Baartock

by Laura Dent Crane

  Chapter 14

  It was raining harder than ever when they went to lunch. Looking outthe classroom windows, Baartock couldn't see the trees or the housesacross the wide grass strip next to the school. He couldn't see thestreet. He could just barely see the grass outside the window. It wasa blowing, dark gray rainstorm. At times, the wind would blow theraindrops right at the windows. Just a little while later, the rainwas pouring straight down. Everybody seemed to be thinking of otherthings. Even Mrs. Stogbuchner kept losing her place in the story shewas reading, whenever the rain would come crashing against the windows.Finally it was lunchtime.

  Baartock bought milk in the lunch line, but the fruit they had weresome long yellow things that he hadn't seen before, so he didn't getany. When he sat at the table across from Jason, the red-haired boyasked, "Why do you call that a fire drill?" "Drill. Make holes same way," Baartock answered, and made aback and forth motion with his hand.

  "I guess you could get through wood. But it must take a long time."

  "Wood. Stone too," replied Baartock.

  "You can drill through stone like that?"

  "Use many shafts," said Baartock, making an up and down motion, meaningthe straight stick he had used. "Make hole."

  Jason was about to say something when there was a sudden flash of lightand a tremendous thunderblast right outside the cafeteria. The peoplesitting by the windows jumped up, and someone knocked a lunch tray ontothe floor. One of the women who worked in the cafeteria brought over amop to clean up the spilled food, and everybody who had been sittingnext to the windows moved to different seats. The rain was nowsquirting against the windows, and some water was coming in under thedoor to the playground. The woman with the mop went over to clean thatup too.

  Everybody ate very quietly, as if they were waiting for the nextthunderbolt to strike. While they were eating a man came in with a mopand a bucket and some tools to try to stop the leak around the door.Baartock was watching the man working, when Jason said, "Let's go backto the classroom."

  "Not go outside?" asked Baartock.

  "They wouldn't let us. Not in this much rain. Who'd want to go out inthis anyway?"

  Baartock had been thinking about going out. It was only rain.Instead, when he finished his lunch, he went with Jason back to theclassroom.

  Some others were already back in the classroom, in groups talking, orjust staring out the windows at the rain. Mrs. Stogbuchner was sittingat her desk, with a lunch tray from the cafeteria, eating, when theygot there.

  "Mrs. Stogbuchner, can we get out the games?" asked Jason.

  "All right. But you'll have to put them away when lunch time is over."

  "All right!" Jason whooped. "Come on, Baartock."

  "And please be quiet," she said, as she went back to her lunch.

  "Yes, Mrs. Stogbuchner," Jason said.

  They went into the back of the classroom, and near the cubbies was ashelf with some large flat boxes and some smaller ones.

  "You want to play checkers?" asked Jason.

  "Don't know checkers. Show me," said Baartock.

  They sat in the back of the classroom, and Jason taught him how to playcheckers. When some other children saw them playing, they got outother games, and soon there were lots of people playing all kinds ofgames.

  It kept on raining very hard, and there were occasional lightningflashes and crashes of thunder.

  Lunch time seemed to be going on longer than usual. Baartock had justlost another game of checkers, and he let Jerry play. He didn't likecheckers very much. None of the other games seemed too interestingeither, so he walked over and looked out the window at the rain. Hesaw Ms. Laurence hurry in and go over to talk to Mrs. Stogbuchner.

  "Children." Ms. Laurence had hurried out again and Mrs. Stogbuchnerwas walking to the middle of the classroom. "Quiet please."

  There was a lot of stirring around by the children to listen to her.

  "They are going to close school early today, because of all this rain."She held up her hand for quiet. Some children had started to cheer andtalk as soon as they heard the news.

  "They say that this could be a bad storm, and there could be someflooding. Since so many of you live on small roads, they decided youshould go home very soon. They're trying to reach the bus drivers now.If it keeps raining like this, there might not be school tomorrow."

  The children were still quiet, but they were all smiling and poking ateach other.

  "You may go on with your recess now, and I'll have you straighten upthe games just before the busses get here. Now please be very quiet,while I go to the office." She turned and went out the door.

  Suddenly, none of the children were interested in the games. They all wanted to talk about getting out of school early, and noschool tomorrow, and what they were going to do. They started talkingquietly, but soon the talk got louder. Then, one of the boys threw aball of paper at another boy. There was a lot of loud talking, andthrowing things, and running around, when Mrs. Stogbuchner came backinto the room.

  "Get in your seats! Right now!" She was standing just inside thedoor, glaring at the class.

  The children hurried to their chairs and sat down.

  "I told you to be quiet while I went to the office."

  The children looked at each other, as if to find out who had beenmaking all the noise. "Barbara, Norma, Robert, and Jason, go back andstraighten up the games and put them away. Do it quietly and quickly.Timmy, hand out these worksheets. Since you don't want recess now, Ihave some other work you can do, until the busses get here."

  Timmy walked around the room with the stack of papers she gave him,putting four worksheets on each table.

  Mrs. Stogbuchner walked to the back of the classroom to watch thestraightening up. The room was very quiet, except for the noises fromthe back of the room.

  Baartock started working, and soon Jason sat down and started workingtoo.

  Mrs. Stogbuchner walked around the room for a while, then she went overand stood in the doorway, looking down the hall. Soon she said, "Putyour things away now. If you brought raincoats, or have anything elseto take home, get it, then line up."

  Baartock hadn't brought a raincoat, but he went to his cubby to get thefire drill and his lunchbag. He decided to take his pencil box home,too.

  The class was all lined up, waiting for the bell. Mrs. Stogbuchnersaid, "If it keeps raining like this, watch the news on TV to see ifwe're having school tomorrow." Then the bell did ring, and they wereall hurrying to get to the school busses.

  "See you," called Jason, as they went down the hall. They got to thefront door and the wind was blowing the rain right in at them. Thefloor was wet and someone had put down rubber mats so they wouldn'tslip or fall.

  When they went outside, everybody ran to the busses. Baartock wassoaked as he got on Mr. Barnes's bus, from just that short run. Therewere lights on the front of each bus, and there were sticks wiping backand forth to get the rain off the front windows. But Mr. Barnes stilldrove very slowly to the high school. He wasn't talking all the time,this afternoon.

  When Baartock got off the bus, he ran to his path to get home. Thecreekbed was filled with water rushing and splashing down hill. Therewas a lot of water going through the culvert. Baartock hurried up thehill, next to the stream. He wanted to see what it was like at hisbridge.