by Jim Murphy
“You’ll be home free,” Iggy tossed in.
It’s very hard to argue with such logic, so I said okay.
Meanwhile, Vero was going to round up some old cloth bags his grandfather had. The idea was that we would fill one with flour, and it would swing down and nail Sister Angelica the first time she went bowling. The only one not happy with the new Plan was Al the Second Grader. He was hoping we would change our minds about his punji sticks. “Listen, Al, there’s no way to secure them in the flour,” Iggy told him. “And like we said before, maybe they’re a bit of an overkill, if you get what I mean.”
Al didn’t quite get it, but I did. The Bible says “an eye for an eye,” right? So maybe assault by punji sticks was a little over-the-top, considering that Angelica hadn’t actually drawn blood from either Philip or me. Not yet, anyway.
My life at school was sailing along amazingly well. Sister Angelica wasn’t bothering me, I was doing a little better with my schoolwork, the Green Banana rehearsals were on hold (and I hoped the whole thing might disappear if enough time went by), and the Plan was moving ahead. This was great, I told myself. I almost looked forward to going to school.
Then Sister Jane came for a visit, and the fun times ended.
14
You Are So Dead
ONE DAY A COUPLE of weeks later, schoolwork was going along smoothly. I was beginning to relax and—instead of always being tense and on my guard and trying to hide behind Joey—even listen to what Sister Angelica was trying to teach us.
On the day of Sister Jane’s visit, Sister Angelica seemed nervous and snappy. She barked at Philip when he was trying to answer in English, which wasn’t fair and only made him blush and stammer more. And she said something mildly sarcastic to Mary Claire Danes, who was one of the good-smart kids.
At ten o’clock in the morning there was a gentle knock on the classroom door. Sister Angelica looked up, smiled, and headed toward the door, announcing, “Our guest is here, class. Let’s all be on our best behavior, shall we?”
In walked Sister Jane, who immediately got everybody’s attention for a number of reasons. First off, she was just plain Sister Jane. Not Sister Jane Marie Rose or some such. Second, she wasn’t wearing a nun’s habit—the first time we’d seen a nun in regular clothes. She had on baggy beige pants with big pockets and a billowy light green shirt that wasn’t buttoned all the way up at the neck. The only item that might have been taken as religious was her brown beanie cap, which had a white stripe that ran front to back and another that ran side to side. It looked like one of the hot cross buns my mom made around Easter. One that had been left in the oven a little too long.
“This is our friend Sister Jane,” Sister Angelica told us, “and she is visiting all the way from Hawaii, where she works with people who have leprosy.”
A little buzz ran through the class. We’d all seen movies about lepers and how they were sometimes sent away from their families so they wouldn’t infect anyone with the disease. Which was pretty awful, according to every movie I’d seen about lepers. Apparently, leprosy made body parts fall off.
The third reason she had our attention was because she was black. Now, Kearny is right next to Newark, where lots of black families lived. And there were black people living in our town, though they were mostly down by the meadowlands near the factories. I sometimes went along with Dad when he worked on the books for his clients over there. I got to hang around in the factory tool shops and where the injection mold machines were running, and a lot of the workers were black men and women. So it wasn’t as if I’d never encountered a black person before.
But there were only two black kids at St. Stephen’s that I knew of, and not many went to St. Stephen’s Church, which was about a mile to the north. Most of the black people who were Catholic and lived in Kearny went to the church down near Harrison Park. A black nun named Jane who worked with lepers was pretty unusual in these parts.
Sister Jane thanked Sister Angelica for the nice introduction and then said hello to the class. We replied with a bellowing chorus of “Good morning, Sister Jane.”
“Well, Sister Angelica is correct,” she said. “I do work with people who have a disease, though nowadays we don’t say they have leprosy. We say they have Hansen’s disease.” She paused a second while we all took this in. Then she smiled. “The disease is named after Gerhard Armauer Hansen, a doctor from Norway who discovered its cause in 1873 . . .”
