CLICKED HERE TO GO TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sconce
Carol Ottolenghi-Barga
"Boy, we were lucky to win that game," Kyla said.
"No kidding." Maria flipped her ponytail back as the two girls hurried home from the Kilbourne Junior High soccer match, their green-and-gold soccer bags bouncing against their shoulders and their muddy cleats clattering on the sidewalk. "The referee was against me the whole game. Why should I get carded just because that girl slipped? It wasn't fair."
"It was only a yellow card," Kyla said and grinned. "She sure stayed away from you after you knocked her into the mud."
"She pushed just as hard as I did," Maria said, "but did the ref card her? Noooo."
"Well, we won," said Kyla. She shifted her bag to her left shoulder. "I've got to finish my art project tonight. What's your project, anyway? You've never said."
"I haven't exactly started it," Maria said.
Kyla sucked in her breath. "You haven't started! Maria --- the project's due tomorrow!"
Maria shrugged and bent over to roll her socks down below her shin guards. "I'll think of something. Anyway, it's not really my fault. I had to baby-sit, so I couldn't stay after school and --- Eeuuw!"
Maria straightened up fast and grabbed Kyla's arm. "Look. Under there." She pointed to a short, wide bush about ten feet in front of them. "That gray blob moved."
Kyla's freckled nose wrinkled in disgust. "What is it? Are you sure it moved?"
"I can't tell." Maria squinted her dark brown eyes and peered harder. "It could be a sick squirrel."
She stepped tiny baby steps toward the bush, holding her soccer bag before her like a shield. When she realized the gray-green blob wasn't going to attack, she knelt and pulled a branch aside for a better view.
It was about a foot high, with shiny, lumpy sides that shimmered in and out rhythmically.
"It's breathing!" Maria cried.
Kyla squatted next to Maria.
"Too weird!" She made a prune face and added, "You're not going to touch it, are you?"
"No way!" Maria's ponytail whipped back and forth when she shook her head. "It looks like a giant booger!"
"I'm supposed to look like a rock," whined a high-pitched voice. "A piece of gray granite, to be exact."
Maria gasped and let go of the branch. The branch smacked Kyla in the face so hard she fell onto her butt. She scrambled to her feet.
"That hurt!" Kyla said angrily as she and Maria huddled on the sidewalk, away from the bush.
"It wasn't my fault," Maria said. "That-- that thing made me do it."
"How did you know I wasn't a rock?" demanded the blob. Huffs of irritation made ripples along its sides. "Someone told you, didn't they?"
The girls looked at each other, eyes wide and mouths hanging open. They took two steps nearer the bush, close enough to see the blob and far enough away to get a really good headstart running if it jumped at them.
"It talks," said Kyla. Her eyes got even wider. "Maria, it talks."
"I can hear that," said Maria, "but what is it?"
"I'm Sconce," the blob said. "A shapeshifter from Blitmore."
Kyla suddenly snapped her fingers and laughed. "I bet it's a puppet," she said. "Someone's playing a trick on us."
"Puppets don't talk by themselves," Maria said, still peering at the blob.
"Maybe it's got one of those electric eyes so that when someone gets close, it starts talking," Kyla said. She picked some mud off her shorts. "You know, like rides at Disney World or the automatic doors at the grocery store."
"Yeah," Maria said. She edged closer to the blob. "Then there's got to be wires or a tape recorder around here somewhere."
She lunged and grabbed the blob. Her finger sunk deep into its sides.
"Let go!" it cried.
The blob wriggled and twisted, but the girl held on tight. Then, without warning, it spat sticky yellow-orange ooze all over Maria's hands.
"Oh, double eeuuw!" she screamed. She dropped the blob and wiped her hands wildly against her shirt. "You didn't have to do that!" she yelled. "It is so gross!"
"You didn't have to grab me," the blob said huffily. "It's not my fault I smeared you."
Maria plucked a leaf from the bush and wiped more yellow-orange goo from her hands. "There aren't any wires," she told Kyla.
"Then what is it?" Kyla asked.
"I already told you," the blob said. "I'm Sconce, a shapeshifter from Blitmore."
The girls glanced at each other and then back at Sconce. Maria grabbed Kyla's arm.
"Maybe it's telling the truth," she whispered in Kyla's ear. "Maybe it's an alien!"
