The short drive back to school for a meeting followed the short drive only three hours earlier to fetch Harlowe home from art class. She was busy in the back seat now, trying to draw the scene in her head… the one her friend had asked her to draw.
“Her plan. Her schedule. It’s always the same,” Rick Ponder groused as he edged along in the stop-and-go traffic on Kill Beaver Hill. He liked to remind anyone who’d listen that this had been a quiet area once, before the zoning committee had said yes to every high-density housing complex and strip mall that had come along. They’d do anything to get more tax money. It was all the school board’s fault, of course, for constantly raising the millage rate. “Damn them, and damn her for getting her jollies by making us jump through hoops.”
GBD likes to curse people he doesn’t like, like that silly man on the TV. He doesn’t like Dr. Z, either. They’d had talks. Four or five of them. Sometimes, I have to wait in the hall. Boring. Sometimes, I sit in the room while the adults argue. That’s worse.
Mr. Ponder had the air-conditioning all the way up, blasting a steady hiss of cold air. It didn’t cool him down any.
Cass Ponder saw activity just ahead and took a deep breath in resignation. She awaited the storm by throwing herself into her game. Harlowe watched her mother’s phone, unbuckling the seatbelt so she could see over her shoulder.
Mama’s finding the cats. It’s hard, but Mama’s a good cat-finder.
Now Mr. Ponder spotted the problem ahead. “Great,” he sighed.
The buses were rolling out of the school drive and onto the main road. They rolled all at once. The kids were going home. Harlowe couldn’t read the numbers, but she knew she was supposed to be on Bus #17 with Margarita, Zahra, and Kitzi. The others got off at stop three, just enough time for fifth grade gossip. She found it easy to talk gossip with her friends. She went silent when they got off. After four stops, Bus #17 would reach the end of Dandelion Court where Harlowe lived. She wished she were on Bus #17.
“All of them. Look at this, Babe. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.” Mr. Ponder was brewing up a big storm.
There, Mama! She tapped her mother’s shoulder with great urgency and pointed at the screen. Red cat. The bungalow’s hiding two striped kitties. A Siamese is peeking out from the fronds of a palm tree. Her mother smiled back at her and touched a fingertip to the kitties’ little heads.
“They’ve got her at the bus stop before dawn, then she’s home in the middle of the day. The idiots start the school year August 1st when it’s a million degrees out and end it in mid-June when the heat is back. Maybe, just maybe, if they let the kids sleep until after dawn and kept them learning until four or five, they could avoid running that HVAC in the hottest part of the summer. It’s a waste of power. And a waste of gas. Releasing all the buses at once ties up traffic for a good twenty minutes.”
Was that a cat’s face in the cloud? Mama needed only three more. Harlowe wondered whether she should tell her mother about the cloud kitty. Maybe not. Mama’s good at this.
“This. THIS is why our schools are a mess. They think they’re such geniuses in there, but they can’t even handle the basics.”
“Principal Zolgotha knows that, Hon.” Mom called him Hon. He called her Babe. It was sweet. “We’ll make it on time. Don’t worry. ”
Mr. Ponder turned on the radio to get the news. Harlowe took out the asmo-d3s her father had given her for getting all A’s in art class. Mr. Ponder had searched online for a good gift for children on the spectrum and found this enhanced coloring pad on a knock-off site based in Rangoon or somewhere. The price had been right, and it worked like a charm. Harlowe had dived right in. And then something had happened.
She thought about a fun adventure with Hungry Huck, riding his flying dragon. He was a funny friend. They had lots of fun adventures together, and Huck said that soon their fun would get even more interesting. He was always hungry, of course, so she thought about plenty of food. On the deep-look screen, saddle bags appeared on the dragon’s back, just ahead of Harlowe and Huck’s legs. The leather bags overflowed with tacos, pizza slices, and cups of mango bubble tea. On the screen, Harlowe and Huck reached down to grab handfuls of food. Huck was faster than Harlowe. He had to be, since he had three mouths to feed.
They lurched forward, cutting off another driver.
“EEE!” Mrs. Ponder yelped. She yelped a lot when Mr. Ponder drove.
A bus blared its horn. “It’s our turn!” he said confidently, ignoring the bus driver and swinging their dented Highlander into the main drive of Yellow River Elementary School, home of the Battling Beavers.
Mr. Ponder parked and punched a button to slide open the side hatch. “Come on, Harlowe. Let’s go see the Wicked Witch of West Gwinnett.”
Dr. Zolgotha wasn’t a witch. Witches were good. Huck said so.
Mr. Ponder complained that the school designers had spared the taxpayers no expense at Yellow River. The atrium was large enough to double as a soccer field. Huge windows bounced sunlight off the gleaming trophy cases filled with awards for budding athletes, musicians, and dramatists. The gym’s parquet floor had been replaced twice due to a leaking roof so that no child would be deprived of playing 6-7 tag. The cafeteria sported a soft yogurt machine.
