These characters and their setting are the property of J. Rowling and her associates and affiliates.
Chapter 10: The Meeting of the Minds
"Goodness, Emma! You certainly are a fast typer. I didn't expect you would be done so quickly!"
Part of Emma wanted to roll her eyes and snark about the size of the work she'd been given compared to the amount of competence she had, but she didn't, of course, do that. She was intelligent. The reason Mr. Snape was almost universally disliked-- and therefore thwarted at every turn-- was because he didn't refrain from speaking his mind. Emma wanted more work to do, not less, so she needed cooperation. The math instructor would never give her anything to do if she made her angry so she gave the woman a winning smile. One had to catch flies with honey...
"I like typing, actually, Mrs. Osbourn. And I don't have a lot to do. I'd be glad to do more if you'd like. Perhaps I could type your tests for you." She looked at the older woman hopefully.
"Oh, no. That's not necessary, dear. I use the same tests each year. I just run off a few more copies, and I've never had a problem. Well, all except that time Alan found a mistake on one-- a typo really. How he got a hold of one of my tests I'll never know..."
"Um... Perhaps one of the students left it lying around?" Emma's smile was becoming extremely strained. She couldn't believe her ears. The same tests every year? How silly was that?
"Hmm. I suppose," Mrs. Osbourn considered, her plump hand absently scratching her double chin and her pale eyes hardening peevishly. "But he didn't have to act so superior about it!"
"Who? Mr. Snape?" Emma couldn't help wanting to hear what he'd had to say.
"Well, who else? The man's insufferable. He actually accused MY department of being the reason his department was having trouble! He said I wasn't teaching them enough math to be able to handle the science. Of all the nasty things-- hinting I wasn't a good teacher, that I didn't know what I was doing..."
Emma put on an expression of deepest sympathy. The woman had no idea what her problem was, and probably didn't care, but any attempt at fostering change would never come through insult.
"How awful! That must have really hurt. It's hard to have someone put you down-- especially if it's a colleague. You know," she confided sadly, "he's not particularly nice to me either..."
The math teacher was immediately mollified, and she patted her secretary's shoulder in a motherly, irritating fashion. "Now don't you worry about Alan, dear. I suppose he can't help being a sour old bat! Just stay out of his way. He keeps mostly to himself anyways. Doesn't fit here, you know."
And Emma did? She had grave doubts concerning that.
Harriet Osbourn, and her attitude, were sadly typical. For generations here, anyone who aspired to something higher had left and never returned while those who stayed had defined the local character. This was a region of farmers and stone workers, of pensioners and small-time artisans. This woman, herself, had only gone to college in order to come back home as a teacher, and in her mind she was fulfilling the role admirably. Any criticism of her would have to be artfully worded and liberally shrouded in humble praise. Emma crossed her fingers before carefully pressing on.
"Mrs. Osbourn. Please don't think I'm being presumptuous, because I'm really not. I mean, you're a teacher and I'm just a secretary. But I just can't help wondering. If you always use the same tests, won't students be tempted to cheat? I've heard of schools where students were selling test answers. I really hope that would never happen here." It's probably been going on for years already...
But the teacher only laughed. "Oh, no fear of that, Emma dear. If my students were cheating, the whole lot of them would have perfect scores on every exam! But that never happens. They never even come close. I aways have to scale the grades, and if I didn't, some of them would never pass at all!"
"Oh, well. I suppose." Some of them were probably selling test answers anyway but were too dim to figure out that the answers they sold were wrong! The situation was worse than Emma had thought.
The older woman suddenly looked piqued, possibly because she had noticed Emma's slight frown. "I suppose I could make up new tests every year like some teachers do. She shot an icy glare in the direction of the science department. "But unlike some people, I don't have piles of free time! I have a husband and three little boys to take care of after school, meals to cook and a house to run besides..."
"Oh please, Mrs. Osbourn, please! I DO understand. I don't have children myself, but I do know how demanding boys can be. And three of them! I don't know how you manage! You really are amazing!"
If Emma was afraid she had laid it on a little too thick, she soon came to the conclusion that she probably couldn't lay it on thick enough. The woman was actually preening under her praise, and Emma thought it rather sad. Maybe she didn't get praised very often-- though she could perfectly understand why. She also knew that lack of praise was a self fulfilling prophesy.
