O’Connel sat down at his desk and went to work. “That’s the problem, all right enough. Take that to the office, please.” The boy made no move to leave, and someone in the back tittered.
“Mr. Dodson, can you get to the office on your own, or will you need my assistance leaving the room?” His voice was very calm, very matter of fact as he continued marking a stack of papers.
Writing had stopped. Pencils stood poised over papers. Thirty students held their breath as eyes moved from O’Connel to the boy, and back.
O’Connel stood. “I see you do.”
“I’m going!” The boy made a show of closing his binder, slamming his book shut, crumpling the paper O’Connel had given him.
“Tell Mr. Parnell that if he sends you back up here, I’ll take you right back down to him myself. Have a good day, Mr. Dodson.”
As he went out the door, he paused to look back. “You’re a crappy teacher, nobody likes you.”
O’Connel went on marking papers. “You don’t have to like me, Mr. Dodson. What you will do…” He looked up. “…is respect me. See you tomorrow, now.”
The boy slammed the door shut behind him and the class went back to work.
Solange released a breath. How long had she held it? Her hands found the home keys on her keyboard, but were still. It took something to stay that calm. She didn’t know if she could do it. Hugh said he had kicked out a dozen kids from his classes already. If this one was still here, what had the others been like? What was happening that a boy should say that to a man like this one? As a child she had worshipped teachers with a fraction of his talent.
With the class, O’Connel went over a list of a dozen questions, having them repeat in Spanish, repeating the same sentence several times if the pronunciation was not just right. Next, on their own, they translated the question and answered it in Spanish. Solange was amazed at their response. It was as if he had offered them a new puzzle to solve. Eagerly they began.
No one stared out windows, no one whispered. They hadn’t the time. Watching O’Connel through narrowed eyes with grudging admiration, Solange had to admit it—he had them. In his maddening way, he was a pro.
“Okay, be prepared for a Spanish-speaking guest tomorrow.
You’re going to interpret.” They groaned.
“That’s right, and it’ll be for eight points, so get this vocabulary down cold, and be prepared to ask questions.” When the room emptied, Solange got up to stretch.
He spoke over his shoulder as he wrote a formula on the board.
“So how’s Doc?”
Noble’s faction would love to know how ill he was so they could use it against him. “What do you mean, how is he?”
“I was just wondering how he was. I don’t know him very well, he just seems like a nice guy to me. I know everybody makes fun of him with his little black book, but I kind of like him.”
She chewed the inside of her lip, wondering how much to tell.
There was absolutely no reason to trust him, but for some reason she did. “He’s not good, he worries too much about everything. The job’s not good for him.”
“Why doesn’t he quit?”
“He’s a fool—he cares about the kids.”
“He doesn’t sound like a fool to me,” O’Connel said.
Didn’t he get it? “He sent me here, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know it. I figure he’s just doing his job,” he said, dusting chalk from his hands, his eyes smiling. “Like you.”
Stomach churning, she turned back to the window. He was a bastard. A ceiling of dark cloud hung low over the tree line. There would be no clearing today. For some reason she wanted to tell him. She faced him. “If I can’t get enough documentation to terminate you by Thursday, Mrs. Noble and her faction on the board will force him out.”
He frowned. “Well, would that be so bad? I thought you said his health—” A smile spread slowly across his face. “Ah, now I see…he goes, you go, that it?”
She felt blood rise to her face. She had never before been ashamed of what she did. She didn’t like the feeling.
“So,” he said, “It’s you or me.” His gaze made her uncomfortable. She was relieved when the class began to fill again.
When the class had quieted, he hunkered down at her desk, mouth close to her ear. “I want you to watch her,” he said, nodding at an obese girl in a striped pink and white blouse. “Her name’s Sally. She’s an artist; watch her work, but don’t let her know you’re watching.”
While the rest of the class had already begun entering the experiments on the board in their journals, Sally watched those around her. O’Connel smiled, and with only a gesture asked her to begin.
Sally nodded rapidly as if to say she had the matter well in hand.
With extreme care, she opened her binder. This done, she proceeded to turn the pages of each section slowly, searching for just the right page on which to begin her entry. When she found a fresh piece of lined paper, she paused to inhale deeply.
She snapped open the rings and removed the sheet, which she placed on the desk in front of her. The binder she closed and put into the backpack at her feet.
Next came the pencil.
After a noisy search through the deepest recesses of her pack, she came up with a brand new one. Extracting herself from the desk, she waddled slowly to the sharpener, making several stops on her way to check the progress of other students. Arriving at the sharpener at last, she inserted her pencil and, in consideration of those working, ground the handle with excruciating care. After what seemed to Solange like minutes of meticulous grinding, she withdrew the pencil, bringing it close to her small eye.
Nope, not quite right .
More muted grinding .
A second examination was no more successful, and the process was repeated.
Mouth hanging open in disbelief— Solange looked around the room in amazement. The class ignored Sally; they had seen it all before.
On the third examination, the pencil, now barely half its length, passed muster, and Sally returned to her seat. She shook out heavy arms. This was it—now she would write. She got comfortable in the seat. Her pencil, sharpened to perfection, hung poised over the blank sheet. Electricity charged the air.
