Read Online Beyond the Farthest Star by Bodie and Brock Thoene - Free Book Online
Authors: Bodie and Brock Thoene
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middle-aged teacher shouted it. Mrs. Harper’s gray hair was pressed to her skull in tight curls. Her mouth clamped shut with tight, disapproving lips. Her eyes had a tight narrowness to them, and she spoke in clipped, tight phrases.
“Now I know everyone did their English assignment and can’t wait to share it in front of the class. To give us all the privilege of your poetic vision. So who’d like to go first?”
Mrs. Harper also disapproved of letting students write poetry. Wasted effort, in her opinion. Let them read the great masters, but let their writing be confined to proper prose in short, tightly written sentences. Anne thought that having Mrs. Harper ask you to read your own poetry aloud was like feeding a chickencarcass to an alligator. With a little luck only the chicken would be devoured … and not your arm.
A chorus of groans rose from the classroom. Anne noticed with amusement that everyone tried to look anywhere else other than at Mrs. Harper.
If the alligator doesn’t see you, it won’t leap.
But this was silly and could go on forever. Anne raised her arm.
Now it was Mrs. Harper’s turn to stare at the ceiling and out the windows. When no one else volunteered, she said with evident resignation: “Miss Wells … wonderful.”
What’s the complete opposite of enthusiasm?
Anne wondered.
Apathy isn’t strong enough because Mrs. Harper is really hostile.
Retrieving her painting, “Sunny Days,” from the back of the room, Anne placed it on an easel at the front of the room. Some of her classmates regarded the black-on-black rays with curiosity, some with indifference, and one—cheerleader Susan Dillard—with apprehension.
Susan probably thought the monsters in
Scooby Doo
were frightening.
Opening her notebook Anne read:
I am the night. I am
your
night.
Descending upon you as your day slips away too soon, too suddenly.
Anne saw uneasiness cross Susan’s face and a newly stiffened granite quality to Mrs. Harper’s. Nevertheless, she continued:
I am the alien pod germinating in your bowels;
Sapping all your bodily fluids;
Keeping you alive just long enough to see me
Bust out of your corpse with teeth like razors
And acid in my blood and slime.
Slowly dripping slime.
Your night … your barren infertile night … is upon you.
Susan looked as shocked and horrified as if she’d just found a worm in a salad.
Mrs. Harper, who boasted that nothing ever disrupted her ability to remain in control of any situation, looked slightly stunned. “Well, thank you, Miss Wells, for your poem entitled ‘Some Happy Thoughts.’ ”
Maurene, still in bathrobe and slippers, wandered about the parsonage’s dining room. The walls were lined with crates awaiting opening and unpacking. She bristled at the memory of Adam’s words. It was
not
true that they were three addresses behind in getting their possessions sorted. Well, perhaps two or three crates were still labeled as having come from Michigan, which
was
four moves ago now, but not
that
many.
A blank, legal-sized yellow pad lay beside her Bible on the coffee table in the adjoining living room. Maurene was reminded of her speech for the ladies’ luncheon, now only—she glanced hurriedly at the wall clock—three hours away. She circled the coffee table warily, as if the blank pad were a serpent.
Plenty of time to pull together an address worthy of a former high school valedictorian. This was no time to be distracted with unimportant matters like unpacking.
“Take that, Adam Wells, Miracle Preacher Boy,” she thought. Her sense of injustice at his remarks now calmed, she sat on a sofa with a firm resolve to deliver the best speech a pastor’s wife had ever given.
But where to begin? It was the height of the Christmas shopping season. Perhaps something about “The True Gift of Christmas”? That would be appropriate and easy to pull off.
Maurene again eyed the notepad with uneasiness. Blank pages were always so intimidating. The very
“Now I know everyone did their English assignment and can’t wait to share it in front of the class. To give us all the privilege of your poetic vision. So who’d like to go first?”
Mrs. Harper also disapproved of letting students write poetry. Wasted effort, in her opinion. Let them read the great masters, but let their writing be confined to proper prose in short, tightly written sentences. Anne thought that having Mrs. Harper ask you to read your own poetry aloud was like feeding a chickencarcass to an alligator. With a little luck only the chicken would be devoured … and not your arm.
A chorus of groans rose from the classroom. Anne noticed with amusement that everyone tried to look anywhere else other than at Mrs. Harper.
If the alligator doesn’t see you, it won’t leap.
But this was silly and could go on forever. Anne raised her arm.
Now it was Mrs. Harper’s turn to stare at the ceiling and out the windows. When no one else volunteered, she said with evident resignation: “Miss Wells … wonderful.”
What’s the complete opposite of enthusiasm?
Anne wondered.
Apathy isn’t strong enough because Mrs. Harper is really hostile.
Retrieving her painting, “Sunny Days,” from the back of the room, Anne placed it on an easel at the front of the room. Some of her classmates regarded the black-on-black rays with curiosity, some with indifference, and one—cheerleader Susan Dillard—with apprehension.
Susan probably thought the monsters in
Scooby Doo
were frightening.
Opening her notebook Anne read:
I am the night. I am
your
night.
Descending upon you as your day slips away too soon, too suddenly.
Anne saw uneasiness cross Susan’s face and a newly stiffened granite quality to Mrs. Harper’s. Nevertheless, she continued:
I am the alien pod germinating in your bowels;
Sapping all your bodily fluids;
Keeping you alive just long enough to see me
Bust out of your corpse with teeth like razors
And acid in my blood and slime.
Slowly dripping slime.
Your night … your barren infertile night … is upon you.
Susan looked as shocked and horrified as if she’d just found a worm in a salad.
Mrs. Harper, who boasted that nothing ever disrupted her ability to remain in control of any situation, looked slightly stunned. “Well, thank you, Miss Wells, for your poem entitled ‘Some Happy Thoughts.’ ”
Maurene, still in bathrobe and slippers, wandered about the parsonage’s dining room. The walls were lined with crates awaiting opening and unpacking. She bristled at the memory of Adam’s words. It was
not
true that they were three addresses behind in getting their possessions sorted. Well, perhaps two or three crates were still labeled as having come from Michigan, which
was
four moves ago now, but not
that
many.
A blank, legal-sized yellow pad lay beside her Bible on the coffee table in the adjoining living room. Maurene was reminded of her speech for the ladies’ luncheon, now only—she glanced hurriedly at the wall clock—three hours away. She circled the coffee table warily, as if the blank pad were a serpent.
Plenty of time to pull together an address worthy of a former high school valedictorian. This was no time to be distracted with unimportant matters like unpacking.
“Take that, Adam Wells, Miracle Preacher Boy,” she thought. Her sense of injustice at his remarks now calmed, she sat on a sofa with a firm resolve to deliver the best speech a pastor’s wife had ever given.
But where to begin? It was the height of the Christmas shopping season. Perhaps something about “The True Gift of Christmas”? That would be appropriate and easy to pull off.
Maurene again eyed the notepad with uneasiness. Blank pages were always so intimidating. The very
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