She told us more about Hansen’s disease, and though I heard parts of what she said, I found myself distracted. When she smiled, I saw that she wasn’t very old, unlike every nun I’d encountered. Maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. And her sparkling dark eyes seemed very friendly. Maybe even mischievous. She clearly didn’t mind shocking us a little with gruesome details.
She had a gold ring on her right hand that looked like a wedding ring. Everyone I knew who had a wedding ring wore it on the left hand. So I looked at her left hand, which she was holding at her side. It took a moment to fully absorb what I’d just seen, and here is where my brain once again betrayed me.
My hand shot up before I could even tell myself not to raise it. I might even have gulped in air and waved my hand back and forth the way a lot of the annoying good-smart kids did when they wanted to make a teacher notice them.
“James.” That was Sister Angelica, and the way she said my name was meant to be a warning not to do or say anything stupid.
“That’s okay,” Sister Jane said to Sister Angelica. She turned to me. “Do you have a question?”
I stood up and only then realized I was really nervous. Standing up made me an easy target. “Yes, Sister. I saw you have a ring on your right hand. Is that a wedding ring? I mean nuns can’t get married, but it kinda looks like a wedding ring.”
There was an interested mumble from everyone in the class as they leaned forward to see the ring. Sister Angelica frowned and said, “James.” This time her tone suggested that I had just asked the silliest question in history.
“No, that’s all right,” Sister Jane responded. “I am asked that question a lot.” She explained that the ring was a gift from her parents when she took her vows as a nun. “It reminds me of them when I’m far away and lonely. And it reminds me that I chose a certain kind of work, and that I want to be very good at that job. You could say I’m married to my work.”
“Thank you, James.” Sister Angelica stared at me. It wasn’t really a Thank you for that thoughtful question so much as a Now sit down and be quiet.
But I kept going. “I have another question, Sister Jane.” Sister Jane nodded, and even though nervous sweat rolled down my back, I went on. “I know you help people with Handsome disease . . .”
The class erupted with laughter, Sister Jane kind of smiled, and Sister Angelica said, “James!!!” Which was very easy to interpret. When the kids quieted down, I continued. “I mean Hansen’s disease. So I know you work with them, and I wondered if that’s why you’re missing a finger on your left hand.”
If you thought my Handsome disease slip got a loud response, you should have heard the absolute uproar after the missing finger question. Followed by chaos, bedlam, and pandemonium. It was so deafening I couldn’t even hear what sort of “James” Sister Angelica howled.
Sister Jane flashed a huge smile and held up her left hand for everyone to see. Now kids were jumping to their feet to get a look, some of them groaning and moaning. Most of us were just studying her hand, fascinated.
When everyone finally stopped chattering and sat down, Sister Jane said very pleasantly, “It’s a myth that people with Hansen’s disease lose body parts. My missing finger has nothing to do with the work I do now.” She lowered her hand to her side. “I lost it when I was twelve while driving a tractor on my parents’ farm in Michigan.”
She went on to tell us about the different jobs she did on the farm and how the accident had happened. As she talked, kids began to lose interest in her missing finger. I don’t know abou
t them, but I was amazed that a twelve-year-old girl could drive a tractor by herself and do all kinds of really hard jobs on a farm, like plowing gigantic fields, stringing barbed wire, and killing chickens when they stopped laying eggs. Then she started telling us about her work in Hawaii, and that sounded even harder—teaching kids who had the disease, caring for the elderly and sick patients, and even helping to build the community hospital. I had to admit, she was one really cool Sister of Charity.
I was actually starting to feel proud that I’d asked my questions, since they seemed to have gotten everybody jazzed up and listening. Maybe even Kathy Gathers had been impressed. And then Vero whispered, “Murph. You are so dead.”
