breath coming in rapid gulps. Her eyes are orbs of terror.
“Please let me see, Emma. I promise not to tell anyone.”
A hand, warm and soft, caresses Emma’s forehead.
Slowly, Emma produces the egg, which she cracks open along its fitted midpoint and both ends rock on the desktop. She cups her hands, resting the heels on the desk and creates a tiny amphitheater.
And from the egg crawls a cricket the color of soft butterscotch candies. It hops onto the desk and scoots slowly under Emma’s hands. It begins to clean its antennae with its front legs as Miss Jensen gasps.
It’s Emma who breaks the silence with her own, “Shhhhhhh.”
She blows softly between her fingers and the cricket turns toward Miss Jensen, the sole of his audience.
“Play, Jeremy.”
And the creature begins its stridulation, rubbing one wing across another. But instead of a squeak, a crickety chirp, it’s the most haunting and beautiful notes Miss Jensen has ever in her life heard. Jeremy’s wings rise and fall, the melody tumbles forth.
The teacher smiles, and begins to cry softly herself as Jeremy fills the classroom with music.
