A group of sophomores with their faces painted pranced by, laughing together, the girls hand in hand with their letter-jacket boyfriends. Streams of blue Silly String slung out from nowhere, catching in hair and on clothes, spraying the lockers and walls. Lost in the shuffle, Isobel could hear Mr. Nott’s cries for order.
The excitement was catching.
A new spirit seemed to have seized and shaken the school, like it always did on a big game day, and Isobel found herself desperately wanting her slice of the fun. Boys hooted as she walked down the hall, a group of them clearing a path for her, shouting, “What’s up, Tren-ton?” and banging on lockers between chants. A rhythm of “What’s up, Tren-ton!” bang, bang followed her all the way to the stairwell. Isobel tried to keep her smile in check when what she really wanted to do was get rid of the stupid boom box and turn cartwheels down the hall to the beat of the lockers and the rhythm of shouts. This was her element and she wanted in, the cheerleader inside her screaming and jumping to cut loose. She would, she assured herself.
But before she could, there was just one thing left to do: Operation Finish This Poe Thing So My Life Can Go On.
Isobel walked resolutely into her English classroom, her heart fluttering when she saw everyone gathered together in their groups, doing last-minute prep work before the bell. She saw Mr. Swanson and looked away quickly, pretending not to have caught his eye. Varen wasn’t there. His chair was empty.
She took her seat, setting the boom box on her desk. Where could he be? Would he seriously leave her on her own? Only now did she allow herself to become fully aware of her jangling nerves. They seemed to splinter all the more now, with her plan unraveling. She remembered Mr. Swanson’s warning. Both partners had to be present.
And then he appeared in the doorway. Isobel shot up from her chair, almost knocking over the boom box. He looked a little bedraggled, wearing yesterday’s black jeans and, she thought, yesterday’s T-shirt turned inside out, his eyes hidden once more beneath dark sunglasses. His hair was more ragged than usual too, giving him a wilder look. The sight of him stirred up something powerful and scary deep within her, the sensation intensifying when she thought about what she’d resolved to tell him that day. Would he listen?
The noise of the room grew louder. She might have thirty seconds left before the bell, thirty seconds left to let him in on the plan. She waited for him, but for some reason, he turned away, moving not toward her, but straight for Mr. Swanson’s desk.
Wait. What was he doing?
Isobel tore down the aisle to the front of the room.
“Oh yeah,” she said, inserting herself between Varen and Mr. Swanson. “I forgot. We wanted to ask if it was okay if we used a boom box.” She flashed Mr. Swanson her most convincing custom-made cheer-ready grin.
Mr. Swanson glanced between them, wearing an expression close to alarm. Maybe it was her cheer uniform next to Varen’s undertaker look. Isobel could sense all eyes fixed on them from behind, and she had the childish urge to turn around and stick her tongue out at everyone.
Mr. Swanson shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it be?” he said, his expression morphing into bemusement.
“See?” Isobel said, turning to Varen. “I told you.” His shielded gaze met hers. She stared at him pointedly, her tight smile reflected back at her through the sunglasses. The sound of the bell filled the room, followed by the scraping of chairs. Time was up.
She leaned in, whispering quickly under the noise cover, “I know you don’t want to do any talking, but you have to do the death part, because we didn’t get that far. I’ll start. Jump in if you can and follow my lead.” She slipped away from him, taking her seat on the opposite end of the room.
“Shades please, Mr. Nethers.”
Isobel watched as Varen made his way to his own chair. He moved slower than usual and this time didn’t bother lifting away the sunglasses at Mr. Swanson’s behest. Maybe, she thought, he hadn’t heard him ask? That seemed unlikely, though, since lately it had become a sort of start-of-class ritual between them, a show of their mutual respect. Isobel watched him sink into his desk, almost as though this action took more effort than normal. A quick glance out of the corner of her eye told her that Mr. Swanson was watching too. And so, it seemed, was everybody else.
Varen settled into his seat. A moment passed by in which Mr. Swanson seemed to deliberate on whether or not to repeat his request. To Isobel’s relief, he did not. Maybe it was Varen’s uncharacteristically disheveled appearance. Or maybe Mr. Swanson knew something, or suspected something. Whatever it was, he didn’t ask again.
He called the first group. Todd and Romelle popped in a DVD, which turned out to be a music video about Mark Twain’s life. It was a good idea, so good that Isobel wished she’d thought of it. It wouldn’t have taken that long, and they could have used a song from Varen’s collection.
Soon it was the next group’s turn with Walt Whitman. Next, Richard Wright, then Washington Irving. Between each presentation, Isobel kept trying to catch Varen’s eye. Why wouldn’t he look at her? She thought about passing a note but then decided it was too risky.
“Isobel and Varen?”
Isobel stood, her heart speeding up. She glanced toward Varen, but he didn’t need the cue. He’d stood mechanically, and now they both made their way to the front of the classroom.
Isobel handed him the stereo and cord. When he took them from her, the little red light next to the control buttons on the boom box lit up. White noise fuzzed, then spiked, and Isobel stopped, confused, because she knew she’d taken the batteries out that morning to make the player lighter to carry.
She stared at Varen as he moved to the front of the classroom, the radio jumping through stations. He set the boom box on Mr. Swanson’s desk, and in the moment before he took his hands away, a woman’s soft voice broke through. Far-off and fuzzy, it sounded as though it was coming from an old, scratched-up record. “—centrate,” it said. “Treat it all like an empty page.”
With a stab of unease, Isobel realized that she’d heard this voice before—coming from the attic of Nobit’s Nook. It was that day she and Varen had worked together, when she’d gone back to get the Poe book and found the upstairs room empty. Right before she’d gone into the park.
Unsettled, Isobel swallowed. While Varen plugged in the stereo, she brought two chairs to one side of Mr. Swanson’s desk, taking extra time to straighten the one closest to where their teacher usually sat. She was glad Varen took the hint. He went to that chair and sat. Trying to forget the moment with the radio, Isobel rounded the desk and lowered herself into Mr.
Swanson’s swivel seat. Swanson, who had taken an empty seat out in the room, said nothing.
Isobel gathered up her stack of index cards, taking a moment to breathe. This was it.
She smiled at the classroom, reached out, and pressed the play button. Music blared—a catchy, almost game-showish synthesizer tune from a bonus round on one of Danny’s video games. Everyone stared, faces blank, Varen’s included. The music died down, and Isobel pressed the pause button.
“Welcome to another episode of Dead Poet Discussions,” she said. “I’m your host, Isobel Lanley, and for this exclusive All Hallows’ Eve edition, I have a few special guests in store for you. One of them is with us now. Please welcome Professor Varen Nethers, famous depressed dead poets historian and author of the bestselling books Unlocking your Poe-tential: A Writer’s Guide, and Mo Poe Fo Yo: When You Just Can’t Get Enough. Welcome, Professor Nethers.”