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“And that is the visible light spectrum. Does anyone have any questions before I go on?”
Visible light wasn’t Ryland Grace’s favorite unit in the world. It was fine, he guessed, obviously necessary to teach because how else will the kids know how they see color? He taught at what he thought was a normal pace, but sometimes he caught himself speeding up. The next unit was his favorite: organisms. Classifications, genus, food chain pyramids, all the fun stuff. That, and he loved getting to show the kids videos of cheetahs running at ungodly speeds.
So it wasn’t any surprise to him that his students just stared back. He glanced at Olivia, arguably the smartest cookie of the batch, but he wouldn’t say that out loud. All of his kids were smart in their own right. Olivia just had a gift for science. Even she seemed a bit taken aback by the speed at which he ran through the slideshow and videos he had planned to show them. Her pencil stayed stagnant just above her notebook, as if she wanted to write but realized she couldn’t keep up.
Kevin raised his hand. “Mr. Grace, can you uh… run through that again? A little slower, maybe?”
Ryland chuckled sheepishly. “Oh, sorry, did I speed through again?”
The class collectively hummed an affirmative. Ryland sighed, pressing the clicker at the computer until the slideshow was back at the beginning.
“Okay, I promise I’ll go slower this time.”
Olivia’s pencil hit her paper. He glanced around the room again, finding the kids to be somewhere between slightly bored and intrigued. Tina in the back of the room had her cheek resting on her fist. In the front left of the room, Jason chewed on gum. At least he wasn’t making noise. Poor Carly looked to be four seconds from falling asleep.
“Alright, so, visible light. Our eyes only see a tiny portion of the whole spectrum—” he reached up at the board, pointing to a certain spot “—which our eyes are attuned to see. Can anyone tell me which color has the shortest wavelength?”
The kids didn’t seem receptive to that question. He slowly started pointing to the answer on the board. Carlos raised his hand.
“Yes, Carlos?”
“It’s purple,” he said with a shy smile. He was a bit nervous whenever he raised his hand, but he had spirit.
“Also called violet, but yes, thank you. Violet has the shortest wavelength at around 380 nanometers. If violet is the shortest, then which one is the longest?”
Carly raised her hand this time. “Red,” she chirped.
“Right again. You guys are on fire today,” he complimented. That got the kids to be a little more attentive. Ryland felt horrible for most of them, whose parents were like helicopters over their grades. Too many times had Ryland received emails from “concerned parents” regarding their kid’s grade. Ryland made his class considerably easy aside from the unit tests he was required to give out; each kid got an A on whatever assignment they did in class for the day. Easy grades means happy kids means happy parents. That, and he figured the kids could use some compliments in a world where technology tracked their every grade. It’s why he had gold star stickers he gave out on every daily activity. The kids loved it. He always loved seeing them smile whenever he passed back papers.
“Red has a wavelength of about 700 nanometers, and—” Ryland paused after seeing all of his kids’ eyes bolt to the door. Before he could comment on it, there was a knock. He checked his watch. It was about twenty minutes until lunch period started and he wasn’t expecting anyone. Oh, wait, he forgot to grab his plans from the office this morning. Maybe Catherine was passing by and decided to bring them, bless her.
“Can I get it?” Cecelia asked.
“Sure, just remember to look through the glass, okay?”
He cleared his throat as she got to the door. “Okay, so—”
“Mr. Grace?” he heard Cecelia say with confusion.
He turned, seeing Cecelia standing with the door open and her head tilted to the side. Ryland watched the figure enter his classroom. He was tall, an adult, and had a large lunch box in his hand. His hair was identical to Ryland’s. Ryland sighed as his twin brother took off his sunglasses. He never understood the appeal of wearing them inside other than to look cool. He was chewing gum.
“Oh, sorry, I thought you were on lunch break,” Colt said.
He could feel every eye in the room on him, the children intrigued now more than ever. He’s spoken about Colt before, even shown some clips from movies where he did the stunts, but they’ve never seen him in person. Colt was always traveling for his work, though sometimes he did stop by to see Ryland before hopping on the next plane. Ryland scratched the back of his head.
“I’ve still got about uhhh, fifteen minutes before lunch.”
The only reason people could tell him and Colt apart wasn’t because of his glasses, but because Colt’s body language screamed confidence. He was a stunt man, for goodness sakes; he threw himself off of buildings and set himself on fire for a living. He was hardcore, rightfully confident and loud in his presence. He grinned whereas Ryland smiled, stuck to his gray blazers and cardigans and hid behind the cool teacher persona. He had to admit, it was kind of funny seeing the kids looking between him and Colt like it was a tennis match.
