The Most Precious Substance on Earth

by Shashi Bhat

  The students nod. They’re sitting at their desks, backpacks slumped like docile dogs at their feet. I’ve arranged the desks in a U-shape, loosely spaced out, which I read was an optimal classroom configuration. A boy in a camo T-shirt stands and wanders up through the middle of the U, and I’m thrown off. Is he going to ask me a question? No, he walks to the pencil sharpener beneath the whiteboard to sharpen his pencil. There’s that familiar rolling and gargling sound and sawmill smell, incongruent with the totally unfamiliar situation I’m in. I feel like I’m facing in the wrong direction, like I should be on the other side of the room, listening instead of talking. Do students not bring sharp pencils on the first day? Do they not use mechanical pencils now? Or pens, for that matter? A girl in a striped hoodie—Renée, I think—has her cellphone in her hand. Her expression is aloof, glancing down at the phone and then back up at me. Am I allowed to confiscate cellphones?

  “Then a Bible salesman shows up and steals her wooden leg.” I realize I’m telling this story all wrong—they won’t recognize the references, and the punchline won’t land. “Uhh, and it turns out he had plagiarized a Flannery O’Connor story! He just paraphrased the whole thing!”

  A girl raises her hand. Her posture is so excellent she must possess a fence post instead of a spine. “Miss, who is Flannery O’Connor?”

  This is the first time anyone has addressed me as “Miss.” Just “Miss”—a title where a name should be. As though there’s nothing that comes after it.

  After I tell them who Flannery O’Connor is and clarify that the point of my story is that they shouldn’t plagiarize, I pass around scrap paper and instruct them to write their names at the top and answer a series of questions about themselves. What’s your favourite book? What do you hope to get out of this class?

  There’s a boy sitting near the front of the room. He has a reddish nose he hasn’t quite grown into yet, and is wearing a collared shirt, as though his mom thought the first day of school might also be picture day. He speaks without being called on. “Miss? I have a question. I don’t have a favourite book.”

  I suggest he write down his favourite TV show instead. I look at the clock. It’s 8:15 a.m.

  They write their responses, heads angled down over their task like sweatshop workers. At the teacher’s desk, I search for each student on Facebook—I hear it’s a good way to learn names. I click past each photo, scroll down each wall, keeping the cursor away from any Like buttons. They’re so young. Their faces are like unbaked bread. A quarter of the class has braces. The girl with good posture, Colleen, has a photo on her page with the caption Got my braces off! Her smile looks ceramic. The comments say: GORGOUS and OMG sooo pretty! The profile of a boy named Louis contains no photos, only fantasy characters he’s drawn: a charcoal dragon; an ink manticore with geometric wings. I look up a girl who told the class she goes by Sue, though on my attendance sheet her name is listed as Soo-mi. In her profile photo she wears the hugest, sweetest glasses and hugs a younger brother. In class, her glasses are absent, revealing blue contacts, and her hair is highlighted auburn. Another girl—Madeleine—has a profile full of modelling photos. In her most recent post, she’s sprawled over a fallen tree while wearing a bikini that reveals her adolescent stomach. I close the browser window.

  When class ends, the students file out, and after the second-to-last one leaves, the door shuts behind her. There’s one kid left—the boy without a favourite book. Always leave the door open when you’re alone with a student. He’s deliberate in putting away his pencils, closing his laptop, winding the power cord. He has a surprising confidence for a student in Grade 9. Earlier, when I had everyone in class pair up and introduce themselves, most of them muttered at the floor and kept asking, “Wait, what else do I have to say?” But this guy’s delivery had the bravado of a circus ringmaster: “Ladies and gentlemen!” The class perked up. “Introducing…the beautiful Saaarraaah Davis!” Sarah hid her half-smile in her hand and sunk lower in her chair.

  I’m standing on the wrong side of the desk as he approaches me to turn in his answers. Always keep a desk between you and your student.