"Well, I do do the best I can," the teacher sniffed.
"Of course you do!" Emma made her voice encouraging. "You know, women always have to work twice as hard as men. It's like we carry the whole world on our shoulders! You're actually doing THREE jobs instead of one! And you really shouldn't have to type all your tests every year anyway. That's why you have a secretary! It must have been so hard that poor Mrs. Asquith's medical problems kept her from helping you as much as she should have. What was her trouble, again?"
"Sally had lumbago, poor dear, and migraines. Oh, how she used to suffer! Not a day went by--"
"Oh, the poor thing!" Emma cut in quickly. "No wonder she wasn't around very much. How hard it must have been for you to have had to do all your own typing!"
"Well, yes..."
"But now you have a secretary to help you again." Oh please take the hint, Emma almost begged. Please, please, please! "And I really need more work to do. You know, if I don't find things to keep busy with, they might think I'm not necessary here and let me go. I really need this job!"
"Oh, don't worry, Luv. I don't think they'd do that." Mrs. Osbourn gave her another pat.
Emma looked at her anxiously. "Are you really sure? I hear the budget's tight! And I feel so unproductive, so useless. You see, I like helping..."
The woman looked at her as if she were a new sort of species. "Do you really?"
Her secretary nodded fervently.
Well... Maybe I will revise all my tests after all. It really would be the best thing to do... And they did hire you to help me... Are you sure you don't mind?"
"I'd love it! How soon can I start?" Poor Emma had to keep herself from jumping up and down and clapping her hands. It was embarrassing how boredom could reduce one almost to childishness.
Mrs. Osbourn paused. "Right away, I suppose. All my tests are in my desk. Though I probably should rewrite the tests first... Unless you could do that too? It's just math, after all!"
"Oh, of course! Let me see the text books and I'll make up some different questions. You know, just ones that are different so that the kids can't cheat."
"My, my! That's good of you. Just hold right there and I'll be right back."
Emma forced her expression to remain cheerful, using all of her willpower to keep from racing after the incompetent teacher to help her extract those tests more efficiently. Patience was hard, especially when her daily lot was boredom. She felt like the proverbial dog who ate crumbs from his master's table. Except that in her case, she couldn't just passively wait for those crumbs to fall. She had to work hard to make them do so-- sometimes without success. Emma wondered if Mrs. Osbourne would even remember what she was looking for when she got to her office. The woman's distractions were many.
But it seemed she needn't have worried. Having once become accustomed to the notion of new tests (requiring no labor on her part at all!) Mrs. Osbourn had warmed to it and even seemed to believe the idea had been hers. She bustled into Emma's office with a stack of books and messy paper files. "Here you are, dear. Whew! I've been wanting to revise these tests for years! Are you sure you don't mind?"
"Oh, no! I'm happy to do it. Really! I don't mind at all."
The woman patted her on the shoulder again. "Such a good girl, Emma! I'll have to speak to Mr. Hanscomb about you! Now, my first form students are on chapter three and should be ready for a test in two weeks, and my second formers..." Here she paused. "Oh, did I ever tell you what my Willie did the other day? He's only six now and the trouble he gets in... Well! He was being extra quiet..."
It was twenty minutes before the math teacher's free period was over, but it felt like an eternity to Emma. She smiled, exclaimed with interest concerning Mrs. Osbourn's children, and anything else Mrs. Osbourn said, and somehow in all the good natured verbiage she managed to ascertain which tests needed to be finished first and when they were likely to be needed. When the bell rang for the end of the period she was almost at her wits end. Finally, after the teacher was out of her office and safely in her own classroom, Emma heaved a sigh of relief and dropped her head into her hands.
There were times when Emma felt she had fallen into a Black Hole, some weird crack in reality that had landed her in an alternate sub-universe-- a real life "Brigadoon." It was like she was one of those poor characters on the television show "Quantum Leap" who were bounced to places that looked like home, but that had been twisted in ways that made them impossibly alien. Emma still had no memories of her past, but she now felt quite certain of what it hadn't been. Nothing in her present environment was even remotely comfortable. Wherever she had been from, it had not been like this.
