ghost

[shesepankh]

Kindergarten teacher Renée Higgenbotham Swan (36) was killed in a car crash one mile from her residence in Phoenix, AZ, January 9, 2005. She is survived by her daughter Isabella (16). Her service will be held at -

Bella has the entire obituary pasted into a page of one of her compilation notebooks but tends not to re-read past the first lines. It's repellent. The concept of obituaries is repellent. The funeral is over. Renée's vibrant brief life has been summed up over the course of a paragraph, and is also over.

Bella pretends to sleep on the plane. Her neighbor is talkative and she doesn't want to say shut up, my mom just died, because - what if it doesn't work? What if this news doesn't have the power to bludgeon everyone else into stunned silence the way it does Bella?

Charlie collects her. Charlie hugs her. Charlie doesn't make her talk. Good wonderful understanding quiet Charlie does not say a word. He takes her home. Her room's where she left it last August.

It's raining.

Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn. First class is English. Okay, whatever.

The teacher wants her to introduce herself. Bella wants to yank on the skinny end of his tie until he regrets making her.

She stands at the front of the room and says that her name is Bella Swan and she's moved here to live with her dad. The teacher makes an impatient go on gesture and she stands there for a moment before robotically saying the same thing she produced at the beginning of the year in her old school in Phoenix when they were doing go-around-the-room-and-share-facts. "I'm one of those people who actually likes Shakespeare."

He lets her sit down.

She sits.

Comments

[castmyown]

Darren snorts with laughter. "Oh, you know, I'm a slacker. Just couldn't be bothered to care about other people. I am a heartless monster. Yup."

(He is a bad liar.)

[shesepankh]

"It will serve you right when you get a D in Impromptu Counseling and have to take Remedial Decency. They will walk you through the correct use of 'please' and 'thank you' and 'you're welcome' five thousand times. Then come the standardized tests."

[castmyown]

"Oh no, not the standardized tests. Bubble in the correct letter for the action you should take in a situation. Choices between, 'Question a person incessantly' or 'Leave them alone if they seem to want you to' are so difficult, I'm doomed."

[shesepankh]

"No, no, that's clearly too advanced for you. Skip too many classes and that's what you get."

[castmyown]

"Yes, it is, I'm lucky if I pass at all, even with a D. I might have to get a tutor. 'This is how you small talk without being a twit.' Maybe Angela will help."

[shesepankh]

"Angela? I met her in gym, she wanted to know if I was okay after I got permission to sit out and do yoga and situps. She seems nice."

[castmyown]

"She is. We're study buddies, if you're looking for someone who will leave you alone when you want them to, she's a good bet."

[shesepankh]

"Being bothered by people paying attention to me isn't actually a typical problem for me. Although having to sit out of gym is. I can just about walk without falling over and breaking my nose; running is out of the question."

[castmyown]

"That sounds painful. Ow. Have you seen a doctor or something?"

[shesepankh]

"I meet the diagnostic criteria for a disorder that is basically fancy acronym speak for 'you are really clumsy and we have no earthly clue why'. Since they have no earthly idea why they can't really treat it. I tried a cane in the doctor's office once, and promptly tripped anyway and thwacked a nurse in the face with it, so that idea was abandoned; more significant interventions aren't worth the hassle. I'm fine ninety percent of the time if I don't try to run or climb trees or whatever."

[castmyown]

"Makes sense. Sorry that's a problem. Wish I could help, but unfortunately - not omnipotent. Despite notes in high school being some kind of cheat code where everyone wants to talk to you."

[shesepankh]

"Is there lots of demand, should I start offering to sell mine when I'm caught up enough?"

[castmyown]

"Maybe, but I think I'm underselling you if you sell them. It started when someone asked, I gave them notes, and it kind of spiraled from there when their friends read said notes and wanted in. Now I am Earth Science guru and the Notes Man. I mean if you do, go for it, it might get some of them to shoo from me and go to your theoretical better product. I won't complain."

[shesepankh]

"If I were going to make a business of it I don't know if I'd claim my notes are outright better, but I might preemptively run them through the school copier so they wouldn't have to give them back or avoid spilling beverages."

[castmyown]

"... That's a good idea. I should use that. That would be very helpful."

[shesepankh]

"I don't actually know if they'll let me use the copier. But I know they have one. I was in the office this morning getting my schedule and my map."

[castmyown]

"It's a good idea, nonetheless. Thank you for sharing it, I'm borrowing it."

[shesepankh]

"Well, there goes my ability to corner the market on selling a class's worth of notes for fifty cents."

[castmyown]

"Yup, that's what happens when you tell your competition, 'Hey, photocopying is a thing that you can do.' I don't know why you thought any different."

[shesepankh]

"Next time I'll have a patent lawer."

[castmyown]

"Good, good. Glad this has taught you well."

[shesepankh]

"Even though I'll use my knowledge to defeat you? Mwahaha?"

[castmyown]

"Hey, my entire motivation for getting into this business is, 'Let's everyone try to learn things' so.... Yes. Knowledge for all."

[shesepankh]

"Well, there's learning Earth Science and then there's learning - marketing and manufacture."

[castmyown]

"It counts. Not all of the useful things to learn can be learned in high school. I'd be hamstringing the world if I said, 'No, it is not taught in high school so it is therefore not useful.'"

He's learned lots of useful, useful things that high school has nothing to do with. Marketing and manufacture isn't even close to being the same thing, but it's somewhat close. If you squint.