  “I’m Caleb,” he says. He has a boy-band face, despite the nose and the acne scars that cover both cheeks. “It’s nice to meet you. I can tell I’m really going to like this class.” He reaches out his hand. When he leans in, his breath smells like a tonsil infection.

  I put my own hand out, and he grabs it and gives it three vigorous shakes. Never even think about touching a student. “Thank you, Caleb. It’s nice to meet you, too.” I let go of his hand with what I hope is an air of finality. There are ten minutes until my next class, and I’ve been daydreaming about the flax seed bar in my lunch bag.

  “I read that Flannery O’Connor story you were talking about just now on my phone. What a weird-ass story!”

  “You read it just now?”

  “Yeah, I finished the work early, so I googled it. Weird-ass story, though! That part where they’re like totally about to do it in the barn!” To emphasize his point, he waves his hands around like Regis Philbin. His face gets redder. He doesn’t break eye contact.

  “I don’t think that’s—”

  “They’re like, kissing and stuff, and then he totally steals her leg!”

  “That isn’t really the—”

  “Great story, Nina! Can’t wait till next class!”

  I look up at him—he’s about a foot taller than me—and I’m about to tell him not to use my first name (how does he even know it?) when I notice his eyes moving down. There’s a slight smile on his face. I can’t believe it at first, but then it’s unmistakable: he’s staring directly at my chest.

  * * *

  The first faculty meeting of the year is that afternoon in the windowless staff lunchroom. While I inhale the potent reek of ketchup, the principal hands out an agenda, then introduces himself at length. “Don’t hesitate to come to me with your concerns,” he says. “We’re a family here. My door’s always open.” He’s wearing a suit, and I wonder if he’s keeping the jacket on to hide damp armpits, like I am.

  This morning I changed a dozen times, discarding the crisp outfit I’d set out on hangers the night before, estimating and re-estimating the time needed to drive to school. In the end I decided on the same outfit I wore to my interview—a grey long-sleeved sheath dress and a blazer. But the sleeves are too constrictive, which I realized only when I reached above my head to write a word-of-the-day on the board (today’s word: scrupulous). They proved equally challenging when I tried to pull down the classroom projector screen to display info about accessing library resources. (It took four attempts, the screen rolling and flapping back to the ceiling each time, and in the end the visiting librarian did it herself.) I wore my glasses and knotted my hair to look older, but another faculty member still mistook me for a student. This might be because I’m the only person working here who isn’t white, besides the cleaning staff. Or maybe my face highlights my inexperience, glowing with “no-makeup makeup” techniques I learned from YouTube tutorials where nineteen-year-olds massage jojoba oil into their pink cheeks and sketch new hairs onto their brows. “This looks super natural,” each one assures me, but I keep hearing supernatural.

  We go around the room in a quasi-icebreaker, sharing summer accomplishments.

  “I worked on my tan this summer,” says Mr. Jeffers, the gym teacher and only other person here who’s new. He is ageless and spotless. I wonder when the sun damage will catch up to him.

  “I backpacked in Slovenia, which by the way is the raddest place.” This from the geography teacher, who wears the highest, blondest ponytail I’ve ever seen. “They make the most delicious Riesling—dry though, not sweet like German Riesling.”

  The German teacher does a half eye-roll before catching herself.

  “Taught summer school,” glowers the history teacher.

  “I published my first poem,” say
s another English teacher. Everyone claps. They smile noncommittally after she offers to distribute copies.

  “Nina, you have an M.F.A. Isn’t that right?” asks the principal.

  “I have an almost-M.F.A.,” I answer, and laugh, though it isn’t funny. “Dropped out.” Two math teachers raise eyebrows, and I realize I probably shouldn’t have admitted to dropping out in front of a group of teachers. I should have said, “I found my true calling as an educator.”