Solange found herself anxiously waiting for Sally to go to work.
Surely she was ready now. Surely she would have to begin.
Wait.
Something was not right.
Sally sat up, squinting down at the sheet of blank paper. She cocked her head, looked again. No, it wouldn’t do. She brought out her notebook, and again found the correct spot. She opened the rings, and delicately replaced the unsullied sheet. Yes—she would write in the binder after all. She slumped into a comfortable writing position.
Now, she could get down to business.
She looked up at the board.
She frowned.
She squinted.
She pursed cherub lips.
She moved her head forward, back, side to side.
Another rummage through her pack yielded a case containing a pair of glasses. These on, she once again regarded the chalkboard.
Shaking her head dramatically, she took them off.
Incredulous, Solange watched as once again Sally rustled in her pack, coming out with a tissue. A couple of noisy exhalations on each lens, and she gave them a thorough rub down. Sighing heavily, from the effort, Sally glanced up at the clock, then settled back in her seat.
At last she was comfortable.
At last she was prepared.
Her pencil descended, coming ever nearer the surface of the paper.
Solange gripped the edge of her desk, knuckles white. Now! Now, at last she would do something! O’Connel glanced at the clock, came to his feet. “Time’s up.
Pencils down, please. Have your periodic charts out.
Sally’s mouth fell open wide in dismay. She was crushed. After all her painstaking preparations, she would not, after
all, be able to copy down the experiments. Taking this disappointment in stride, she sat up and earnestly began to search her backpack for her chart.
Solange looked up, and O’Connel, meeting her eye, came very close to smiling. He had expected this, she could tell. Dear God, it went on like this every day? O’Connel came from behind the lab table to sit on the corner of his desk. “Okay, we’ve been talking about the elements, and today we have several gases to test— oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, helium, neon, and a mixture of acetylene and oxygen. Volunteers will test each for combustion and explosion. First is nitrogen. Take a deep breath.” They breathed with him.
“You’re breathing mostly nitrogen right now. Some plants can take it out of the air and make their own fertilizer. Legumes— beans, peas, locusts are all legumes. Beans are good for you because they contain a high percentage of protein.”
“Is that why they give you gas?” It was Sally.
“They give you gas because you can’t digest them completely, and what’s indigestible ferments in your colon.”
“You know how they say you should light a match?” Sally said.
“Why do they say that?” The class was paying attention, now. This was killing them.
“They say that because gas is part methane, like what comes out of a gas stove, so it burns.”
“Is that why it stinks when you fart?” This sent them into hysterics.
Solange hid her mouth behind her hand. This was the first time she’d seen him with such a young group. He was taking it pretty well, she thought.
“It smells because it came out of your bowel.” A dozen hands went up, each with a story about methane, but O’Connel waved them down. “Okay, guys, save your stories until after we get done. If we have time, then, I’ll let you tell them. The first person to tell me the mass of nitrogen will be our volunteer.” The volunteer was given a pair of safety glasses and a long bamboo pole to the end of which was secured a match. This was lit, and placed under the balloon.
It collapsed with a dull pffft.
The experimenters were outraged and disappointed at the lack of conflagration. O’Connel explained that nitrogen is not flammable.
They were not appeased. With much groaning, they dutifully wrote their conclusions.
Next was oxygen. He explained that oxygen was very dangerous because it accelerated combustion, and that many horrible fires had begun when oxygen was used in hospital rooms. He had the first row move their desks back, and he ducked behind a cupboard. The student with the pole, fearful, crouched low.
Solange squinted, not sure what to expect.
Pffft· They groaned.
It was no good.
It was boring.
“You fooled us!” Solange smiled at herself for falling for his trick.
“Did I? Okay, remember, oxygen’s necessary for combustion, but is not itself flammable.
They weren’t happy, but they wrote it.
“Next is hydrogen.” From a cupboard he took a large balloon.
“What will happen if we use a match to provide activation energy for hydrogen in the presence of oxygen? Sally surprised Solange by throwing up a plump arm. “It’ll bond?” He smiled over Sally’s head at Solange. “So, you’ve been listening.” O’Connel waved her up, “Okay, come on up here.” This balloon, big as a beach ball, went up in a ball of orange fire three feet across to flatten against the high ceiling, leaving no smoke at all and twenty-four thirteen-year-olds yelled with one voice.
Sally’s face lit up in rapture—now this was more like it! When he had them quiet, he mentioned the Hindenberg, and said that there was now some water vapor up near the ceiling that hadn’t been there before.
As they predicted, the noble gases merely made a small raspberry sound when touched by the burning match. This caused several imitations. The mushroom cloud of flame forgotten, they were again bored.
He took a balloon the size of a grapefruit down from a high cabinet. “Now what we have is a mix of acetylene and oxygen.”
“The gas they use for welding?” Sally said.
Again Solange was impressed.
“That’s right. Now the hydrogen we burned wasn’t mixed with oxygen.”
“Just when it burned, right?”
“Yeah, well this gas is, and when fuel is mixed with oxygen burns very quickly. Very dangerous. Very good bombs.” Groans. The balloon was too small, they all agreed. It wouldn’t do anything but fart, anyway. They shut their journals, chins cupped in open palms. The period was nearly over. They watched the second hand on the clock as it ticked down taking them nearer the break.
He called for a volunteer. Sally’s was the only hand raised.
The small balloon went off like a bomb in the closed room, leaving Solange’s ears ringing. Chalk dust blown from the chalk tray by the concussion hung in the air like a fog. It was dead quiet, now.
Sally stood by the lab table, frozen, open mouth slack, stick held under the empty ring stand. Slowly, a smile grew on her face, tiny pig-eyes wide. “Wow.”
O’Connel took the bamboo pole out of her hand. “Well, you always said you wanted to blow something up. Now you have. I’ll let you go a minute early for break, go get some fresh air.” He opened several windows, as the class filed out in stunned silence.
Solange worked her finger in her ear. “That was loud!” He smiled. “Yeah, I think it woke them up.” Lott stuck his head in the door, frowning at the pall of dust.
“What the hell’d you do, blow the place up?”
“I blew up your best student.”
“Oh, Lord, not Sally! Who’s going to take roll for me? You got her to do any work in your class, yet?”
“It’s only November. Today she came dangerously close to writing her name, though,” O’Connel said.
“What’s your secret? That gal can tell you where anybody in the school is at anyone time—you pick the period—but it takes her all period to open her binder! Explain that, will you?” He went out.
O’Connel wedged the door open to air out the room.
Solange watched him, thinking. “You know the decision whether or not to return a student to class is the VP’s. Why would you say what you did to the boy you sent out?”
“I’ve kicked too many horse’s hind ends out of class just to have them come back five minutes later with a big grin on their face, bragging that nothing happened, that’s why. As far as most administrators are concerned, you see a problem, you made it; it’s your fault. After a while even teachers get the message.”
What he thought of her shouldn’t matter, but it did. It did matter. “You hate all of us, don’t you?”
“I’m not talking about you,” he said, tearing open a pack of gum and offering her a piece. “I don’t even hate the gutless wonders. They’re just trying to keep their jobs. Their hands are tied—the courts have seen to that. An administrator’s job now is to avoid lawsuits. I’ve even seen principals called on the carpet because of too many kids expelled for drugs and alcohol. You see, we want it both ways, Drug Free keep the stats low, we tolerate just about any behavior the kids dish out. I’m not saying they’re the heavies, I just see it from a teacher’s point of view, that’s all. Things look different from down here.”
She blew against a pane, breath fogging the glass. “What if —” She hesitated, afraid she had said too much. Afraid he would laugh…not wanting him to.
“What?” he said, guessing her thought. “If an administrator cared about more than keeping her job? if she had scruples? if she had the guts to stand firm on standards, to stand up to parents and board members?”
“Yeah,” she said, more than a little surprised by his guess.
He shrugged. “They might last six, eight weeks. The thing you’ve got to remember is, the moment you try to do what’s right, you make enemies, because everybody wants something from the system. Good grades, free babysitting, a cushy job—everybody wants something, but nobody wants any trouble.”
The halls were
silent, now, the wind filtering in around the icy panes.
She could think of nothing more to say. “You’re probably right.”
He passed out some dog-eared math workbooks. “Wait until you meet this bunch.”
“Isn’t it time for History?” He shook his head. “Bonehead Math. We operate on a variable schedule—we call it zoo schedule. We shuffle the class order every day—I say Parnell tosses dice, Helvey says it’s darts. It’s supposed to keep the kiddies from getting bored. It’s just something we do to make sure that no one really knows what’s coming next. Can’t have things getting too predictable, can we?”
She set her laptop out on the desk, opened it. “So what’s so special about this group?” He made a face. “I won’t spoil it for you.” The bell rang and she mentioned that it was quieter here than in the hallway below.
“It used to knock me out of my socks every time it went off. I got up in the attic and cut the hot wire. No one’s noticed, so I guess it didn’t hurt anything.”
Her laptop she switched on.
“Oops.” He winced. “Just gave you one, didn’t I?”
“Yup,” she said, hands moving over the keyboard as she met his eye. “Don’t forget I’m the enemy…I won’t.”
They scared her. From her seat in the back of the room she watched boys file in, many wearing earphones and baseball caps turned bill to the back.
O’Connel stood guard at the door and they slapped them on the counter as they came. A tough looking blond with an earring slammed down his binder and, for no reason she could see, took a shorter boy in a head lock. O’Connel barked and they sat.
The room filled and still she had seen no girls. How odd to have a class with only boys—with this group, how nightmarish.
The blond turned to stare at her with the eyes of an unfriendly dog. “Who’s she?”
“Miss Gonsalvas is the assistant superintendent.”
She didn’t like his eyes. There was no intelligence there, only conniving malevolence. The thoughts of an animal seemed to dart behind them. How much ugliness the boy must have seen in his short life to have eyes like these.
Sensing weakness, his eyes narrowed. “You mean she’s your boss, O’Connel?”
A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room Page 8