All the Colors of Time (22 page)

“But, it’s not fair for us to ask them to give up their
work.”

“We’re not asking them to give up their work, Tar. We’re
just asking them to reorganize it a little.”

“Reorganize?” repeated Tahireh dubiously.

“Yeah,” said Tam and munched another handful of chips.

oOo

No one in Papillion, Nebraska had ever seen an outfit like
the one Anastasia Jones wore on a particular Monday. The ankle-length jumper
was a deep shade of burgundy that rivaled its wearer’s hair. That hair was
caught up in a fluorescing green clip on one side of her head, forming a
stiffened fan. From her ears dangled the most amazing set of orange and green “giant
fishing lures” imaginable, and the shirt she wore was of a shade of orange
almost never found in nature.

Heads turned the moment she took off her jacket and stuffed
it into her locker. They kept turning as she paraded the halls on her way to
class. She smiled at Miss Tindall’s stare and ignored the whispered wise-cracks
of her classmates. When, during a morning study break, Miss Tindall called her
into the hall again, she was calm, smiling, amiable.

“Yes, Miss Tindall?” she said sweetly.

“I thought your mother bought some new clothes for you.”

“She did.”

The teacher made an uncertain gesture. “Well, then—”

“I like these clothes, Miss Tindall. They . . .
suit me.” Her smile widened. “Don’t you think?”

“I’m not sure they’re suitable for school.” Miss Tindall was
making a gallant attempt to sound kind and wise.

Stasi feigned bemusement. “Why not? Is there a rule against
them?”

“Well . . . no, but they are distracting to
the other students.”

“That’s not my fault, is it? Besides, I think they’ll get
used to it.”

Miss Tindall frowned. “That’s a poor attitude, young lady.”

“Why? I’m not breaking any rules and I’m not hurting
anybody. I’m just being myself. What’s wrong with that?”

Miss Tindall sucked in her lips and fixed Stasi with a look
that might have frozen a lesser fifteen-year-old on the spot. Stasi smiled.

Miss Tindall tried another tack. “Stasi, dear, can’t you
hear them laughing at you? Don’t you care if you become a laughing stock?”

Stasi thought about that. “No,” she said.

“No,” repeated Miss Tindall.

Stasi shook her head. “I’d rather be a laughing stock and be
different than look just like everyone else.”

“I see.”

“May I go study now, please?”

Speechless, Miss Tindall opened the door and ushered her in.

oOo

Tahireh stood before her class with total aplomb, dressed
in an azure linen sari that, with the lime green shirt she’d elected to wear
under it, made her look like an elongated peacock. Her blonde hair cascaded in
a fountain from a tiny topless blue fez.

“When I Grow Up—an essay by Tahireh Jones. Ahem. When I grow
up I plan to be a scientist like my mother. And, like my mother, I would like
to have my first Master’s degree by the time I’m fifteen and my first Ph.D. at
twenty—in Physics, I think, Quantum Physics . . . or maybe
Particle Physics. I think I’d like to get my degree at Stanford—that’s in
California. Then, I would like to go to Julliard and study drama and voice. It
is my dream to someday portray the fearless saint, Tahireh, for whom I am
named, in the play about her commissioned by the immortal Sarah Bernhardt. I
also plan to write several novels, books of inspirational poetry and academic
volumes on travel in space and time.”

She paused and thought for a moment, ignoring the titters of
her classmates, then added, “I would also like to be one of the first full-time
field scientists on Mars.”

Now the class cackled in unabashed glee. Mr. Matthews stood
and clapped his hands.

“Class! Class! Please! I think we should applaud Tahireh for
a very interesting and imaginative presentation. Now, seriously, young lady,
tell us what you really want to do when you grown up.”

“Everything I just said, although, I might like to study
acting first.”

Mr. Matthews smiled tolerantly. “But, Miss Jones, half those
things are . . . just make-believe—going to Mars, time travel.
And the other are not very realistic goals for a young lady. Don’t you want a
family? Children?”

“Oh, sure. If I meet the appropriate soul mate, then I’ll
have that too.”

The indulgent smile deepened. “Young lady, you can’t do
both.”

