Class Competition

Zahra glanced around the classroom. The other students looked as bored as she felt, and the lecturer’s voice was loud enough to hear even when she lay her head between her arms on the desk. She lay there for a while, listening but not bothering to write notes – the content was identical to the textbook chapter she’d read.

Pop!

Zahra lifted her head, surprised at the familiar sound. Someone’s chewing bubblegum.

She looked around and spotted a guy in her row chewing. His eyes fixed on the lecturer; his lips parted, and another bubble grew between them. It expanded, round and full, to about five inches in diameter, then burst.

Huh, she thought. I can do better than that.

Zahra pulled a piece of her favorite gum out of her bag and popped it into her mouth. She kept her head down and chewed until the gum was ready, aware of the occasional ‘pop!’ from the boy’s bubbles.

Once her gum was smooth and pliable, she made eye contact with the boy, winked, and blew into the gum. A bubble blossomed between her lips, filling with her first breath until it was the size of her head.

No magic, she reminded herself. After all, he’s only a human.

She watched the boy’s eyes widen through the bubble’s pink film, and he started chewing his gum again. Zahra slowed down, blowing a softer breath into hers, but without a sealing spell to hold it together, the bubble grew only a few inches before it was too fragile to expand further.

She pressed her lips together to seal its opening, then turned over the last nub of the gum and stretched it to start a double bubble. As she blew into it, the outer bubble popped, leaving the inner bubble surrounded by a sticky mess of film.

The boy grinned, then started blowing into his gum. This time, his bubble could compete with hers – it reached the size of a basketball before popping. Zahra kept blowing into her bubble, but it stretched thin and popped early. She gathered the gum back into her mouth and started over.

He watched her and started another bubble, blowing slow and steady.

She took a deep breath through her nose and blew a long, soft breath into her bubble. The pink sphere, fed by her breath, became bouncier and beat the size of her previous bubble, bouncing off her face as it grew and wobbled.

Pop!

Her bubble gave out as his approached a foot in diameter.

The heated competition drew some of the other classmates’ attention. Many students were listening and looking at the bubble-blowers rather than the lecturer. The girl sitting in the seat in front of the boy craned her neck to watch both competitors.

Zahra picked the gum off her face, then leaned back over her desk, head in her arms again, feigning defeat.

I’m not giving up yet, she thought. With her gum tucked in one corner of her mouth, she filled her lungs with a deep breath and focused her magic on the gum. She shivered a bit as the sealing spell took hold, then stretched the gum between her teeth and blew.

The thick-skinned bubble that formed expanded with each breath Zahra fed into it, pressing against her rosy brown arms and lifting her head from the desk. She blew into it as hard as she could.

It won’t pop anytime soon, she thought.

The boy stared at her bubble, no longer even chewing his gum. Zahra lifted her head to give the sphere more room but kept her arms around the round lower half. With each breath, the bubble puffed up larger, taut against her arms and the desk, and bulged toward the lecture hall’s high ceiling.

Once the transparent orb was almost the same size as herself, Zahra stopped blowing into it and sealed its opening shut. The lecturer had continued despite the lopsided competition, and the sound bounced around the room, reflecting off the bubble’s impenetrable skin.

At this point, the boy tried blowing another head-sized bubble, but instead of inflating it until it strained and burst, he stood up and approached the side of Zahra’s bubble. He leaned in and touched his bubble to hers, but it bounced off and popped on his nose.

Frustrated, he returned to his seat.

Hmm. I better not push it too far, Zahra thought. She prepared the remainder of her gum and blew into it, creating another bubble nested within the outer, airier one. The remnants of the sealing spell glittered on the bubble’s skin.

She blew into the inner bubble and inflated it until it had grown to two-thirds the size of the outer one. One last slow sigh expanded the inner sphere until it compressed the host bubble’s air.

Zahra inspected her work. Almost every student stared at her gigantic double bubble, including the boy who’d started her competition. The pink orbs stretched over two rows ahead of her, shading the heads of a few of her classmates – and the professor still hadn’t noticed.

It’d be a shame to pop it, she thought. But I guess it’s time.

She glanced at the boy and winked, then closed her eyes and released the sealing spell.

At first, nothing happened.

The bubbles bobbed, still attached to Zahra’s lips but no longer glittering with her magic. She inhaled and breathed into the inner bubble. The bubble’s weakened skin tore, and the inner bubble burst, leaving its film stretched across the outer bubble’s interior.

Instead of popping the remaining bubble, Zahra sucked the air from it, exhaling through her nose. As the bubble deflated, it sank, almost touching the next row of students’ heads.

The boy groaned, disappointed.

The limp, wrinkled leftovers of the gum were still sticky, so Zahra chewed it back until she’d collected it all in her mouth again.

No mess, Zahra thought.

Her professor looked up from his presentation and, seeing nothing abnormal, returned to his material.

Zahra kept chewing her gum, which had grown firm and crackly from the spell’s effects. She wrote down a few answers in her notebook and spat the gum into its old, original wrapper, intending to throw it away later.

The boring lecture continued.

Pop!

She looked over at the boy. He winked and blew another sizeable bubble, but she shook her head and leaned over her desk again.

That was fun, she thought. But if I do it again, that guy might catch on to my secret.