Charlaine Harris: An Apple for the Creature

My flash of resentment was abruptly eclipsed when I realized that this conversation was anything but casual. All her thoughts were focused on the person she was arguing with, and she almost certainly didn’t even register the live person standing right in front of her, getting more and more impatient. The door to the principal’s office, to the left of the secretary’s desk, was resolutely shut tight, though from behind it I could hear the light click of a keyboard. Principal Minter was working on something.

Meanwhile, I had time to read her secretary’s nameplate. Sherry Javitts was having a very private conversation in a very public place. Not that it was a true conversation—the young woman was mostly listening to the diatribe pouring into her ears. She didn’t know that I could hear it as clearly as she could, or at least catch an echo of it in her thoughts.

That’s my big problem. I’m telepathic.

Sherry Javitts had a big problem of her own—an overpossessive and maybe deranged former boyfriend. She blinked and looked up at my unhappy face, finally absorbing my presence.

She interrupted the caller. “No, Brady,” she said through literally clenched teeth. “It’s over! I’m working! You have to stop calling!” And she slammed the phone back into its charger before she took a deep breath and looked up at me, making her lips curve in a ghastly smile.

“Can I help you?” Sherry said steadily enough, though I noticed her hands were shaking.

We were going to be civilized and ignore the incident. Fine by me. “Yes, I’m Hunter Savoy’s aunt, Sookie Stackhouse,” I said. “I’ve brought cupcakes for the Pony Room’s Labor Day party.”

She pushed a clipboard over to me. “Please sign in,” she said. “Date, name, and time. Purpose of visit in that space, there.”

“Sure.” I put the cupcakes on top of a filing cabinet while I filled in the required information.

“I didn’t know Hunter had an aunt,” Sherry Javitts said. In a little town like Red Ditch, everyone would know the children’s histories, even the history of relative newcomers like Remy Savoy and his little boy.

I needed to return to my car and get the box of goody bags, but I made myself give her a reassuring smile. (We were just strewing insincere smiles right and left.) “I’m not his actual aunt,” I said. “Calling me ‘aunt’ is just easier. I was first cousin to his mama.”

“Oh,” she said, looking appropriately sober. “I’m so sorry for her passing.”

“We sure miss her,” I said, which was an out-and-out lie. Hadley had been in trouble all her life. Though she’d often tried to do the right thing, somehow that had never worked out. Bless her heart.

I waited for some kind of concluding remark, but Sherry Javitts was lost in her own thoughts, which revolved around a terribly threatening person named Brady, the self-same man she’d been arguing with. She didn’t miss him .

“So,” I said, a little more sharply than I’d intended, “I can go back to Hunter’s classroom?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Got lost in a cloud, there. Sure, go ahead.”

“I’ll have to come in and out at least once,” I warned her.

“You go right ahead. Just sign out when the party is over.” She was relieved I was leaving. At least this time, she was polite enough to rise and open the office door. Sherry was surprisingly tall, and she was wearing an unremarkable pale green dress that I envied only because it was a size 2.

I sighed as I thought of the chocolate cupcake I’d already had that morning.

I edged out of the small office with the cupcakes in my hands, glancing back through the big window to see Sherry Javitts, back in her chair, bow her curly head and put her hands over her face. That was sure the only way she was going to get any privacy in that fishbowl. The inner door of the office, the one to the principal’s inner sanctum, opened even as I thought that.

I remembered meeting Ms. Minter at the spring open house. She was just as nicely dressed today in a tan pantsuit with a dark green scarf, a nice look with her warm brown skin. The appropriately clad Ms. Minter did not look happy, and I wondered if she’d overheard the furious conversation her secretary had had with Brady, whoever he was; husband, boyfriend, secret lover?

As I began walking down the corridor to the right of the office, I confess I was glad to be walking away from the fraught emotions. One of the most burdensome things about my condition is the constant bombardment of other people’s personal woes. I can only block so much out; a lot seeps around the edges of my mental walls. I would much rather not have known about the Drama of Sherry and Brady. I shook the incident off and put a smile on my face, because I’d arrived at the Pony Room, second down on the right-hand side of the hallway. I didn’t have a free hand to knock on the door, so it was lucky Ms. Yarnell spotted me through the rectangular window in the classroom door.

When I’d gone with Remy and Hunter to vet the kindergarten, we’d all liked the Pony Room the best, so I’d been relieved when Hunter had called to tell me Mrs. Gristede was going to be his teacher. Though I hardly knew her, both Hunter and I had learned telepathically that she was a nice woman who genuinely liked children. She was definitely a cut above the other teachers we’d encountered that night.

Unfortunately for everyone, two weeks before school opened Mrs. Gristede had been in a car accident, and her recovery was going to take her out for a whole half-year. Ms. Yarnell was her replacement and, according to Remy, she was working out pretty well.

While Mrs. Gristede was a short, round woman in her forties, Ms. Yarnell proved to be a short, round woman in her early twenties. Despite Ms. Yarnell’s youth, she radiated the same pleasure in teaching, the same fondness for children that had so recommended Mrs. Gristede.

The kids seemed to love her, because there were at least six apples piled on her desk. There were different varieties, and some looked a little more battered than others, but I was impressed that she’d inspired such a traditional gift.

I had time to gather this positive first impression while Ms. Yarnell was holding the door for me. All the children were vibrating with excitement at this break in their routine (which had been so recently learned). I set down the box and my purse on a low worktable right inside the door when I saw Hunter dashing toward me.

“Aunt Sookie!” Hunter yelled, and I squatted so I could catch him in my arms. It was like being wrapped in a skinny, warm boa. Hunter was dark of hair and eyes like his mother—and like her, he was an attractive person, an advantage he would need since he’d gotten the family “gift.”

I’m so glad you’re here, he said silently.

“Hey, Hunter,” I said, careful to speak out loud. I’d been trying to help Hunter learn to control his telepathy, which (sadly) meant teaching him to conceal his true nature. Children’s emotions are so much purer, undiluted. I hated having to curb his natural exuberance.

You made the cupcakes, he said happily, right into my head. I gave him a gentle squeeze to remind him. “You brought cupcakes,” he said out loud, grinning at me.

Lest you should think Hunter was a pitiful child with no one to love him—not only could Remy have followed instructions on a box of mix and opened a can of icing, but I was also certain that Remy’s girlfriend, Erin, would have been thrilled to be asked to make treats for Hunter’s first real school party. Though I didn’t know Erin well, I knew she genuinely cared for Hunter. I didn’t know why Hunter had picked me instead. Maybe he’d just wanted to see if I’d do it. Maybe, since I had to drive farther, I was the bigger challenge. Maybe he just wanted to be around someone like himself; we hadn’t gotten to spend much time together since Hunter had started school. I confess that I’d been both surprised and secretly flattered when Remy had called to tell me, in a very tentative way and not within Hunter’s hearing, that his son wanted me to attend the holiday celebration.