Fondre (v) - To Melt
February 2005
Why was it still Wednesday? she wondered for the umpteenth time that seventh period. Her eyes were on the clock on the wall above the chalkboard, her chin resting heavily in both hands, her legs bent and cramping beneath the desk. In front of her were ranks of desks, each with a disgustingly awake student behind it, and beyond them was her French teacher.
Normally, she would be sitting up as straight as the rest of them and raising her hand to answer questions, not sulking behind the other kids, trying not to be noticed. Normally.
But today the sun was at her back, the window glass no shield to the pelting of its rays.
"Il fait beau aujourd'hui," her French teacher had said. "Il y a du soleil."
Right, she thought, though the bright light forbade her from rolling her eyes. What a nice sunny day. A part of her wanted to make a scene of it, raise her voice and moan, "Je fonds, je fonds," like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, only in French. It had been the witch that had melted, right? Or was she thinking about the time she had watched Batman with French dubbing?
She couldn't remember. The heat was getting to her brain, frying the circuits. Her mind's video card was melting down and fusing with the motherboard. She'd have to get a new brain.
Her eyes were on the clock. Only a minute had passed? Maybe the battery had run out. But no, there went the second hand, tick, tick, tick. At this rate, it would never reach 2:15.
She considered making a break for it. Dashing up between the rows of desks and shoving past her teacher to the door whose knob sometimes came unscrewed. A moment of frantic twisting while everyone's shocked gazes were on her, and then she'd be free out into the vacant hall, where she could run to the exit.
Then again, she wasn't keen on getting outside, where she wouldn't even have glass for protection. She just wanted to find the darkest corner of the building and bathe in its coolness.
Sinking lower into her chair, she lost sight of the clock behind the head of the boy in front of her. She closed her eyes, hoping to magically fall asleep in spite of the heat and the weird throbbing in her head. Her teacher would wake her then at the end of the period. "As-tu bien dormi?"
But sleep, of course, had abandoned her, running off to cooler places and leaving her at the mercy of the sun. Stupid sleep.
She tried to pay attention for a while, but all the words in the air seemed to melt together, so she couldn't distinguish one from the next. French usually ran together anyway, but this was ridiculous. The air had already drank its fill from sweat and water bottles, she guessed. It had no thirst for this watercolor French.
Failing that, she pulled random characters into her head, hoping to daydream. Do something interesting, she told them, but they just stood there in her mind like the dumb action figures found in Happy Meals, the ones that weren't even posable and soon met with banana peals in the trash can.
She lifted her head a little and glanced out the window behind her. Was it her, or had the heat subsided a little? She saw, or thought she saw, the shadow of a cloud, and she sat up eagerly. Time broke free from the restraining molasses and zipped forward to catch up.
The bell rang, and she could scarcely believe her ears. Surely this was some trick. But no, the other drones were packing up their stuff and throwing their chairs atop their desks. She scrambled to her feet and followed suit, dashing out of the room and finding sweet relief in the hall, where there were so few windows to reveal her. She was safe here.
The matter of getting home, however, remained, so she scurried stealthily to the front of the building, where buses gathered in the drive. She stood there in shock a moment. Here, here it was cloudy. She had not imagined it.
Someone behind her shoved her out into the shade, and with a grin she started for her bus, forgetting for the moment that it was Wednesday. The clouds would hold back the sun until she got home, she understood. They were valiant warriors indeed.
She spent the short drive home rebooting the circuits in her brain, making sure no permanent damage had been done. Then she was standing on her street, her neighbors walking ahead of her, talking, laughing, as though today had been just like any other day.
She trailed after them, her eyes on the sky, wondering how much longer this fine weather would last. Had it come only to rescue her from that French fondu? Or had it been coming anyway, and would it stick around a while?
A selfish part of her wished for the former, but really she hoped it would stay, and maybe bring rain with it.
A drop fell on her cheek, a peck of a kiss, and she threw her head back to welcome the cool. Under the rain, she no longer cared what day it was. Even Monday would have been fine with her, so long as she could dance out of sight of the sun.