Living with Your Past Selves (Spell Weaver) by Bill Hiatt Page A

names of the students being honored at the Founders’ Day Celebrations,” he replied nonchalantly. Considering Stan’s academic standing, that he would be honored for something went without saying, so he didn’t have to join in the hysteria. I looked around, and sure enough, the big crowd around the bulletin board was what was wreaking havoc on the flow of traffic. Out of curiosity, I worked my way in that general direction with Stan in tow.
    We finally managed to get close enough to see the names. The first few were no great shock: Dan Stevens for Athletics—wow, didn’t see that one coming; Stanford Schoenbaum for science—so what else is new; Natalie Kim for math.
    “You didn’t win for both science and math?”
    “Only one award per student,” replied Stan, “and Natalie’s very talented.”
    Did I hear a touch of attraction? I glanced at Stan, but his face was calculatedly unreadable, so I looked back at the board. Aabharana Charu had won for English; that made sense since she had the highest grade in AP English and edited the school literary magazine, Wild Flowers . Jackson Donovan, one of the members of my band, had won for history. It seemed to me he could have won for music, since he was one of the best musicians, both for rock and jazz, in the entire school and had led the school’s jazz band since freshman year. On the other hand, he did currently have the highest grade in AP U.S. History, so the history award also made sense…
    “Tal, look, you’re up there, too!” yelped Stan. My eyes darted down the page: Carlos Reyes for foreign language, Mary Stewart for art, Eva O’Reilly for drama…and Taliesin Weaver for music. For a second I just stared at the board in disbelief. Since I could sing like an angel and play virtually any musical instrument I could get my hands on, you might wonder why I would find such news surprising even in the least. I wasn’t being modest, I can assure you. But I didn’t perform in any of the school groups, and normally the music winner was someone like the band’s drum major, or the choir’s lead soprano, or the orchestra’s first violin.
    I couldn’t help wondering if Dan, who was still walking on water as far the adults in our football town were concerned, had pulled strings. However, I decided not to worry about it. I didn’t feel undeserving, and I figured my parents would be happy about it.
    Actually, happy proved to be an understatement. They both acted as if I had just won a Nobel Prize; I wasn’t at first that enthused about all the fuss, but at least, I reflected, my parents weren’t as hard to please as Stan’s. My dad restrained himself a little bit, but my mom became downright delirious, even insisting on taking me shopping for a new suit. Now we all know how much adolescent males like to shop for clothes with their moms. (Note the sarcasm.) I did have to admit, though, that in this case she had good taste, getting me a nice dark brown suit I actually looked good in. Then I had to suffer through her buying a new dress for the occasion, but at least she took my dad separately to get his new suit. Our family was certainly doing its part to keep the clothing stores in Santa Brígida’s little mall in business.
    I wish I could have said the same for Stan’s family. In fairness, Stan winning awards at school was kind of routine for them. Nonetheless, Stan’s growth spurt made his old suits look tight, and the sleeves and pant legs were, if not ridiculously short, then at least short enough to make the blue suit he was wearing look as if it had been bought carelessly off the rack, when in fact it had been tailor made for him—before the growth spurt. I don’t know what his mom in particular could have been thinking. Was she on some level still resenting his workouts with the football team? I didn’t know, but when the big night arrived, and Stan showed up in his ill-fitting blue suit, looking uncomfortable and eager for nothing more than to have