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Buddy stands finally and walks toward the front of the class. Miss Marble almost lets out a nervous shout, stifling it with a cough when she sees him approach. She can see that Buddy has grabbed his black book bag and is now carrying it toward her. Seeing the book bag in the boy’s hand, Miss Marble immediately begins to imagine the uninspired headlines of her own death. As Buddy comes closer, she notices the small, shaven spiral along his low hairline. It is a haircut he has been teased about throughout the year. It makes him look younger somehow, not older. Buddy, glaring at her now, suddenly reaches down into his bag. Miss Marble’s heart becomes a vise, and not just any vise, but a rusty, worn-out vise that has seized upon its own treads. She is no longer breathing.
What the boy pulls out then is not a handgun, is not a weapon, but a shiny silver Halloween mask. It is entirely silver, nearly featureless, with holes for the eyes and the nostrils, and thin silvery lips.
“I brought this,” Buddy says, placing it on the edge of her desk.
“What is it?” Miss Marble asks, still frightened, still a little desperate.
“The Silver Surfer. He fights the Fantastic Four. He used to be bad but now he’s good.”
“He’s a superhero?” she asks.
“Naw,” Buddy says. “Kind of. He flies through space on his surfboard. He fights space monsters. He’s tough.”
“Well, thank you, Buddy.”
Buddy nods, as if he is unsure now of why he has done what he has done, and so he stops by the doorway. “Silver Surfer is my favorite comic book in the world,” the boy says. “We were talking about favorite books yesterday, so. Well, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Okay. Thanks, Buddy. See you tomorrow.”
The boy turns and exits. Miss Marble sighs, her heart still beating hard. She turns to look out the doorway to be sure she is alone, then she tries on the mask. She sits behind the wooden desk, staring from behind the small, thin piece of plastic, and for once, for once, she does not feel like dying.
Joe Meno is a Chicago-based fiction writer and playwright. He is the author of The Boy Detective Fails and Hairstyles of the Damned.
