The Assignment

Young Sycamore wriggled his way further along the branch, to get a better look in through the window of the second floor classroom. Inside, Mr. Burkhardt, who had been collecting homework, was berating one of his students. Young Sycamore grinned a sly grin and listened.

Mr. Burkhardt stared sternly at Michelle Preston. “Do I understand, Ms. Preston, that you have not completed your assignment?”

Michelle Preston withstood Mr. Burkhardt’s glare, her face screwed into a sort of put-upon, slightly incredulous expression.

“Yeah,” she said, more like “yaauh,” on a rising, questioning note. She hated that, hated when it came out like that. But Mr. Burkhardt was such a . . . . Well, anyway, he was. She looked at him. He seemed, for a moment, to have kind of a shimmer around his head. Then he moved away from the window. Outside, the trees waved twiggy fingers at her.

Mr. Burkhardt continued. “I seem to recall, Ms. Preston, a specific commitment, on your part, to turn in your next assignment on time.” He lifted his eyebrows cynically. “Am I correct?”

Michelle tried very hard, but, somehow, her second “yeah” came out exactly the same as the first.

“Late work will not be accepted, Ms. Preston. From you,” and here he cast his deadliest stare over the rest of the class, “or from any one else. Is that clear?”

There was a general, resentful, murmur of what passed for assent. Several students directed their own deadly stares at Michelle.

“You may sit down, Ms. Preston,” said Mr. Burkhardt, using his coldest tone.

He hated to do it, hated to use that tone, those expressions. Mr. Schultz, his supervisor during his student teaching year, had assured him that a stern manner was essential for a teacher. David Burkhardt had actually practiced in front of a mirror, tightening the muscles of his face, a face that seemed doomed to present the appearance of a bland, cheerful teenager, even now, in his forty-second year. But how else could he induce them, coerce them, inveigle them. He didn’t know.

He noticed that Michelle Preston was sitting at her desk with a most peculiar, quizzical expression. She seemed, also, to have a kind of glow about her. Mr. Burkhardt shook his head. He looked out the window, where he could see the sun flickering behind spreading clouds.

He decided she must have been thinking about her habits of speech. He agreed with her. He hated that dreadful practice, turning any statement into a question. He had pointed it out to her, several times. He sighed. He didn’t really know what else to do.

* * * * *

The sky was darkening toward a storm when Mr. Burkhardt left the faculty lunch room, heading to his car. He hoped it wouldn’t rain before he got home. He hated driving in the rain. As he approached his car he caught sight of Michelle Preston lounging against the boy’s gym with a collection of other girls. He saw her notice him, and break off from her friends. He had a sinking feeling, knowing what was coming next.

Michelle approached, through a swirl of dust and brown leaves. Mr. Burkhardt moved to interpose his car between them. He put on his coldest stare, but the affect was somewhat ruined when a mote, from the dust that seemed to be following Michelle, blew into his eye and made him blink.

“Mr. Burkhardt,” Michelle began.

“Ms. Preston,” he said, raising his voice to cut through her impending plea. “I believe I’ve made myself clear. No late work.”

“Mr. Burkhardt,” she began again.

“Ms. Preston,” he interrupted again, raising his voice further, against a rising wind as well as Michelle’s inevitable sob story. He realized, with considerable dread, that the rain would indeed begin before he got home. If he didn’t put Michelle Preston out of her misery soon, it might even start before he managed to get in the car.

“Mr. Burkhardt!” Michelle yelled, stamping her foot.

David found himself diverted from his train of thought. He noticed Michelle’s angry expression, and suddenly realized she hadn’t been sporting the “poor me” look his students usually had when weaseling an extension out of him. He dropped his “stern Mr. Burkhardt” expression, then was suddenly fearful that this might be ... Well, something else.

“Mr. Burkhardt,” Michelle began, for the third time, her voice lower, but still speaking loudly, to make herself heard over the wind that was now, clearly, preceding a serious thunderstorm.

“Mr. Burkhardt, I just wanted to apologize. I promised I’d get that essay done, and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

The dust devil, that had been quietly swirling around Michelle’s feet, shot suddenly upward. There was a rumble of thunder, and the rain burst upon them.

