Oksa Pollock: The Last Hope (8 page)

“W
HAT IS THE MEANING OF ALL THIS NOISE
?” roared Mr Bontempi. “The whole school can hear you!”

“Sorry, sir,” said the Neanderthal. “The door was jammed, I couldn’t close it and a draught slammed all the doors.”

“Hmmm,” muttered the Headmaster, giving the place the once-over. “What are you doing in the boys’ toilet, Miss Pollock?” he asked, noticing Oksa, who was trying to make herself as small as possible. “You should be in class!”

Then his attention wandered back to the Neanderthal, who was dabbing his nose with a hand towel. He looked back and forth between him and Oksa.

“What’s going on? Have you two been fighting?” he demanded, half-suspicious, half-worried.

Oksa, bemused and bewildered, couldn’t bring herself to say a thing. “I’m the most dangerous girl in the world, don’t come near me, I can’t control my power!” was all she could have said at that precise moment. The Neanderthal threw her a hate-filled look, paused for a few seconds, which filled her with black terror, and replied with a little laugh:

“Fighting? Oh no, sir! Dr Lemaire gave me permission to leave the class because I had a nosebleed. I met Oksa Pollock in the corridor and she came with me to the toilet to help me clean myself up.”

Oksa was stunned at the Neanderthal’s lie. There hadn’t been a grain of truth in what that bully had said, except for her name. But how on earth did he know her name? And why was he telling Mr Bontempi this nonsense? Some of the connections in his brain must have been damaged in the “accident”, that was the only explanation. Why else would he conceal the truth? This was his golden opportunity to get her into trouble. Unless this was just a dry run, and he was lying to cover
himself
…

“Is this true, Miss Pollock? You weren’t fighting?”

“No, sir,” replied Oksa, looking outwardly self-assured, although her heart was thudding painfully in her chest. “I wouldn’t be able to fight such a strong boy!” she added with a grimace, carefully avoiding eye contact with the boy in question.

She cursed herself inwardly for seeming such a wimp. Of course she could fight. She’d just proved it.

“It’s certainly hard to see you as a boxer,” agreed Mr Bontempi, immediately contradicting Oksa’s thoughts. “Okay, Mortimer, you should go to the infirmary.”

“That won’t be necessary, sir,” replied the Neanderthal. “I’m going back to class. I feel much better.”

With this, he turned on his heels and walked stiffly out of the toilets without sparing a look for Oksa, who was making herself appear smaller than ever. Once he’d gone, Mr Bontempi continued to question her.

“What about you, Miss Pollock, what were you doing in the corridor? Were you going to the toilet too?”

“No, sir. I’d been… I’d been sent out of Mc… Dr McGraw’s class,” stammered Oksa, too upset to tell him anything other than the truth.

“Sent out? Good Lord. Why?” replied Mr Bontempi, frowning.

“I don’t know, sir,” replied Oksa in a very small voice.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“He just told me to get out of the class, sir.”

“I’m very surprised to hear it,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

He looked at her closely: she seemed too harmless to cause someone of McGraw’s calibre to send her out of the class. Frankly, he wondered what on earth could have necessitated such harsh measures. A Year 8 student, and a new girl to boot.

“Come with me.”

The Headmaster placed his hand firmly on Oksa’s shoulder. When she realized that they were going back to the science room, she became even more desperate.

“Oh no, for pity’s sake, please don’t,” she couldn’t help saying.

Mr Bontempi must have had particularly good hearing because he caught these words, even though she only whispered them.

“Why ‘for pity’s sake’, Miss Pollock? Is Dr McGraw really that scary?”

“No, sir,” she lied, mentally slapping her forehead.

As she walked along the colonnaded corridors with the Headmaster, she felt as if she were treading on hot coals. Waves of anger and fear washed over her, spreading like poison through her veins. Her unfortunate adventure in the toilets had deeply shaken her and she really didn’t want McGraw to make things worse. Enough was enough. Suddenly the Headmaster paused. Resting against the stone balustrade around the gallery, he leant out towards the courtyard. Looking up at the sky, he murmured:

“Good Lord, it looks like we’re going to have one hell of a storm.”

Dark, heavy clouds were massing, blackening the sky. There was hardly any daylight left. Even though it was barely ten o’clock in the morning, it was as if night was falling. Lights came on in the classrooms, partially illuminating the corridors. A long shiver ran up Oksa’s spine as torrential rain began to fall.

The Headmaster and Oksa had arrived at the door of the science room, as she’d feared. Mr Bontempi walked straight in after knocking twice on the door. The students stood up, making their chairs scrape over the wooden floor, just as she’d done earlier. “
Oh dear, McGraw won’t like that at all… that’s not going to help my case
,” thought Oksa,
trying very hard to become invisible. Perhaps her new talents would stretch to that?

“Headmaster, what can I—”

“Dr McGraw, I met this student wandering aimlessly in the corridors and I wanted to make sure that she found her way back to her classroom,” interrupted Mr Bontempi, saying nothing about the episode in the boys’ toilets.

“Miss Pollock wasn’t lost, Headmaster, I sent her out of the class,” snapped McGraw.

“Sorry?” asked Mr Bontempi. “I didn’t hear what you said, this rain is making such a racket.”

McGraw repeated what he’d just said, straining his voice to drown out the noise of the pouring rain outside. He looked very pale and was clearly finding it hard to control his anger.

“So what did Miss Pollock do to deserve being sent out?” asked Mr Bontempi casually.

