Lizzie and Emma

by Linda Byler

  “I don’t care what you say!” Rebecca shouted. “It simply isn’t fair!”

  The boys all waved their arms and walked off, saying something about there not being enough room on the playground. Rebecca sat down in the snow and all the big girls crowded around her. They were talking quietly, Rebecca looking as if she could burst into tears.

  “Lizzie, let’s do something, because it’s almost time for the bell. We didn’t even play anything yet today,” Betty told her.

  “Well, what?” asked Lizzie.

  “‘Duck, Goose, and Tramp?’” Betty asked hopefully.

  “No,” Lizzie answered firmly. “I’m too bored with that.”

  Rachel joined them. “You know what we could do?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “At home in our yard, we made a big trail, and we have little roads going everywhere, and we all have our separate house. We have real little furniture and our refrigerator is dug into the snowbank. Our drinks stay really cold!” she said with a giggle.

  “That would be fun!” Lizzie shouted.

  “I’ll say!” Betty agreed.

  “Let’s do it!” Rachel was excited. “First you take tiny little “peepie” steps through the snow to pack down the trails. Then we all decide where our house will be, and everyone makes their own house.”

  “Like this?” Lizzie asked. She started off, shuffling her feet to tramp the snow down sufficiently.

  Betty watched carefully, twisting her scarf with her bright-colored mittens. She lifted her head and laughed out loud. “You look really funny!”

  In a moment the three of them were shuffling their feet, moving steadily through the snow in a corner of the playground. It seemed as if they had just started when Lizzie was startled by the loud clanging of the old cast-iron bell on top of the gray-shingled schoolhouse roof.

  “Uh-oh,” Betty groaned.

  “Ach, my!” Lizzie agreed. “Let’s keep going a little while yet till the others are all in, then we’ll hurry up and run in as fast as we can. We can still make a few more trails till second bell.”

  Teacher Katie always rang the big outside bell once and allowed the children two minutes to put their clothes away and get settled in their seats. Lizzie thought it really wasn’t enough time if you needed to use the restroom, but she always managed to slide into her seat before the two-minute tap bell.

  Lizzie went shuffling along in the snow, thinking she could get a little more done. Everything seemed strangely quiet on the playground, and when she looked up, Betty and Rachel had already left.

  She broke into a run, racing against that dreaded two-minute tap bell. Just as her mittened hand grabbed the slippery doorknob, she heard the familiar “Ding!”

  She squeezed harder on the doorknob, but her wet mittens slid off again. Desperately, she used both hands to turn the knob, and the latch clicked reassuringly. She slipped inside, breathing heavily, just as Teacher Katie announced, “Now it’s storytime, and I’ll start to read as soon as Lizzie sits in her seat.”

  Lizzie’s face flamed. She felt hot all over, and carefully turned her back to the classroom to take off her coat. She was even more humiliated when big chunks of half-melted snow dumped on the floor from her wet mittens. She struggled to open the knot in her head scarf, but she could not loosen it. The classroom was so quiet that the sound of her own breathing roared in her ears.

  She picked helplessly at the tight, wet knot under her chin, but she could absolutely not open it. If only she had a fork, she thought wildly. Mam always used the prong of a dinner fork to open shoelaces that were too tight.

  In despair, she tried slipping the head scarf down backward, over her bob at the back of her head. But now her scarf was off her head, but still around her neck, the knot as secure as ever. She grabbed hold of the knot and yanked it up over her face, where it stuck just above her eyes at the hairline.

  “Lizzie, come here.” Teacher Katie was looking at her, displeasure all over her face. Lizzie blinked miserably, but walked bravely up the wide middle aisle to the teacher’s desk, the fringes of her green scarf bobbing on each side of her head like a rabbit’s ears.

  Snickers and giggles rose like horrible creatures to taunt Lizzie. Tears pricked her eyelids. When she reached Teacher Katie’s desk, the teacher slid the scarf off Lizzie’s head and opened her drawer. She inserted a pen into the knot and pulled. Lizzie swallowed her tears as the knot gave way, and turning quickly on her heel, she walked hurriedly to the back of the room. She flung the dreadful scarf onto her clothes hook, and with her head bent low, biting hard on her lower lip, she scuttled to her seat.

