Chapter Two (Cont'd)

   "Uh, no," Michael sputtered. He didn't even have to look up, he could feel Mr. M.'s right eyebrow raising itself. He didn't need to wait for the left one to join it. Michael stood up, "It's just that we still don't know anything about it."
   "Oh?" Merlin's ears seemed to be trying to join his eyebrows.
   Michael couldn't watch; he looked at the floor and mumbled, "We wasted a question." Michael sat down.
   "But you didn't," Merlin's calm voice intoned from above.
   Michael looked up, startled. Mr. M. was standing right over him. Somehow, he'd made it down the aisle without a sound. And he was smiling.
   "Sometimes, knowing what something isn't, tells you more about it than knowing what it is," Merlin said.
   Michael rolled his eyes. Why was everything always so complicated when Mr. M. was involved?
   "For example," Merlin turned and strode toward the front of the class, "if I say, 'Michael Halsey is not a king --'"
   Mr. M. froze in mid-step, mid-word, mid-way up the aisle. His face went pale; his eyes grew wide; his knees began to buckle. His long, thin fingers lost their delicate grip on the test tube, and it fell toward the hard tile floor. The students nearest him dove for cover.
   The test tube shattered. Bits of glass and granules of salt skidded and bounced innocently across the floor.
   Merlin caught the corner of a desk with one hand and covered his face with the other. He looked sick.
   Michael was the first to reach him, "Mr. M., are you all right?"
   Merlin's mouth had gone dry. He nodded and rasped, "Something bad . . . like a smell . . ."
   Michael looked down at what was left of the harmless contents of the test tube.
   "No," continued Merlin, noticing Michael's gaze. "In my mind . . . like a premonition." Merlin looked past Michael to the windows, through the glass, and into the distance. He had the most uncomfortable feeling that something bad was going to get him.