Tales From Beyond the Brain Read online

  Text copyright © Jeff Szpirglas, 2019

  Illustrations copyright © Steven P. Hughes, 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Tales from beyond the brain / Jeff Szpirglas; illustrated by Steven P. Hughes.

  Names: Szpirglas, Jeff, author. | Hughes, Steven P., 1989– illustrator.

  Description: Short stories.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190065575 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190065605 | ISBN 9781459820791 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459820807 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459820814 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8637.Z65 T35 2019 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019934051

  Simultaneously published in Canada and the United States in 2019

  Summary: A collection of stories for middle readers that ranges from the hilarious to the horrifying.

  Orca Book Publishers is committed to reducing the consumption of nonrenewable resources in the making of our books. We make every effort to use materials that support a sustainable future.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Edited by Tanya Trafford

  Design by Jenn Playford

  Illustrations and cover image by Steven P. Hughes

  Author photo by Danielle Saint-Onge

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  22 21 20 19 • 4 3 2 1

  A few of these stories have appeared elsewhere in different forms. “Scratch” was previously published in 2013 in Dark Moon Digest (Young Adult Edition, Issue 1); “Chewy Ones” was previously published in 2011 in 31 Days of Halloween; “Evil Eye” was adapted into a full-length novel of the same name and published by Star Crossed Press in 2012.

  FOR DANIELLE, LÉO, RUBY, ALWAYS.

  CONTENTS

  AN APPLE A DAY

  THE PAPER CUT

  TWENTY-FOUR FRAMES PER SECOND

  TWO BRAINS, ONE ALICE

  SCRATCH

  WHISKERS

  A KERNEL TAKES ROOT

  CHEWY ONES

  LAST OF THE DAVES

  STUFFING

  THE READING GROUP

  EVIL EYE

  THE PAGE TURNER

  AN APPLE A DAY

  Megan knew that the Student of the Day was expected to give Mr. Oakwood an apple. It was one of those things nobody questioned, like standing up to sing the national anthem, or lining up with your class outside the school when the entry bell rang.

  The Student of the Day was Mr. Oakwood’s way of giving each kid in the class all of the jobs to do—running the attendance, handing out materials, helping to tidy the class library. But the apple payment? Mr. Oakwood never asked for them. You just placed one at the corner of his desk when you gathered the work folders to hand out. No school day truly began without the loud crunch of Mr. Oakwood chowing down on his daily apple before morning announcements.

  Megan sat close enough to Mr. Oakwood’s desk to see every manner of apple find its way there: Red, Golden Delicious, Spartan, Northern Spy, Granny Smith. There had probably been more kinds of apples placed on Mr. Oakwood’s desk than there were kids in the class.

  One Thursday morning Megan watched Lewis Stoller mope into class with his head hung down, his hands jammed deep into his pockets. When he looked up, Megan noticed his eyes were red and puffy.

  Lewis stopped at the corner of Mr. Oakwood’s desk. There were heaps of books and binders and file folders jammed with all sorts of papers, including drawings the teacher had torn from the hands of distracted students. The desk was messier than the aftermath of a Category 5 hurricane…except for a single perfectly clear spot in the corner reserved for Oakwood’s Apple.

  Lewis stared at the empty space. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and then turned his head to glance at the blackboard in the distance. His name was scrawled in chalk letters below the sign that said STUDENT OF THE DAY.

  Lewis sniffed and reached into his pocket. Slowly he pulled out a small red lump. His hand was shaking so violently that it took Megan a second to figure out what she was seeing. It was an apple so tiny and bruised you’d be hard pressed to call the thing edible.

  Breathing heavily, Lewis placed the apple on the desk corner and backed away. He turned around only to bump right into Mr. Oakwood’s bulky frame.

  Using his finger and thumb like a pair of tweezers, Mr. Oakwood reached over Lewis and lifted the apple to eye level. He inspected every blemish and bruise as if poring over the flaws in a diamond. His eyes narrowed, and he shifted his focus from the apple to Lewis. Normally, Mr. Oakwood would give the apple an approving crunch. This time he deposited it into his sweater pocket with a scowl.

