Karyn, meanwhile, had math class with Lake Point's best known math teacher, Mr. Matheson. Mr. Matheson, as usual, was punctual and was pleased that most of the class had shown up on time.
In the class with Karyn today were three of her fellow co-owners of the Performing Arts Center: Jay Duncan, Kyla Leeson, and Tiffany Sanders. Also present were Steve "The Stud" Farber, Mike "Moose" Matthews, Nicole Tiller, the jocks Tom Welles and Danny Foster, country music fan Clyde Meehan, basketball star Tyler Jackson, and Goth girl Athena DeVries.
Karyn wasn't really expecting anything unusual during math class. Mr. Matheson was known not only for being punctual, but also for making sure everyone stayed on topic during math class. There was rarely any discussion of non-math related subjects during Mr. Matheson's classes. Such things had their place in the pre-class and post-class brief discussion, but not during the class itself.
As per their agreement, there wasn't any further mention of the Performing Arts Center during the pre-class chatting. There would be plenty of time to discuss how people's memories were different depending on who heard Starla's wish later. The discussions weren't really that much: mostly about the rash of pop culture reunion specials and nostalgia tours, such as the reunion of the original cast of Saturday Night Live. Karyn noted it was an interesting trend, but it didn't seem that unusual to her.
Mr. Matheson started off class with a speech. "Now, sometimes to engage a class, a teacher might wish to bring up local events, some of which might even affect people within the class. I'd like to do so today. Today, we're discussing division, but we're going to be doing it within the context of recent events."
"First off, I'll get close to home. As many of you know, twelve students at Lake Point High School recently came together and helped bring about the creation of the Lake Point Center for the Performing Arts. Four of them are with us today in this class." Mr. Matheson paused to allow Jay, Kyla, Tiffany, and Karyn to give an acknowledging wave or nod.
"These twelve students are co-owners of the Performing Arts Center." Mr. Matheson continued. "They come in four categories, which I will demonstrate on this list." Mr. Matheson pointed to the whiteboard, which listed the following.
Name | Category|
--- | --- | ---
Jennifer Taylor | Drama club |
Sarah Taylor | Drama club |
Starla Stanfield | Drama club
Jay Duncan | Science, fandom
Kyla Leeson | Science, fandom
Walter Smukmeyer | Science, fandom
Leonard Drullers | Science, fandom
Sarah McMIllan | Cheerleader
Tiffany Sanders | Cheerleader
Melissa Smith | Cheerleader
Jon Gibson | Arts patron
Karyn Black | Arts patron
"As you can see, we have a group of people with diverse interests, all with their own ideas and uses for the Performing Arts Center." Mr. Matheson said. "How does this relate to Division and math class? I'll illustrate with a few hypotheticals."
"First off, a simple one. Let's say a touring Shakespeare company wished to perform Hamlet at the Performing Arts Center for four weekends, and chose to pay the owners $500,000 dollars for use of the facility during that time. As that list clearly shows, there are twelve co-owners. So, if we divide the money as evenly as possible among the twelve, how much money will each receive?"
Karyn never thought some project she was a part of would be used in the context of a math lesson. Of course, this project wasn't her idea. The only reason she was a co-owner was because she was there to hear the wish when Starla wished "we" had a Performing Arts Center. And Starla was using her stage voice -- what people in theatre sometimes called 'projecting' -- at the time, allowing for a lot of people to hear her wish clearly.
Karyn wondered if there were more Wishing Coins. She realized there most likely were. Was this related to Jon's wish that something interesting would happen?
She realized, however, that she had to focus on the division problem. Everyone else was already focusing, with the exception of Mike "Moose" Matthews and Tom Welles, who looked bored. Athena DeVries was looking at the strange pendant she was wearing, at Goth girl Sabrina Johnson, and back at her papers, but otherwise seemed intent on focusing on the math problem.
The next few division problems were similar hypotheticals, one a hypothetical about the drama club members, the cheerleaders, the geeks (called the science fandom group on the list) and the two 'arts patrons' (Karyn and Jon) dividing up shares of money. And then Mr. Matheson moved on to less local examples.