  Teacher Katie cleared her throat and began to read. Lizzie put her arms on top of her wooden desk, turned her face to the wall, and let the tears come. They formed a puddle beside her nose and ran into her mouth. She tasted the salt from her tears, and her nose started to run, so without looking up, she quietly fished around in her huge pocket on her dress for her handkerchief. She wiped savagely at her leaking nose, and honked loudly into her handkerchief, glancing at Emma. Emma pulled her eyebrows down and shook her head at Lizzie as if to scold her for daring to blow her nose.

  Suddenly all the pent-up shame and anger of the past few moments rushed to the surface, and Lizzie lifted her head defiantly, glaring back at Emma. She stared straight at her and, without thinking, stuck out her tongue. Emma recoiled in horror, and to Lizzie’s dismay, she heard a sharp “Lizzie!”

  Lizzie’s head snapped to attention.

  “You may put your head on your desk and keep it there for the remainder of storytime,” Teacher Katie said sternly.

  Lizzie obediently lowered her head, a sob tearing at her throat. This just wasn’t fair; there was no doubt about it. The only thing she had done wrong was come in a tiny bit later than usual. It was not her fault that the knot stuck. It was not her fault that she had stuck out her tongue at Emma, because Emma never should have looked at her so angrily. Well, maybe it wasn’t right to stick out your tongue—actually, it was very wrong at home. Mam said only snakes stick out their tongues, and snakes are not pleasant creatures. But how else could she have let Emma know how angry she was? She could have wrinkled her nose, or opened her eyes and glared back at Emma, but that would not have been forceful enough.

  Oh, she just knew she was going to be punished somehow. The awful misery of it flooded Lizzie’s heart, and a fresh flow of tears ran down her cheeks. It just wasn’t fair.

  As the teacher’s voice droned on, Lizzie listened half heartedly. It was the same dumb story she had been reading all week, and today Lizzie couldn’t stand how she stopped to swallow in between sentences. Teacher Katie was just so bossy, and those strange habits irritated Lizzie.

  The teacher closed the storybook with a clap, then opened her drawer and put it inside. She stood behind her desk and announced the afternoon’s classes.

  “And Lizzie, you may stay in at recess. I think I need to talk to you.”

  Lizzie lowered her head as far as it would go. She twisted her soaked handkerchief in her fingers and swallowed hard. Her breath came in shallow gasps and her heart beat rapidly. Now she was going to get it; she just knew it. And Dat told the girls if they got disciplined in school, they would be at home, as well. Lizzie wondered if you could get spanked twice and still be alive. Probably not, if it was with a stick both times. Well, if she would not live after two spankings, then everyone would at least pity her. She knew Mam and Dat would feel awful, and Teacher Katie would be so terribly sorry that it would take her a long time to get over it. That was the only thought that cheered Lizzie even one bit. So she bravely got out her English book and looked over the afternoon’s lesson.

  The lesson looked easy, so she got out her yellow pencil. The tip was dull, but she was not going to walk the entire length of the classroom to sharpen it, either. Everybody would look at her and not pity her one bit, so she thought it was much better to stay in her desk. She pulled out her plastic pencil box to look for her sm
all pencil sharpener that was shaped like a little globe. When she pulled it out, her whole box of crayons came flying out of her desk and clattered loudly to the floor, scattering crayons everywhere.

  Lizzie quickly slid out of her desk onto her knees on the wooden floor, and started to pick them up as fast as she could. Betty and Emma bent down to help her, and Lizzie glanced hurriedly at Emma. Her sister put a finger to her lips to ask Lizzie to please be quiet, and without one comment from Teacher Katie, the crayons were restored to order in the box.

  Lizzie bent over her English book, swinging her legs nervously. She chewed on her fingernails, biting them down in little crunches that actually hurt her teeth. She wished recess would come so her punishment would be over, but at the same time she also wished recess would never come. She wished with all her heart she would have stayed at home in bed. That’s what made life so uncertain, so scary. When you got up in the morning and were happy and everything was going well, you just never knew what all could happen in a day.

