Baartock

by Laura Dent Crane

  Chapter 9

  By the time Mrs. Stogbuchner came out to the playground to call herclass, Baartock had almost forgotten how hungry he was. He had foundJason and they had raced four times, and Baartock had won three times.Then several other boys had joined in, and they'd played tag. That wasa whole new game for Baartock. He liked being 'it', then he could dothe chasing. When he was 'not it', he could run faster than any of theother boys, so they didn't try to chase him at all.

  They went back into the classroom, and all the children went to theirseats and got out their pencil boxes. Baartock was horrified todiscover that his pencil box was missing. It wasn't on the table wherehe'd left it. It wasn't in the drawer at his place at the table. Itwas his brand-new pencil box and he hadn't even used the crayons yet,and now it was gone. He didn't see it anywhere.

  "Hello. You must be Baartock."

  He looked around to see an adult standing right behind him.

  "I'm Mrs. Pangle, Timmy's mother." She pointed at one of the boys atthe next table. "I come in two afternoons a week. I'm the aide forthis class."

  Baartock might have asked what an 'aide' was, but he was worried abouthis pencil box. "If you're looking for your box, I put it in yourcubby."

  "Where cubby?" He didn't know that he had a cubby, but if that waswhere his box was, he wanted to find it.

  "It's right over here." Mrs. Pangle led him to the back of the room,and stopped near the door going outside. "Here you are," she saidpointing. "This is your cubby."

  There, just as she had said, was his missing pencil box. He picked itup and held it, almost afraid that he might lose it again.

  "My cubby?" he asked.

  "That's right. See, right here, 'Baartock'." At the top of his cubbywas a little card with marks on it. He thought they looked like themarks Mrs. Jackson had made on his pencil box. He looked at his box.The marks were just the same. "I fixed it for you while you were atlunch."

  He remembered what Mrs. Jackson said that humans say when only onegives something. "Thank you," he said.

  "You're welcome, Baartock. You shouldn't leave your things on thetable, unless Mrs. Stogbuchner tells you to. It makes the room messyand you might lose something. Either put them in here, or in yourdrawer in the table."

  He didn't to tell her that he wasn't going to lose his box again. Heheld on to it tightly. "And over here is where you can hang a coat,"Mrs. Pangle said, pointing to some hooks in the wall. "This one isyours."

  There were cards over each hook, and there was a mark on one that herecognized. That must be his hook.

  "You'd better get back to your seat now. But I'll be here if you needhelp."

  He went back to the table and found that someone had given him somesheets of paper with marks all over them. They didn't look like theones he and Jason had used the crayons on before. And they weren't.

  "It's a writing worksheet," Jason said. "You're supposed to makeletters on the lines that look just like the ones they've made."

  Baartock looked at the papers, then opened his box and got out hiscrayons.

  "No, you're supposed to use your pencil," Jason said, seeing whatBaartock was holding.

  Baartock looked around and saw than none of them were using crayons.He had wanted to make colored marks, but they were all using longyellow sticks instead. He hadn't used one of those before. He putaway his box of crayons, and got out his yellow stick. He tried to usehis the way all the children were, but it wouldn't make any marks onthe paper. The girl sitting across the table started giggling. She hadbeen watching him.

  "You have to sharpen it," she said. "The pencil sharpener is on Mrs.Stogbuchner's desk."

  Baartock got up and walked up to the desk. He looked all over thedesk, but he didn't see anything to sharpen the stick with. Therewasn't a knife, or any kind of blade. Mississtog-Buchner was helping agirl at one table and Mississpangel was helping a boy in the back ofthe classroom. He just stood there looking at the desk and waited.

  "Yes, Baartock, what do you need?" Mrs. Stogbuchner had finished withthe girl and saw him just standing at her desk. Baartock wasn't surejust what to say, so he held up the pencil instead.

  "Do you need some help with the pencil sharpener?" she asked. Severalchildren in the front of the class started snickering. "All right, getback to your work," she said to them as she came over to help him.

  "This is the pencil sharpener," she said, and taking the pencil fromhis hand, "and this is how to use it." She put the pencil in a hole ina little box and started working the little crank on the side. Shepulled the pencil out of the box, and it had a point. "That's how youdo it. You don't want to sharpen it too much, or you'd grind it allaway. Is that all you need?"

  Baartock nodded and took the pencil from her and went back to his seat.The pencil now made marks on the paper, but they weren't pretty, likethe marks the crayons made. Just little black lines. He looked over atJason. He had already done two pages and was just starting on thethird. The girl across the table was still working on the second page.Baartock hurried to catch up. The marks weren't hard to make. Some ofthem were very like the ones his mother had shown him.

  He was working hard, and had just finished the first page, when thebell rang. He started to jump up, but the table was in the way, and hefell over backwards. The bell just went on ringing.

  "Boys and girls. Line up at the back door," Mrs. Stogbuchner called tothe laughing children. Mrs. Pangle rushed over to help Baartock up offthe floor. He wasn't hurt, only surprised. And the bell just kept onringing.

  "Children!" Mrs. Stogbuchner had to shout. "Pay attention. This is afire drill. Just leave everything and line up. Now! Mrs. Pangle, ishe all right? Good. Then will you lead the class out onto theplayground? Over by the fence. I'll be right along." She went overto turn off the lights and make sure that the door and windows wereclosed.

  The children were still laughing as they went out the door. Baartockand Mrs. Stogbuchner were the last ones out.

  "Are you all right, Baartock? You didn't hurt yourself?" she asked.

  "Not hurt," he said. The bell was still ringing, even though all thechildren in the school seemed to be lined up in the playground. "Whatyou call this?"

  "When the bell rings like that it is a fire alarm. If someonediscovers a fire, they sound that bell. Then you are supposed to getout of the building as quickly and safely as possible. You aren'tsupposed to run or fall down. Then the firemen would come to put outthe fire. It's called a fire drill."

  It didn't seem like a fire drill to him. "Where fire?" he asked.Right then the school bell finally stopped ringing.

  "There wasn't a real fire," she answered. "It's so you would know whatto do if there were a real fire."

  The whole thing seemed a little silly to Baartock. He knew all aboutfire. His mother cooked over a fire. He had to help bring in kindlingand small logs for the fire. There wasn't very much in the school toburn. It wasn't much of a fire drill. There wasn't any fire.

  Mrs. Stogbuchner had walked over to the middle of the class and held upher hand. When they were quiet she started talking.

  "Children. I'm very unhappy about what you did in there. What happenedto Baartock could have been very serious. He could have been hurtbadly. It wasn't funny. A fire alarm is very serious. Because you werelaughing, you couldn't hear me, and I had to shout. When there's a firealarm, I shouldn't have to shout, just as you shouldn't run. We aregoing to have to practice this again."