“Let’s drop it now, sir,” muttered McGraw through gritted teeth, white with rage. “Go back to your seat, Miss Pollock.”

And for the first time since the Headmaster had burst in, McGraw’s eyes met Oksa’s. It was a dark, sinister look that hit the girl like a punch in the stomach. She felt her brain freeze, then explode. The pain was so bad that it felt as if her skull was being relentlessly stabbed by sharp splinters. Suddenly there was a deafening clap of thunder, followed by a brilliant flash of lightning that slashed across the dark sky. All the lights went out and screams rang out from the classrooms.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mr Bontempi. “The fuses have blown, that’s all we need!”

Oksa was deafened by the violent crack of thunder. Taking advantage of the darkness into which the whole school had now been plunged, she ran out of the classroom, whose open door was banging against the wall. A strong draught was blowing through the three-storey colonnaded galleries giving onto the courtyard and panicked students were running in
all directions. Oksa went over to the balustrade and looked up at the sky with a mixture of fright and fascination. Terrifying streaks of lightning were penetrating the leaden clouds one after the other, intermittently lighting up the courtyard and the stone statues.

“It’s the Flood!” cried one student beside her.

“The end of the world!” added another, before running for shelter in a classroom.

Oksa couldn’t tear her eyes away from this cataclysmic sight. The violence of the elements matched her inner feelings, and even though she was terrified, she felt in perfect harmony with this dark sky, ripped apart by lightning.

“I’ve never seen such a bad storm,” said someone at her side.

Oksa turned her head and recognized Merlin.

“It’s dreadful!” he shouted, to make himself heard. “Stand back, it might be dangerous.”

The storm didn’t last for long. A few minutes later the rain stopped and the clouds dispersed to reveal a clear blue sky. The students, excited by the interruption, went back to their classrooms and the lessons continued in comparative peace and quiet. Oksa slumped onto her chair, knowing that she had been granted three reprieves—by the Neanderthal, by Bontempi and by McGraw—and vowed that she wouldn’t move a muscle until the end of the lesson.

During the break, there were two main topics of conversation. First, the storm, which had left behind some very visible traces—the drenched courtyard was strewn with broken tiles that had been dislodged by the violent downpour, and puddles of water had formed on the unevenly paved ground. The second talking point was none other than Oksa. Many of the students had seen her coming back from the toilets escorted by the Headmaster and rumours were rife.

“Well,” said Gus, “that’s the second time you’ve scared the living daylights out of me! No one understood what happened. And the upshot of it all was that you got the blame. It’s so unfair! And for someone who hates drawing attention to yourself, you didn’t do yourself any favours.”

“I know, I’m gutted. What a mess,” replied Oksa miserably.

“Why?” said Merlin, looking insistently at Oksa. “You deserve to be carried around on our shoulders for standing up to McGraw!”

“Well done, Oksa!” another student congratulated her, having just joined the group. “You dared to say what we were all thinking. McGraw is going too far.”

“He’ll calm down eventually, you know,” said Zelda comfortingly. “The Headmaster didn’t look very happy with him. Particularly as you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Nor did you,” Oksa rightly pointed out.

She almost added that McGraw had also been rather clumsy in letting his felt-tip “escape” from his grasp. But, as her conscience wasn’t particularly clear on that score, she chose to keep quiet about the incident.

“It’s really crap,” added Merlin, looking outraged.

Gus watched Oksa sadly out of the corner of his eye as she huddled into an even smaller ball on the bench.

She kept herself to herself as much as possible for the rest of the day and concentrated on her lessons, including Dr McGraw’s before lunch. This was made easier by the fact that he behaved as though Oksa didn’t exist for the whole hour. He didn’t meet her eyes once. He didn’t make a single hurtful remark to anyone. Disconcerted but relieved, they all made the most of this temporary respite, diligently immersing themselves in their strange teacher’s lesson.

“Mr Poicassé and Miss Pollock, please stay behind to put the equipment away,” he announced when the bell rang.

Although Merlin was silently delighted, Oksa looked at Gus in irritation. This unpleasant day seemed to be going on for ever.

“Chin up!” murmured Gus. “Meet you in the cafeteria, okay?”

“Okay,” muttered Oksa.

She began to collect the test tubes scattered over the work surfaces. While she did this, Merlin rinsed the pipettes, glancing covertly at her.

“You know what Einstein thought?” he said suddenly.

“No,” replied Oksa, pleased at this diversion.

“Well, it’s pretty amazing. He’s mainly known for his theory of relativity but the man was a true visionary. For example, it didn’t take him long to realize that we could use solar energy.”

“I totally agree with you!” boomed Dr McGraw’s voice.

Oksa froze and Merlin looked shaken. Neither of them had heard the teacher come in.

“What do you like so much about Einstein?” continued McGraw, his eyes shining.

The mere mention of the famous scientist seemed to have transformed the stiff McGraw into an attentive, enthusiastic man, eager to hear what the boy had to say.

“I’m particularly interested in his work on light,” replied Merlin blushing, startled and uneasy at the interest he’d aroused.

McGraw studied him for a second, then encouraged him to continue.

“What do you know of Einstein’s works?”

Merlin hesitated, then let himself be swayed by the gleam of curiosity in their teacher’s eyes.

“I know he demonstrated that light can be compared to a wave or a current of particles…”

“I can see that this subject interests you. I too am fascinated by the famous scientist and the photoelectric effect. I worked on it for the CIA, you know, and I can tell you that Einstein’s theories lend themselves to countless applications, particularly in the military sphere.”