  Megan was good at noticing things. Like how many extra jobs Mr. Oakwood had for Lewis that day. Lewis had to stay in during recess to tidy his own desk. He had to reorganize all the dusty old books in the class library alphabetically. And wash the blackboard too. Megan sat close enough to Lewis to see that when their English assignments were handed back, his had THIS IS NO GOOD. TRY AGAIN. scrawled across the top in red block letters.

  Suddenly Lewis was crying.

  No, sobbing.

  He crumpled up his work and tossed it on the floor.

  “Is something the matter, Lewis?” Mr. Oakwood asked.

  Lewis stormed out of the room and into the hall.

  Megan saw a satisfied grin slide across Mr. Oakwood’s face. She peered over her desk and stared at the paper on the floor. She could read the title of Lewis’s story, “Why I Love My Family.”

  After the lunch bell rang, Mr. Oakwood began to sort the papers that had collected on his desk into neat little piles. Usually the Student of the Day did that, but Lewis had been sent to the office for leaving the classroom without permission.

  While the rest of her classmates ate their lunches, Megan got out of her seat and approached the teacher.

  “It’s about the apple, isn’t it?” she asked quietly.

  “I beg your pardon?” Mr. Oakwood put his hands into his sweater pockets and pulled the material down low, stretching it across his thick frame.

  “Lewis didn’t give you a good apple, so you made him stay in for recess—”

  “He’s the Student of the Day, and I need help,” Mr. Oakwood replied.

  “You didn’t like the apple he gave you.”

  “Lewis Stoller gave me a bad apple.”

  “And you need your apples to be perfect, don’t you?”

  Megan heard a muffled crunch. She didn’t need Mr. Oakwood to pull his hands out of his pockets to know he had just squeezed the tiny apple into a pulp.

  Megan decided she should probably stop talking. As she turned to head back to her desk, a flutter of movement caught her eyes. Something small buzzed past the windowsill.

  Mr. Oakwood’s eyes bulged in their sockets. “A bee!” he exclaimed. “Quick, kill the thing!”

  The teacher leaped onto his chair as the flying insect loop-de-looped around the room.

  The bee landed on the edge of Mr. Oakwood’s desk. Megan stepped closer to inspect it. “Anthophora,” she mused, grabbing a piece of paper off the desk. She gently placed it beside the bee. The bee crawl
ed up onto the paper.

  “You’re crazy!” someone said in a squeaky voice. Megan thought it was one of the other kids in the room but then realized it was Mr. Oakwood.

  Megan shook her head. “You don’t want to move, Mr. Oakwood. Or even scream. That will only make it angry.”

  Carefully balancing the paper, Megan walked past the teacher and a cluster of terrified kids. She opened the window and shook the paper until the bee flew away. Then she turned back to face the class. “It’s just a bee. Nothing to worry about, as long as you keep calm.”

  “You’re weird,” Megan heard one of her classmates mutter.

  Megan shrugged. People had been saying things like that about her since she was a little girl. She wasn’t afraid of anything creepy-crawly. Megan figured it was because she was kind of like a bee herself. People kept their distance, and that suited her just fine.

  But, like a bee, when Megan got angry, she could sting.

  And Megan was very, very angry with Mr. Oakwood.

  On Monday morning Megan’s heart thumped heavily in her chest as she approached Mr. Oakwood’s desk. As usual, amid the chaos of papers and files, a small corner of the desk had been cleared for her offering.

  Megan dug her hands into her pockets. In her left pocket she could feel the round globe of the apple her mother had given her. She squeezed its spherical form between the pads of her fingertips and the palm of her hand. The fruit resisted her touch. She tapped it with a fingernail. The apple was ripe but firm, just the way Mr. Oakwood liked it. There was not a bump or scratch on it. Megan wondered how long her mother had scoured the grocery store, looking for the perfect one. A few minutes? A few hours?