  On the agenda: why the school no longer provides markers, holds barbecues, or has an art program. Everyone is outraged about the barbecues. I wonder where the art teachers are now. Next: presentations from the librarian, the vice principal, the guidance counsellor, and the audiovisual assistant. My back hurts in the orange plastic chair. I remember sitting loose-limbed in a similar chair a decade ago, in a high school not far from here.

  The principal adjourns the meeting with two announcements: there’s a Grade 9 Welcome Dance at the end of the month, and a lockdown drill in October.

  “We need two teachers to staff the dance,” he tells us. “Parent volunteers will make up the rest.” Suddenly every teacher in the room is holding an index finger to their nose. All except me and Jeffers. “Ahhh, we forgot to let the newbies in on our game,” booms the principal. “Well, that’s all right. You folks don’t mind chaperoning, do you?”

  I suspect this is only the first game I haven’t been let in on.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, I’m teaching a lesson on passive voice. On the board, I write:

  The little girl was eaten by the monster.

  The monster ate the little girl.

  The classroom windows face east, and the students melt into sweat. The pencil-sharpening boy from the first day, Dean, wipes his neck with the back of his T-shirt. When I was in high school, Amy would have written me a note at this point. Folding, passing. The crackle of the page unfolding:

  This class is hated by me.

  I hate this class.

  Do kids still exchange notes?

  “In the pair of sentences, the first is passive and the second is active. The second is direct and uses fewer words. The monster ate the little girl sounds more intense and threatening than The little girl was eaten by the monster.” I deliver that last sentence in a ho-hum voice to get the point across.

  Caleb looks riveted. He has two modes: riveted or distracted. In the latter, he’ll blab at full volume to whoever’s near him, or he’ll frown and chew his pencil, drop it on the floor, screech from his chair to pick it up, and place it back between his teeth. But now he’s focused—his pencil held at forty-five degrees to the page, his eyes an unblinking blue.

  I write:

  Mistakes were made.

  I made mistakes.

  “Imagine a politician saying these lines,” I say. Polite laughter. “The second is more specific, and in this case, more honest. Which do you think makes a better apology? Which would you rather hear from someone who had really wronged you? Okay, last one…”

  I write:

  You are loved by me.

  I love you.

  When I turn, they’re alert, activated by the word love inscribed on the board. “There’s a reason we don’t tell someone, ‘You are loved by me.’ ”

  “ ’Cause it sounds like a robot,” says Sarah Davis.

  “Exactly.”

  “Far less romantic,” adds Sarah McIntosh, who has a heart-shaped face and pulled-back hair. She’s one of four Sarahs in her grade. I imagine the hospital nursery fourteen years ago, with rows of cribs marked Sarah.

  “And creepy as fuck,” Madeleine remarks at a low volume to Renée.

  “Yeah, no way you’ll get laid saying that!” shouts Caleb.

  Colleen, sitting next to him, rolls her eyes. “Caleb, that’s not appropriate.”

  “But she said—”

  I cut him off and hand out grammar worksheets. A few minutes later, I’m pacing around the desks and supervising, peering over their shoulders to give advice or tell them to put away their phones, when I overhear the conversation between Madeleine and Renée.

  “He’s so hot I can’t even concentrate,” says Madeleine. She’s wearing a jersey top that skims her midriff, defying the school’s sexist dress code.

  “Gross.” Renée rattles a dozen bangles on one wrist, as she does every five minutes throughout every class period.

  As I approach their desks, they quickly fall silent, eyes back on their papers. I wonder which boy they’re discussing, and whether a relationship will flower over the course of the semester. In my head a montage flickers: Madeleine and the boy in question sit in adjacent seats, trade coy glances, hold hands under the table. They share a cafeteria cookie, her snapping off an edge and feeding it to him as the rest of the class pretends not to notice. She leans her head on his shoulder as he defends her point in discussion. They nod in unison through my lectures and cheat off each other’s tests. Their writing journals become love letters, on which I struggle to write neutral comments. Try to be more concise. Careful of purple prose. Then one day they’re sitting on opposite sides of the room. Their journals turn caustic. Their essays go unwritten.