Like everybody else, I had been riveted by Sister Jane’s talk and not paying attention to anything else. But I knew perfectly well that Vero was suggesting I turn my attention to a brewing hurricane called Angelica. I glanced at Sister Angelica, whose face had contorted and turned a dark, burning, furious purple. Made all the more angry-looking because it contrasted so sharply with the starched white rectangular cardboard coif that locked in her face. As soon as we made eye contact, she mouthed, “See me at lunchtime.”
I had been standing all this time. Now I slowly sank back into my seat and wished I had Hansen’s disease. At least then I could have hidden away in Hawaii.
15
Well, He’s Gone and Done It Again
SISTER JANE FINISHED her chat at 11:15 and then went to visit some other classrooms. I had forty-five minutes to stew about my upcoming demise.
Mostly I didn’t think I’d done anything particularly wrong. Sure, pointing out that Sister Jane had a missing finger was, well, startling, but she didn’t seem to mind. And everybody in class was okay with it. Oh, and I think we all learned a lot more because we were suddenly more focused. So everybody was good with my questions. Except Sister Angelica.
I started wishing that my uncle Arthur were here to defend me. A lot of kids—Mayor, Iggy, Kathy Gathers, Mary Claire Danes, Roger Sutternhopf, for example—were able to explain themselves very clearly, especially if a teacher challenged them for some reason. I usually sputtered and said something lame, like “Yeah, well, um, I really didn’t mean to” and other unconvincing babble. Mostly because I knew that I’d been judged guilty even before the evidence was presented. So I needed a good mouthpiece.
At noon Sister Angelica told me to stay put and said she’d be back in a few minutes. Then she led the class down to the cafeteria.
It’s funny how you can hear every sound in an empty, quiet classroom. The big clock on the wall ticking. The windows rattling every time a gust of wind blows past. A door slamming on the floor below. The other amazing thing is how small a sixth grader can feel in an empty classroom.
Sister Angelica came back five minutes later. Her face wasn’t as dark and hard as before, but her cheeks were flushed and both her hands were tightly balled up. It was clear she was still massively teed off.
“I have never, EVER, been so . . . so . . . embarrassed, humiliated, so . . . so . . .”
I wished Uncle Arthur were sitting with me, so he could jump to his feet and proclaim loudly, We strongly object, Your Honor! Sister Angelica was not the object of my nephew’s—ah, my client’s—questions, and she has no reason or right to be embarrassed.
As you can tell, I also wished there were a judge handy. One who hadn’t read my red MURPHY folder.
“The wedding ring question was bad enough,” Angelica went on, “but pointing out Sister Jane’s . . . ah . . . finger! It was mortifying and completely inappropriate . . .”
Uncle Arthur: Once again, Your Honor, we object! Sister Jane did not seem at all upset. In fact, she smiled at my client after each question was asked.
“And your . . . your . . . your questions upset the class . . .”
Uncle Arthur: Objection! The two questions made the class more attentive to Jane’s responses and, I might point out, prompted a lively interchange of ideas and additional questions.
“I don’t know how I’m going to face Sister Jane tonight or what to say . . .”
Of course I did not say anything in my own defense and only responded with “Yes, Sister” five times, “No, Sister” once (when she wanted to know if I’d asked the missing finger question on purpose to embarrass Sister Jane), and “I’m sorry, Sister” twice. She said a lot more, going over the same territory in several different tones of voice. Why is it that some adults don’t think kids can hear and remember something they said the first time, so they feel compelled to repeat it ten times? But I had tuned out, since I pretty much knew what she was going to say. She ended a lifetime later by telling me to take out a piece of lined paper and write “I will not embarrass a guest in our class ever again.” One hundred times. “And make sure every sentence is done neatly, or you’ll be doing it all over again!”
Uncle Arthur: We object, Your . . . I stopped cold before my thought-objection was complete. One hundred times was easy. Compared with, say, Sister Anita’s written punishments—she seemed to really love the number five hundred. But the punishment was still completely unfair—and was all Sister Angelica’s doing!