There was no help for it, they must both get into his car or get thoroughly drenched. It was not even a matter of finishing a conversation. Michelle obviously had no raincoat either, and even the short dash to the shelter of the gym would leave her soaked.

“Get in,” he yelled. “Get in!” And he wrenched the driver's side door open and dived for the safety of the interior.

Young Sycamore settled back to the pavement and scuttled under the car to listen. This was definitely getting better.

By the time he finished brushing water from his hair, Michelle had got herself, and her books, into the passenger’s seat, and the door closed against the deluge. Mr. Burkhardt found himself looking at Michelle in a whole new light. A sort of shimmer, in fact. Before whatever it was got out of hand, he turned to look at the storm, which was hailing now. He hoped Michelle hadn’t noticed any misconstruable looks on his face.

But Michelle was having her own difficulties. Mr. Burkhardt’s short hair, that was usually plastered against his head, was now, after his efforts to dry it, sticking up in a wild, spiky helmet. He looked very attractive. She discovered that his face, usually disciplined into the stern mask of the teacher, was really quite young looking, actually kind of cute. She got a sort of queasy feeling, and turned, also, to look at the storm.

“Woah,” she said, “I’ve never seen it hail so hard before.”

“Oh, well, it does, every so often,” Mr. Burkhardt replied. Although it seemed to be doing it quite a lot this year.

“Look, Mr. Burkhardt, like I said, I apologize. I really meant to turn it in on time. And I had it all done. But then I lost it.”

“I’m sorry, Michelle. I wish I could make an exception.” Like he had done too often in the past, he thought.

“No, it’s all right. I know you have to be, you know, fair.” Although it didn’t really seem fair. She had got it written. She’d written it out, and left it on her desk, and went down to dinner. At least she thought she had. When she got back to her room, after dinner, and the episode of “Friends,” it wasn’t there. She’d left the window open, and a breeze had scattered her papers every where. When she’d got them collected, her essay on A Midsummer Night’s Dream was simply gone.

And then her brother started playing his music, although she hadn’t been aware he’d got the latest Snoop Doggy Dog album, and she’d had to ask her mother to get him to turn it down. And then she’d tried to write it all out again, but somehow she just couldn’t seem to get it right.

“Well, I guess I’d better go home. Thanks for keeping me from drowning, anyway.”

Michelle gathered up her books. Just as she opened the door, the rain, that had begun to let up, burst upon them again, mixed with hail, and she hastily withdrew back into the car and shut the door.

David Burkhardt, as best he could, gripped the bull by the horns and offered Michelle a ride home.

“It won’t be pleasant, I’m afraid. I hate driving in the rain. But I can’s see any help for it. Unless you care to get soaked.” Then he had a thought. “Or are your parents home? Can I take you to a phone booth.”

“No, ‘fraid not,” Michelle said, looking gloomily at the ice collecting on the hood of the car. “They don’t get home until after six.”

“Ah, yes.” He took a deep breath, and let it out. “Well. Wish us luck.”

“This is really sweet of you, Mr. Burkhardt,” Michelle said.

They had been looking into each others eyes. They turned to stare out the windshield, watching rain and hail beat down on the sycamore leaves that had settled onto the hood. Mr. Burkhardt started the car and backed out of his parking space. As he pulled out of the lot, a few damp leaves swirled up and seemed to follow them.

* * * * *

Michelle’s house turned out to be on one of those narrow, twisty streets in the Uplands, behind the Claremont Hotel. The wind was blowing fiercely, slatting rain and hail against the side of the car, bending the trees wildly. Leaves and small branches were whipping by, occasionally slapping against the car. There was a lull in the downpour, the wind died down. And then a curious precipitation began.

David had never seen anything like this; something rather like hailstones, but sort of drifting down, rather than falling like rocks. And it was coming down heavily, coating the street in white.

“What is that?” Michelle asked, a note of fear in her voice.

David slowed the car, watching the strange white balls swirling and drifting in the wind.

“I think this must be snow,” he said. Michelle looked at him incredulously. “I think they call this ‘corn’ snow. It’s supposed to be like little snowballs.” He rolled down his window and stuck out his hand, capturing a half dozen of the white pebbles. They were too light to be hail. He poured them, already half melted, into Michelle’s hand. “See, they aren’t solid, like hail. They’re sort of fluffy.”

