Free Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater Page B

scent of summer roses lingered, out of place in our untidy room, as if maybe she knew I was lying. I grabbed a pen from the top of the dresser, found a bare spot of skin on the base of my thumb, and wrote exorcism and showed it to the room, so she would see it and so I wouldn’t forget. Then I grabbed my backpack and left the smell of Nuala behind me.

    “James,” Sullivan said pleasantly as I slid into my desk. “I trust you slept well?”
    “Like fleets of angels were singing me to slumber,” I assured him, pulling out my notebook.
    “You look well for it,” he replied, his eyes already on the chalkboard. “We were just getting ready to talk about our first real writing assignment, James. Metaphor. We’ve spent the first half of the class discussing metaphor. Familiar with the concept?”
    I wrote metaphor on my hand. “My teacher was like a god.”
    “That’s a simile,” Sullivan said. He wrote like/as on the board. “Simile is a comparison that uses ‘like’ or ‘as.’ Metaphor would be, ‘my teacher was a god.’”
    “And he is,” called out Megan from my right. She giggled and turned red.
    “Thank you, Megan,” Sullivan said, without turning around. He wrote metaphor in Hamlet on the board. “I prefer demi-god, however, until I finish my PhD. So. Ten pages. Metaphor in Hamlet . That’s the assignment. Outline due in two weeks.”
    There were eight groans.
    “Don’t be infants,” Sullivan said. “It will be pitifully easy. Grade-schoolers could write papers on metaphor. Pre schoolers could write papers on metaphor.”
    I underlined the word metaphor on my hand. Metaphor in Hamlet was possibly the most boring topic ever invented. Note to self: slash wrists.
    “James, you look, if possible, less thrilled than your classmates. Is that merely an excess of sleep on your features, or is it really palpable disgust?” Sullivan asked me.
    “It’s not my idea of a wild and crazy time, no,” I replied. “But it’s not as if an English assignment is going to be.”
    Sullivan crossed his arms. “I tell you what, James. And this goes for all of you. If you can think of a wilder and crazier time that you can do for this assignment—that has something to do with Hamlet and/or metaphor—I’m happy to look at outlines for it. The point is for you to learn something in this class. And if you really hate a topic, all you’re going to do is go online and buy a paper anyway.”
    “You can do that?” Paul breathed.
    Sullivan gave him a look. “On that note, get out of here. Start thinking about those outlines and keep up on the reading. We’ll be discussing it next class.”
    The rest of the students packed up and left with impunity, but as I figured, Sullivan called me aside as I was getting ready to go. He waited until all of the other students had exited, and then he closed the door behind them and sat on the edge of his desk. His expression was earnest, sympathetic. The morning light that came in the window behind him backlit his dusty brown hair to white-gold, making him look like a tired angel in a stained-glass window, one of those who’s not so much playing their divine trumpet as listlessly dragging it out of a sense of duty.
    “Do your worst,” I said.
    “I could give you a demerit for being late.” Sullivan said, and as soon as he said it I knew that he wasn’t going to. “But I think I’ll just slap your wrist this time. If it happens again … ”
    “—I’ll hang,” I finished.
    He nodded.
    It would’ve been a good place to say “thanks,” but the word seemed unfamiliar in my mouth. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d said it. I had never thought of myself as an ingrate before.
    Sullivan’s eyes dropped to my hands; I saw them flicking up and down, trying to make sense of the words on my skin. They were all in English, but it was a language only I spoke.
    “I know you’re not just the average kid,” Sullivan said. He frowned, as if that wasn’t really what he