  She guessed she would have to start saying an extra prayer in the evening. Maybe that was why so many scary things happened to Lizzie, because Emma knelt beside her bed faithfully to say her little German prayer, and Lizzie hopped into bed and said it under the warm quilts. And often, Lizzie didn’t really say her prayers right. She felt silly, or sometimes she felt like God didn’t hear her say them. How could He hear it if she just thought her prayer? And yet, she felt silly to say it out loud. When Mam helped them say their prayers, she didn’t feel silly; that felt just right, because God heard Mam—Lizzie was positive of that. He heard Emma, too, because Emma was a good girl. She was always straightening up the living room or sweeping the kitchen floor, and she loved to wash dishes. Lizzie just didn’t feel comfortable with God yet. And now her life had come to this—staying in at recess.

  “Put your books away!” Teacher Katie’s voice seemed to boom out much louder than usual.

  Lizzie jumped nervously and quickly put her pencil box and tablet in her desk. She clasped and unclasped her fingers in her lap, looking straight ahead, even when Aaron passed the waste can much too fast, and she did not put her wastepaper into it. When the dismissal bell was tapped, Lizzie stayed in her seat, trying hard not to cry. The lump in her throat was so big that she couldn’t swallow, and her mouth was as dry as paper. She licked her lips fitfully and wiped her hand across her brow.

  The other children were all pulling on their boots and buttoning up their coats. As the last person clattered noisily out the door into the crisp, sunny afternoon, Lizzie’s throat constricted with fear. With downcast eyes, she noticed every pencil mark in the wood of her desktop.

  When everything remained quiet, Lizzie dared to peek at Teacher Katie. She was checking papers nonchalantly, as if nothing in the world bothered her. She stood up, and Lizzie thought wildly, Oh, here it comes—she’s going to get her stick.

  Her fears were put at rest when she walked quickly to the back of the room where the lunchboxes stood in an orderly row on wooden shelves. She reached up and brought her lunchbox to the table, and, finding a large yellow apple, she closed her lunchbox and came striding back to her desk. She sat down on her chair and wheeled it up to her large metal desk. She took a big bite of the apple and sighed. She looked long and hard at Lizzie, and Lizzie met her gaze unflinchingly.

  “Lizzie, why were you five minutes late coming in when the bell rang?” the teacher asked sternly.

  “I … I really don’t know. Rachel had a good idea about packing down the snow to make trails and houses, and I just wanted to do a little bit more. When I looked up from tramping down snow with my feet, Rachel and Betty were already inside.”

  “Whose idea was it to stay a bit longer to tramp down snow trails?” Teacher Katie asked, her piercing blue-gray eyes never leaving Lizzie’s own worried face.

  Lizzie shrugged.

  “Whose was it?”

  “I guess mine.”

  “You guess.”

  Lizzie nodded miserably.

  “Don’t you know when we have rules, they are meant to be kept without exception, especially the two-minute time to get to your seat. There’s just no excuse for a seven-minute timing,” the teacher said.

  Lizzie did not know what to say. There was nothing to say, because if she tried to explain how engrossed she had become in making those trails, the teacher would not believe her anyway. So she said nothing.

  “And, Lizzie?” Teacher Katie asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Whatever possessed you to stick out your tongue at your sister?”

  Lizzie shrugged.

  “Why did you do it, Lizzie? Answer me,” Teacher Katie said, very sternly.

  The lump in Lizzie’s throat was growing at such an alarming rate that there was no way she could talk without bursting into tears. So she sat there in her desk, looking miserable, and wanting this whole awful ordeal to be over.

  “Lizzie,” Teacher Katie said, with just a tinge of kindness in her voice. The little touch of pity was Lizzie’s undoing, and she dropped her face into her hands and began to cry with an alarming force. She shook with heartbroken sobs, gasping and sniffing for her breath.

  It was too much for Teacher Katie’s kind heart, and she got up quickly, moving to Lizzie’s desk in one quick glide. She knelt, bending her head low, putting her arm over Lizzie’s heaving shoulders.