"Yeah, right," Kyla said. "There's no -- oh, yuck! You got that stuff all over me!" She pushed Maria away. "Whoever heard of planet Blitmore?" she asked as she scrubbed her arm with her shirt. "And why would it come here?. And" -- Kyla stopped scrubbing and put both hands on her hips skeptically---" how does it know English?"
Sconce's sides shimmered in and out. "I've studied your language, geography, sciences and customs for three years. Ever since I graduated to second school."
"So, why are you here?" Maria asked.
Sconce mumbled something, but the girls didn't catch it.
"What?" they asked together.
"Because otherwise I'll flunk," Sconce muttered louder. "It's not my fault," it added quickly. "My teacher hates me. I have to do a research project on human kids to make up for the homework I missed. I thought if I watched some human kids and reported what they did, it would be such a great project that my teacher would have to pass me."
Maria looked around at the bush and sidewalk. "This is a lousy place to choose," she said. "Why didn't you just change into a kid?"
"It's not that easy," Sconce whined, his sides rippling again. "I'm only a foot high, so I can only make shapes that are a foot high. You'd notice a kid that short. I didn't think you'd notice a rock." Sconce sighed. "But you did, and now I'm going to flunk and everyone will laugh at me."
"Maybe not," Maria said. She crossed her arms, put her chin in her right hand, and thought a moment. A slow grin spread over the bottom half of her face and she waggled her eyebrows at Kyla.
"Sconce," Maria said slowly, "watching kids would be a lot easier in school. If you pretended to be my art project, no one would even know you were there."
Kyla's mouth dropped open "Art project?" she squeaked.
Maria nodded, still grinning.
Kyla put her hand on Maria's shoulder and looked into her face. "Maria," she said very slowly and clearly, "tell me you're not thinking of having a giant booger as your art project."
"A shapeshifter could make a pretty good instant art project," Maria said excitedly "And we can't let it flunk. This way we both get our projects done." She looked at Sconce. "You will make a pretty good art project, won't you?"
"Pretty good?" Sconce puffed himself an inch and a half taller. "I'll make a great art project!"
"Then it's settled," Maria said. "You can ride home in my soccer bag."
Kyla hopped back and held her nose. Maria opened her bag. A brown-colored wave of odor rolled out of it -- a pungent mix of sweaty socks, forgotten yogurt, and rotten apples.
"Ooof!" Sconce shuddered and flowed backward like a giant slug. "Do I have to?"
Maria scowled. "You have a better way to sneak into my room without my parents knowing? And besides---" her scowl deepened "-it's not that bad."
"Oh, noooooo," Kyla said, trying to hold her nose and laugh at the same time.
Ignoring her, Maria put her bag on the ground and opened it wide. Sconce moaned but flowed into it.
"Don't you dare zip this shut," he muttered. "This smell could kill a bliven."
Sconce continued muttering and moaning all the way to Maria's apartment. When they got there, the girls yelled hello to Maria's mom, then rushed the bag into Maria's room and slammed the door. They collapsed on the bed, giggling wildly.
"I can't believe you're doing this," Kyla gasped.
"It'll work," Maria whispered. "You'll see."
"Well, good luck," Kyla said. "See you tomorrow."
After Kyla left, Maria poured Sconce onto her green carpet. She watched, wide-eyed, as Sconce shimmered and changed shape, turning himself inside-outside-upside-rightside-underside. Eight red, leaf-shaped arms sprouted from a supple, trunk-like body. He looked like a very short, very crabby palm tree with a brown snout and two rows of worried eyes.
"Ooooof," he said and wrinkled his snout. "That bag smells worse than the inside of a crogdite's mouth. When do I eat?"
"Eat?" Maria repeated, still staring.
"Yes, eat!" Sconce waved his leaf-arms angrily. "You don't want me to starve to death, do you? Some cool, thick, clammy clay would be delicious, but fresh potting soil will do, if you don't have anything else. And some water, not too cold."
"Not too cold," Maria repeated slowly. She shook her head to clear it, then demanded, "Are you a plant?"
"Not exactly," Sconce said after thinking about it for a moment, "but kind of. Now, about food?"
Maria dumped her wastebasket and carried it into the living room. She scooped two handfuls of soil into it from each of the three plants hanging in the front window. Then she got a bowl of water from the kitchen and returned to her room.
Sconce sniffed hungrily when she put the wastebasket in front of him.