Sister Angelica pulled out her chair with a loud thump, sat down aggressively, and let out a frustrated grunt. I got out my three-ring binder and a sharp pencil and began writing.
I wrote the sentence, making sure to number it. Then I wrote another. And another. Every so often I’d tell myself to write as carefully as possible and make sure every word was spelled correctly. Because the space between the lines was small, I decided to skip a line after each sentence. This made it look a lot better, but I was really eating up paper.
At sentence number 37, my fingers began cramping up in a painful ball. I shook my hand to loosen it, blew on it a few times, and decided a brief rest was in order.
The first thing I wondered was whether I could tape three pencils together in a line so every time I wrote, I would do three sentences at once. I didn’t have any tape, and I doubted if Sister Angelica would lend me any from the supply closet, so I abandoned this creative notion as hopeless.
Next I wondered what the rest of the kids in my class were thinking about me. Did any of them feel that I’d been picked on unfairly? And if so, was one of them Kathy Gathers? That was possible and would make missing lunch and having a cramped hand bearable.
I started writing again, but after just five more sentences my hand cramped up. So I looked out the window and spotted eight or nine blackbirds sitting side by side on a telephone wire. They seemed to be staring in at me and shaking their little heads in disappointment. As if they were murmuring to each other, Well, he’s gone and done it again, hasn’t he? What a loser.
Uncle Arthur: Objection!
The birds suddenly flew off in alarm with a great flapping of wings and squawking. Well, one “objection” had worked, and I actually chuckled out loud at the notion.
“You should be writing your sentences,” Sister Angelica muttered darkly, “and not wasting time.”
“Yes, Sister.”
I finished up sentence number 100 a minute before lunch ended, and I showed the pages to Sister Angelica. She frowned at them, scanned them quickly, then told me to stay where I was while she went to round up the class. My stomach growled with hunger, but I had a feeling that starving through the afternoon had been added to my penance.
The class came filing in—girls first, boys following, all according to height, of course. For one second, they looked like a jury bringing in a guilty verdict. But that thought passed when I saw that most of the kids weren’t staring at me to see if I’d suffered too much or not enough. Ellen and Kathy each tossed me a quick glance, but hardly anyone else seemed to notice I was there.
Except the guys.
In they came toward the end of the procession, looking very determined, and sat down without saying more than “Hey.” But a few minutes into the afternoon, when Sister Angelica was writing on the board, Vero
reached over and handed me a folded piece of paper. “Iggy did it during lunch,” he whispered.
I opened it up and saw a drawing of two bowling alleys side by side, each complete with the ball-return chute and ten pins. Then I noticed the tiny line that ran along the front of the alley closest to the stage, wrapped around the front corner, went back along the right side, and rose into the air. The end was connected to a lumpy bag.
It was neatly labeled, too, with arrows pointing to certain items— SCREW EYE HOOKS, FISHING LINE, STAGE-RIGGING CORDS, FLOUR SACK —all written in Iggy’s very neat, very precise scientific hand. The one I liked best was at the end of an arrow pointing to a spot on the foul line where a bowler would release the ball: TRIPWIRE.
“So it’s going to happen?” I asked in a thin whisper.
“Alea iacta est,” Philip replied just as quietly but with a certain fierceness. His eyes were very big and hard-looking.
I looked at Vero, and he shrugged, raising his hands palms up in a way that suggested he had no idea what Philip just said, but he agreed with him completely. Then Vero smiled and added quietly, “She’s toast.”
16
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
IT TOOK A FEW DAYS for Mayor to work his executive magic, but eventually he was able to persuade Bernie to let him and some of the other guys help. “I told him my mother made me volunteer. You know, as an act of charity,” Mayor said. “Bernie said I’d get into heaven with such good deeds.”
Without knowing it, Bernie helped move the Plan forward. There were two small rooms just outside the stage-level doors to the auditorium. Mrs. Ryan taught one of the third-grade classes in the room on the left. The one on the right was empty except for a few desks and twenty years of dust.