  After class, Caleb is again the last one left—this has been the case for nearly every class so far. He always has a question. Once he asked where the library was, though it’s right by the school’s front entrance.

  “So…that passive voice,” he says. “I’m not sure I get it.”

  “Which part are you having trouble with?” I’m half resting my bum on the front of my desk, to relieve the weight from my feet in their tight shoes. Caleb comes closer to stand in front of me. I edge out sideways and move from the front of the desk to behind it. He follows.

  “Like, just the whole idea of it.”

  Standing between the desk and my chair, I begin to pack up my materials. He’s very close now, within touching distance as he blocks my path. The desk sits in a corner of the room, so on my other side is the wall. My shoulders rise a little, like a barrier. “Okay, well, why don’t you try finishing the worksheet at home and distill it down to one or two specific questions. Then we can schedule an appointment to—”

  “No, but like, just the whole idea of it,” he says again, gesturing vaguely with his hands. He leans over me, and too-strong cologne wafts down. I think about reminding him of the school’s scent-free policy as I take a small step towards the wall. I hoist my tote bag onto my shoulder, between us. “That looks heavy. I can carry it for you, Miss.”

  “That isn’t necessary.” Should I have thanked him for the offer? “Excuse me, please,” I say, wheeling my chair out just enough so he’s forced to step back and I can get past him. As I head to the door, he falls into step beside me.

  “Which way are you headed?” he asks.

  “I’m off to my next class.” I should have said I was going to the ladies’ room.

  He accompanies me down the hall, up the main stairwell, down another hall, and around the corner, to the other side of the building, where I disappear into my next classroom with a curt wave.

  The next day, as usual, I enter my first class before the students, picking up the occasional crumpled paper or empty plastic cup and tucking in chairs left pushed out by the Anime Club that morning. I pause, noticing a flaw in the side of a student’s desk. When I peer down to look, I see the words scratched in all caps into the dark wood: YOU ARE LOVED BY ME.

  * * *

  The class’s reaction to Caleb is a study in teenage socialization. At first, they laugh at his trite humour, his nonsensical quips. But when he steps up the buffoonery—he jumps up squawking and grabs his throat when I reference To Kill a Mockingbird—they begin to distance themselves. The students on either side of him edge their chairs away. I envy this action, though I know I should model more generous behaviour. I’m the teacher, after all.
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  After class, Caleb follows me down the hallway, a looming sidekick. He hounds me with questions: What’s the homework? (It’s written on the board.) How do you write a works cited page? (Consult the handout we just spent twenty minutes discussing.) How do you define irony? (The expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect, according to the OED.) What part of India am I from? (I’m from Halifax.) How old am I? (That’s a personal question. Grinning, he says I don’t look old enough to be a teacher.) What fabric is my shirt made of? (He puts his hand on my upper arm and I jerk my arm away.)

  At first I vary my route after each class, stopping by places he can’t follow—the washroom, the staff room, the office I share with Jeffers and the geography teacher—but there isn’t enough time between classes for this. So instead I simply walk faster, or rush out as soon as class ends, but I can’t outpace his longer legs. How do I tell him to stop following me? It’s my job to answer his questions. I try saying goodbye to end the conversation, but he doesn’t seem to pick up on the cue.

  “Caleb, what’s your next class? Aren’t you going to be late?”

  He has a free period. He has nowhere to be.

  * * *

  I consult Google. I type creeper student what to do. Most of the articles are about students harassing other students, but I find one about teachers being bullied. It lists a few “proactive measures” to take:

  • Don’t show favouritism.

  • Speak to the student privately after class. Don’t confront students in front of their peers.

  • Be open to student feedback.

  • Model positive behaviour.

  • Reward student success rather than pointing out failures.

  • Choose your battles.