Chapter Five: I Can Do Whatever I Want Like You
The second decision was that I was finding my Twenty Things, and I was doing it the right way. No help from Marc, or Jeremy, or anyone. I was doing this on my own, with my own interpretation of the project.
I knew that I hadn’t been giving it my full effort. I sort of searched half-heartedly, walking around town, expecting important things to jump out at me. That wasn’t going to happen. I was going to have to look in every aspect of my life, from my present, to my past, and… well, I am a witch. Maybe it would be possible to search my future.
But for now, I was stuck in school, having knowledge involuntarily shoved down my throat. Not that I was paying much attention. My Twenty Things notebook was open on my desk, and I was hiding behind an upturned schoolbook, finishing a drawing of a dark figure. Above it, I had written in my slanted, twirling handwriting, “Something to fight for”. Well, it was something that meant something… and as annoyed as I was with that vague word, I’m not going to pretend that Marc’s idea wasn’t a good one.
Might as well build on it.
Mr. Mendota was lecturing about how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, but I couldn’t imagine why I would ever need to know that, so his voice was pretty much background music. Like a song that I had stuck in my head, one I was fairly indifferent to, but one that could get old quickly.
I rubbed the lead markings on my paper with my thumb, trying to make the drawing look a little more realistic. All it did was smudge the Dark Man’s head and make me feel stupid. As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t draw anything that wasn’t a creepy, haunting face.
The bell rang shrilly, the sound nudging into my thoughts and pulling me from my frustration. I threw my things into my backpack and moved for the door at normal speed, planning to stop at Flinker’s before heading to the library, my true destination.
But Mr. Mendota sidestepped into my path and smiled down at me in a way that made me realise I wasn’t going to get out of there on time today.
“Hello, Kata,” he greeted warmly when everyone had left the room, and the last kid had shut the door.
“What do you want?” I snapped, not bothering with formalities. “I do have places to be.”
He chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure you’re very busy.”
He didn’t say it sarcastically, which actually made me a bit more nervous. I glared.
He ignored me, and sat down at a table in the corner, pulling something from behind a chair. “Do you know how to play chess?”
Of course I do. I’m actually a member of chess club, and I like nothing better than moving little pieces around a board.
Right.
“No,” I answered with sigh, and I knew I wasn’t getting out of this now. “I never learned how.”
Mr Mendota smiled and motioned for me to sit down. I did, setting my backpack next to my chair and committing to being there for a while.
Teachers are just regular people, I guess, because Mr Mendota switched on some background music and started assembling the board. I watched his large hands move, trying to remember the names of the chess pieces. I knew there was a Queen, a King, and pawns… Probably a rook, too, but I couldn’t find anything that looked like the birds that flew around the beach in the summer. Summer. The word dredged up a couple things in my mind. Why was it that I didn’t want to think about summer?
***“No mail today!” Verno announced in a chipper voice. “Rain, snow, or sleet, they say, and the mail will come. But not on Sundays! No, sir, never on Sundays!”
I scowled and watched my reflection in the kitchen window scowl back as I wiped the counter from breakfast. Deciding that the crumbs there weren’t really my problem, I threw the rag on the floor and walked over to the living room, where everyone else sat. Verno sipped his fourth mug of coffee; Aunt P chewed her lip and kneading her hands. It didn’t matter what day it was to her, she was still nervous. I was beginning to suspect that Aunt P had some sort of personal history with the letter writer.
I tried not to think that this supported my theory about the person attempting to contact us. Aunt P had been Lily’s sister…
Harry stared off into space like he usually did when he didn’t want to deal with anyone in the room. Maybe he agreed with Verno that there would be no letters today.***
Oh. Right.
I shook my head, as if I could shake the image from my mind, and concentrated on the music emitting from Mr Mendota’s CD player.
I can do whatever I want like you,
I can do whatever I want like you,
I can do whatever I want like you…
Like you…
She began to die,
Indiana, that’s not right,
Indiana, that’s not life,
Then she began to fight,
Indiana, make it mine
Indiana, make it mine!
The singer was a girl, and her voice was rough, but still smooth, if that makes sense. Rough, because there was hidden pain in her tone. Smooth, because she didn’t want the pain, and she was doing an excellent job of hiding it. The whole thing evened out nicely, and created a twisting melody that rose and fell in unexpected places… yet all the right places.
I wondered vaguely how she did that. When I sang… Well, let’s just say my voice makes small children cry.