"Ah," he said. His trunk split up the middle into two legs. He lifted them high over the basket's edge, first one and then the other, and burrowed them into the dirt.
"Ah," he said again. "Now pour the water over me."
He gurgled with delight, then started sucking up the dirt like a vacuum cleaner. Maria watched open-mouthed until all the dirt was gone. Sconce belched and folded all eight arms over his middle.
"Too weird," Maria said with another shake of her head. She bent to untie her cleats. "Is that your real shape?"
Sconce bent at the middle and belched again. "Yes."
"Well," Maria said, "I think you'll make a great art project just as you are." She started to take off her shirt. "I have to go take a shower. I'll be back -- Hey, wait a minute. Are you a boy or girl?"
"I'm a male, if that's what you mean," Sconce said.
"That's exactly what I mean," Maria said. "Turn around. I'm not getting undressed in front of a boy."
"What?" Sconce began waving his arms wildly. "It's not my fault I'm male! I couldn't care less about your getting undressed---"
Maria stuck him in the closet and shut the door. Sconce huffed and puffed and muttered and sputtered. He was still muttering when Maria came back from her shower and took him out of the closet. He was still muttering when she left the room for dinner. And he was still muttering when she went to bed.
He stopped when she knocked him over with her pillow.
__________
Neither of them was in a great mood the next morning.
"Oh, great," Sconce said when Maria stuck him in her locker. "Oh joy, oh whoop-de-doo. I get to spend the day in your locker."
"Shhh!" Maria said and plopped him into the bowl of dirt she'd brought from home. "You're an art project, remember? Art projects don't talk!"
She dumped some ice-cold water from the drinking fountain on him. Sconce sputtered and shivered.
"I can't help that it's cold," Maria whispered and slammed the locker shut.
Kyla pulled her aside in the hall outside their math class.
"How is it?" Kyla whispered.
"It's a he," Maria whispered back as they walked into class, "and he's a big pain."
The girls checked on Sconce at lunch.
"I'm hungry," he said. "And I'm bored. I can't do research stuck in a locker."
"I'll get you some dirt," Maria promised and shut the locker again.
"And some water!" he cried out as the girls hurried down the hall. "Warm water!"
The girls' next-to-last period was art. The class set up their projects on the back six tables in the room, next to the sinks. Maria set Sconce next to Kyla's sculpture.
"Where's my dirt?" Sconce whined.
"I'll get it," Maria whispered crabbily. "Now shut up!"
Maria looked at Kyla's sculpture.
"Oooo," she said. "That's really good."
Kyla blushed and pinched her statue's wet, cool clay. It was a dog, a terrier like Kyla's dog, Wow-bow. Swirls of clay curled like wiry fur and the ears perked up like Wow-bow's did when he heard the word "walk."
"Thanks," Kyla said. "I just finished it last night and it's still soft, so I have to be careful. I'm giving it to Dad for Father's Day"
Ms. Olsen, the art teacher, stopped to make title cards for the girls' projects. "Very creative, Maria," she said, pointing to Sconce. "What's the title?"
" 'Sconce,' " Maria said. She glanced at Kyla, who was looking very hard at the table with her lips squeezed tight, and added, "From Planet Blitmore."
Kyla snorted through her nose, but managed to turn it into a cough.
Ms. Olsen printed out the title card in block letters and put it in front of Sconce. She turned to Kyla's sculpture. Sconce scurried in front of his card to read it.
"Lovely," Ms. Olsen told Kyla. Kyla blushed again. "I can fire it in the kiln for you, if you like. What's your title?"
As she began printing Kyla's title card, she caught sight of Sconce.
"Did you move him?" she asked Maria.
"Ah, y-yes," Maria stammered. "I-I thought it would look funnier if he was pretending to read the card."
"Oh." Ms. Olsen nodded and moved to the next table.
Maria glanced around to see if anyone was watching. No one was except Kyla, so she plucked Sconce up by his trunk.
"You're supposed to stay still," she hissed.
"I'm hungry," Sconce whined. "You promised---"
He stopped short when he saw Kyla's clay statue.
"I'll bring you something to eat after last period," Maria said. "But you can't move around. Okay?"
"Okay," Sconce repeated.
Maria didn't notice that only one of Sconce's rows of eyes was looking at her.
The other row was fixed on Kyla's statue.
They had soccer practice after school. On the way home, Maria remembered that she had forgotten to feed and water Sconce.
