Garden of Evil by Graham Masterton Page A

again. ‘Don’t even think about it. That was research, that’s all.’
    â€˜Oh, research. OK,’ said the girl, although she clearly didn’t believe him. Then she said, ‘You don’t mind my bringing Nudnik into class? It’s only for today. I’m going to auction him this evening for Lev LaLev – you know, the charity for orphan girls in Israel.’
    â€˜Your bear’s name is
Nudnik
?’
    â€˜Because that’s what he is, he’s a nuisance. My grandfather called him that because he’s so big and he was always tripping over him.’
    â€˜I see. So what’s
your
name?’
    â€˜Rebecca Teitelbaum. My mom and dad were both killed in an air crash in Israel when I was only three so I was brought up by my grandparents who are very kind people but their English is pretty
schlecht
. That’s why they put me in Special Class Two. I want to do international charity work so I have to learn English real good.’
    â€˜That’s very laudable, Rebecca. You and Nudnik, find yourselves a couple of seats anyplace you like. Mind if I call you Becky?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Yes you mind, or yes I can call you Becky?’
    â€˜Yes, I mind.’
    As she went to sit down, Jim pulled a sad clown face behind her back. Then he pushed back his chair and went over to the dusty old blackboard on the wall behind his desk and started to write out
Rachel X. Speed, born 1981 in Schaumburg, Ill. Winner, Ruth Lilly Poetry Award, 2007
.
    Before he had finished, the door opened again and more students came jostling their way in, swaggering and laughing. Jim recognized at once the tall African-American boy he had seen outside, under the cypress tree. Today he wasn’t wearing a droopy gray tracksuit but a droopy pale-blue tracksuit. He walked with a shuffling lope, swinging his arms, as if he could hear hip-hop music in his head. He had an unusually tall head, too, with a haircut that rose straight up from the top of it like a cylindrical black smokestack.
    â€˜Good morning,’ said Jim. ‘Want to tell me who you are?’
    â€˜Sure,’ the boy grinned at him. ‘Soon as you tell me who
you
are.’
    Jim gave him a tight, puckered-up smile. ‘I think you already know who I am. I’m the man who can have you kicked out of this class so fast you won’t even have time to learn A for Asshole.’
    The boy stared at him for a very long time, and then said, ‘OK. DaJon – DaJon Johnson.’
    â€˜Go find yourself someplace to sit, DaJon. Right at the back, preferably, so that your lofty coiffure doesn’t interfere with anybody else’s line of sight.’
    â€˜My
wha
’ choo say?’
    â€˜Your hair, stupid. Go sit down.’
    DaJon lope-shuffled to the very back of the studio and sat down on the opposite end of the fourth bench, as far away from Rebecca Teitelbaum and Nudnik as he could, and sprawled out his legs.
    The remaining students of Special Class Two came through the door, including the girl with the scraggly blonde curls, who was wearing an even tighter T-shirt today, in turquoise this time, with shiny silver sprinkles; and the red-haired boy with the raging acne. In all, Jim counted eight boys and five girls. He would namecheck them all later, but he was always forgetting his students’ names, even when he had found out what they were. Most of the time he privately gave them nicknames, like Crater Face and Jolie Lips and Clarissa Broad-ass and Sammy The Squint, although he tried hard not to use them to their face.
    â€˜OK,’ he said, raising his hand for silence. ‘Any one of you here know what “zythum” is?’
    Almost all of the students shook their heads, and shrugged, and said ‘
zythum
?’ ‘
zythum
?’ until the classroom sounded like a beehive. But after a few moments, one boy hesitantly lifted his hand and said, ‘Yes, sir. Me.’ He wore round