The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor Read online

  Her husband leaned through the study door and said, “Mwah!” which was his way of kissing her hello.

  “Hello!” she replied, ruling boxes furiously. She realized he was still standing there, leaning against the doorframe, and she looked up at him. “Hello,” she said again, and tapped the side of her glasses. He nodded calmly, and wandered down the hallway, calling, “What have you done with Cassie?”

  Fancy ignored him, and began to write inside the first box.

  Irritating Things About My Husband # 1

  Well, in the mornings, he has this routine where he shaves at the bathroom sink while I take my shower. He uses a Valerio Close-Shave! which he keeps on a toothpaste-stained holding tray, and every few moments he taps it on the side of the sink.

  Tap, tap, tap, and then a little while later, tap, tap, tap. Through the rush of shower water, and the snap of my shampoo bottle cap, I can hear it, the regular tap, tap, tap. Even as I step into my towel (which he hands to me from our heated rack, without looking back from his reflection), even then he taps: tap, tap, tap. Then he turns the water loud to wash his face and wash the little whiskers down the sink.

  The whole thing drives me wild!

  She closed that notebook, took up another, and wrote the heading: Prize-Winning Novel. It had occurred to her that she might write a prize-winning novel in italics. Italics, she thought, had both gumption and mystique. Also, a particular italicized sentence was floating around in her mind these days:

  How is your ocean bream, my love?

  She was not sure what she meant by this sentence, but found it very moving. It would presumably be spoken in a restaurant.

  She sent a text message to her sister, Marbie. HOW IS YOUR OCEAN BREAM, MY LOVE? Just to see what Marbie would say.

  Then she returned to the first notebook and ruled another box.

  Five

  Marbie was taking the train home from work when her sister’s text message arrived. A LITTLE OVERCOOKED, she texted back. ON THE FLAKY SIDE.

  Like her sister, Marbie had a sentence floating in her head these days. Her sentence was this:

  It was a decision she would regret for the rest of her life.

  Because she was so excited by her good luck in meeting Nathaniel and his lovely daughter Listen, she feared she would take one tiny wrong step and lose them.

  For example: Let’s say she opens her wardrobe and sees her short blue dress hanging alongside her long floral skirt. Which one should she wear? Hurriedly, she chooses the long skirt. It was a decision she would regret for the rest of her life—because later! On her way to work? The skirt gets tangled in her sandals and trips her up! And she breaks her ankle! And she has to go to the hospital! And Nathaniel comes to visit with flowers, and the nurse says to Nathaniel, “What lovely daffodils,” and he says, “Actually, they’re tulips,” and then their eyes meet, and they fall in love, and Nathaniel and Listen leave Marbie for the nurse!!

  Part 2

  Tuesday to Friday

  One

  Tuesday, Listen went to Donna Turnbull’s place for a strategy meeting.

  “I, M, H, O,” said Gabrielle, “we don’t need a strategy meeting. We just turn up at the school tomorrow and it happens. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, do you want me to keep going?” She was counting the freckles on Joanne’s back.

  “Keep going,” Joanne commanded. “I need to know the truth.”

  “There’s a lot,” Caro said. “Do you need more truth than that?”

  “You think you can go to Clareville Academy and just live?” Donna was withering. “Power up your brain cells, I don’t think so. Listen, would you stop dancing for one second in your life?”

  Listen and Sia were sharing Sia’s iPod, and they were both dancing. They stopped and looked at Donna. Listen hitched up her jeans. The jeans were too long and the right cuff had slipped into her sneaker and was caught under her foot.

  “There’s going to be a fundamental shift in the universe when we get to Clareville,” Donna explained. “That’s why we need to have a strategy.”

  “Hey, Listen,” said Gabrielle, bored with counting freckles. “Give me your jeans and I’ll get my mum to take them up for you.”

  “Yeah, you don’t fold them like that?” Sia explained. She glanced at Gabrielle. “We should have taken them up for her before we gave them to her for her birthday?”

  “Shut up about Listen’s stupid jeans,” pleaded Donna. “My cousin was, like, in meltdown the whole first year she was at Clareville. Why? Because of the shock of the things that transpired. We cannot let that happen to us. Okay? We cannot.”