“Why not? My Mom did. She says you can be whatever you want.
She’s got three Ph.D.s and her teaching credential. She’s written three books,
too. One of them won the Nobel Peace Prize. I think I’d like to be the first
author to win a Nobel prize for a science fiction novel.”

“Science fiction,” Mr. Matthews repeated. “I see.” He looked
around the room. “Who would like to go next?”

Pamela Harris wanted to go next. Pamela had been going to
talk about being a beautician like her big sister, she said, and marrying
someone who looked like Clarke Gable and moving to Omaha, but she was having
second thoughts. She decided she really wanted to be a cruise ship captain like
her Uncle Jerry, or maybe even an Air Force pilot like her father. She wasn’t
really sure she wanted a family at all. At least, not until she was very old.
She thought she’d rather travel all over the world and decide about a family
later.

Out of Mr. Matthew’s eleven female students, seven suddenly
opted to grow up differently than they’d previously planned. The word “homemaker”
came up only twice as a lifetime goal. Tahireh Jones suddenly had the young
ladies in Mr. Matthew’s third grade class talking about careers, degrees and
the equality of the sexes.

oOo

“About this paper, Mr. Jones.” Mr. Schiflin pushed the
three-page essay across his desk.

“Yes, sir?”

“I didn’t grade it, because I wasn’t sure what to make of
it. I asked for an essay on the future of relations between the U.S. and Europe
and you gave me science fiction.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“You can’t honestly believe what you wrote here. Why did you
write it?”

“Of course I believe it, sir.”

Mr. Schiflin rustled the top page. “A unified Germany? The
U.S. and the Soviet Union the closest of allies? A world government? English as
a universal language?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What makes you think the U.S. will lose its superpower
status?”

Tam shrugged. “It’s inevitable, isn’t it? If we’re to
achieve world unity, there really can’t be any so-called superpowers—at least,
not the way we’re used to thinking of them. We have to give up some sense of
sovereignty to become a working member of a community made up of equal nations.”

“There are those who would find that view unpatriotic or
unAmerican. I just find it absurd. I’d like you to rewrite this essay, Mr.
Jones, from a more realistic point of view.”

“I can’t, sir.”

Mr. Schiflin fixed him with a positively deadly
over-the-bifocals stare.

“This is the way it’s going to be . . . I
believe. If I wrote something else, I’d be lying. You don’t want me to lie, do
you, sir?”

The stare waxed more deadly. “Perhaps I need to have a word
with your parents about this, young man.”

“Perhaps you do, sir,” returned Tam agreeably.

oOo

Tuesday, Constantine forgot his pencil bag. He stared at
the empty paper before him on the desk, arms folded, stoic.

He could ask the teacher for a pencil, but that would lay
him open to ridicule and perhaps even discipline. He could signal Tahireh to
toss him one of hers, but she’d probably get caught doing it and be made to
stand against the wall for throwing things in class. He could ask Bobby Truman
to lend him one, but then he’d get caught whispering. That drew a stiff oral
presentation on a randomly selected subject.

Then, again, he could always manifest a pencil—they were
easy and nondescript—but he’d promised Mom and Dad he wouldn’t. When he and Tam
had told their parents about the blank book incident, a definite rule was
established: no manifesting of books, pencils, paper, or other items. Period.

Constantine had mumbled something about stifling the
development of his God-given talents, but the rule stood—Constantine was not to
manifest so much as a paper clip.

But I don’t need a
paper clip,
he thought,
I need—

“Constantine, begin working on the problems, please.”

He glanced up toward the front of the class. Mr. Matthews
gazed back, pointedly tapping his wristwatch. Constantine dropped his eyes and
glanced quickly around the room, taking in the hunched figures of the other
children—scribbling madly, eraser chewing, pencil tapping.

A slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He glanced
at his open math book, then set his gaze purposefully on the empty paper beside
it, the first set of figures indelibly impressed on his mind.

Mr. Matthews started wandering several minutes later,
weaving his way along and through the rows of struggling students, checking
their progress or lack thereof. One of them sat unnaturally straight, eyes on
his paper, smiling, hands folded inactively in his lap.

