How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [104]
Slouched as deep in his chair as he could go, his knees propped high into the air, Manny looked as though he had needed to lie on his back and suck in his stomach to strap on his desk. He was an anomaly, way more mass than any one boy ought to have, or any two men for that matter, and all of it seemingly bent on making each day of Greg’s life more miserable than the last.
“What are you laughing about, Mr. Malestino?” Mrs. Beasley’s shrill voice rang out. “Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate your keen wit for us instead?”
The usual murmuring ceased, as not a single boy or girl in class dared make fun of Manny Malice. Manny’s eyes darted toward Greg for an instant, but Greg wisely chose that moment to wipe up the large puddle of drool on his notes.
“I’m waiting,” said Mrs. Beasley.
“Uh, no ma’am,” said Manny.
“I mean, I’m waiting for you to come to the board.”
Throughout the room students threw hands over their mouths or raised books in front of their noses. It was the type of silence that could make ears bleed.
With a grunt, Manny slid upright in his chair and screeched around the hardwood floor, struggling to pry himself loose from his desk. By the time he broke free, the unnatural silence had grown so thick it was a wonder Manny managed to wade through it. Greg was afraid to smile for fear Manny might somehow hear him. Still, it was all he could do not to stab out a foot as Manny passed.
Mrs. Beasley’s voice pushed past Greg’s smugness. “And you can help him, please, Mr. Hart.”
As if a floodgate had been opened, the entire class erupted. Greg winced. He glanced across the room to see if Kristin Wenslow was among those laughing. As crushes went, the one he had on Kristin could have flattened just about anything, maybe even a brute like Manny. She caught his eye and swept a strand of light brown hair from in front of her face. A vision. That’s how he would have described her—mostly because a sound just didn’t seem appropriate, he’d never touched or tasted her, and a smell would have been just plain rude.
“We don’t have all day, Mr. Hart.”
“Sure seemed like it when you were lecturing,” Greg said too softly for anyone to hear.
“What was that?” Mrs. Beasley’s voice rang out. The woman could hear a feather drop at fifty paces.
“I said, I’m coming.”
Greg glanced one last time at Kristin, climbed out of his chair with un-Manny-like grace, and trudged toward the front of the room, where Manny stood staring dumbly at the whiteboard. The mutant boy’s frame rose like a mountain, growing higher and higher the nearer Greg approached, until finally Greg reached the board and Manny’s navel turned to greet him.
“I’ll get you for this, Hart.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“I don’t see any writing,” observed Mrs. Beasley.
Manny stared at the board as if it were covered with hieroglyphics. Greg watched him struggle a few seconds, then snatched up a marker and scribbled the answer to the problem Mrs. Beasley had posed the class.
“Not bad, Mr. Hart,” said Mrs. Beasley. It was possibly the nicest thing she’d ever said to him. She turned then and asked if everyone understood Greg’s solution. Greg suspected she was hoping they didn’t.
“You tryin’ to make me look stupid, Hart?” whispered Manny.
“No need for that.”
Manny couldn’t have possibly picked up the insult, yet his single brow bent itself into a vee. “After school,” he growled. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
Mrs. Beasley whipped around and glared over her spectacles at the two of them, her eyes wide and calculating. Greg stared back, afraid to move. He’d once faced an ogre in an enchanted forest, a mysterious witch in the gloom of her decrepit shack, and a dragon at the center of its white-hot lair. None offered the same level of intimidation Mrs. Beasley could muster. Finally her frown began to straighten. Soon Greg barely recognized her.
“You may sit down,” she informed them both. She then walked to the board, scratched out another problem, and directed her wrath at another student.
Greg exhaled slowly and returned to his seat, preoccupied now