  The others stopped talking to each other and turned to Donna.

  “What transpired?” Joanne said. “For your cousin?”

  “Well, for a start,” said Donna. But she couldn’t really remember. Only, for instance, her cousin had said that you didn’t play games at lunchtime anymore like you did at elementary school. You sat in a circle and you talked.

  “Oh my God,” said Gabrielle. “We’d better practice that. Does anybody know what a circle is?”

  “What is this other word you use?” Joanne sat up looking mystical. “This word. How do you say it? ‘Talk.’ What can it mean?”

  They all laughed until they saw that Donna was crying.

  So they took turns comforting her, apologized for disrespect, and agreed to an eternal pact. They would stay friends forever, no matter what transpired.

  Wednesday was a strange, shiny, sharp-edged first day of school.

  When she got home, Listen opened the fridge door, but all she could see was the gap between the teeth of the Clareville Academy principal, a loose red thread in the seam of Sia’s shoe, and the jar of pickled snakes in Science Lab B11.

  These images loomed up at her from a ketchup bottle in the refrigerator door, each one swimming straight toward her nose and bouncing back.

  It was strangely exhausting. She sat down at the table to rest.

  At Assembly that morning, the principal had welcomed them to Clareville by explaining that they would not see their next birthdays if they ever knocked on the upper staffroom door between 1:00 and 1:35.

  At lunchtime, Gabrielle said she was going to sit the principal down and talk her through the concept of “welcome.” Joanne laughed about how strict the teachers were acting to make a first impression (it was so transparent). Caro could not believe they sold pecan pies in the tuckshop. Sia worried there was something wrong with the seams of her new school shoes. And Donna went through everybody’s timetables to figure out which classes they had together, then lectured them all on the importance of eternal pacts.

  In Science that afternoon, the teacher breathed loudly through his nose and said, “Let me give you the key to survival at Clareville. It’s not in the mysteries of Science Lab B11, much as the beakers and Bunsen burners might intrigue you! No. It’s doing two hours of homework every single day.”

  “What’s say there’s a day when we get no homework?” Caro asked shrewdly.

  “Wonderful point!” said the teacher. “If there’s ever such a day, give me a call, and I’ll let you take your pick of pickled snakes.”

  Caro missed the point and said she didn’t want a pickled snake.

  Now, Listen looked at her backpack and thought about doing some homework. Instead, she watched TV until her dad phoned from the Banana Bar to ask about her day. She watched TV again until Marbie phoned from the insurance company where she worked, also to ask about her day.

  “Hey,” Listen said, after they had philosophized about fundamental shifts in the universe for a while, “what time is it, Marbie?”

  “It’s five! It’s the end of the day!”

  “Gotta go,” said Listen, “Gotta go do something.” And she hung up the phone.

  Hooray for you! You waited until 5 P.M. on Wednesday! You can clearly follow rules, and that’s just what you need to be able to do, because otherwise this Spell Book won’t work!

  Here are the rules:
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  1. You have to do every single Spell in the book, one at a time. You can’t skip ahead!

  2. Usually, you won’t even know if a Spell has worked or not! But never mind! Trust us! It has.

  You can turn the page now.

  Okay!

  Now put the Spell Book back underneath your pillow, and DON’T GET IT OUT AGAIN until 4 P.M. this FRIDAY.

  YOU WILL THEN BE ABLE TO DO THE FIRST SPELL!!!

  (Note: Take great care not to say the word walnut from now until then.)

  Thursday, Listen searched through her drawers until she found the postcard her mother had sent her from Istanbul. She sat on her bedroom floor, curling the postcard in her fist.

  She was thinking about her English teacher at Clareville. At first, Listen had liked him because he wore a Mayor McCheese T-shirt and faded jeans, but then the teacher had said, “Look, girls, now that you’re in junior high, you’re not big fish in a little pond anymore, are you? No! You’re small fish in a big pond!”

  Immediately, Listen stopped liking him.

  For a start, two other teachers had already said the same thing. An English teacher should be more original.