  “Shhh, shhh, Lizzie. Don’t cry like that. My goodness, please, Lizzie—it’s alright,” she soothed.

  The teacher’s kindness only fueled Lizzie’s despair, and she kept crying until she was feeling exhausted by the force of her sobs.

  Teacher Katie wisely remained quiet, patting Lizzie’s shoulders and waiting out the storm of weeping. After Lizzie drew a long, ragged breath and soundly blew her nose, Teacher Katie returned to her desk.

  “Come, Lizzie,” she said kindly.

  Lizzie walked slowly to her desk, her head bent, knowing that now was the time the teacher would spank her as hard as she could. She crossed her hands behind her back, as if to ward off the pain of the spanking.

  “Lizzie, did you know that only snakes are supposed to stick out their tongues?” Teacher Katie asked.

  Lizzie nodded.

  “Do your parents allow it at home?”

  Lizzie shook her head, sniffling loudly.

  “Then you must never, ever do it in school, either. It is very rude, and God does not like it when His children are rude or disrespectful. Emma surely did not do anything to make you so angry, Lizzie,” she finished.

  Lizzie shook her head again, dutifully. There was no use explaining her anger. The teacher wouldn’t understand anyway. Maybe I’m not like other people; maybe I’m just not good enough to even go to school, she thought.

  “So, for your punishment, you may write on this lined piece of paper until it is full: ‘I will not be disrespectful.’”

  Lizzie was so relieved that the teacher had a bit of mercy and did not give her a spanking that she looked steadily up into her blue-gray eyes with a big smile of gratitude. It warmed the teacher’s heart so quickly that tears sprang to her eyes and she smiled back warmly. An overwhelming feeling of love flooded her heart, and she seemed to really see Lizzie for the first time. What a complex little mischief, she thought. She drives me to distraction, but who can hold it against her?

  Teacher Katie pushed back her sleeves and grasped the apple with her long, slender fingers. She crunched into it with her white teeth and chewed methodically.

  Lizzie was transfixed. She had never seen anything that looked so classy, so natural and effortless. She loved her teacher with her whole heart and youthful soul, knowing that her goal from here on was to push back her sleeves, grasp an apple with long, thin fingers, and eat it exactly like Teacher Katie. She grasped the edge of the desk and watched with unwavering adoration until Teacher Katie became quite unnerved.

  Then Lizzie’s smile lit up the whole classroom, much like the brilliant sun after a thunderstorm, th
e teacher thought.

  “Thank you for not giving me a spanking,” Lizzie whispered.

  “You’re welcome,” Teacher Katie whispered back, her head bent to Lizzie’s level.

  And they giggled together like two classmates, until Teacher Katie thought her heart would burst, and Lizzie knew, without a doubt, that someday, somewhere, she would be a teacher just like Teacher Katie, pushing back her sleeves and eating a yellow apple.

  chapter 5

  Grandpa Glicks’ Moving Day

  The Glick family was all snuggled into the freshly washed buggy, with Red clipping along at his usual fast pace. The air was still cold, but Dat said it had the scent of spring. There was still snow on the ground, but only in patches, and Mam had stopped to marvel at the little green shoots pushing through the earth in her flowerbed beside the concrete sidewalks.

  Lizzie always felt the same about the snow melting. It was sad, partly because she loved the snow so much, and partly because of the mud that followed. When they walked to school, Lizzie always had to walk in slippery mud when a car passed them, and she would have much rather walked in snow.

  Today they were all on their way to Grandpa Glicks, who were moving to another farm about ten miles away from the old homestead. Lizzie had asked Dat why Grandpas were moving, and Dat had said he really didn’t know, except that Doddy Glick was not going to milk cows anymore. He was going to raise beef cows and pigs. Emma asked Dat what beef cows were, and Dat told her they were cows that you raised for their meat and not for their milk. Lizzie asked what happened with the beef cows’ milk. Dat said they only had milk when they had a baby calf, and the calf drank all the milk. Lizzie told Emma, “No wonder the calves grow so fast—that’s a lot of milk for one baby!”

  As they turned in a drive, Lizzie pulled herself up to peer between Dat and Mam’s shoulders. This farm is really different, she thought.