Морган Райс: The Magic Factory

To Oliver’s relief it worked. He sat, silent and anonymous, throughout the whole class, like an algebra-obsessed ghost. But even that didn’t feel like the best solution to his problems, Oliver thought. Being unnoticed was just as bad as being publicly humiliated. It made him feel insignificant.

The bell rang again. It was lunch, so Oliver followed his map down to the hall. If the playground had been intimidating it was nothing compared to the lunchroom. Here, the kids were like wild animals. Their raucous voices echoed off the walls, making the noise even more unbearable. Oliver bowed his head and hurried toward the queue.

Smack. Suddenly, he slammed into a large, foreboding body. Slowly, Oliver raised his gaze.

To his surprise, it was Chris’s face he was staring into. On either side of him, in a sort of arrow formation, were three boys and one girl all scowling the same scowl. Cronies was the word that sprang to Oliver’s mind.

“You’ve made friends already?” Oliver said, trying not to sound surprised.

Chris narrowed his eyes. “Not all of us are antisocial loser freaks,” he said.

Oliver realized then that this wasn’t going to be a pleasant interaction with his brother. But then, it never was.

Chris looked over at his new cronies. “This is my pipsqueak brother, Oliver,” he announced. Then he let out a belly laugh. “He sleeps in the alcove.”

His new bully friends started to laugh too.

“He’s available for swirlies, wedgies, headlocks, and my personal favorite,” Chris continued. He grabbed Oliver, and pressed his knuckles into his head. “Noogies.”

Oliver wriggled and thrashed in Chris’s grasp. Locked in the horrible, painful headlock, Oliver remembered his powers from yesterday, the moment he’d broken the table leg and sent potatoes into Chris’s lap. If he only knew how he’d summoned those powers he could do it now and break free. But he had no idea how he’d done it. All he’d done was visualize in his mind’s eye the table breaking, the plastic soldier flying through the air. Was that all it took? His imagination?

He attempted it now, picturing himself wrestling free from Chris. But it was no good. With Chris’s new friends all watching on, laughing with glee, he was just too tuned into the reality of his humiliation to shift his mind to his imagination.

Finally, Chris let him go. Oliver staggered back, rubbing his sore head. He patted down his hair, which had become frizzy with static. But more than the humiliation of Chris’s bullying, Oliver felt the sting of disappointment from failing to summon his powers. Maybe the whole kitchen table thing was just a coincidence. Maybe he didn’t have any special powers at all.

The girl who was hovering next to Chris’s shoulder spoke up. “Can’t wait to get to know you better, Oliver.” She said it in a menacing voice that Oliver could tell meant quite the opposite.

He’d been worried about bullies. Of course he should have anticipated the worst bully of all would be his brother.

Oliver shoved his way past Chris and his new friends and headed for the lunch queue. With a sad sigh, he grabbed a cheese sandwich from the fridge and headed, heavy-hearted, to the restroom. The toilet cubicle was the only place he felt safe.

Oliver’s next lesson after lunch was science. He wandered the corridors looking for the correct room, his stomach churning with the certainty that it would be just as bad as his first two classes.

When he found the classroom he knocked against the window. The teacher was younger than he’d been anticipating. Science teachers, in his experience, tended to be old and somewhat strange, but Ms. Belfry looked completely sane. She had long, straight, mousy brown hair, which was almost the same color as her cotton dress and cardigan. She turned at the sound of his knock and smiled, showing dimples on both cheeks, and beckoned him in. He opened the door timidly.

“Hello,” Ms. Belfry said, smiling. “Are you Oliver?”

Oliver nodded. Even though he was the first one there, he felt suddenly very shy. At least this teacher seemed to be expecting him. That was a relief.

“I’m so pleased to meet you,” Ms. Belfry said, holding out a hand for him to shake.

It was all very formal and not at all what Oliver was expecting considering what he’d experienced of Campbell Junior High so far. But he took her hand and shook. She had very warm skin and her friendly, respectful demeanor helped put him at ease.

“Did you get a chance to do any of the reading?” Ms. Belfry asked.

Oliver’s eyes widened and he felt a little hitch of panic in his chest. “I didn’t realize there was any reading.”

“It’s fine,” Ms. Belfry said reassuringly, smiling her kind smile. “Not to worry. We’re learning about scientists this term, and some important historical figures.” She pointed at a black-and-white portrait on the wall. “This is Charles Babbage, he invented the…”

“…calculator,” Oliver finished.

Ms. Belfry beamed and clapped her hands. “You already know?”

Oliver nodded. “Yes. And he’s also often credited as the father of the computer, since it was his designs that led to their invention.” He looked at the next picture on the wall. “And that’s James Watt,” he said. “The inventor of the steam engine.”

Ms. Belfry nodded. She looked thrilled. “Oliver, I can already tell we’re going to get along famously.”

Just then, the door opened, and in poured Oliver’s classmates. He swallowed, his anxiety returning in a huge rush.

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Ms. Belfry suggested.

He nodded and hurried to the one closest to the window. If it all got too much, at the very least he could look out and imagine himself somewhere else. From here, he had a great view out over the neighborhood, at all the bits of trash and crispy fall leaves blowing in the wind. The clouds above looked even darker than they had that morning. It didn’t really help with Oliver’s sense of foreboding.

The rest of the kids in the class were very loud and very rowdy. It took a long time for Ms. Belfry to settle them down so she could start her lesson.

“Today, we’re carrying on from where we left off last week,” she said, needing to raise her voice, Oliver noticed, in order to be heard over the din. “With some amazing inventors from World War Two. I wonder if anyone knows who this is?”

She held up a black-and-white photo of a woman whom Oliver had read about in his inventors book. Katharine Blodgett, who invented the gas mask, the smoke screen, and the non-reflective glass that was used for wartime submarine periscopes. After Armando Illstrom, Katharine Blodgett was one of Oliver’s favorite inventors, because he found all the technological advances she’d made in World War Two fascinating.

Just then, he noticed Ms. Belfry looking at him expectantly. She could probably tell from his face that he knew precisely who was in the picture. But after his experiences today, he was afraid to say anything aloud. His class would work out he was a nerd eventually; Oliver didn’t want to hurry the process.

But Ms. Belfry nodded at him, eager and encouraging. Against his better judgment, Oliver piped up.

“That’s Katharine Blodgett,” he said, finally.

Ms. Belfry’s grin burst onto her face, bringing her lovely dimples with it. “That’s correct, Oliver. Can you tell the class who she is? What she invented?”

Behind him, Oliver could hear chuckling. The kids were already cottoning on to his nerd status.

“She was an inventor during World War Two,” he said. “She created lots of useful and important wartime inventions, like submarine periscopes. And gas masks, which saved lots of people’s lives.”