“Then I’ll just sit over here then. Don’t mind me,” Colt said as he stepped behind Ryland.
“What, n-no, I’m in the middle of a lesson. You can wait outside.” Ryland saw the visitor sticker on his chest, where he’d scribbled his name with a stick figure falling beside it.
Colt, instead, flopped into his desk chair and sighed. “I’m definitely stealing this chair.”
Ryland huffed. “Cecelia, can you close the door, please? Thank you. As I was saying before I was interrupted—”
“Who’s that?” Kevin blurted.
“Why does he look like you?” Carly spoke next.
“You look the same,” Jason said in wonder.
He quickly lost control of the room as the kids’ questions grew louder and more in number. Ryland glared at Colt, who just smiled back and raised his eyebrows in quick succession as if saying they love me!
No, they don’t, Ryland glared back. They don’t even know who you are. And get your feet off my desk.
Colt complied with a chuckle. Damn him, getting his boots on the papers he has to grade.
“Okay, okay, hey! Simmer down!” Ryland started, raising his hands. Luckily, the kids were hanging onto his every word. He knew as soon as Colt walked in his lesson would be in shambles. There was no way he could get a class of thirty energetic kids to not question his twin that they’ve never seen before. “Just… okay, fine. One question at a time, everyone has to raise their hands when they want to ask. Got it?”
The kids nodded eagerly, eyes flickering to Colt, who flashed a thumbs up.
Olivia raised her hand the quickest. He pointed at her. “Who is that?”
Colt balked. “Wha—you didn’t tell them about me? I’m so offended right now.”
“Of course I did, they just didn’t know we were identical.”
“So you’re twins?” Jason blurted.
“Yes, and raise your hand next time,” Ryland said softly.
“Identical,” Colt added unhelpfully. He put the lunch box on Ryland’s desk and stood beside him, pointing to their faces. “Isn’t it uncanny? I’m Colt Seavers, by the way, but you guys can just call me Colt.”
“The stuntman!” Jeremy said with stars in his eyes. Ryland suppressed a chuckle. He’d seen Jeremy’s doodles on his papers. He wanted to go into the film industry, so it was no wonder he was so enraptured by Colt’s arrival.
“Ding ding ding,” Colt chimed.
“Yes, Carly, what’s your question?” Ryland said, quieting the room again.
She seemed uncertain she should ask, but put on a brave face anyway. “Um, I thought you guys were siblings.”
Ryland shared a glance with Colt, who raised a brow. “We are,” they said in unison, much to the amusement of the kids.
“So why does he have a different last name than you?” she asked, pointing at Colt.
“Oh. Well, Colt Seavers is like… it’s like my stunt name, the one that goes in the end credits of a movie,” Colt started. “My actual name is Colton Grace.”
“But why not use your real name for work?” Kevin asked.
Colt shrugged. “Didn’t sound cool enough.”
“Colt,” Jason said as he raised his hand. Eh, close enough. “Was it true what was on the news a few weeks ago?”
Ryland smirked, wondering how he was going to try and explain the Ryder scandal to a bunch of middle schoolers. The question made Colt rub the back of his head awkwardly, all eyes suddenly on him. It was different from a movie set where producers and stunt coordinators were trying to make sure he wasn’t dead, watching him like a hawk. Now, he was being dissected under a projector by a bunch of scrawny teens. Yeah, Ryland wouldn’t be letting go of this anytime soon.
“No! No, obviously not,” Colt spluttered. “Look, I hate to burst your bubble if you like Tom Ryder, but he was an a—”
Ryland elbowed him. No swearing in my classroom.
“—a very bad guy who did very bad things, including hurting his primary stuntman, Henry,” Colt said with a half-assed recovery. “He tried to make it look like I hurt Henry so he could save his career, but I didn’t let him. So, no, what you saw in the news was not real. I didn’t hurt anyone, Tom Ryder did.”
“Never liked the guy anyway. He’s been in too much stuff in such little time,” Olivia said.
Colt leaned to whisper in Ryland’s ear. “You’re right, these kids are good.”
He rolled his eyes. “Any other questions for us?”
Thomas, a shy boy in the back, raised his hand. It didn’t happen often, but he almost reminded Ryland of himself when he was a kid. Inquisitive of everything around him but a little too anxious to ask questions and draw attention to himself. He’d talk to Ryland after class when no one could judge him. It always kinda broke Ryland’s heart seeing the kid so curled into himself.
“Yes, Thomas?” he said.