Michelle looked at the stuff in her palm. Mr. Burkhardt was leaning toward her, looking at them too, one hand on the steering wheel, the other sort of hovering near hers, as if wanting to touch it. For a moment she let her hand brush against his.

Then they both seemed to realize what was happening. Michelle jerked her hand, the water and mostly melted corn snow went flying and struck Mr. Burkhardt in the face.

“Oh, Mr. Burkhardt, I’m sorry,” Michelle wailed, reaching out toward him.

“No! No, don’t worry about it, it’s fine,” David said, wiping his face with his sleeve, putting his arm between himself and the girl, his student, who seemed to be positively radiating ... well, something. He got the car moving again.

Almost immediately, the car went into a skid. The corn snow had coated the street with ice. David’s car slid slowly sideways, going straight when it should have been negotiating a curve, and fetched up, almost gently, against a tree. The engine died. Mr. Burkhardt’s heart was beating very fast. He held the steering wheel in a death grip, his body rigid, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When several moments passed and nothing untoward happened, no sound other than the soft pattering of the corn snow against the car, and the whipping of the wind through the trees, David relaxed enough to turn to Michelle, to see if she was all right.

Michelle had braced herself into the corner made by the back of the old car’s bench seat, and the door. Her face was flushed an attractive rosy pink, and she was staring at David. In the brief moment during which the car was slipping sideways, Michelle had been sure she was going to die. Or at least be horribly mutilated. But, somehow, Mr. Burkhardt had prevented this, bringing them safely to rest against this tree. He hadn’t panicked. He had kept hold of the steering wheel and brought them to this place of safety. He was a hero.

“Ms. Preston? Are you okay?”

Michelle relaxed. “Yes, I think so,” she said, with that irritating lift at the end. Then, almost without willing it, she said, “Mr. Burkhardt? Would you call me Michelle?”

At that moment there was nothing he had rather do. “And you, m ... Michelle, you must call me David.”

Michelle looked startled, as though she hadn’t considered that Mr. Burkhardt might have a first name. They were looking in each others eyes again, and they had moved, without realizing it, rather close together on the seat. Something immanent hung between them.

Then a trickle of water rolled down from David’s spiky, wet hair, and ran right into his eye. It stung horribly. David decided he would absolutely stop using that mousse stuff.

Michelle was deeply concerned, especially with Mr. Burkhardt, David, going “aah, aah,” and rubbing his eye. But the mood of the moment was broken, and she started looking around, trying to figure out where they were.

The car was up against a large sycamore, somewhere in the middle of a long tunnel of trees, with no houses nearby. Michelle didn’t recognize anything, she couldn’t remember any tunnel of trees like this on her usual route home. David was trying to flush the mousse out of his eye, holding the upper lid down over the lower, making his eye water. When he finally looked up at her, his face was blotched and damp. He looked like he might have been in a fight.

“David? Um, Mr. Burkhardt?” David looked at her attractively concerned expression. “I think we’re lost?”

There was that damnable lilt again. Suddenly she looked like just another ignorant teenager again. “Of course we’re not lost,” David said, a note of contempt steeling his voice. “We can’t be lost, we’re in Berkeley.”

“I know we’re in Berkeley,” Michelle retorted. “I just meant that I don’t know where we are, in Berkeley.” This last was drawled out sarcastically.

David humphed at her, secretly pleased that she showed herself capable of sarcasm. He tried the ignition. The engine growled a few times, then turned over. There was a loud CRACK! over their heads, a wild rustling sound, as of something falling, and then a loud thump on the hood, attended by considerable rocking of the car. The engine died again.

Michelle and David stared out through the windshield at something large, green, and staring right back at them.

Whatever it was, it lifted one skinny, bark coated arm, and flung a mass of white fluffy balls at them. The balls splashed against the glass, but something else, a sort of glimmer, passed right on through and struck them both in their faces.

They turned to look at each other. Michelle had never seen anyone more handsome. David had never beheld anyone more fetching. Each reached out a hand, which met the other, and interlaced their fingers.