Matthews worked his way quietly toward the immobile child,
snuck up behind him and peered expectantly over his shoulder, mouth open to
utter a terrifying, “And what are we doing, Mr. Jones?” But the words did not
form. Mr. Matthews stared in silent disbelief as a series of mathematical
problems scrawled themselves across the sheet of paper as if by an invisible
pencil.

He gasped.

Constantine felt a chill of mixed terror and elation as he
heard Mr. Matthews breath catch in his throat, sensed his blood cool suddenly
in his veins.

The child-smile deepened.

oOo

“He hasn’t told anybody,” said Constantine. “I know he
hasn’t. And it’s been three days.”

Tam wrinkled his forehead. “Well, Mr. Schiflin talked to Dad
about my essay. Dad said I should be less direct in my revelation of future
events. He assured Mr. Schiflin that I wasn’t un-American, just unusually
perceptive and cosmopolitan. I’m not sure Schiflin even knows what cosmopolitan
means. How’re you girls doing?”

Tahireh drew herself up and smiled, tossing a thick blonde
braid over her shoulder.

“I’ve got almost every girl in our class thinking about what
college they want to go to and what degrees they want to get.” She exchanged
the smile for a puzzled frown. “But I don’t really understand how that’s
supposed to upset anybody.”

“Oh, it will, Tar,” Tam told her. “You’ll see.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Stasi dourly. “I think maybe Mom and
Dad awed the administration so much, they’re just gonna grin and bear it. Miss
Tindall hasn’t batted more than an eyelash since our last talk. Elaine and a
couple of the other girls have even started to dress like me, and Beth
Silverberg did something weird to her hair and Tindall just said, ‘My, that’s
unique.’”

“Yeah, but Schiflin—”

“You handed in an essay that offended the man’s
sensitivities. That’s not enough to get you in trouble.”

“Then we need to bolster our offense.”

Stasi shook her head. “We can’t do anything really bad, Tam.
At least, I won’t.”

“Me neither,” vowed Tahireh.

“I wasn’t even going to suggest it. I just think we need to
give them something they can’t ignore.”

oOo

Tamujin Jones handled his fluorescent orange and blue
gravipack with cheerful confidence, showing everyone who cocked an eye at the
bright satchel that it was light as a feather, despite the fact that it
obviously contained every textbook he owned. He stopped to let one student
touch the sleek, shiny material; grinned as another hefted it, finding it to be
much lighter than it appeared to be; laughed outright when one especially
curious young citizen removed a book to find that the single volume weighed
more than the entire pack full he had just taken it from.

“It’s what they make parachutes out of,” Tam told anyone who
asked. “And astronaut’s uniforms.”

“Astro-what?” asked one freckled peer.

“Space suits,” Tam said, and grinned.

“So what else do you carry around in that ‘space bag’
besides books?” asked the boy who sat behind him in class.

He tried to look coy, secretive. Stasi was better at that
than he was. “Oh, not much,” he said, and floated the pack into his lap.

His classmates’ curiosity was suitably whetted. They watched
the pack as if it might hold a football autographed by the Cornhusker’s
starting quarterback. They were forced to take their eyes from it as class
progressed, but Tam brought their attention back from time to time by rummaging
in it, extracting a pencil, a notebook, his English text.

When Mr. Schiflin began to lecture on their English
assignment, Tam set his pencil down in the midst of note-taking and glanced
furtively around. Then he opened the pack and extracted, with the air of a
veteran safe-cracker, something small and black and mechanical; something that
drew the eyes of his circle of watchers like a magnet.

He played it like a tiny piano—one handed—then scribbled,
then listened, then played, then scribbled again. A whisper of curiosity
rippled out from Tam’s cast pebble, cresting within earshot of the lecturer.
Schiflin, interest engaged, took his show on the road, wandering the depth and
breadth of the classroom.

Tam let him come within two rows before he slipped the
enticing object back into his pack. The teacher covered the distance between
them in two strides, every eye in the class following him.

“What was that, Mr. Jones?”

Tam looked up, wide-eyed, and smiled affably. “What was
what, sir?”

Schiflin pointed. “You just hid something in that bag.”

“I didn’t hide anything.”

“I saw him, Mr. Schiflin,” volunteered Greg Rollins from
across the aisle. “He was playing with something. A puzzle, I think.”