Page 4 of Bows & Eros
He was, indeed, folding paper airplanes; stockpiling his ammo, as it were. A rainbow of sharp, precisely folded weapons of future destruction was neatly amassing in the empty chair to his left. To his right, however, was something I hadn't expected: another person.
No, it wasn't his father. Of course not. I'd met Ethan Weaver one singular time, on the day before his son enrolled in my class. He'd come in after filling out the mid-semester paperwork to introduce Aaron to me while the other kids were at lunch. He'd been wearing clothes that appeared at least two sizes too large, his glasses smudged with fingerprints, and his mind decidedly elsewhere as his son ran wild around the desks like a creature that had just escaped the zoo.
"What brings you to Crete?" I'd asked that day, as politely as I could.
"Hm? Oh. I grew up here. Inherited a house."
And that was it. The sum total of parent-teacher interaction between myself and Mr. Weaver.
I had no idea who the guy sitting with Aaron was, but it was certainly not his father. This man was young, maybe early 20s, and dressed immaculately. I didn't know anyone in Crete, save maybe the bank manager, even owned a proper suit, but this guy was wearing one. His hands turned on the construction paper he was folding at Aaron's direction and I swear I saw the flash of cufflinks.
For some reason, that bizarre detail filled me with alarm.
"Who is that man?" I asked, appearing so suddenly next to Principal Mayflower that she nearly jumped out of her sensible pumps.
"Miss Avri!" she replied sharply, shooting me a hard frown. "You know I disapprove ofskulking around, startling people."
"My apologies," I said with a stiff smile to mask my impatience. "I'm just wondering who that man is, over there, sitting with Aaron Weaver?"
She squinted through her half-moon glasses across the room and gave a little click of her tongue. "That is Mr. Curie. A substitute who answered a last-minute call because Miss Yelin called in sickagain. Maybe he could be persuaded to take the job permanently."
I made a noncommittal sound, unwilling to sympathize with Mayflower's seeming belief that catching illnesses was not only a choice, but a very rude one at that.
Instead, I watched this overdressed substitute teacher smile at Aaron Weaver, adding to his paper airplane arsenal with what I assumed was a doe-eyed innocence regarding their intended purpose.
I wasn't exactly opposed to passing the buck in regards to the unavoidable flurry of paper airplane attacks that would occur in the very near future, but some tendril of either curiosity or guilt had me hover a bit closer to the table, just in case I could lessen the damage.
"It's all about theintent," Mr. Curie was saying, adding a flourish of crinkles to the wings of his blue airplane. "You have to know what you want when you throw it."
"I want loop-de-loops," Aaron Weaver replied as he snatched up a red sheet. "Those are the coolest."
"Well, yes, everyone wants loop-de-loops," Mr. Curie replied seriously. "But I meant themagic."
"Oh, right, I forgot. Magic!" Aaron pondered this for a moment and then, creasing the red sheet down the middle, he asked, "Could I make Violet Carroway's head grow really big and have her float away like a balloon?"
"Mm, not with a paper airplane. But you could make her get a very silly crush on someone."
"Violet doesn'tgetcrushes," Aaron replied with a disgruntled-sounding scoff. "You'll see."
"Well, there's a first time for everything. Love makes most people act silly. Who else doesn't get crushes?"
"Hmm. Well, my dad never does. I ask him why he doesn't have a girlfriend, and all he ever says is'your mother was a goddess, Aaron,'and that's it!"
I winced. What a tool.
I stepped around a chatting group to get a better look at the table. I would wager money that this man was wearing a designer suit. I narrowed my eyes, following the tailored line of the fabric down to his polished black shoes, each of which had been etched at the heel with a set of feathered wings.
This was more confusing by the second.
Mr. Curie laughed. "Well, where is your dad? Let's hit him first."
"Not here," Aaron said easily, kicking his feet under him. "But we could go to my house."
"Maybe later," the substitute teacher said. "Who else?"
I knew I should intervene. There was more going on here than a teacher enabling a kid's propensity for chaos, and some of the questions he was asking were decidedly inappropriate. I needed to figure out how to step in without taking a small moment of happiness away from Aaron Weaver, and then I probably needed to have a talk with Ms. Mayflower about adding Mr. Curie to our substitute teacher blacklist.
"Ms. Mayflower always looks like she just ate a spider," Aaron suggested, brightening. "One time, the eighth graders tried to throw her a surprise party and she just frowned the whole time! She didn't even like the cake!"