  For another thing, the image made Listen think that last year she and her friends had been bumping around in shallow water, eating all the fish food, blocking out the sunlight, crowding out the pond, and accidentally knocking little fish in all directions with their enormous, clumsy tails.

  Hey there, kid, her mother’s postcard said. Aren’t you starting junior high this year?!!! Watch out for all the big fish!!!!!! The postcard had arrived two years before. Her mother had always been vague about things like Listen’s age.

  Listen flicked the postcard with her thumbnail a few times, then dropped it back into the drawer.

  HELLO AGAIN! YOU DID IT! IT’S 4 P.M. ON FRIDAY!

  You can go ahead and do the First Spell now. The First Spell is simple. You probably already know this one, but you still have to do it, I’m afraid. You know what I’m talking about?

  A Spell to Make Someone Decide to Take a Taxi.

  Of course! That old favorite. You know the drill. Take two lemons and cut them in half, take five bananas and peel them. Fill up the bathtub with lukewarm water, toss in your lemons and banana peels. WAIT UNTIL 5 O’CLOCK AND THEN say the magic words—“Bob’s your uncle”—and Bob’s your uncle! The Spell is done.

  Now put the Spell Book back under your pillow. Don’t turn the page until the Thursday after next!

  Two

  Tuesday, Cath got a chance to talk to her friends Lenny D’Souza (teacher, Grade 6B, and school counselor) and Suzanne Barker (teacher, Grade 1A). This was at recess.

  Cath told them that, at the start of the summer holiday, she had broken up with her boyfriend from last year. Lenny and Suzanne said, “Oh,” sadly, but Cath just laughed and said she couldn’t even remember his name. Suzanne reminded her what the name was. “Thanks,” said Cath.

  “I never thought he was right for you,” Suzanne offered. “You didn’t have the aura of someone truly loved.”

  “Thanks,” said Cath again.

  Lenny told them she had been out to dinner with, guess who? And Cath said, “Who?” and Lenny said, “Guess,” etc. Then Lenny admitted it was Frank Billson (school principal).

  Cath and Suzanne shrieked, and when Lenny ran to get her sandwich, they lowered their heads and said, “Oh my God,” and raised their eyebrows: “What is she thinking?” Lenny came back, and they straightened their faces and shoulders again.

  Lenny asked Cath what the new guy, Warren Woodford, was like, and Cath was about to reply, but Suzanne interrupted to say she’d heard he studied acting before teaching.

  And Cath found herself thinking, Actually, Suzanne, the new guy belongs to ME.

  Because she was the second-grade teacher.

  On Wednesday, arriving home late after a K through 6 Values and Goals meeting, and tossing her keys and sunglasses onto the table, Cath caught a glimpse of her busy, thoughtful face reflected in the dining room window. She paused to consider the face. “You wouldn’t know,” she said to the window, “that my heart was broken not so long ago.”

  The heart had been broken by last year’s boyfriend, despite what she’d said to Lenny and Suzanne. He had left her for a job in New Orleans. He brought the job to her place one evening; it was in a small, white envelope, and was very enthusiastic about the boyfriend’s environmental science degree. “When do you leave?” she asked, making her voice as amazed and excited as his was.

  “Next week!”

  “And how long is it for?”

  “Indefinite!”

  He then spent the evening hunched over Cath’s dining table, tracing scenic routes on a Louisiana road map with his thumbnail.

  “Are you sure you can see in this light?” Cath had said coldly.

  But he was too excited about the alligators, and only seemed to remember her at the airport. By then, of course, it was too late. His luggage was checked.

  Could he really have broken your heart? said Cath’s reflection skeptically. But then she thought of the nights after he left, how she cried herself to sleep in her empty apartment, kicked the telephone across the room, mistreated the flowers that he sent from New Orleans (she left them to die in their wrapping), cut her hair short, and enrolled in a part-time law degree program. Whether or not he was worth it, he had certainly broken her heart. (He had added a “Cheer up!” note to his flowers from New Orleans.)

