Integers

If the girl who called herself Fairy didn’t have a tear running down her cheek, she would’ve had an unnerving glare.
I had confiscated her notebook because she sat writing into it aloof to the class on integers that I had spent the whole night preparing, but what I hadn’t prepared for, was the aftermath that the statement, You will get it before the summer holidays, would bring, I was a young teacher then.
The tear that ran down Fairy’s cheek made me put the book in my bag, for safe-keeping till before the summer holidays.
The notebook sat in my bag, forgotten.
Till the day Fairy stopped coming to school.
Flu? I thought, on the second day of her absence.
Gatherings, exams for a spot in an Ivy League?
Disappearance.
I was told Fairy would not be coming to school and she stood at the school’s gate for two hours, after her leaving documents were issued.
It was then that I fished out her notebook.
Threaded Essence, read the title.
Copyright Fairy.
‘Stealing is like adding integers with a negative sign.’ Nanny would say, ‘The bigger the numbers, the smaller their combined values.’
She was paying attention after all.
A pang of guilt tugged at my heartstrings.
Fakepenny wasn’t a thief.
She was just very skilled at taking things that did not belong to her because their original owner did not deserve them.
Her neighbour called her nasty names, she didn't deserve the marmalade from the cafe chef who she fancied. The class prefect broke her own dolls, she did not deserve a crocheted dolly from somewhere in Europe.
Fakepenny smirked at the thought, as she closed her palms around the crocheted dolly, when she felt a suffocating warmth engulf her, almost as if someone had closed their palm around her.
She held up the dolly, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind the dolly’s tiny ears, when her own stray curl tucked itself behind her helix.
There was a name for such dolls, that mirrored ones actions, only, Fakepenny couldn’t remember what it was.
A wonton doll? No, a Googoo doll? Oh, yes, a voodoo doll.
Fakepenny had stolen a voodoo doll, meant for her.

Twelve years later

‘Miss Fairy,’ asked a reporter, ‘Are all your stories written recently or is some of your work a finished draft from your childhood?’
Sighing, I looked into the distance, before speaking.
‘They are all new pieces.’
‘Will the readers ever get a glimpse of what you wrote as a child?’
‘I had a finished manuscript, back when I was in school and I had always dreamt of that being my first publication but-’
Tears stung my eyes.
‘What happened to it?’
‘I-’
Lost it as punishment? Never came back for it? Didn’t care?
Oh, I did care.
A tear threatened to fall, when a hand holding a familiar notebook shot up in the distance.
‘It’s right here,’ said a voice, taking me back to that classroom twelve years ago, ‘Right before the summer holidays.’
If only he knew I’d heard every word he spoke about integers.