The boy stared at them with wide eyes like he wasn’t expecting to be called on despite his hand being the only one in the air. He then glanced at Colt, a flicker of deep curiosity burning in his eyes. “Um, h-how do you get s-set on fire and not die?”
The class stared at Colt, equally eager to hear the answer.
“There’s a special kind of gel that stunt coordinators use so that the fire won’t hurt them,” Ryland said, knowing just a little bit of the scientific aspect behind it. “It lights the vapors of fuel on fire instead of just dousing them in gasoline and putting a match to them.”
“And they make us wear protective gear so we’re extra safe,” Colt added with a smile.
Ryland jumped as the bell rang, making Colt laugh. He checked his watch. Wow, fifteen minutes really went by that quickly, huh? The kids groaned, talking amongst each other as they grabbed their belongings and shoved them in their backpacks.
“Hey—don’t forget—I know it was fun talking to my brother, but you have a test next Tuesday! I have a study guide you can grab on the way out!” Ryland said, pointing to the end of his desk near the door. “Have a great rest of your day, guys. See you tomorrow!”
As the kids started walking out, Ryland could hear snippets of conversation.
“—Mr. Grace’s brother—”
“Stunt work! So cool!” Jeremy whispered to his friend, Kurt.
“—look the exact same—!”
And just like that, the classroom was empty and the study guides were all taken from his desk. Ryland huffed, turning to face his brother, who had a wolfish grin on his face.
“Do they like me?” he said.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Ryland grumbled. “Way to steal my reputation as the coolest person around.”
“Aw, come on, they think we’re both cool!”
“Shut up. What’d you bring?”
“Publix sandwiches.”
Ryland didn’t hesitate to dig in the lunchbox. Of course, Colt got him his favorite. Turkey, bacon, and provolone cheese on a hoagie. It was to die for, honestly. Ryland sat on top of his desk and unwrapped the sandwich, suddenly realizing how hungry he was. Colt took his desk chair again as he reached for his own sandwich.
“Visible light,” his twin said, pointing at the board. “Sorry to interrupt such an important lesson.”
“They didn’t care about it, anyway.”
“Yeah, but from what I just saw, those kids adore you. Must feel nice to have that reputation as the teacher everyone wants.”
Ryland shrugged. “They just like that I give them gold stars. What made you stop by?”
Colt took an abnormally large bite out of his sandwich. He usually got turkey, lettuce, tomato, and bacon. No cheese. It always bothered Ryland. Why no cheese but tomato? Ew.
“I was in the area. Jody’s got a filming location not too far from here. We wrapped up early today and saw it was still in the middle of the school day, so… figured we could have lunch.”
“How is Jody?”
“Eh, you know her. Always workin’, never stopping.”
“Oh, can you tell her I loved the trailer for Metalstorm? I bet it’s going to be amazing.”
“It will be. She directed it,” Colt said, eyes alit with love and fondness. “Anything going on at your end of the pond?”
Ryland shook his head. “Just waking up, coming here, going home. Not much of a life, but it’s whatever. I’m happy.”
“Good.”
They sat in silence as they finished up their sandwiches. Ryland took a swig of water when a knock came at the open door.
“Mr. Grace, I—”
The twins both whirled at the name to see a woman, Ryland noted as Catherine, standing in the doorway to his classroom with a bundle of papers in her arms. She stared at them, eyes going back and forth just as the kids' eyes did earlier. Colt waved, smiling, as Ryland got up to retrieve his papers.
“Oh, thanks, Catherine. I know I forgot about them this morning, I’m sorry. I had some trouble with getting the projector to work,” Ryland excused himself as he grabbed the papers from her limp hands.
“There’s… s-sorry, am I seeing double?” she asked, flustered.
“Nope!” Colt said.
“That’s my brother,” Ryland said, “Colt Seavers.”
Catherine waved nervously. “I-I’ll uh, I’ll make note of your projector’s problems, Mr. Grace. H-have a good day!”
She quickly left, after which Colt burst into laughter.
“Did you see her face?”
Ryland shook his head. “Poor woman… getting jumpscared like that.”
“Hey! We share the same face.”
“I know.” Ryland smacked Colt’s head with his papers. “Feet off my desk.”
Colt rolled his eyes. “Ugh, bossy. Anyway, Jody's got this new movie idea and I think it’s gonna be another smash hit. I’m talkin’ Comic Con Hall H again—”
Ryland sat back on his desk, grading papers while listening to Colt ramble. He felt complete, even happier than normal. It was an unexpected visit, but one he wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon.