Flying Solo

by Ralph Fletcher

  Rachel

  Dear Bastian,

  I’m sorry about what happened today. It’s true I was mad at you because you teased Tommy. I wish I could pretend that you were the only one who did that, but you weren’t. You’re right: Lots of kids teased him, in little ways or big. I was mean to him, too. I guess getting mad at you was easier than facing up to what I did. He used to send me little valentines during class. I’d roll my eyes, or make a face at Missy. That would make Tommy so sad. I wonder if I’ll ever forgive myself for that.

  You weren’t always mean to him. I remember the time Tommy hit a home run in kickball. You and Tim picked him up and carried him around the field on your shoulders. You couldn’t see his face because you were carrying him but he was just beaming. You made him a hero that day. I’ll never forget that.

  Sorry you got upset. I’d hate this to be the last thing you remember about this school.

  Sincerely,

  Rachel

  The door opened. Bastian and John walked into the room. Some of the kids turned to look at Bastian.

  “What’re you staring at?” John demanded.

  Without looking at anybody Bastian walked over to his desk, took out a piece of paper, and started to write.

  Rachel brought her paper to Bastian and laid it on his desk. When Bastian ignored her and continued writing, she turned and went back to her seat.

  “MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION,” Mr. Peacock said over the loudspeaker. “ALL SIXTH GRADE CLASSES SHOULD PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO THE AUDITORIUM FOR THE ASSEMBLY?’

  “Okay, we better line up,” Jasmine said, taking a deep breath.

  “Assembly,” Tim muttered. “Who are we going to see?”

  “Some kind of storyteller,” Karen said. “His name is Klof Selat. I think he’s Hungarian.”

  “What kind of twisted name is that?” Christopher asked. He went over to Robert and made his eyes squinty. “Hi, my name is Klof Selat. How do you do?”

  “This is it, guys!” Karen said. “Once we get into the auditorium we’re home free. Let’s keep those lines straight!”

  “But not too straight,” Jasmine put in.

  “C’mon!” John said to Bastian.

  “Go on ahead,” Bastian said, writing furiously. “I’ll catch up.”

  “Are you okay?” Missy whispered to Rachel. Rachel nodded. As she left the classroom, Sean came up to her.

  “I was wondering . . .” he said. “Can I walk you home today?”

  Rachel raised her eyes to smile at him. She had not said a word, but the smile was as good as a word because it clearly said: “Yes.”

  2:25 P.M.

  School Assembly

  Bastian ran out of the classroom and sprinted down the hallway until he caught up to the rest of the class. From the back of the line he watched the other kids walking ahead of him. The girls walked first, Karen and Jasmine with Jessica a half-step behind. Rhonda came next, followed by Vicki, Missy, and Rachel. Sean walked behind Rachel. After a short gap Christopher came ambling along, followed by Corey and Robert, then Sky, Jordan, Tim, and John.

  “Here,” Bastian said to John. He handed him a slip of paper. “Can you give this to Mr. Fabiano on Monday?”

  “Piece o’ cake,” John said, nodding. “Piece o’ crumb cake.”

  “I mean it,” Bastian said. “It’s important. Don’t forget.”

  “Hey, don’t worry,” John said. “I won’t.”

  Last day of school. And there was one last thing Bastian had to do before the day was over.

  “Wait here,” he told John. Bastian picked up his pace until he was walking beside Sean O’Day.

  “Hi,” Bastian said.

  Sean looked over, surprised. They hardly ever spoke to each other.

  “I need someone to take care of my puppy,” Bastian said. “I’m not bringing him to Hawaii.”

  “Why not?” Sean asked.

  “It’s a long story. You want him?”

  “What?” Sean wasn’t sure he had heard right.

  “I asked if you want my dog,” Bastian said.

  “You’re giving me your puppy?”

  “Yeah,” Bastian said. “You said you’ve been wanting to get a dog, right? Well, you want him or not?”

  “Well, yeah,” Sean said. He still couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Okay, he’s yours,” Bastian said. “But if I ever hear you’re not taking care of him, I’ll come back here and rip both your arms off. Okay?”

  Sean nodded seriously.

  “I mean that,” Bastian said. His eyes had teared up again.

  “You don’t have to worry,” Sean told him.

  “You need to come over my house after school.”

  Rachel walked down a hallway that was long and smooth as an airport runway. She thought of Amelia Earhart, tired and hungry near the end of her first solo trip across the Atlantic, trying to find a place to land her plane. It’s not about breaking any record, Rachel thought It’s about finding a place to land, a way to land, so nobody gets hurt.

  Class 6-238 was jumpy with adrenaline. It made them walk faster than usual, so fast that when they got to the auditorium they almost ran smack into the back of Mrs. Kiefer’s class ahead of them.

  Rachel walked into the auditorium. The enormous room teemed with talking kids. She experienced the sound as an ocean, rolling, shifting, sighing. As Class 6-238 took their seats, a little ripple of excitement flickered through one side of the auditorium. Other sixth graders looked over, winking, giving them the thumbs-up sign, clapping softly.

  “We’re famous!” Rhonda whispered as she took her seat next to Rachel.

  “Act normal,” Karen reminded everyone.

  Down by the stage Mr. Peacock was talking to a tall, strange man. Rachel guessed that was Klof Selat, the storyteller. Next to him there was a woman with a fancy camera around her neck.

  “She must be from the newspaper,” Missy whispered to Rachel.

  “Everyone please take your seats,” Mr. Peacock said. He stood at the microphone, waiting until all the talking had stopped.

  “This is a very special day,” Mr. Peacock said to the hushed crowd. “We are all in for a real treat this afternoon. We have a wonderful storyteller with us, a man who comes all the way from Hungary, in Eastern Europe. I know you will give our guest your complete attention. It is my pleasure to introduce to you Klof Selat!”

  Applause. Rachel studied the man as he moved to the microphone. He had a beard and long ponytail. More than anything, he reminded her of Paul Bunyan.

  “I’ve got a story to tell you,” he began in a voice so amazingly low it was practically gravel. He paused and looked around fiercely, as if daring anyone to disagree. “But I’m going to need some help for this one. I’ll need four teachers.”

  At this Mr. Peacock sprang to the microphone.

  “Why don’t we have the sixth-grade teachers come up here,” he suggested. There was more applause as Mrs. Reilly, Mrs. Friedman, and Mrs. Kiefer made their way to the front of the auditorium. They stood smiling nervously in front of the storyteller.

  “Oh, no!” Missy whispered.

  Rachel squeezed her armrest, hard.

  “Mr. Fabiano isn’t here,” Mr. Peacock said, searching the crowd. His eyes fixed on Karen Ballard. “Karen, who is your substitute?”

  Karen stood. Six hundred and eleven kids, thirty-one teachers, one storyteller, one newspaper photographer, and one principal stared at her. Rachel could see that Karen’s hands were shaking. If anybody can handle a moment like this, she thought, it’s Karen Ballard.

  Karen hesitated, biting her lip.

  “Who is your substitute?” Mr. Peacock asked again.

  Karen hesitated a second, then threw up her arms. It was the only time Rachel had seen Karen make such a gesture, and it was so helpless, so completely out of character, Rachel almost burst out laughing.

  “Well?” Mr. Peacock demanded. He leaned forward to listen.

  “Well, um, see . . .�
�� Karen stammered. “See, we didn’t have a sub today. We didn’t have anybody.”

  At that moment the photographer swiveled around, her flash went off, and all hell broke loose.

  Sunday, April 30

  9:04 P.M.

  Karen Ballard’s House

  Karen lay in bed with her eyes closed. She was tired of talking. And arguing. Her parents were furious on Friday, angry with her on Saturday, and they were still pretty mad on Sunday. She couldn’t remember the last time they had been so mad for so long.

  All weekend Karen had listened to them. We are disappointed in you. Your mother and I expect you to show better judgment than that.

  When it was Karen’s turn to speak, she had repeated eleven words over and over and over until they began to lose their meaning: We ran the class, we did our work, we behaved ourselves.

  Character, her mother reminded her, is how you act when no one is watching.

  I know, Karen said stubbornly. I’m proud of how we acted.

  This was true, mostly. Except for one small thing, her conscience was clear. On Friday when Mrs. Zemetti came into the room to get Sean O’Day, Karen had said that the sub had gone to the bathroom. That was a lie, a small lie, but it was still wrong, and she intended to apologize to Mrs. Zemetti.

  The downstairs phone started ringing. It hadn’t stopped ringing all weekend. She hoped that it wasn’t for her, but in a moment she heard footsteps on the stairs. The door opened and the silhouette of her mother appeared in the doorway.

  “Karen, are you awake?” her mother asked. Karen could hear the coldness in her mother’s voice. Would her parents stay mad at her forever?

  “Yeah.”

  “Mr. Fabiano is on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

  Karen climbed out of bed and stumbled into the hallway. This was the call she’d been dreading.

  “Hello?” Karen thought her voice sounded faint, uncertain.

  “Hi, Karen. This is Mr. Fabiano.” Pause. “I’m really sorry to be calling you so late at night but I just got home.”

  “That’s okay,” she said softly. Another pause. “I guess you heard, huh?”

  “I just got off the phone with Mr. Peacock,” he said. “He’s pretty upset.”

  “I know,” Karen said.

  “I’m just trying to figure out what happened on Friday,” Mr. Fabiano said.

  “We ran the class ourselves,” she said, flattered that he had called her.

  “Yes, Mr. Peacock told me that,” Mr. Fabiano said. “But what did you do all day?”

  “We did our work, mostly,” she said.

  “You did?”

  “Yes, sir. Some kids fooled around a little, but we got a lot of work done, too. I . . . ran the class, sort of, and I followed the plans you left for the sub. Let’s see, we did spelling, math, D.E.A.R. We did just about everything.”

  “Did you write?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. We wrote a ton, as a matter of fact. We wrote, like, four times, I think.”

  “All right,” he said. He sounded relieved. “Karen, did anything out of the ordinary happen? Anything I should know about?”

  “Well, yes.” Karen took a deep breath. “Bastian told us it was his last day. So we took a vote and decided to have a rock ritual.”

  “When was that?” Mr. Fabiano asked.

  “Around two o’clock,” she said. “Before the assembly. We passed around the rock but when it was Rachel’s turn she started writing Bastian these notes. About Tommy Feathers. He started yelling at her. They got into this really big argument.”

  “About Tommy?”

  “Yes, sir,” Karen said. She swallowed. “It ended up okay, but it got a little scary for a while. They were both crying.”

  “Did Rachel . . . talk?” he asked.

  “No,” Karen said. “But she cried a lot. Bastian did, too.”

  “I see.”

  Another pause.

  “Mr. Fabiano, in a way I feel like I should apologize. But in another way I don’t. It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “Karen, we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

  “Mr. Fab? Are you mad at me?”

  “Should I be?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Karen replied. “I really don’t.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he told her. “Get some sleep.”

  Monday, May 1

  8:15 A.M.

  Room 238

  Mr. Fabiano stood staring at his students. Rachel had never seen his face so somber. He hadn’t spoken once since she and her classmates filed into the room and quietly took their seats. Now they sat at their desks, looking at him. And he stared back.

  Rachel glanced around the classroom. She noticed that Sean was wearing what looked like a clean T-shirt. He looked over and flashed her a big smile.

  “GOOD MORNING,” Mr. Peacock said over the loudspeaker. The class sat in silence while the principal made the announcements. Mr. Peacock made no mention of the parents, reporters, and TV cameras stationed in front of the school.

  Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance. Rachel heard Mr. Fabiano’s voice. With liberty. And justice. For all.

  “Attendance,” Mr. Fabiano said. “Karen?”

  “Here.”

  “Rhonda?”

  “Here.”

  “Christopher?”

  “Present.” He smirked.