In all of this, the principal’s office remained spartan, a gray concrete space absent windows or joy. It looked as though Dr. Avril Zolgotha had transformed a utility closet into a sterile cube. She had hung no artwork or photographs of children. Instead, visitors saw her various certificates and diplomas attesting to the fact that she’d spent her twenties and early thirties deep in the bowels of academia.
“Mr. and Mrs. Ponder, thank you for coming in. Harlowe… welcome – Oh.” Dr. Zolgotha stopped short as if she’d inhaled a peanut. “There it is. We’re here to discuss this device. Give it here, child.”
Dr. Zolgotha reached for the pad, but Harlowe pulled back with a yelp and wrapped both arms around it, turning her back to form a –
Stone wall. Mine!
Duly rebuffed, Dr. Zolgotha painted on a smile and sat behind her desk, a bottle of highly caffeinated green tea to her right and a five-inch-thick binder to her left. “Who told you what to draw?” she asked in a clinically-trained voice.
Replying in the smallest voice in Gwinnett County, Harlowe answered, “Huck.”
“Who?” She waited one-point-five seconds and, adding emphasis, repeated, “Who?”
The force behind the question startled Harlowe. A traffic jam of emotions gathered on her face.
“Don’t badger the girl. She’ll answer your question, but you have to give her a second,” Mr. Ponder was raising his voice now.
Mrs. Ponder tried to explain. “Harlowe has trouble getting out more than a word or two at a time. Unless it’s something she likes.” She turned to her daughter. “Honey, what did we get after dinner last night?”
“Bubble tea!” Harlowe answered with glee. “I had mango. You had taro. Yecch, taro! I like mango.”
Dr. Zolgotha’s eyes widened for a moment, more in exasperation at the detour in the conversation than in reaction to Harlowe’s ability to wax poetic on the subject of bubble tea. “Who?” Dr. Zolgotha asked again, less emphatically, approximating human warmth.
Harlowe said nothing. Her mother gently prompted her to “answer Dr. Zolgotha’s question, Harley Quinn.”
It’s nice when Mama calls me Harley Quinn. I like Harley’s clothes, and her big girl butt, and that big hammer. Harley’s cool!
She knew they were waiting for an answer. At last, Harlowe spoke a little louder than the time before, “I made them up myself.”
“What’s wrong with her device? Harlowe likes it. I gave it to her to use in art class. What is your problem?”
Dr. Zolgotha resisted the urge to acknowledge Mr. Ponder’s barb. It was an effort, however. It took her half-a-beat to respond. “You should have reviewed our protocols before giving her such a device.” Here, the principal tapped her thick binder, repository of nearly 1,500 codes, regulations, protocols, and guidelines suitable for all occasions. “It’s on the website, but I can also provide you with a printed copy.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mr. Ponder said.
“We started to read the list on the website, but… It is a bit involved,” Mrs. Ponder added, smiling.
Mama is so pretty. Even Huck says so.
“Parents who read the protocols are more informed when it comes to what’s expected of their children in class.” She was looking pointedly at Mr. Ponder when she said it. He was looking like he’d swallowed a bomb and it was ticking ticking ticking. “The protocols make it clear that AI devices are banned from campus.”
“It’s there as an assistant only,” Mr. Ponder said defensively. “She does the work.”
Mrs. Ponder jumped in. “Harlowe is an amazingly bright child with a fertile imagination. She scored off the charts when they tested her at the Marcus Center.”
I love the Marcus Center. They let me draw and play with blocks. We had games and looked at charts and picture stories. Huck would like it, I think. He likes games. His games are not the same as the ones at the Marcus Center. They’re funny, harder. Maybe we’ll go back to the Marcus Center and this time Huck can come.
Dr. Zolgotha presented a somber look, steepling her fingers for emphasis. “When you underwent the testing, did you discuss Asperger’s?”
The bad word. No. No. I’m not, and stop saying that. Melinda Bovert shoved me on the bus. She’s a stinky bully. I didn’t even hit her. All I did was say I hope someone stabs her in the eye! She made me mad. I used my words, like GBD said. He told me he understood. Huck says if Melinda Bovert shoves me again I should stab her in the eye. He says I’ve already been suspended for saying it, so I may as well do it. It’s one of Huck’s jokes. He’s always telling me funny jokes. I don’t plan to stab Melinda Bovert in the eye. I hate her. She’s stinky. But I won’t stab her in the eye.
“It’s a spectrum. That’s what spectrum means… doctor,” Mr. Ponder said with sarcastic stress on Dr. Zolgotha’s title. “She’s not like that kid last year who put Elmer’s Glue in the cupcakes. She certainly isn’t some gun nut.”