  “But now,” she announced to her cat, Violin, as he twirled between her ankles, “I am recovered!” The bell on Violin’s collar tinkled faintly.

  She gazed at herself in the window, thinking of how good it was to be single. Just last night, for example, she had made chocolate chip cookies at midnight, to celebrate the start of the school year! And tonight, she planned to have grilled cheese on toast for dinner. And then watch MTV for as long as she liked. (Most boyfriends get restless and want to watch football instead.) And then go to bed and stay up late reading a novel.

  Lovely!

  And plus, said the tiny, secret voice at the back of her mind, I am sure to get a new boyfriend now that I feel this way! Whenever I get to the stage of happy, independent singlehood, THAT’S when I meet a new boy! It makes me ATTRACTIVE, being happy with JUST ME. I’m about to—

  “HUSH,” she said firmly, and turned away from her reflection. Then she found that she was jittery and had to take a walk to the corner store.

  On Thursday, Cath thought, I like being single! as she walked around the classroom, complimenting children on the pom-poms they were making. I’m going to study law part-time! Some of the children smiled back at her. A girl named Lucinda kept smiling for such a long time that Cath asked if she was all right. “No, because I’m not allowed to call the teacher that,” said Lucinda.

  “Call the teacher what?” said Cath.

  But Lucinda kept smiling, and shook her head, whispering to herself. Cath crouched down to hear what she was whispering.

  “Ms. Murphy,” she was whispering.

  “You’re not allowed to call me Ms. Murphy?” said Cath.

  Lucinda nodded, and her ponytail bounced.

  “But Lucinda, that’s my name!”

  “I can’t say Mzzz,” explained Lucinda, and then shook her head wildly as if she had walked through a spiderweb. “Don’t make me say that sound! I can’t say any word with that sound! That zzz…” She gasped, and shook her head again.

  Luckily, at that moment, the girl beside Lucinda said, “Toilet brush, toilet brush, toilet brush.”

  What was that child’s name? Her name tag was on the floor.

  “CASSIE KEEPS SAYING TOILET BRUSH!” shouted Marcus Ellison.

  Cassie. That’s right. Cassie Zing. She was that little sprinter who broke records at the athletics carnival last year. On the other hand, she had been five minutes late for school that morning. Her mother had written an apology note, which was polite of her. In return, thought Cath sternly
, I should remember her daughter’s name!

  But, to be fair, Cassie Zing’s name tag was rarely on display, because she made dramatic speeches, waving her arms for emphasis and sweeping pencils and name tags to the floor.

  “Toilet brush,” declared Cassie.

  “That’s enough, Cassie,” Cath said firmly.

  Cassie looked up in surprise. “But I have to say it five hundred times!”

  “Who said you have to?”

  “I did.”

  “Well then, tell yourself you don’t have to.”

  “Okay.” She nodded and went back to her pom-pom.

  On Friday, Cath sat on a wooden bench, waiting for Warren Woodford. They were going to have a Grade Two curriculum meeting, but Cath had playground duty. So they would have it outside in the sun. She was swinging her knees to play her secret game in which she imagined she could lever herself up into the sky. She’d had a skiing accident as a teenager, and they used metal joints to reconstruct her knee. Since then, she had thought of her knee as a magic levering hoist.

  As she levered, she called, “Hey there!” crossly, to a boy who dumped a salad sandwich in the trash; “Ho there!” sternly, to a girl who pinched another girl’s nose; and “Hey now” lovingly, to a boy who approached to show a grazed elbow. Once she had dealt with the elbow, she leaned back to get the big picture (mainly games of elastics today and loud conversations about a new computer pet called Mr. Valerio, which you fed by remote control), and to think.

  It’s great being single! is what she thought. But something was bothering her, and she stopped swinging her knees to confront what it was.

  That’s what it was. The one thing she liked about having a boyfriend: the relaxed atmosphere when you meet a new boy. In conversations with boys who might become friends, Cath liked to joke around a bit, maybe even flirt, but she had found that boys grew wary, and found a way to mention my girlfriend. This left Cath feeling irritated, put in her place, and wanting to explain: I’m not making a move, I’m just making friends.