Grace McCleen - The Land of Decoration

“Thank you!” I said, like it was all a big joke, but my hands were shaking too much to open the drawer.

Neil’s face was dark. He bent close to me and I saw again how blue his eyes were. He said in a soft voice: “So you’ve got magic powers. So you made it snow.”

I tried to smile, but the smile wobbled.

He came closer. His voice rose. “But you’re scared really, aren’t you? You’re scared now. You’re shitting your little pants.” His lip curled. “The end of the world. Ooh. I’m scared.”

There was laughter and shouting. Neil stood up and grinned. Then he sauntered away. And as he did, something rose inside me. It rushed down my arms and into my fingers. It crawled up my neck and into my hair. I heard a voice say: “You will be.” I think it was me.

Neil said: “What?”

Someone else said: “Oh my God.”

I said: “You will be.” And this time I knew I had spoken.

Neil’s face was thickening with something, as if he had smelled something foul, like when Gareth did one of his farts. He came close to me and said in a low voice: “You are such a waste of space.” And all of the words were heavy and slow, as if they were too enormous to be spoken.

My head was too hot to think. It was too hot to see. I said: “At least I can read.”

For one second there was complete silence. Then someone laughed. The sound bounced up as if released by a spring. It bubbled somewhere beneath the fluorescent strip light, then the silence reached up and strangled it.

Neil’s face was peculiar. It changed, then changed again as I watched, as if something was passing through it. He said: “You are such a fucking loser.”

I stood up and there was a roaring sound and my body was full of shaking blood. I said: “It’s you that’s the loser. You’re the biggest loser I’ve ever met. Stay away from me, Neil Lewis, or you’ll be sorry.”

“What are you going to do?” someone shouted. “Turn him into a frog?”

“I might,” I said. “If I want to.” I looked at Neil and I said quietly: “I can do anything I like.”

Then three things happened. Neil lunged forward, I stepped backward, and the door opened.

Mr. Davies said: “Why is everyone out of their seats?” Neil and I stared at each other. Mr. Davies said: “Perhaps you two didn’t hear me!”

Neil walked over to his desk. Mr. Davies said: “ Thank you.”

I sat down, and I was glad to, because my legs didn’t feel solid anymore.

Gemma said: “Oh my God.”

Keri said: “He’s going to kill you.”

Rhian said: “Can you really do magic?”

I bent over my book. I tried to find my page. But two invisible strings were attached to my back. Whenever I moved, the strings moved too. When I turned, Neil was staring at me. And as I watched, he took a pencil in one hand and, without taking his eyes from me, snapped it.

A wave of heat rushed over me and I was falling. But I felt something else too. I felt my whole body pricking as if it was catching light, like it did when Brother Michaels told us about the mustard seed, like it did when I saw the snow.

And as I turned back to the front, I thought about the snow, of how it came softly at first, of how the flakes melted and left no trace. But how soon it covered roads and houses and wiped the town clean and flattened ditches and made the mountain disappear and shut down the factory and turned off the power and shouted from the page of every newspaper in black six-inch letters. Of how it came from nowhere, while I was sleeping, and turned the world white.

WHEN I CAME out of school that afternoon, something happened that had never happened before. Neil and Lee and Gareth were waiting for me on bikes by the gate; they followed me all the way home.

I made myself walk slowly and didn’t look round. When I turned into our street, they circled, and Neil rode so close to my feet that gravel sprayed up. They waited to see which house I went into, then they cycled away. I went upstairs and lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling.

I like the ceiling in my room. There are small stains and gray furry balls in the corner where spiders live that are like a little cluster of huts. There are old cobwebs that hang like tired party streamers. And there is a hot-air balloon lamp shade. My mother made the lamp shade. She liked making things too. When I look at the hot-air balloon, I think of her and I think of traveling somewhere and leaving this town behind. I was looking at it now, but for the first time I wasn’t really seeing it. God, I said: “I wish I could do something.”

“Like what?” said God, and I was so pleased He had spoken to me again. I had the feeling of fire along my back and my hair, as if someone had flicked a switch.

I sat up. “Well, what’s the point of having this power if I don’t use it?” I said.

“Your father said it was dangerous,” said God.

“You use Your power.”

“Yes,” said God. “But I am the Almighty.”

“I’ve only used my power for good things so far, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” said God. “So far…”

“But this was what I wanted it for in the first place,” I said. And suddenly I was shaking. “I hate him!”

“Aren’t you forgetting forgiveness?” said God.

“Yes.”

We were quiet for a while.

Then God said: “Of course, there is another way….”

“What?”

“There’s the Old Testament as well, you know. Have you heard the saying ‘an eye for an eye’?”

“That’s the Law.”

God said: “I see you’ve been paying attention. ‘Soul will be for soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand.’ I got tired of being messed around, you see. If people hurt Me, I hurt them back. It’s My Fundamental Law. But you don’t need Me to tell you; you know all this.”

“What are You saying?”

“That someone needs to be paid back,” said God.

“Do You think so?”

God scratched His head—or it could have been His beard. I heard Him scratch something. “Yes,” He said at last.

“ Really? ”

“Yes,” said God. He sounded more certain. “Something has to be done.”

“I’m so glad You agree!” I said. “But what about Father?”

“He doesn’t believe you can do anything anyway,” said God. “I wouldn’t worry. What were you thinking of doing?”

“Oh, something little,” I said. “Nothing much. To begin with.”

“I like it,” God said. “I like your style.”

My heart began hammering. “And it will be OK?” I said.

“Of course,” said God. “That is: I think so. As you said, it’s a small thing. I can’t see any problems with that. A taste of his own medicine will do the boy good.”

“Hooray!” I jumped up.

“I’m just saying, I can’t give you a guarantee it will all turn out as you expect.”

“OK.”

“So are you going ahead with it?”

“Yes!”

God laughed. “Then what are you waiting for?”

THIS IS HOW to make a man. You will need:

mohair

cotton

umbrella/nylon fabric

all-purpose glue

modeling clay

pipe cleaners

paint (acrylic)

Wite-Out

toothpicks

wool

1. Make shoes and shins and hands and arms and a head and neck from modeling clay using the toothpicks. Make holes in them for wire with the toothpick. Let the clay harden.

2. Glue pipe cleaners into the holes and bend them into a figure. The spine must be thin enough to bend but not thin enough to break.

3. Give the man a nose (upturned, in this case), two eyes (blue, for example), a mouth (big teeth), and whatever else you fancy (freckles).