“Those violent young men are the reason we have security and protocols. You understand.”
“Yes, yes, but Harlowe isn’t dangerous. She doesn’t get angry. I get angry – she calls me Grumpy Bear Daddy – but she’s cool. She’s a good kid.” He pointed to the binder. “Your rule book doesn’t seem interested in helping good kids, just in punishing bad ones.”
Dr. Zolgotha put her hands flat on her desk. “Mr. and Mrs. Ponder…”
That’s like when Mama says, ‘Harlowe Elizabeth Ponder!’ Saying names like that means someone’s in trouble. I’d better play with my picture.
Harlowe went back to working on her pad. She whispered things and the image adjusted itself, becoming more refined, closer to the image in her head. She was working on the dragon Huck and she were riding. This dragon didn’t look like any of the dragons in ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ or even ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2.’ The dragon on her pad had a lioness’ snarling face with a dragon’s neck and wings.
She needs a name, Huck. Why didn’t you ever give her a name?
Harlowe felt the familiar tickle just behind her left ear.
That’s no excuse, Huck! Three heads and you can’t think up a name for the dragon you ride? That’s just lazy. Mama gets mad at me when I’m lazy. Don’t be lazy, Huck.
No tingle.
Fine. I’m calling her Betty. Betty the dragon likes mango bubble tea very much.
Harlowe made certain Betty had a cup of mango bubble tea in her claws, then added a straw so Betty could sip tea while carrying Harlowe and Huck. Harlowe moved on to refining Huck’s three faces. She played with the inkwell and font settings built into the screen, but this pad worked better with voice control. Harlowe wasn’t stupid. She knew she was in trouble for using the pad in the first place, though she wasn’t sure what she was doing that was bad. To keep from getting into more trouble, she turned sideways whenever she needed to whisper new instructions into the pad. She whispered soft soft soft so only Huck could hear her.
The spot behind her left ear tickled.
Really, but what kind of sheep? Oh, a ram! Why didn’t you say so. You have to be clear, Huck.
One of the heads resolved into that of an aggressive ram. Smoke trailed upwards from its mouth.
Two more to go.
As Harlowe worked, the adults continued their discussion, becoming more heated as they went. Mr. Ponder leaned ever more heavily on sarcasm.
Dr. Zolgotha kept her expression just so, while betraying a certain tension by pausing mid-sentence for effect. “Mr. and Mrs. Ponder. The reason I ask… is because of… what happened in art class this morning.”
“My daughter told us all about it. She drew some pictures and shared them with her friends in class.” Mr. Ponder crossed his arms, confident he’d scored a major point.
Dr. Zolgotha opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a manilla folder with several slips of paper in it. She placed one hand on top. “Mr. Ponder. Mrs. Ponder. This morning in art class, Mr. Gambrelli assigned the children to draw pictures of famous people. He taped photographs on the front board, showing Dr. King, William Shakespeare, the president, and some others. He told the children they could draw any of these or choose their own. He told them to draw the person in an action scene, such as having a picnic or playing at the beach or making a speech or something.”
“Yes, Harlowe told us,” Mrs. Ponder insisted.
“Did she tell you that she printed out several drawings instead of one?”
Mr. Ponder’s arms remained crossed, and now his lips were squashing themselves flat as he slowly answered, “The asmo-d3s is fast. That’s why I gave it to her.”
“It’s what’s in the pictures, Mr. Ponder.” She said it with no malice, but with a certain chill. For once, Dr. Zolgotha didn’t seem angry or even like she was trying to act superior. She seemed to Harlowe as though she were frightened.
No one spoke for a second, then Principal Zolgotha asked Harlowe to wait in a chair outside.
They’re kicking us out. Fine, let’s finish our picture of you and me and Betty.
She concentrated on her picture.
I don’t know what Dr. Z is so scared of. I just made the pictures the way you told me. There’s Melinda Bovert, the silly man on TV, the school board, and Dr. Z. The people GBD is always yelling about. The ones you told me to draw, Huck. I don’t know why you wanted me to draw them like that, but I only did what you said. I was going to keep them safe, just like you told me, but Mr. Gambrelli scooped them all up and went running off to find Dr. Z. Those pictures were for my friends. That was mean of him.
Her right ear tingled.
OK, we can draw him, too. Let’s finish this drawing first, though. You’re hard to draw, not like the others. I have Betty, and I have the ram. Now, the bull. He looks too mean. Are you sure you want him to look so mean?
Tingle.
OK.
She whispered into the asmo-d3s and the bull took on clear definition. Powerful. Fierce. She moved on to the middle face of the trio. She’d tried to draw Huck a bunch of times in the past, and this is where it always got difficult. The middle head belonged to a man.
Simple, but…
But, the figure had fangs and long, pointed ears. These features did not bother Harlowe, however. What did upset her was the cruelty in the lips and eyes. Huck was much more fun than this.
