Free A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip by Kevin Brockmeier Page B

lines than Kevin realized, and when, at the climax, he karate chops the gun from Mr. McCallum’s hand, the hoots of applause cause his heart to pound. He could be a movie star, a comedian, Howie Mandel, Ralph Macchio, Harrison Ford, anyone, anyone at all.
    As soon as Miss Vincent has been rescued and the principal is safely in handcuffs, Kevin reveals the final piece of the mystery: “Clint Fulkerson had overheard Mr. McCallum talking to himself about the plan,” he explains, “and Mr. McCallum caught him. So, at lunch, he sleeping-powdered Clint’s drink so he wouldn’t expose him.”
    That’s it, his last line, and he feels as if the stage is spinning on a turntable, the way his bed seemed to do whenever he wore himself out as a kid.
    Shane takes over again as the narrator: “Police walk out with Mr. McCallum. The police took Mr. McCallum to jail. I had succeeded and somehow knew this was only the beginningof my career as a detective.” He dabs a “The End” lightly onto the end of the sentence, like calamine lotion.
    It takes the audience a moment to realize the play is over. Once they do, they erupt in cheers. And okay, Kevin’s not stupid, probably the applause is so loud because the performance ran longer than a sermon would, chopping a good fifteen minutes out of second period, but that’s all right, he doesn’t mind. You don’t clap because you’re overjoyed. You clap because it’s time to clap.
    The rest of the day glides lightly over the treetops and to the ground. Kevin has a funny sensation of freedom and blamelessness, as if he is secretly at school on some dream of a Saturday, pretending along with everyone else that it’s important to attend class and obey the bells. The bulletin boards, the polished floors, even the fluorescent lights make him curiously happy. The whole giant building could cascade down around him in a sheet of water. It would hardly seem any less real. He wonders if this is how the others feel all year long.
    In English, Miss Vincent hams it up for the class, holding her wrist to her brow and calling Kevin “my rescuer.” In geography, Coach Dale gives him one of his certificates with the drawing of the hand making the A-OK sign—Attaboys, he calls them, and “I’m awarding this particular Attaboy to Mr. Brockmeier for being our Playwriter of the Year.” And that afternoon, in PE, before dressing out, when Kevin joins the rest of the kids by the thick purple-and-gold mat Velcroed to the wall beneath the scoreboard, Bateman makes a point of posing his head on his neck just so and presenting an enormous laugh, a big barking show-offy thing that goes onand on and on. Kevin can’t quite tell: Is he laughing because he thinks Kevin embarrassed himself, really and truly, or because he decided he would laugh and by God he’s going to laugh?
    By the next morning, the school is mostly itself again, with only a trace of yesterday’s weird agreeability. Even that disappears when Ethan shows Kevin the book he found:
Another Fine Myth
, with Skeeve the magician, Aahz the demon, Gleep the dragon, and the ivy-haired assassin Tananda, her short dress spray-painted onto her curves. The four of them march along a cobblestone path between hillsides studded with castles and houses and evergreens.
    Kevin can’t believe it. “Where did you unearth that?”
    “Lucky find. The B. Dalton in Park Plaza. They had the other three, too. Tananda is
hot
, isn’t she? Way hotter than I pictured her.”
    “Wait. There are
three
others?”
    “Yeah, mine and yours and
Myth Conceptions
, plus a new one called
Hit or Myth
, with Skeeve and Gleep and that same absentee unicorn on the cover. Except I bought this one, and it was their only copy. I’m waiting for my dad to give me my allowance, then I’m going to snag the others.”
    The bell sounds, and a couple of latecomers slip into their desks. The door stutters closed on its hinged brass doorstop. As Mr. Garland takes roll, Ethan tucks the