A Certain Slant of Light Read Free Page B

see whether he really was that rare human who saw what others could not. Nothing was more disturbing to me, and yet nothing compelled me more.
       By the next school day, when the same group of students en tered Mr. Brown's classroom, I deliberately stood in the back cor ner of the room. I wanted to know whether the boy could see me and not have to wonder whether he was looking through me at a map of the world or a grammar lesson. I stood still as marble in the far corner between the window frame and the cupboard door. I remained calm so that nothing, not even a speck of dust on the floor, would shift from my presence. And I watched the students enter, one by one, dragging their feet, pushing each other and laughing, listening to private music with wires in their ears, and then, finally, the boy with the pale face, moving, almost gliding to the desk he always sat in, near the back, in the middle.
       I moved not an inch and waited. The shuffling died down, the murmurs ceased as Mr. Brown began to speak. The boy sat lean ing back, his long legs in denim stuck out in the aisle, his white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, shirttail out, his dark green bag of books lying under the chair. I waited.
       And then he moved. He let the paper that had just been passed back to him slip off the desktop on purpose; I was sure it was on purpose. And when he sat up and bent to retrieve it from the floor, he turned his head and looked back into the corner of the room where I stood. His eyes met mine for one moment, and he smiled. I was shocked, shocked again though I had longed for it. He sat back up and pretended to read the page, just as the oth ers were doing.
       How is this happening? I thought. He couldn't be as I was, Light. I had never seen another like myself. I felt that it was im possible— an instinct told me so. I had never truly believed in mediums, but perhaps this strange boy was some sort of seer. He seemed to have no interest at all in sharing his knowledge of my presence with his fellow classmates or Mr. Brown. It made no sense, and although I was still nervous and full of longing about him, now I was also angry. How dare this chimney sweep of a boy shatter my privacy so matter-of-factly and so completely? What made it worse was that in that moment when he smiled at me, his face flushed. He looked alive and healthy for the first time. It was as if he'd stolen something from me. I felt humiliated, for some reason, and I stormed straight out of the room, without looking back, making a flock of papers flutter off the front row of desks.
     
     
     
     
    Two
     
     
     
    I WANTED TO BE FAR AWAY from everything, but that was a lie. It was only that I felt confused. I had taught myself so carefully how to be the contented voyeur, and now there was this person watching me.
       I stayed close to the classroom, by the trunk of the pepper tree not five yards from the door, waiting. When, and it seemed like a year, the door opened at last, and disheveled boys and girls crowded out of the classroom and away down the path toward other buildings, I hid behind the trunk. Finally he appeared, his bag over one shoulder, his hair falling over his brow on one side. My core jittered with inexplicable excitement. The young man walked alone, head down, toward my tree. He stopped when he was as close to the trunk as the path would allow, but five feet from me. He didn't look. He smiled, eyes still on the ground, and after one blushing moment, he began to walk again. I had no power to stop myself—I followed.
       As I did, I could feel Mr. Brown behind us, walking, as he of ten did at this time of day, to the administration building. I felt an unpleasant tug. A thread snapped, the threat of a tear in my universe. It was my Familiar pulling at me from one side and my Mystery from the other. The path forked between school build ings, and I let Mr. Brown go his way alone. The boy annoyed me by ducking between the cafeteria and the