Every day was something of a strain, and it was frustrating too. Emma liked to be busy. She liked to accomplish. But here, in this sleepy little town, the pace was maddeningly slow. Her eager mental fingers were forever being bruised upon the cold, unyielding walls of complacency and indifference. Every impulse for action was met with a stop. Emma felt as if she was running a race but could never get up to speed because of a road-block of slow fellow racers who just wouldn't get out of her way.
Here, people didn't care about anything past their narrow sphere. They weren't interested in progress. Local folk were completely consumed with their own little gossips and intrigues and they didn't pay much thought to the outside world. They also didn't like change. It was hard to comprehend this contentment with the lowest common denominator. It was hard to feel affinity for people who were behind the times and didn't seem to want to catch up.
Emma felt like a member of some conquered foreign tribe forced to assimilate-- or pretend to do so. Even her way of thinking was seen as strange, and though everyone around her spoke English, it didn't seem to be the same language at all. Sadly, she understood how George Elliot's Silas Marner must have felt upon settling in Raveloe-- a place completely alien to everything he had known before. It was no wonder the poor man had eventually become a recluse. He just hadn't been able to connect.
A recluse... Here Emma paused in her thinking. That was obviously what had happened to Mr. Snape. The man had effectively isolated himself. He was working hard as a teacher, doing the best job that he could, but he had enclosed himself behind emotional walls, built a fortress-- complete with mental spiked ramparts and moat-- to keep all the alieness at bay. Emma now felt she understood why he would do that.
Being different was vulnerable thing, and Snape seemed a sensitive man, a private, perhaps shy man. There was only so much estrangement a person could take. Emma, herself, had times when she just wanted to hide. Indeed, all that frequently kept her from doing so was a sense of self preservation. Emma had no credentials, and since her position was worse than Snape's, she had to continually be pro-active. All she could do was to reach out. Snape, by contrast, was normal. He wasn't hampered as she was by a horrifying lack of a past.
But that led to the question of why he was here. For this backward school to have a teacher of Snape's caliber was a mystery. Such a brilliant man was wasted here, and he had to know it. So why did he continue to stay? Mr. Alan Snape should be teaching at a college, or at a posh, elite boarding school. He should be making ground-breaking discoveries at a private research lab. What kept him at a job for which he was obviously overqualified, and in which he was obviously unhappy? Emma hoped she would find out the secret of these mysteries eventually. It was one of her long term goals.
For some reason, Emma couldn't help but find Snape fascinating. She had been inexplicably drawn to him from the very beginning. Though she originally thought it was because he stuck out as different, she had lately begon to realize it was because of his similarities-- to her. He reminded her of herself. Like her, Snape was an oddity, someone who didn't belong, and besides that he seemed to look just as miserable as she felt. Emma sensed that he might be a kindred spirit, someone who would understand her or at least be someone she could understand. She wanted to connect with him. That was only if she could get him to talk to her...
Today, though, she was going to try. He'd probably freeze her with some sarcastic sneer no matter what she said to him, but at this point Emma was so starved for intelligent conversation she felt she could brave any amount of snarkiness to get it. Snape was articulate. He was also well read. Endless possibilities for stimulating conversation-- on something other than gossip, sickness, and the weather-- just had to abound! Emma was determined to get him to say something to her, no matter how small it was. At the close of the day, after tidying her office, a very determined Miss Smith headed down the hall, books in hand, to the office of Alan Snape..
Snape's office was a fascinating place. The shelves were crammed with jars of specimens, rocks of various kinds, fossilized bones, and bits of dried leaves, flowers, and seeds. Then, of course, there were all his books. Alan Snape had more books in his office than any other teacher did-- better books on science than the school library. On the day he had let her watch one of his classes for him Emma had asked if she could borrow one of them. Though he had looked at her hawkishly-- as if she were a new specimen he wasn't used to encountering-- the answer had been yes.
That odd look didn't bother Emma. By that time she had become used to it. Just as the residents of the nursing home had regarded her as a favored child, people here all seemed to see her as strange. Ironically, the first book she had chosen was about memory, and she had returned it carefully within the week. After that he had let her borrow more-- sometimes more than one at a time. Today she was returning two books, one on geology and one on heredity. She considered carefully what type of book woul be most likely to lend ideas for comment. Psychology of learning, perhaps?