Her ear tingled sharply, so much so that she stopped what she was doing and scratched it.
Yes, I know it’s a game. I like your games. I liked the one with the marbles in the dryer and the one with hiding Mama’s big ring and then finding it for her.
Tingle.
I’m sure it’ll be fun. We always have fun, Huck. I’m sure once I can see you clearly we’ll have great fun. It’s just… I don’t like this face. It’s breathing fire and that’s not nice. I like the face you usually show me. Can’t we save this one for another time?
No tingle.
Tingle.
Yes, I’d like that.
Harlowe touched the save button on the pad. The image, stern, not at all happy, vanished. It would stay in the pad’s memory for now. Huck promised she wouldn’t have to look at it until she was ready, even if it took a few years.
Yes, I promise. You don’t have to keep asking. I won’t forget about the picture, and I won’t let anything happen to the picture. I won’t print it out and I won’t get it anywhere near a candle or anything. Relax, Huck. Sometimes you get so serious.
Tingle.
The door to Dr. Zolgotha’s office opened. Her parents stood there white-faced.
“Honey, let’s go home. We’ve worked everything out.”
Harlowe looked up at them. “In trouble?”
“No, Harley Quinn. No, not really. We’re just going to spend the rest of the week at home. You’ll watch videos and take some quizzes online, and I’ll make you mac n cheese. And… Dr. Zolgotha has given us the name of a nice lady who wants to talk to you.”
About my drawings. I hope she’s nice. Mama says she’s nice, so she’s gonna be nice. I hope Huck likes her, too. It’s better when Huck likes people.
***
Dr. Zolgotha took a long sip of her strong green tea. She had another meeting in fifteen minutes. She needed to clear her head. Picking up the folder of the little psycho’s pictures, she marched out of her office. The counselor would get a full report, but Dr. Zolgotha wasn’t going to turn over pictures of herself and the others. These pictures! Jesus. The counselor should Risperdal that kid into next week.
She headed out the side exit and around back, where the dumpsters were. The stink of putrefying chicken taquitos provided a perfect ending to this day. “No, not the dumpster,” she said aloud, holding up the folder filled with the sicko’s drawings. “They’ll just wind up in a landfill. These things need to go away for good!” She patted her pockets. “Crap. This is what I get for quitting smoking.”
Looking around for a moment, she heard a large metal door swing open and clang against the wall. It was one of the maintenance guys, Pedro or Carlos, she couldn’t remember. “Hey!” she called. (Yelling ‘Hey, you!’ was better than guessing the wrong name.) “Uh, match? Lighter, por favor?” She waved the folder, careful not to let any of the papers fall out.
Salvador Reyes, who was three weeks from gaining a teaching certificate and had already applied for a spot at Yellow River Elementary, reached into his pocket and pulled out a slim lighter. “Sure thing. I always carry a light, Dr. Zolgotha. Never know when I’ll get to help out a pretty principal.” Was he checking her out?
Dr. Zolgotha smiled to cover her nervousness. He spoke better than she’d expected. Why was someone who spoke that well, and seemed to be clean and all, working in maintenance? No matter. She had a job to do.
She took the lighter from the maintenance man and thumbed it into life. Holding the manila folder and its disturbing contents away from her body, she positioned the flame under the lower edge of the bunch. Slowly, the folder and the pages inside accepted the flame.
“Don’t worry,” she said to the flirty maintenance man. “Once this gets going, I’ll set it down. Don’t want an acci –”
Afterwards, aspiring teacher Salvador Reyes would tell one team of agents after another that what happened erupted quickly. He said he tried to help, but the heat was too intense. He couldn’t do anything but stare in helpless disbelief as Dr. Zolgotha’s words turned into screams.
***
Yellow River Elementary School remained closed for a full month as investigators, from the police to the FBI, tried to make sense of its principal’s death. No matter how they tried, though, they could not find the connection between hers and the other fatal fires that day, especially the one that left people everywhere in shock.
On Harlowe’s first day at her new school, she showed off her brand-new laptop, the one she used to draw pictures of horses and princesses who drank mango bubble tea.
She missed her old pad, but GBD told her she needed to forget all about it, and soon she found herself totally focused on her new laptop. It did all kinds of things with the pictures she dreamed up and her new friends thought it was cool.
Harlowe liked her new friends a lot. She found it easy to talk with them, exchange fun gossip about their teachers. She drew pictures for them, dressing Marcie and Kimbie and Odette and the others in long dresses and pointy hats with veils and giving them each her own horse. She named the horses Violet and Rose Nose and Betty II and Samantha and…
If horror is your thing, check out Skinners -- A Love Story. It's a life-changing read.
https://www.amazon.com/Skinners-Love-Story-Riker/dp/B0C534L136/