David felt something burning in his heart. He wondered, incongruously, if it was love, or the fast-food hamburger he’d had for lunch. Michelle was gravitating toward him in the seat. Something seemed out of place. He realized, suddenly, that it wasn’t love, or heartburn, but a kernel of anger. Michelle was almost in his arms.

David concentrated on the burning, nurturing it, feeding it. Didn’t these kids have enough trouble? Wasn’t it hard enough, with absent parents, lousy television programming, and everyone in the world selling them sex? Did they really need some damn fairy (fairy?) throwing glamours at them. Not to mention the trouble he’d be getting himself into.

The fire was warming him now. He felt the heat, saw steam rising, swirling up from his damp clothes into the narrow space between his face and hers. “Michelle,” he said. It came out in a sort of low, seductive whisper.

“David,” she said, matching his tone.

He squeezed her hand and tried again. “Michelle. Ms. Preston.” The “Ms” seemed to give him strength. “Ms. Preston, we must fight this.” A flicker of confusion crossed her face. “This is a glamour, Ms. Preston. You must fight it.”

“Glamour?” she asked. “I read Glamour.”

“No, not Glamour, Ms. Preston, a glamour. A spell.”

Michelle’s confusion was growing. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. They were supposed to just, sort of slide together, their lips meeting tentatively, then warming, burning ...

Burning. Was something burning? Michelle noticed smoke in front of her face. Or was it steam. There was a smell of damp wool, and, like, dry cleaning. She jerked her head back.

Mr. Burkhardt was saying something. She blinked her eyes and looked at him.

Mr. Burkhardt had on one of his best “stern Mr. Burkhardt” expressions. But it was different. There was heat in it. He was saying, “fight it, Ms. Preston. Can you fight it?”

Michelle swallowed. Her throat was dry. She opened her mouth and said, “yeah?”

Mr. Burkhardt’s expression took on a note of disgust. “Say it like you mean it, Ms. Preston.” Michelle closed her mouth, and opened it again. “Say it, Ms. Preston!”

“Yeah,” she said again. It had sort of a hump in the middle.

“Say it again, Ms. Preston. Michelle. Please!”

Mr. Burkhardt was obviously getting desperate. His face was trembling. A look of deep passion was fighting with the fiercest, sternest look Michelle had ever seen. She closed her eyes and reached down into a well of strength she hadn’t known she possessed. She opened her mouth. She said, “Yeah!”

The word came out with a deeply satisfying, dead-flat certainty. She opened her eyes. She and Mr. Burkhardt blinked at each other.

There was a scraping groan from the front of the car, and they both turned to look in time to see a large branch, from the sycamore tree against which they had stopped, slide slowly down the hood and disappear in front of the car.

“Woah,” Michelle said.

“Yeah,” David replied.

They turned to look at each other. Michelle saw her English Literature teacher, his hair in damp, drooping spikes, water steaming gently from his inevitable sport coat. David saw one of his students; not one of the brightest, but certainly capable enough, if she would just try. They blinked and looked away.

The rain had stopped. David got out of the car and went around the front to drag the branch out of the way. His feet crunched in the rapidly melting remnants of the corn snow. He got back in the car and started it. They discovered they had missed Michelle’s street by one turn, ending up on a street up the hill above hers. Michelle had never gone up there. Mr. Burkhardt stopped at the gate in front of her house.

As she was getting out he said, “If you bring in your assignment tomorrow, I’ll accept it. I’ll have to mark you down, for being late. But it well be better than no grade at all. Won’t it?”

Michelle said, “Yes. Thanks. And thanks for, like, everything. You know?”

Mr. Burkhardt said, “Yeah.” It came out almost like a question. He said, “Yeah,” again, definitely, “and thank you.”

Michelle said, “Yeah.” And smiled. She turned in through the gate.

* * * * *

A wet, bedraggled sprite stood before the throne, his suit of sycamore leaves and bark dribbling water on the otherwise spotless flagstones. Queen Mab turned her coldest stare on the young spirit, freezing him where he stood.

In her iciest tone she said, “Do I understand, Mr. Sycamore, that you have failed to complete your assignment?”