Substitute

by Nicholson Baker

  “Most of it’s the coughing,” Mrs. Thurston said.

  “ALL RIGHT, BOYS AND GIRLS,” said Ms. Bithell. The class lined themselves up on the blue line as they’d been taught. “Raise your hand if you liked the game.”

  Most hands went up.

  “Ah!” she said, relieved. “Tell me anything you didn’t like about the game.”

  “Getting out,” said a girl.

  “OH, ON THAT BLUE LINE,” said Mrs. Thurston. “We’re getting ourselves ready.” They chanted, “WHEN MY HANDS ARE AT MY SIDES, AND I’M LINED UP STRAIGHT AND TALL, MOUTH IS SHUT, EYES LOOK AHEAD, I’M READY FOR THE HALL.”

  We walked silently to room 5 and sat down. “We are reading to self, writing, or working with words,” Mrs. Thurston reminded the class. “We’re not making things. It’s not craft time.” Grace asked if she could go to the nurse. Mrs. Thurston said, “Are you bleeding or throwing up?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Thurston went around scolding, helping, threatening, and checking on progress. “COREY, what are you supposed to be doing right now? UNFINISHED WORK IN THAT FOLDER. Unfinished work in that folder. You’re not just going to look at books, sweetie, if you’re not done.” She stopped by Tyler’s desk. He was reading a picture book, not making a sound. “You’re not supposed to be reading any words now, Tyler,” Mrs. Thurston said, “you’re supposed to be doing a ‘picturewalk.’ No stopping and looking at the words, you’re looking at the pictures.” She helped one kid finish a worksheet about the kinds of work dogs do. He was supposed to write down two main ideas. “Stop that,” Mrs. Thurston said. “Hold the pencil correctly.” Marnie was looking at the corner of an easel. “Marnie, that’s not working,” she said. “You can still work through a cold. If you have a cold, you need to focus and work. I’ve had colds so bad I couldn’t even talk, and I was still here at work. You can do it.”

  “If you have a fever . . .” said Marnie.

  “If you have a fever, and you’re throwing up, then yes, you’re not going to be at school, but if you have a cold, we need you here. You miss too much stuff if you miss school.”

  Marnie worked on a drawing for a while and showed it to me. She’d drawn spiders and zombie pigs. “They’re like these big huge zombies with a half a pig,” she said. “It’s all about Minecraft. Me and Percy play it together. My mom has the movie Slither. It’s a really horror movie. Ooh. I watched it.” She coughed.

  “I’m sorry you’re so sick, kiddo.”

  “That’s what my dad calls me—kiddo,” she said. “Or goober.”

  “I think you should stay home tomorrow and rest.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you should see what your parents say.”

  Mrs. Thurston announced that it was time for everyone to clean up.

  “Time for me to put my cushion away,” said Percy. He had a special textured cushion that he was supposed to sit on sometimes.

  “Packing and stacking!” said Mrs. Thurston. She went through Percy’s paperwork and told me to make a photocopy of today’s log, on which I’d written what a wonderful kid he was. I made a copy in the break room and returned.

  Mrs. Thurston was going over a subtraction problem, calculating the number of school days left in the year:

  176

  –144

  ____

  She pointed to the ones column. “Is there more on the floor?” she said.

  No!

  “More on top?”

  Yes.

  “More on the top, you don’t need to stop. Six minus four is—?”

  Two!

  Tens column. “More on the top, more on the floor?”

  More on the top!

  “More on the top, no need to stop. Seven minus four is—?”

  Three!

  “One take away one is—? Zero.”

  “Yay!” said a girl

  “Thirty-two days left!” said a boy.

  “We have to learn a lot in thirty-two days,” said his friend.

  “Adrian, your table’s a mess. Marnie, you’re supposed to be coming to sit down. Coral. You should sit down. Stop wandering and wasting time. Marnie, you’re continuing to talk. If you’re sitting on the floor, sit quietly please. Percy and Tyler, you’re not talking right now. If you’re talking right now you’re not listening to directions. I still have folders here. Same people as usual, Britney and Coral. How are you going to have your homework at home, if you haven’t even gone to go get it? If you continue to talk while I’m supposed to be reading, you will be sitting with your heads down. No! And Tyler, you’re not supposed to be next to him anyway. Go sit behind Curtis, please.”