"One night won't kill him," she told Kyla with a frown. "And it's his own fault, anyway. If he hadn't moved and made me so mad, I wouldn't have forgotten."
Still, when Maria sat down to dinner that night, she thought about Sconce not having anything to eat. She felt a little guilty and promised herself that she'd feed him first thing in the morning.
__________
She got to school early. Avoiding teachers who might ask embarrassing questions, Maria sneaked into the art room with a big bowl of dirt and a water bottle full of warm water. She saw Sconce standing straight up, his eyes closed and his arms folded over his middle.
"Sconce," she said, a little worried that he might be really sick. Or mad. Or both. "Sconce, I brought some dirt and water."
Sconce opened one row of eyes and sniffed.
"Plain dirt," he said, ruffling his snout in disgust. "No, thank you. I've had some of the most delicious clay. I will take some water, though. Being an art project is thirsty work." He held four of his hands out for the water bottle, but Maria ignored them.
"Clay?" she said.
Maria looked at the spot next to Sconce, the spot where Kyla's project had been. She gasped, then picked up Sconce and shook him.
"Where's Kyla's dog?" she screamed.
"Quit shaking me!" Sconce huffed and slapped his leaf-like hands against Maria's arms. It didn't hurt, but she quit shaking him. "I ate it, of course. After all, you didn't feed me."
"But that doesn't give you the right to eat her statue! She wanted to give it to her dad! Oh, she's going to spaz totally How could you!"
"I can hear you all the way down the hall," Kyla said from the doorway. She walked into the room. "I figured you'd be here early to feed Sconce and I wanted to watch, so I --- Hey, where's my dog?"
Maria glared at Sconce. She put him down and then put her arm around Kyla's shoulders.
"I don't know how to tell you this," she began, "but Sconce ate him."
"He what?"
Kyla pushed Maria away. She looked under the table, then at the other tables in the room.
"You ate my statue?" Kyla stood over Sconce, fat tears pooling in her eyes, ready to spill over. "Why? I didn't do anything to you."
"I was hungry," Sconce whined. "And it was such beautiful clay."
Kyla whirled on Maria. "He was hungry because you didn't feed him!" she yelled.
"He ate it!" Maria yelled back. "It's not my fault!"
"It's never your fault, is it?" Kyla's lips trembled, and the tears were spilling down her cheeks, but she went right on talking. "When you foul someone in soccer, it's not your fault. When you forget your homework, it's not your fault. When you don't feed your--- your Sconce, and he eats my sculpture, it's not your fault."
Kyla wiped the back of her hand across her face and continued. "Well, guess what, Maria--- it is your fault! It's your fault when you foul someone, and it's your fault when you forget your homework, and it's your fault that Sconce ate my statue!"
"Kyla---"
"Don't talk to me!" Kyla cried. "Don't ever talk to me again. I can't believe I thought you were my best friend!"
She ran out of the room. Maria heard the door of the girls restroom across the hall squeak open, then bang shut.
Maria and Sconce were silent for a long moment. Finally, Sconce said, "She seemed a little upset."
"She's very upset," Maria said. She sniffed and two tears rolled down her right cheek. "She worked hard on that statue."
Maria sighed. "It's--- it's my fault that you ate it," she told Sconce. "I have to tell her I'm sorry. I can't give her back her statue, but at least I can tell her it was my fault." She sniffed again. "Maybe she'll forgive me. Or maybe not for a long time."
She lifted up Sconce until she could look into both his rows of eyes. "And I'm sorry I didn't feed you," she said. "I should have remembered. Then you wouldn't have been hungry and Kyla would still have her statue."
Sconce's arms were folded around his trunk and his snout was blue and wrinkled. He honked and Maria guessed he was crying. Or something.
"I didn't mean to upset her," he said and honked again. "Maybe I shouldn't have eaten it." He honked a third time, then said timidly, "I'll understand if you don't want to help me with my project anymore."
"No, I'll still help you," Maria said. She put Sconce back down, then smiled a crooked smile. "Maybe you can research how humans say I'm sorry," she added. "I'm not very good at that."
"That's a great idea!" Sconce rustled his leaf-arms over his snout and eyes. "If I disguise myself as a notebook, I can lie around the halls and---"
"Tell me later," Maria said. "Right now, I have to apologize."
She walked into the hall and headed toward the girls restroom to find Kyla.