  Megan pulled her hand out of her other pocket and placed the fig on Mr. Oakwood’s desk.

  A shadow appeared to sail past her. She felt a gust of wind. Papers fluttered. When she looked up, Mr. Oakwood was standing before her, eyeing the strange object on his desk.

  “Hello, Megan. What’s this?”

  He had broken his own rule, Megan noted. Mr. Oakwood never discussed his payment.

  Maybe that was because nobody ever forgot to bring him an apple. Even if it was mealy and pitiful.

  “It’s a fig,” Megan said.

  Mr. Oakwood picked it up and studied it. “A fig?”

  “I know you like apples, but we didn’t have any at home. Figs are tasty too.”

  “Oh.” Mr. Oakwood looked disappointed. Megan had always brought him an apple when she was Student of the Day. But there was something else in his expression too. Curiosity.

  Megan’s father had taught her all about being curious. He worked with insects for the museum. He was an entomologist, and his job was studying tiny creatures. He was excellent at spotting little details, like how the antennae on one species of ant were bent on a slightly different angle than those of another species. He could count the spots on a ladybug and tell you if it came from North Carolina or Southern California. Megan’s dad spent most of his time peering at the world through magnifying glasses. From him Megan had learned to spot little details too, like the expression on Mr. Oakwood’s face.

  He wanted to eat the fig. Megan knew this at once. As she turned to go back to her desk, she recognized the sound of chewing behind her. The fig wasn’t crunchy like an apple, but it was tasty.

  She heard Mr. Oakwood swallow, and she smiled.

  Megan didn’t mind when Mr. Oakwood dropped a stack of science textbooks on her desk in the middle of silent reading, even though the sudden noise made her gasp and drop her own book. She didn’t mind when Mr. Oakwood glowered at her and ordered her to stay in during morning recess and erase all the penciled-in graffiti in them.

  All the while, she kept her eye on Mr. Oakwood, watching and waiting.

  The end-of-recess bell rang. In a few moments the hallway was buzzing with hundreds of kids, throwing their jackets onto hooks and changing from outdoor shoes into indoor shoes. Twenty or so spilled in through the door and shuffled back to their seats.

  As Megan finished putting the books away, Mr. Oakwood told the kids to assemble at the front of the room for a math lesson. He’d only started to write a few math questions on the blackboard when he clutched his stomach and pitched forward.

  Matthew Reyes, one of Megan’s classmates, raised an eyebrow. “Are you feeling okay, Mr. Oakwood?”

  Mr. Oakwood swallowed. Hard. He had a far-off look in his eyes, the kind you get when you suddenly want to throw up. “I’m fine.”

  Megan knew Mr. Oakwood was not fine. She could see little beads of sweat popping up on his forehead.

  “Maybe it was something you ate,” Lewis said.

  “I said I’m fine.”

  “You did eat Megan’s weird fruit,” Lewis said.

  “It wasn’t an apple,” Matthew added. He hadn’t raised his hand, but Mr. Oakwood was too busy wiping the sweat from his brow and trying not to puke to notice that kids were speaking out of turn.

  “It was a fig!” another student chimed in. “I’ve eaten figs before.”

  Megan decided it was time to explain. “It’s a caducous fig,” she said. “Mr. Oakwood, did you know that figs are pollinated by wasps?”

  Mr. Oakwood blinked once, twice. He held his hands in front of his eyes and waved his fingers. “Huh?”

  “It’s true,” she say, nodding. “You see, Mr. Oakwood, figs are actually inside-out flowers. And flowers get pollinated by insects. Like bees. Or wasps.”

  Mr. Oakwood opened his mouth to respond. Instead of words, out came a burp.

  Nervous giggles rippled through the classroom. Megan giggled too.

