Clara Voyant by Rachelle Delaney

Author:Rachelle Delaney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PRH Canada Young Readers
Published: 2018-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Never before had she willed a school day to slow down. But time passed as usual—possibly even faster than usual—as Clara awaited her interview with Mrs. Major. When the bell rang at the end of the day, she steeled her nerves, grabbed her notebook and headed for the custodian’s office, half hoping Mrs. Major had forgotten all about their interview and had already gone home.

Where was Mrs. Major’s home? she wondered as she approached the custodian’s door. It had never occurred to her that she even had one.

Not only that, she realized as she knocked, but Mrs. Major was a Mrs.! She was married! Did she have children? Was that even possible?

The door swung open, and Clara found herself at eye level with the custodian’s biceps. She jumped back.

“You’re the reporter!” barked Mrs. Major.

“Y-y-yes, ma’am,” Clara stammered. “I’m Clara. Hi. Um, should we do the interview…here?” She peered around Mrs. Major into her office.

“No.” Mrs. Major slammed the door shut behind her, and Clara jumped again. “I’ll take you straight to the scene of the crime.”

“Oh. Okay,” Clara said, relieved that she wouldn’t have to enter the custodian’s office and risk never coming back out. Except now every kid at KMS would see her hanging out with Mrs. Major after school. But the custodian was already marching off down the hallway, so Clara had no choice but to hurry after her.

“Um, can I ask you some questions?” Clara asked as they marched down the hallway.

“Well, this is an interview!” Mrs. Major boomed.

“Right. Okay.” Clara looked at her list of what Wesley called “warm-up questions.” They were simple and quick, designed to make the interview subject comfortable before delving into the hard-hitting questions that mattered. “Can I get your full name?”

“What for?” Mrs. Major snapped.

“Um, well, it is a newspaper article,” said Clara.

“Melinda Major!”

Melinda. Clara scribbled this down. She’d never have guessed. “Birthday?”

“February seventh,” Mrs. Major snapped. “And the year is none of your business.”

“No problem.” Clara noted this, and then decided to go ahead and ask an impromptu question. “Do you…have children?”

Mrs. Major snorted. “I put up with enough of you at work.”

“Fair enough,” said Clara. “Hobbies?”

“Here we are!” Mrs. Major stopped suddenly beside the recycling station outside the cafeteria doors. She flipped up the lid of a green bin and motioned for Clara to look inside. There, atop a mound of banana peels and apple cores, lay the evidence.

“It’s a juice box,” Clara observed.

“It’s a crime,” said Mrs. Major.

“I see.” Clearly Mrs. Major hadn’t watched nearly as many crime shows as Maeve. Clara took a few notes: Juice box. Tropical punch. She snapped a photo with her phone. “So, how often do you come across these…crime scenes?”

“Every single day.” Mrs. Major plucked it out of the green bin and tossed it into a blue box for recycling. Then she closed the green bin and lifted it up onto her shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all. She strode off again, and Clara followed.

“You have no idea what I put up with,” Mrs.

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