  When everyone was quiet, Mrs. Thurston opened a book and read from it. “‘Putrid cheese puffs!’ It was nine o’clock, and I, Geronimo Stilton, was late for work—again! Pretty fast, considering I was not a morning mouse.” She read rapidly, in little bursts, hurrying through the paragraphs. It was a story about a mouse. “‘Taxi!’ I shouted, jumping into a cab. ‘Seventeen Swiss Cheese Center.’ Minutes later, we pulled up to my editorial office. Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you that I run a newspaper. It’s called The Rodent’s Gazette. I took the stairs two at a time.” She heard a noise and looked up. “Coral, I’m TAKING A GEM. Right now you are not to be talking, you are supposed to be listening.” She rushed on with the story. “My head felt like it was about to explode. Even my whiskers hurt. I wouldn’t wish this day on the meanest cat ever! I hate Mondays.” She glanced up again. “Tyler, let go of the chair. You also left your snack on your table. If you’re continuing to talk and make noises, there’s no way for me to read.”

  The bell rang and reading was over. The class began to line up.

  “Coral, right now you’re supposed to be standing in line. Right now you’re blocking the path. Come here. Take that, put it away. It does not belong on the floor.”

  “It’s been nice spending the day with you,” I said to Curtis.

  “When would you come back?” he asked.

  I said I’d be back if they asked me back. “I’m going to a different school tomorrow, Buckland,” I said.

  “Do you get assigned ones?”

  I nodded. “Depending on who’s sick, and that kind of thing.” I asked him what his parents did.

  Curtis said, “My mom takes care of a lady on Wednesdays and Fridays, and the day after Friday. And my dad checks out houses for banks. Sometimes he goes inside. He takes pictures of houses what don’t pay for the bank. And there’s some houses that are creepy. I’ve been to a creepy house.”

  “That’s neat,” I said.

  “In one house there was a little door in the basement that was locked. My dad got in it, and there was a hook in it on the top. Creepy. I wasn’t there. My dad said there was a house where the floors were really bad.”

  Mrs. Thurston made sure people had their eyeglasses put away in their glasses cases and their backpacks on, and she said goodbye to her favorite students. “Bye bye, butterfly,” she said. “Give a hug, ladybug.” Lila and Ariel hugged her. Tyler and Percy talked about a special substance in Minecraft called enchanted TNT. Because it was the end of the day, Mrs. Thurston didn’t tell anybody to be quiet. When the three-note doorbell sound came on, meaning first wave was dismissed, she didn’t make the class chant the hall chant.

  “Out the door, dinosaurs!” she said.

  I thanked her and walked Percy to the green van. The nurse greeted me in the office when I signed out. “This was our afternoon custodian,” she said, meaning me.

  I drove home thinking about the golden rule.

  Day Fourteen was all done.

  DAY FIFTEEN. Wednesday, May 7, 2014

  BUCKLAND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, ROVING

  BUT WE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING

  BUCKLAND ELEMENTARY WAS another one-story eighties brick school in the middle of a no
where of pine trees. Ms. Parsons, a secretary, gave me a sign-in clipboard and told me to put, under teacher, “Roving.” “Do you have anything for the refrigerator?” she asked. I didn’t. I clipped on my substitute badge.

  She took me to the teachers’ room. “We’ve had Teacher Appreciation Week this week,” she said. “There’s salads and brownies and fruit. Anything on the table, help yourself.” She showed me around the cafeteria, the gym, the library, and the computer lab. There was only one other man on staff, so the small teachers’ bathrooms were both unisex. “We’re very small. We have eight classrooms. You can help out by opening the door when the kids come in.”

  The door was locked from the inside until the bell rang, so I held it ajar with my foot and pushed it open for each new arrival.

  A brother and sister arrived carrying teacher-appreciation flowers. A girl with red fancy shoes and her mother came in, admiring the bed of tulips by the entrance. “Do you know what ants do to make flowers grow?” the girl asked.