  “Some wasps crawl deep inside certain figs, like a caducous fig. They crawl so deep into the narrow opening that their wings and antennae break off. But that’s okay, because they don’t need to leave ever again.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Mr. Oakwood said. He burped again. A stream of liquid dribbled down his chin. It was kind of brownish red.

  “My dad’s an entomologist. He studies insects.”

  “I know what an entomologist is,” Mr. Oakwood snapped.

  “He studies wasps, you know. He breeds them downstairs in our basement. He has all kinds of specimens.”

  Suddenly Mr. Oakwood clutched his stomach and let out a high-pitched shriek. Other kids in the class did the same. They’d never seen their mean old teacher looking or acting like this before.

  Megan didn’t shriek. She knew exactly why Mr. Oakwood was clutching his stomach like that. She leaned forward. “Did you know I found out the combination to my dad’s aquarium lock? It was pretty easy. He used the letters of my name. That was awful nice of him. And since I’m such a good watcher, Mr. Oakwood, I knew the exact strain of eggs to take out.”

  “Eggs?” Mr. Oakwood croaked. He could manage only the one word, and then he had to cover his mouth with his hands.

  Megan nodded. “Some wasps, after they crawl into figs and lose their wings, will lay eggs. The eggs live inside the fig. The fig goes into somebody’s stomach. The stomach is warm and toasty. Just what those eggs need to hatch. What you may not know is that it’s not one or two baby wasps that are born. It’s tens, maybe even hundreds.”

  Mr. Oakwood burped again. His eyes went wide. He opened his mouth.

  Lewis Stoller pointed and screamed.

  Something crawled out of the corner of Mr. Oakwood’s mouth. Something with six legs, a striped body and a set of slender wings.

  The creature buzzed and flew off. In its place, crawling out from the corner of Mr. Oakwood’s mouth, were three more.

  Mr. Oakwood’s eyes were wide and bulging. Wasp after wasp flew from his mouth. He clutched at his throat. Megan knew he must be feeling the wriggling of dozens of the insects

  crawling up his throat, rubbing their wings together as they buzzed their way to freedom.

  Megan knew better than to scream or start running, like the rest of her classmates were doing. You had to be careful around stinging insects. Sure, m
aybe one or two of her classmates would get stung. But what if you had two hundred living inside of you?

  In a few moments it was just Megan and Mr. Oakwood sitting at the front of the room.

  The teacher gargled out a strained cry. Megan shook her head. “Oh no, Mr. Oakwood. You don’t want to move. Or even scream. That will only make them angry.”

  Megan looked past Mr. Oakwood. The room was filling with a cloud of busy wasps. They wriggled into nooks in the wall. Some of them were chewing up the papers on Mr. Oakwood’s desk.

  Megan understood wasps. Some species, like those pesky humans, only seemed to look out for themselves. Some humans, like Mr. Oakwood, were cruel and greedy. Wasps were not greedy. They were fierce, they were brutal, but they always looked out for their queen. Wasps were a species Megan could get behind.

  A dozen or more wasps came to land on the smooth skin of her arms. She kept perfectly still. She could feel them wriggling under her sleeve. Their legs tickled the hairs on her skin as they made their way up. She looked back at her teacher. His entire body was covered with a thick blanket of living, buzzing insects.

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Mr. Oakwood, as long as you keep calm.”

  THE PAPER CUT

  Mike and Jerry had better things to do than listen to Mrs. Taylor drone on about making text-to-self connections to their reading. Jerry was trying to come up with an excuse to leave the classroom for the fifth time that day. Nothing made him want to skip class more than Mrs. Taylor and her mind-numbing lessons. He pushed his chair back and stretched his legs. Mike leaned across the desk in the next row and flashed a big grin.

  “I bet I can make a better paper airplane than you,” said Mike.

  “You’re on!”

  Suddenly the two boys were tearing papers out of their notebooks. Mike folded his into a standard dart plane. Jerry turned his into a weird, multisided origami-style flier.

  Nobody noticed them doing this. Not Mrs. Taylor. Not even Makayla, who sat closest to the two boys.