As she approached his office, she could hear the sounds of voices-- the deep and strangely melodic one of Snape and the higher pitched, rougher voice of a boy. Peering in, Emma saw a youth slouching near the desk. He had the round shouldered, defensive posture of someone who wasn't listening and who didn't trust those in authority to have anything worthwhile to say. Straight, oily, sand colored hair spilled over his limp collar and fell forward to hide his face. Emma recognized the boy as John Tupper, the one everyone agreed was a troublemaker, the one who had pulled an in-house suspension for doing a stunt in Snape's class.
"But why do I have to do it over?" the boy whined truculently. "Lots of blokes didn't pass it in!"
"Lots of those blokes, Mr. Tupper, are dunderheads."
"Then I'm one too."
"Is that what you really WISH to be?" The question was a hiss.
The boy kept his face down and didn't meet his teacher's eyes.
"Well, answer me!"
He answered with a sullen mutter.
"What do you mean you can't do them?" Snape asked waspishly. "I wouldn't assign them if I didn't think you could! These are simple conversion problems, and most of the work is mathematics. I know you were in class the days we discussed this, so you don't have any excuse!"
Tupper looked angry and ashamed, and Emma was puzzled as to why. Mr. Snape was behaving in a way she hadn't seen before. Uncharacteristically, he actually seemed to want to give this boy a break and be trying to curb his famous temper. Sad to say, it also appeared that he was fast approaching failure. Emma's heart warmed to him unexpectedly. John Tupper was the school pariah, the Bad Boy everyone assumed would come to no good. Snape looked like he was trying to help him even though he wasn't having the best of success. Listening carefully, Emma slowly began to get an inkling as to what the problem was.
"But they're crazy!" the youth burst out desperately. "I mean, look. This one's got parsecs in it. Parsecs is like... space! I don't understand! How can I do it when it's something so big?"
Suddenly Emma understood, and without thinking, she surged forward impulsively.
"A problem with parsecs? Could I see it?"
The boy turned to her grudgingly and shoved his paper at her. "Look!" he groused, his face mulish. "It says: a cube has dimensions of 10mm wide, 20mm high, and 10mm deep; how can that be expressed as parsecs? Come on! How can you go from millimeters to parsecs?"
"Simple," she answered seriously. "Just use math. I admit that the problem is... unlikely, but it's still only numbers, after all. No matter how large the numbers are, the principle's the same."
"Huh?" Tupper looked aggrievedly lost.
"Here, let me show you." Emma looked around for a paper to write on, and amazingly it was Mr. Snape, with eyebrow raised (was it mockingly?), that handed her one. She pulled out a pencil and began figuring. "All you have to do is take it by steps. You convert millimeters to meters, meters into kilometers, kilometers to light years, then light years to parsecs." The boy stared, but Emma thought she could see a tiny flicker of dawning light in his eyes-- a feeble light that begged encouragement.
"You see, all it is is numbers, and you already have the key right here." Emma pointed to the chart of conversion values.
Tupper looked sullenly at the floor. "I'm not good at math," he mumbled, and if looks could have killed, the grey school linoleum would have blistered black.
"No one's born good at math! We have to learn. And you don't even have to understand it all the way to be able to do it. You just have to learn the rules and how they work. It's like fixing cars," she told him, meeting his skeptical eyes. "Once you know to fix a Ford Taurus, you can fix any Ford Taurus, and the same goes for every other car. You have to learn the key- the pattern that makes each of them work." She smiled slightly as Tupper's steel blue gaze was suddenly more alert.
"Numbers always follow the rules, you see, and if you know the rules you can do anything with them-- no matter how big or how complicated. Parsecs are huge, but if you can see them as numbers that gives you power. It's like, well, seeing a car as a bunch of parts, or... a living thing as a mass of cells. It's a way to put the universe into a nutshell."
"Read the chapter, Mr. Tupper," Snape broke in quietly. "That's where you'll find the rules. I expect the assignment turned in first thing Monday morning. Before class. You may go now."
Emma watched pensively as the youth shuffled out. She almost jumped when Snape suddenly asked, "How did you know that Tupper fixed cars, Miss Smith?"
"Office gossip," she answered wryly. "There's no escaping it around here. About the only good thing anyone has to say about him is that he can take apart cars- any cars-- and put them back together again. Of course they also suspected him of car theft as well..."
"Of course." The tone of his voice was savagely grim. Emma crabbed together her courage.
"I've brought back your books," she ventured.
"Indeed," he responded absently. "I suppose you'd like more?"
"Um... If you don't mind."
Snape waved his hand in the direction of the bookshelf, but made no more comment. The sound of his pen scribbling comments on some poor student's paper was loud in the strained silence.
Emma browsed among the books. "You know," she began boldly, "I've just read the most fascinating article."
"Did you?" The fact that he sounded bored was not encouraging.
"Yes," she stubbornly continued. "It was about the use of the new ceramics in portable body armor."
Snape stopped his correcting and turned around to look at her sharply. "Where did you read that?"
Emma did her best to remain calm and poised. She had a bite! She actually had his attention.... "Chemistry Today," she replied.
The man's eyes narrowed. "The latest issue?"
"Yes." She wondered oddly where this was going.
Suddenly he slammed his hand on his desk so sharply that Emma almost dropped the book she was holding.
"So YOUR'RE the one who's been getting to them first!" he exclaimed sourly. "I've been wondering who in this niggly little town would take them out, since nobody else ever has." He glared at her under furrowed black brows. "You do realize that the only reason this tiny provincial library even gets that magazine is because of me?"
He paused, and then eyed her suspiciously again. "Do you have the Physics Review as well?"
"Er... Well, yes," she admitted, trying not to smile. Mr. Snape looked a bit comical with that fearsome scowl now that she knew it was more smokescreen than anything else. "I didn't know you considered them yours. But you can have them next. I've already finished with them."
"Humph!" He rolled his eyes. "Well, that's good of you, since you can hardly expect me to give you any serious discussion on the articles until I've actually read them."
Now Emma had to work very hard to hide her smile. That meant he was going to discuss them! At that point she could have danced.
"Do you have them with you?" He asked.
She brightened as she selected another book on memory. For some reason the man had several. "Actually yes. But I was going to bring them back to the library after school and..."
Snape waved his hand impatiently. "Psht! Give them to me. I'll stop by the library on my way home and renew them in my name." He began stowing his papers into a satchel to get ready to leave.
Opportunity only knocked once and Emma decided to pounce on it. "Oh, well then let me walk with you. I have to return Modern Astronomy too."
"Modern Astronomy?" Snape paused scowlingly as he opened the door for her. "What in the world are you doing reading that, or the Physics Review? I thought pretty young women read Glamor or Cosmopolitan or some other silly such thing."
Emma giggled slightly, proceeding him into the hall. "I guess I am a little strange. I like to learn things-- and not just science. I love history and philosophy too."
He humphed again, passing by her to take the lead.
"Oh, and by the way," she added in a moment of daring. "Thanks for the compliment."
"What?" He stopped and looked back at her in confusion. It was obvious that he didn't like to be confused, and it was equally plain that the thought of giving her compliments embarrassed him. Emma realized that her instincts had been right on the dot concerning Mr. Snape. He was more than just shy. He was socially awkward too.
"You called me pretty," she explained. "Most people don't, you know."
At that, Snape appeared completely nonplussed. "Oh...Well..." he groused gruffly. "I find most people to be stupid-- present company excluded. Though, I suppose you'll take that as a compliment as well."
Snape's surly tone sounded anything but comlimentary and his black eye glared at her in mock menace. "I trust you will not be encouraged to take... liberties."
Emma couldn't resist. She really, really couldn't. She flashed him a conspiratorial grin. "Oh, don't worry. From now on I shall only ask to borrow one book at a time. And I might even let you read the magazines first! After all, since I'm the newcomer, it would only be fair.
He gave her a tentative sort of stiff, sideways smirk. "Then I suppose I can allow the compliment to stand."
"Why that's good of you, sir," she teased. "I always knew you were a man of distinction!"
Snape looked very uncomfortable, but unbelievably he made an attempt to tease back. "Humph... Really? What gave it away?"
"Why, your collection of books, of course!"
He took another baffled look at her and shook his head. "Well come then, let's get on to the library. Though I'm warning you. If The Royal Field Geologist is out, I get it first!"
His secretary's eyes twinkled. "Deal!"