Dan Read Online Free Page B

sheet,” said Mr. Sack, still smiling. His thighs were close to Melba, and from her seat on the footstool, she could inspect them at eye-level. The wales on his corduroy trousers had been worn down, exposing the thin, sheer fabric beneath, the greasy silver color of a well-thumbed spoon. Mr. Sack selected a taupe block from the shelf, but Melba declined the proffered block and clipboard with a shake of her head.
    “Oh, no thank you,” said Melba. She gazed about wonderingly. She had missed school offices, with their lovely potted trees and heavy, dented furniture and wall-calendars and clocks! Since Principal Benjamin had disappeared, she had never imagined she’d enter one ever again, but there she was, in an office in the late afternoon, when the other young people were mingling with each other in the muddy clear-cut beneath the funicular device. Melba was never the type to mingle with young people, and though she wasn’t yet exactly mingling with Mr. Sack, she began to enjoy his proximity. Mr. Sack’s office had a sour and talcy odor, which increased her enjoyment. The odor reminded Melba of the family bathroom after one of her father’s diluvial showers, the white puddles he left after he’d rinsed his hair with vinegar and patted his body dry with an assortment of unperfumed powders. Melba sighed as Mr. Sack settled himself in his chair and looked down at her, legs crossed. After a moment, he spoke.
    “You may rest your head on my knee,” he said, and Melba started.
    “Oh, that’s very kind,” she said, and then, realizing that her attempt at polite refusal had surrendered at polite, she remained perfectly still as Mr. Sack took a small velvet pillow from his desk drawer and positioned it on his lap.
    “I so often rest my head on things, though,” said Melba. “Warm, unfrosted cakes. Freshly piled laundry. I’d better not.” She giggled nervously but Mr. Sack only shrugged.
    “The vertical carriage of the human head is marvelous,” he said, “as are the orthognathic jaws and mobile tongue, but it often results in hypertonicity of the neck muscles.”
    “Why don’t we ever talk about the neck muscles?” asked Melba. “Or about the tongue? There’s so much I want to know.”
    Mr. Sack took a nose from the desk drawer and regarded it sadly, his index fingers thrust deep in the snoutish nostrils.
    “Melba,” said Mr. Sack, finally. “You’ve grown tired of noses. Hush! Don’t argue! I’m a teacher and I understand things. You think I should widen the scope of my classes. Well, you’re wrong, Melba. Dangerously wrong. The students in this school have excitable passions. Sometimes they kiss each other feverishly in the halls, or stand up in class, screaming, ‘I am thy vessel! Fill me, dark prince, with the power of evil!’ Certainly, you’ve noticed.”
    Mr. Sack shook his index fingers so that the nose dropped to his desk with a dull clunk.
    “The students in this school can’t handle the stimulus of absolute knowledge. They need routine and fentanyl lozenges.”
    Melba felt a deep thrill at this unexpected confidence and she leaned forward eagerly.
    “I’m not like the other students, Mr. Sack,” said Melba. “My airflow is too restricted for kissing and I hate to make a scene.” She lowered her voice. “Mr. Sack,” she confessed, “Principal Benjamin told me about epochs. He said I would learn about them someday. I thought he meant in high school, but maybe he meant at some other point in life, when I’m in the workforce, or taking a course at a retirement community. Mr. Sack, I have a problem,” whispered Melba, almost breathless, “I just can’t figure out what time is made of.” Mr. Sack worked a mauve lollipop out of his pants pocket and he offered it to Melba without speaking. She ignored it.
    “Mr. Sack,” whispered Melba. “Sometimes I think time must be like a kind of jelly. A jelly that makes us move slower than we would otherwise, because isn’t time just a