  “No, I don’t, honey,” said her mother.

  “I do!”

  They went inside. An early bus arrived. I said good morning a lot. “I love your beard,” said a tiny blond person.

  “Who are you?” asked a kindergartner.

  “I’m a substitute here,” I said.

  “It looks like you’re president,” she said.

  Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, sir. Hiya doing? Good morning.

  A slightly older girl was wiping away tears. I asked her if everything was all right.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The early arrivals massed in the cafeteria. The principal, Mrs. Pilgrim, came by to say hello. “You’re going to be the roving sub today,” she said. “We’re trying to do some assessments.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Morning. Good morning. Hi, guys. Good morning.

  A middle-aged teacher came up. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I’m just helping people with the door. I’m a roving sub.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said.

  Another mother arrived with her daughter, who was wearing a flowery pink shirt and white, shiny shoes.

  “Don’t you look absolutely beautiful today!” said the teacher to the girl.

  “I bought that shirt for three dollars at Marshall’s,” said the mother.

  Ms. Parsons called out that she was still working on my schedule. “Five more minutes,” she said. She went into the office. Through the glass walls I saw her put her hand on her heart. The school pledged allegiance.

  Some latecomers arrived. Good morning.

  Ms. Parsons walked me down to meet Ms. Collins, who taught fourth grade. “One of the teachers hurt her back, so she had to be out today. So it’s just been one of those times when it’s crazy.”

  Ms. Collins was a short-haired, self-assured woman with a naturally loud contralto voice. She told the class to do her a favor and close their computers. “I’m going to be pulling kids out one at a time to do assessments,” she said to me. “I’ll grab one, and then I’ll send them back to get another student, and we’ll do it like that.”

  She turned to the class. “So, boys and girls, what you are going to do with—” She turned and asked my name. “With Mr. Baker—that’s easy!—to warm up, is you can play Around the World. You can go around two times.” After that they were to work on their targets. “If you have papers that you’re working on, you need to complete those before you start getting new ones. If you’re all caught up, you can get another piece of evidence to work on, or you can go on IXL. We’re not doing MobyMax today. Let’s show Mr. Baker that we are good listeners. I will be back at ten-ten.” A lot of kids went to mini-groups at 9:50, she told me. “I think a bell rings at nine-fifty. Kathleen, you need to finish your reading assessment, and Hannah, you need to finish your reading assessment. Marcus, I’m going to start with you.” Marcus got up and went off to take his test with Ms. Collins.

  I picked up a pack of Around the World math flashcards and the kids stood at their desks. “All right, guys, I’m Mr. Baker, and I think we need to do a little Around the World kind of thing.” I held a card up.

  “You have to flip it the other way,” said Crystal, who had a side-scrunch of black hair.

  “Tell me how to do it,” I said.

  “You turn the whole thing around, like this, so they can’t see the answer,” said Crystal. “You have to surprise us, too.”

  “And if you talk you get disqualified!” said Grant.

  An ed tech—fifties, hoarse, toothy—came in and sat down. “You know what the trick is?” she said. “Keep it on the pile, because they can see through the cards.” Her name was Mrs. Vaughn. She came over and picked up the pack.

  “Why don’t you do one,” I said, “so I can see your technique.”

  Mrs. Vaughn began going through the pack. She took the game seriously. “Some of these cards are mixed up,” she said. “Are you ready? Hope, you ready?”

  “Are you all loose?” I said.

  Mrs. Vaughn held up 8 x 3.

  “Twenty-four!” said Hope.

  Mrs. Vaughn held up an 8 x 7.

  “Fifty-six!” said Joanna.

  “Wow,” I said. Mrs. Vaughn gave me the cards. “And—bidda boom!” I held up 7 x 9.

  “Sixty-three!” said Elijah.

  “Good,” I said. “Cool as a cucumber. Who’s next?” I held up 8 x 9.

  “Seventy-two!” said Mitchell.

  “Wow, you guys are fast,” I said. I flashed an 8 x 5.

  “Forty-five!” said Irene.