“What band is this?” I asked Mr Mendota before I could remind myself that I was not here for conversation. I was here because he wanted to analyse me.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” he said with a grin, indicating my T-shirt. “The name of this group is Meg & Dia. And… who are the accurately dubbed ‘Weird Sisters’?”
I shrugged, partly because I didn’t know, and partly because I couldn’t tell him. I’d just bought the T-shirt in Diagon Alley, after noticing they had a song called ‘Cool Kat’. Kat… Kata… it sort of made sense. He seemed to take that as an answer and began explaining the rules of chess.
“The pawns are these little ones. They can only move one square at a time, except for the first time they move. These two on the side are rooks, or castles, if you wish. And then, the bishops…”
I listened as he went on, describing each piece in detail, and what it could and could not do. There were so many rules; I knew I’d have trouble remembering them, but still I listened. I let him speak, and I almost felt comfortable in the room, with the chessboard and my teacher, and Meg & Dia playing softly in the background.
I can do whatever I want like you,
I can do whatever I want like you,
I can do whatever I want like you,
Is this where the brave hearts die?
Is this where the brave hearts die?
Oh, no!
Is this how the brave hearts die?
Is this how the brave hearts die?
I smiled wryly, thinking that life was simpler in song form. No one ever knows where the brave hearts die.
Mr Mendota misinterpreted my smile. “Amused by the lyrics, are we?” he asked, breaking off from the chess lecture. “Yes, this song, “Indiana”, is based on the book by George Sand. It’s about a young French woman.”
I made a face. “They wrote a song based on a book?” I asked. “Doesn’t that seem kind of…?”
I couldn’t think of the correct word.
“Pointless?” Mr Mendota guessed with a grin. I was beginning to notice that he grinned a lot, like a child. I examined his face, and realised that he couldn’t be that old. Not even thirty, probably. His glasses and tidy appearance hid his youthful face, and I got the feeling I was seeing a side of him that he didn’t care to show to his students. He didn’t seem that… in charge when he was analysing me.
Because he was analysing me. I didn’t let myself believe anything else.
“Yeah,” I answered, poking thoughts of his age out of my head for now. “Pointless.”
Another grin. “But it’s not, is it?”
I shook my head; reflecting on the lyrics and thinking about Indiana, the young French woman who began to fight and die. It wasn’t pointless. I thought about all the people who would probably get bored with reading a book like that after the first five minutes. People like me. But the song condensed it, shuffling things around and laying them out so I could understand.
My wry smile turned into a victorious one as I made a mental note to add ‘music’ to my twenty things. See? Not hard at all.
Then I turned my attention back to the chessboard and we began to play. A few minutes passed with silence, and we moved the ivory and night-coloured pieces around the board, each taking swipes at the other’s king.
“So…” Mr Mendota began. “Anything new with you?”
I almost burst out laughing at the seemingly normal question that I could never answer. Yes, Mr Mendota, I imagined myself saying. I was almost kidnapped and possibly killed on Halloween, I may have just changed my whole life with a couple of art teacher-induced decisions, and I still have no clue who I am. Thanks for asking.
Instead, I shrugged, and gave him the answer he wanted. “I started working on my twenty things,” I murmured, prodding a pawn from a black square to a white one.
He smiled again, but there was a hint of sadness underneath that I didn’t understand. Pushing his wire glasses further up onto his nose, he poked a pawn as well.
“Something I forgot to tell you about chess,” he said as I took a pawn and placed it next to my rook, like I was trying to set up a bodyguard for the more important piece. “Every piece accept the pawns can move backwards, but only the knight can jump over other pieces to do so.”
More than anything else about his chess monologue, that caught my attention. “Why?” I blurted unthinkingly. “Why would any of them move back? When they were already forward?”
Mr Mendota looked at my confused expression for a long time, and I met his gaze evenly. Finally, he sighed and gave a laugh without humour.
“Kata, I am going to do something very rude,” he warned, “and answer a question with a question. And the question is: how do you see something you don’t think you saw, when you know you didn’t really see it?”
I thought the real bit of rudeness was twisting my thoughts around a convoluted question like that. If you didn’t see something… but if you know you didn’t see it, then how… I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
Mr Mendota seemed to deduce as much from my expression, and he gave yet another childish smile. “I’ll go easy on you next time,” he promised, and then, with a flourish, he moved a bishop forward to take my king.
My mouth fell open with a little popping noise. I inspected the board carefully, trying to see where exactly I had gone wrong. There was nothing. I had been lining myself up to take his queen… I couldn’t even find a hole in my carefully planned defense. But there my king was, capsized on a square of ebony.
Mr Mendota laughed at my expression. “Sorry. I never give people a break the first time through. Builds character.”
I rearranged my face into a disgruntled mask, thinking that was better than vulnerable surprise. Then I shrugged.
“Are we done?” I asked, suddenly really annoyed with myself for sitting here and playing chess. I had things to do, I reminded myself, and they did not include character building chess.
He laughed, and this time it irritated me. “Almost,” he answered, “I have something I need to give you.”
Probably homework, or something else useless. I fidgeted, suddenly very eager to leave.
Mr Mendota opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out… a book. A cloth-bound, thick book, with a disembodied smile embossed in silver on the dark purple front. He walked back over, and set it on the table. I studied the cover almost hesitantly, thinking that I was right. Another assignment.
He read my face and laughed (again). “One of your middle names is Alice, right?”
I sighed, and nodded. One of five middle names.
He shrugged, and said hurriedly, “It’s not a bad name. It… makes you more interesting.”
I rolled my eyes. Like I need any other “interesting” things. I like my name a lot, I really do. But I wasn’t going to admit that. “It’s long,” I complained, making a face.
“Well, you’ve shortened in nicely. Katarine-Natasha Elisabeth Rose Lillian Alice Mintaka Potter… Alice.”
I didn’t really understand how he’d ended that sentence until I turned the book sideways and read the spine of the book: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
I half-laughed. “I’ve already seen the movie,” I assured him, pushing the book back over to his end of the table. “That’s all the Wonderland I need.”
He pushed the book back. “This should be required reading for all children,” he retorted. I gazed at the book, and recognised the Cheshire cat’s grin on the front, remembering how he would disappear until there was nothing left of him but that smile.
I didn’t say anything, waiting or him to tell me I had to read it. He didn’t.
“I truly think you’d enjoy this book, Kat,” he insisted. I flinched at the nickname.
As if to remind me that I was supposed to be looking for my Twenty Things, Mr Mendota’s watch beeped, just as shrilly as the bell.
“You know what? Fine,” I muttered, taking the purple book and stuffing it in my backpack. “I’ll read it in my endless spare time.”
He smiled kindly, but I ignored him and started for the door, fuming about the amount of time I’d let pass.
“Kata?” he called from behind me. I turned around and raised my eyebrows at him, waiting.
“You didn’t answer my question. How do you see something you don’t think you saw, when you know you didn’t really see it?”
I gave him a long, exasperated look, before shrugging in irritation and saying, “Maybe you weren’t looking hard enough.”
His expression made it look like I had just passed some sort of in-depth mental test. I sighed and turned back around, heading for the door one more.
“One more thing?” he asked hesitantly from behind me. I scowled, and then turned round very slowly.
“What?” My tone was very near acidic.
“Don’t look directly at the sun. It hurts your eyes.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Noted,” I replied, and, still shaking my head, I finally exited the classroom.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* ~*~*~
My memory began where it had left off.
***Harry stared off into space like he usually did when he didn’t want to deal with anyone in the room. Maybe he agreed with Verno that there would be no letters today.
Personally, I didn’t think that would hinder our letter writer. The letters had been finding the strangest ways into our house. When Verno had cheerfully nailed the mail slot shut, twelve letters had simply been squeezed through the cracks in the door. Fifteen more were found rolled up with the newspaper. Aunt P had discovered several hidden in the milk jug delivered by a confused looking milkman.
I was going to get my hands on one sooner or later.
Harry sat up suddenly. “Did you hear that?” he whispered to me. Verno eyed us suspiciously and I shook my head. But a couple seconds later, I did hear something. A sort of… internal rumbling noise, coming from--
“The fireplace,” I breathed. Harry nodded.
“That’s right! No blasted letters today!” Verno continued, spreading jam on a piece of toast from the tray that Aunt P had set on the coffee table.
A louder rumbling echoed throughout the room, and this time it was distinctly coming from the fireplace. I held my breath.
Just as Verno lifted the toast to his mouth, a stiff envelope zipped out of the chimney and hit him right in the forehead.
I wasn’t the only one holding my breath. Harry was holding out the “on three, go” sign, but I didn’t know what he was waiting for or what I was supposed to be counting down to.
Verno had just started to tear the letter up when another came flying out, landing with a smack on the floor. About three or four hundred followed it, flying like bullets and hitting everyone on the head a lot.
I dived. The letters had already covered the floorboards in the living room, and they were edging like a tidal wave toward the kitchen. Letters poured down in hundreds, and I thought if I could just snag one, I would get my answers…
I reached. My hand was so close--
Someone’s fist connected hard with my jaw and I fell down on a pile of letters. Harry yelled, and I grabbed a fistful of paper, but Verno’s fist caught me again in the stomach and I doubled over involuntarily and released the stiff squares. Another blow to the head, and suddenly I was being thrown out into the hallway with Harry and Dudley. I aimed a good kick at Verno’s leg, but all that got me was a punch, harder than the others, in the eye, which I knew would swell.
When I looked up, Verno appeared to be suffering from some kind of mental breakdown. His face was eggplant, contrasting with a bulging blue vein in his left temple. He was literally ripping out his hair, and clumps or his mustache were clutched in his meaty fists. One eye was pointing in the opposite direction of the other.
It would have been amusing if it wasn’t so disturbing.
“Five minutes! We are leaving! Now!” he bellowed. This didn’t make much sense, but suddenly everyone was moving, and I just followed, getting ready for whatever journey my half-insane uncle was planning.
I didn’t take much, throwing some clothes, a toothbrush, comb, and my coffee tin of special things in a bag. Harry forced a bag of ice on me for my eye, and exactly five minutes later, all of us were crammed into Verno’s car.
We drove for hours, and it was ridiculously boring. The only entertainment was the sportscast on the radio, and my cousin’s constant whining, which--***
Water? Why was there water? What was wet?
My eyes blinked open confusedly, and the first thing I saw was the soggy floorboards pressed to my face. I almost closed my eyes again, thinking that this was a continuation of my dream, but something that sounded a lot like gunfire brought me to my feet looking rapidly around.
My panic ebbed as I saw the open window and the storm raging outside. The gunfire had been thunder.
Rain rocketed to the ground in bucketfuls, and there was little space between the drops. Everything on the desk, directly in front of the window, was soaked, and there were random pools forming around my bed. Somehow, I had rolled off the mattress and into one of the miniature lakes, which had interrupted my dream and woken me up.
I moved across the floor, to stare out into the night. Ominous purple-black clouds were coiled against the sky, occasionally lit up by a burst of eerily silent lightning. Thunder boomed next, ripping through the storm. For such a wild rainstorm, it almost had a calming effect one me, numbing the memory that I didn’t want to think about.
I closed the windows with a click, and the noise became muffled, almost pleasant. Dragging the mattress over so that I could look out the window, I lay down on my stomach and opened my Twenty Things notebook, looking at the drawing of music. As an intangible object, it had been harder to capture on paper, but I had settled for twisting one long sentence into the shape of a music note. The words rang through my ears.
I can do whatever I want like you,
I can do whatever I want like you,
I can do whatever I want like you,
Like you.
I smiled and closed the notebook, wondering how long it would take me to find my twenty things. Not that long, I hoped, because I wasn’t sticking around for much longer.
Because the first decision was that I was getting to Hogwarts… soon.
I can do whatever I want like you.
Twenty Things That Make the World Go 'Round by eva_writes
Chapter Notes: Oh my goodness, I have nothing to blame but my own laziness for the amount of time this chapter took! I really have been busy though... it's the end of sophmore year, and apparently that entails tons of homework and expectations. Anyway, I don't own Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland, those belong to J.K. Rowling and C.S. Lewis. I also don't own the song Indiana by Meg & Dia. Oh, and the version Kata hears is the one on the CD, not the one you'd hear if you YouTube'd it. This chapter brings more flashbacks, so watch out for the random switches between the present and the past. I just can't figure out the italics,(flashbacks are markes by three asteriks) so if anyone can help me out with that...(yes, I know that's a bit pathetic) I hope you are bale to enjoy the chapter despite my italic issue.
Chapter Endnotes: Yeah... Kata's got a lot of plans, doesn't she? Read on to find out which of them transform into reality. Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm not going into terrible detail about the Twenty Things she's finding, it's because they aren't really her Twenty Things. A lot more is going to have to happen before she discovers what makes the world go 'round. Thanks for reading!
-Eva