  “Is something funny, Christopher?” Mr. Fabiano asked, looking up from his sheet. “Something we all should know about?”

  “No, sir,” Christopher replied quietly.

  Pause. Mr. Fabiano glanced down at the attendance sheet.

  “Bastian . . . ? Oh yes, he moved.” He wrote something on the sheet. “Tim?”

  “Here.”

  “Robert? Corey?”

  “We’re here.”

  “Melinda?”

  “Here.”

  “Jessica?”

  “Here.”

  “Rachel?” He glanced up and marked her as present.

  “I’m here,” she said quietly.

  Everyone turned. Rachel blushed and lowered her eyes. She felt a little silly. Mr. Fabiano stood up.

  “You spoke!”

  “Yes,” she said. She glanced over at Missy, who looked as if she had seen a ghost. The expression of shock softened into a grin.

  “Hi Rachel!” Missy whispered.

  “Hi,” Rachel said.

  “It is so good to hear your voice,” Mr. Fabiano said, smiling.

  She looked up for a few seconds before realizing he was waiting for her to say something more.

  “I know,” she said at last.

  “A time to keep silence and a time to speak,” Mr. Fabiano said. “To every thing there is a season.” He nodded. “That’s from the Bible.”

  “I know,” she said again, and kids laughed, as if now those were the only two words she could say.

  “It seems that we have lots to talk about,” Mr. Fabiano said to the class. He spoke in a calm voice. “I wasn’t here on Friday. But it has come to my attention that Friday was not your typical day. Something happened, right here in this classroom. Something unusual. Something serious. And I would like to know about it.”

  He got up and walked slowly toward the back of the room. At Tommy Feathers’s empty desk he stopped and sat down. Kids swiveled around to look at him.

  “I want you to write me a letter,” he said. “What I want to know is this: What happened? Nobody has a monopoly on the truth. Each of you will have your version.”

  He pointed at a sign on one of the walls.

  CHARACTER IS HOW YOU ACT WHEN NOBODY’S WATCHING.

  “You’ve read this sign a hundred times, right? All right, then. How did you act when no teacher was watching? Write. Don’t just give me a bunch of fluff. Dig under the surface. Tell me something I don’t know. Don’t rush. See how much you can get down in twenty minutes. Then we’ll get together and share.”

  Jasmine

  Dear Mr
. Fabiano,

  At first it was sort of a prank—no more teachers, no more books, yuk yuk yuk. But after a while we started feeling kinda proud of what we were doing. Sort of like: “We don’t need any grownups—we can do it ourselves!”

  What I can’t get my parents to understand is how totally normal the day was. We worked, talked, voted on decisions. True, some kids were talking out more, and making wisecracks, but most of the time we felt pretty close. And there were a couple of times I felt like we (the class) were a team—a real family.

  Your student,

  Jasmine

  Jessica

  Dear Mr. Fab,

  I DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT want to write about Friday! I’m sorry but I’m sick of talking about it! This is the LAST TIME I’ll let anyone talk me into a stunt like that. Boy, did I get in trouble with my parents, especially my father! Here’s a sample of my weekend:

  Dad: Didn’t you know it was wrong, Jessica?

  Me: Yes.

  Dad: Didn’t you know it was dangerous for a bunch of kids to be unsupervised all day?

  Me: Yes, sort of.

  Dad: Sort of?

  Me: Well, yes.

  Dad: Then why did you do it?

  Mom: Stop it! You’re putting her on trial!

  Dad: I’m just trying to get at the truth!

  Mom: You’re cross-examining her!

  I NEVER want to go through a weekend like that. And to think that I was the only kid who voted AGAINST the idea of us running the class in the first place!!!!

  Super-Annoyed,

  Jessica

  Christopher

  Dear Mr. Fab,

  Saturday morning the phone rang. It was a reporter from the National Enquirer! I think he was calling my mother, because she’s president of the P.T.A., but he seemed happy to talk to me.

  “We heard that some strange things happened in your class on Friday. Satanic rituals, that sort of thing. Is that true?”