  “Forty!” said Mitchell. Irene lost; Mitchell won. Public shaming. I dislike this game, I thought.

  I flashed a 9 x 4.

  “Twenty-four!” said Jasper.

  “Eighteen!” said Lindsay.

  “Twenty-eight!” said Connie.

  “Thirty-six!” said Grant.

  “You got it.” How was this helping these kids learn their times tables? All it was doing was rewarding the smart kids who already knew them. For the minority who didn’t it was just another brief storm of shame. “And—whonk!” I said, flashing a card. Eight times two.

  Ada and Francie said, “Sixteen,” at the same time. “Oh, a tie,” said Mrs. Vaughn. “You know what, though?” She pointed to a skinny, squirmy kid, Felix, who was bouncing in his chair and tapping his feet. “You’ve got your last warning.” He kept bouncing. “Five minutes,” said Mrs. Vaughn. Felix slumped. “When I ask you to stop and you keep doing it, that costs you time. Hannah, we need you in your seat, please.”

  I did a few more. I sang a snatch of Daft Punk, “Around the World.” I flashed 4 x 0.

  “Zero!” said Tina.

  “That zero is powerful,” I said. “It takes over the whole situation.” Finally I got to the end of the pack. Phew, we were done.

  “Usually we do it twice,” said Mrs. Vaughn.

  Again? Shoot. I started at the top of the pack. Eight times ten.

  “Eighty!” said Elijah.

  Connie said, “Around the world in eighty days.”

  “Shhh,” said Mrs. Vaughn.

  “There’s a book with that title,” I said. I flashed a number upside down.

  “They’re mixed up in the pile,” said Mrs. Vaughn. “Voices! Voices! Guys! You’re fourth-graders! Shh!”

  “All right,” I said. “The magic—problem—is about to—arrive.” I flashed 3 x 4.

  “Twelve,” said Hannah and Joanna, at the same time.

  “Good,” I said.

  “That was Hannah,” said a boy.

  “I think it was a tie,” Mrs. Vaughn said. “Voices! I’m going to go over to ask Ms. Collins if it counts doing the same answer. But that was still a tie, because she said it first. Yours was the second right answer. So, a tie
.”

  “Good gosh,” I said. Who the flip cared? I flashed a 3 x 9.

  Jared was silent.

  “Twenty-seven,” said Hope.

  “Jared!” said Mrs. Vaughn. “You should have trusted your gut on that one!”

  Jared looked beaten down. I said, “Everybody has particular ones that are sort of their favorites. I know when I was in school I really liked eight times seven is fifty-six. I held on to that one. But everyone has ones that they use as islands in the midst of confusion. And here we go!” I flashed a 7 x 4.

  “Twenty-eight!” said Dustin.

  “Good,” I said. I flashed a 6 x 9.

  “Fifty-six!” said Mitchell. “No!”

  “Fifty-four,” said Ada. “That’s my favorite.”

  “Nice,” I said.

  “My favorite’s eleven times twelve,” said Grant.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “One thirty-two,” said Grant.

  “Wow, you’re up in the stratosphere.” I really wanted the game to stop now. I hated this game. “Where are we now, are we sort of in Japan? How far around the world are we?”

  “I think we’re in America,” said Grant.

  “We’re getting back to America? You see the California coast? Here we go!” Nine times three.

  “Twenty-seven,” said Crystal.

  The cards went on and on, with Mrs. Vaughn yelling and shushing. Finally it was over. I applauded the class. “Very impressive.”

  “BACK TO OUR SEATS!” said Mrs. Vaughn. “SEVEN! SIX! FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE! OKAY, GUYS, LET’S—SHHH!”

  “How tall are you?” asked Joanna.

  “Do you play basketball?” asked Elijah.

  “CHECK IF YOUR NAME IS ON THE BOARD,” said Mrs. Vaughn, “JASPER, I SEE YOUR NAME IN A COUPLE PLACES.”

  Shouting. Uproar. Jasper looked very unhappy.

  I raised my hands. “Okay, guys, take it down. Way down. HEY! ALL the way down, please.” They went quiet. “We’re going to have an orderly transition here. Mrs. Vaughn is—”