"One of the biggest pop culture events of this year, aside from the Beatles reunion and retrospective special, is the upcoming pay per view concert event featuring Aretha Franklin, the Supremes, the Temptations, and James Brown. If each artist was paid $650,000 for their performance, and the event organizers started with $40 million dollars, how much money would the event organizers have left after paying each of the artists?"
Karyn knew this problem was going to be a rough one. This one would demand strong focusing.
And then suddenly, she realized something. She remembered a lot of things.
She now remembered what she hadn't remembered about the Performing Arts Center. She remembered how she and Jon joined in with the drama club, the geeks, and the cheerleaders to petition and raise money for the construction of the building. She remembered its grand opening, and the first shows performed there. And yet she also remembered that the place didn't even exist until earlier this morning when Starla Stanfield made that wish.
She also remembered that many of the artists in that concert, at least two of the Beatles, and some of the cast members of Saturday Night Live were dead. Or at least they were before. Karyn realized that somewhere out there people must be making wishes, and their wishes were bringing dead celebrities back to life. Those celebrities were now performing as if nothing happened.
Closer to home, she knew that Sabrina Johnson wasn't normally in this early period math class. In fact, when class began, Sabrina was nowhere to be seen. Now she had a seat nearby, and Steve "The Stud" Farber (who had been there at the start of the class) was nowhere to be found.
Karyn looked around, and no one appeared to find any of this unusual. Except for Athena, who clearly was wondering what her friend Sabrina was doing in this class but couldn't ask her until class was over.
But why did Karyn now remember how things were before? Clearly there were other Wishing Coins out there, and clearly people were using them. And as far as she knew, they worked just like the wishing stone in that only the people who heard the wish noticed the changes in reality. This had been proven by the earlier confusion in which everyone other than the twelve co-owners remembered the Performing Arts Center being completed three months ago, while the co-owners knew it had only been wished into existence this morning.
"Karyn, are you all right?" Kyla Leeson asked.
Karyn suddenly returned her focus to where she was and what she was doing. "Yes, I'm sure." she said. "Sorry, I just got distracted."
Mr. Matheson turned to Karyn. "Are you having trouble focusing? You're usually more attentive."
"I'm okay." Karyn said. "I think I can do this one."
With that, Karyn returned her attention to the latest math problem.
The rest of the class proceeded more or less normally. After class ended, and everyone handed in their papers, Karyn decided to go speak to Sabrina Johnson and Athena DeVries.
Athena was already asking Sabrina a few questions. "It's not that I'm not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?" Athena asked.
"Ten minutes ago, I made a wish." Sabrina said. "I knew how you hated being in the same class as that Steve Farber creep, and I wished I could be in this class instead of Steve. Next thing I knew, I was here and everyone except you was treating it as if it were normal."
"I'm glad I wore my pendant today." Athena said. "But I'm not the only one who remembers how things are supposed to be."
Athena turned to Karyn. "I saw the look on your face. You remember things too. You remember that Sabrina's not supposed to be here, and that the Performing Arts Center wasn't here yesterday. Among other things."
Karyn paused. She wasn't sure what to say. "Y-yes. But how do YOU remember?"
"I have this special pendant that protects my memories from magical influences." Athena said. "But you don't look like you have one. How do you remember how things were before?"
"I don't know." Karyn replied. And she was telling the truth. She didn't know how she remembered everything. It was something she would have to talk to Jon about later today.
Athena turned back to Sabrina. "So you made a wish and it was granted?" Athena asked.
"Yes." Sabrina said. "I found this coin on the sidewalk. It's very weird. It doesn't look like any currency I've heard of. It was marked 'Good for five wishes'." She then showed Karyn and Athena the coin.
It was now marked 'Good for four wishes'.
Karyn stared in wonder and worry. No doubt about it now. There were more Wishing Coins out there. And while Starla's was only good for one wish, Karyn now knew there existed other coins that were good for more than one wish.
It was another thing she needed to tell Jon about, if he didn't already know. In the meantime, she needed to get to the next class.
