Cackle(29)

“Any flavor? I can do vanilla, hazelnut, maple, cinnamon, honey, almond. I can do lavender, but that’s not for everyone. My son says it tastes like soap.”

“I like the taste,” I say. “Of lavender, not of soap. Though I haven’t tasted a lot of soaps, so who’s to say?”

Really, Annie? Really?

“I like lavender, too,” he says mercifully. “I usually do it with a little almond. I think it balances.”

“I’ll do that, then.”

“Coming up,” he says. He starts working the large fancy espresso machine.

“So, you’re a teacher?” he asks.

“Yes. English and ASL.” I don’t know how he knows. Someone must have told him. I guess it’s that small-town thing: News travels fast. Not that my profession is news, but . . .

“Erik goes to Aster. He’s a freshman.”

“Maybe he’ll be in my class next year.”

He pours the milk, moving his wrist to create a pattern. His eyebrows pinch together, and a strand of silver hair falls in his face.

He pushes the cup toward me.

“On me,” he says. “If you like it, come back again soon.”

“You’ll be back,” Rose says. “Oskar makes the best coffee.”

“Are you sure?” I ask. “I feel bad. I lived in the city, so I’m not used to this . . . this . . .”

“Small-town hospitality?” Oskar asks, stroking his scruff. He smiles. “Don’t worry about it. Enjoy.”

“Thank you so much,” I say, taking the cup. “Bye, Rose!”

“Bye, sweetheart. Have a good day.”

By the time I’m back in my car driving to school, my mood has done a complete one-eighty. It’s all sunshine. The rest of my morning, powered by a latte that tastes like heaven, is pleasant and easy. In my first few classes, everyone behaves.

At lunch, I eat alone in my classroom. I check my phone to see if Sam has reached out at all. He hasn’t, but I have a text from Nadia asking how I am.

Good, I say, and it doesn’t feel like a lie. Town is precious. People are nice. Met a new friend who is super glamorous and lives in a . How are you?

More glamorous than me? Bullshit. I’m good! Hot new history teacher. Mr. Collins. Rawr. I’ll send u a pic if I can get one.

Be stealthy, stalker.

She sends me a series of emojis. Detective. Skull and crossbones. Hearts.

It’s nice of her to think of me.

The day’s going so well that when I hear the first chirp in final period, I get startled and drop the dry-erase marker. But it’s not the chirp itself that gets me. It’s the fact that I let a good mood delude me into thinking happiness was something I could hold in my hands, that it wouldn’t slip through my fingers the moment I stopped fearing it would.

See? my cynicism hisses. See!

I pick up the marker and continue like nothing happened. But it’s too late. The students sense my weakness. They know they’ve gotten to me. That I’m emotionally compromised.

“Bacccc-bacccc-baac-caaaa.”

I ignore it. The chicken sound is new. It gets a few chuckles.

“Caaa-caaaa.”

I can tell it’s coming from one direction, from one person. Chris Bersten.

I turn around. He doesn’t look conspicuously evil. There are no devil horns poking out of his head, no red pentagrams spinning in his pupils. Maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m so ugly, so birdlike, such an easy target, it’s impossible for him to resist.

He opens his mouth, looks straight at me, and does it again.

“Caaa-caaaa.”

Snickers all around the room. A single annoyed sigh from Madison.

“God,” I hear her say.

I can feel my heart descend through my chest and land in the pit of my stomach. I can feel it bobbing around in a rough sea of acid. I might throw up. I might cry. Or lie down right here in the classroom, facedown on the floor, waving tiny white flags.

He opens his mouth again, and I’ve resigned myself to what’s coming next. But then the sound catches in his throat. He retches.

Twenty-five heads swivel toward him in unison.

He does it again. This time, he smacks two palms down on the desk, sending a wave of startled jolts through the room.

Chris’s face was already rosy from laughing, but now it’s red in a way that’s unnatural. That’s disturbing. Like a fire engine. Like a stop sign. Like all of the blood in his body has collected there behind his cheeks, behind his forehead.

He retches again, his posture contorting, the sharp peaks of his shoulders rising up past his ears. His spine curves; his neck juts forward.

He’s making a new noise now. Sam’s parents had a calico cat named Cookie who would emerge from the depths of the basement only to cough up hair balls and eat smelly wet food. It’s like Chris is about to cough up a hair ball. A terrible dry sound rips through his throat.

The rest of the class watches in horror. I watch in horror as he lurches forward. His lips zip together; his cheeks fatten for a moment before he relents. A viscous blob resembling the insides of a rotten black egg slowly emerges from his mouth. The sound it makes when it hits his desk . . . Awful. Like reverse slurp. Eerily wet.

The classroom is silent. Horror is, apparently, an effective tool for silencing a class.