Freaky Monday

by Mary Rodgers

  “I’m just saying…I’d do anything for my students and that’s totally the kind of devotion you want, right? Like, did you know I chair four committees?” I tried to count them in my head and hoped that was the right number.

  “Which committees?” asked the pudgy woman.

  Oh, crap. Which committees? “Student council. All hail Student Council…. Oh, and…the Self-Esteem You Rock…thingy.” I paused, my mind scrambled. I gave up trying to sound like Ms. Pitt. But I didn’t give up trying to get her message across. “Look, I was skeptical, too, about the You Rock group, but it’s totally cool…. Like, during the session or whatever last time, I totally cried. Practically bawling,” I said, impressed. I realized they did not seem as impressed. “It was a…moment.”

  “And you consider bawling a…good thing?” Mr. Wells inquired. Jeez, all he needed to do now was twirl a mustache and laugh. Mwah-haw-haw!

  “Yes, I consider it a good thing. Like I said, I try to be real and honest. Which is more than I can say for most teachers,” I said.

  There was a bit of contrarian buzz on that statement.

  “And…what other committees do you chair? You didn’t complete your list,” asked another board member.

  I looked down, my mind firing away. I went through a mental contact list, trying to place where I’d seen Ms. Pitt at school…as I visualized her, I realized I always saw Ms. Pitt flitting about the school, consummately involved. Some teachers hightailed it out of school as soon as the final bell rang, but not Ms. Pitt. She stuck around and chaired her committees…like yearbook—

  “Yearbook!” I squealed. “I totally chair yearbook!”

  “You ‘totally chair yearbook’?” the heavyset woman echoed.

  “Yeah, and Great Books! Great Books, that’s it! She asked me to—” I cut myself off before I said the word join. Why would I ask myself to join a club I chair? Maybe they didn’t catch that. “We discuss great literature that’s not just your average Moby-Dick.” I paused. “Which is not to say anything against Moby-Dick—I mean, we wouldn’t have the movie Jaws without it, for one thing.”

  Now that I thought about it, Great Books probably is a great club to be involved with. But it’s not like I have time to read anything other than my required reading…. Then again, maybe it was time I did a little bit more than required reading. All I did was study and look where it got me—miserable and switched! I vowed right then and there to myself that if I ever got back, I would take more time to NOT study.

  Wait, did I just think that?

  “Ms. Pitt. It is obvious you are still not feeling well—” Mr. Wells started.

  My face got red. I had to prove them wrong.

  “Why?” I demanded. “Why do you seem so hell-bent on accusing me of not feeling well?”

  “Well…your choice of language, for one. Everything is ‘totally’ this and ‘totally’ that.” Everyone chuckled at his observation.

  “So I speak the students’ language…That’s exactly my point! I relate to them and work so freakin’ hard for them, you have no idea.”

  “Freakin’?” Carl Papp repeated, uncertain.

  “Yes, freakin’, and it’s about freakin’ time you hire someone who not only knows their stuff when it comes to teaching literature, but who also is down with the kids.”

  “Is down?”

  What was I, speaking in code? “Understands.”

  “Right, right…”

  “All this empathy astounds me. You make it sound like you are quite the saint, Ms. Pitt,” Mr. Wells sneered.

  “No. I’m no saint. But I do give a hundred percent to my kids when it comes to academics, and I also give a hundred percent when it comes to extracurricular. One hundred percent. And you know it and I know it. Maybe I don’t always go about it the right way—I’m not perfect—but I try harder than anyone. I’d love for you to prove me wrong, Mr. Wells. Go ahead and please tell the board of another teacher who is more involved with his students than I am,” I asked with total conviction.

  All board members turned to Mr. Wells, who did not respond. His silence confirmed my devotion, something he could not refute.

  Mr. Wells stared down at me. “There’s one other thing I’d like to discuss. You seemed rather…suspicious of the standardized test prep I was interested in executing.”

  I was? My mind scrambled for a response but it was a big goose egg.

  “The tests from the U.S. Department of Education, remember? It’s a prep system that has had tremendous results in other regions.” He smiled to himself, satisfied. “I was thankful when you finally agreed to administer the sample tests, but it seemed to me that if you were doing such a crackerjack job as a teacher, you wouldn’t have resisted such testing so strongly.”

  And that’s when it hit me. In that instant, I totally understood the Mr. Wells/Ms. Pitt clash. Mr. Wells is all about standardized tests, and Ms. Pitt has a more…well, a more organic approach. And come to think of it, hadn’t I resisted Ms. Pitt for the same reason? Wasn’t I sort of way too into the standardized tests? Was I a teenage Mr. Wells? More important: Was raising pygmy hedgehogs in my future?!

  Then I saw the scene between me and Ms. Pitt that had happened in the hallway play in my mind like a flashback in a movie:

  Oh, Hadley. To Kill a Mockingbird is not about vocab words…. It’s about life…. Ms. Pitt had said.

  A smile broke out on my face. Ms. Pitt didn’t want me to understand the vocab words, she wanted me to know what the book was truly about! I took a deep breath and chose my words carefully.

  “Mr. Wells. I am all for academic accountability. Totally. I mean, I agreed to have my students take the sample test, didn’t I? It’s just that I find it more difficult to test English than, say, math. Because when it comes to understanding literature, there are tons of interpretations. It’s not…quantifiable like math. Like, take, for example, Jane Eyre. It may move me but leave someone else totally cold. Because with literature, as with life, there’s often not one right answer. That’s why I tend to be a bit skeptical of standardized testing. It doesn’t tell the full story.” I smiled to myself, knowing full well this was coming out great. Jeez, even I was impressed with myself. And I could tell by the smiles on the other board members faces, they agreed.

  Just then, my cell phone beeped. “Excuse me,” I said as I reached for my phone. The caller ID read TATUM. “One sec, just let me read this,” I said as I scanned the text.

  The board was abuzz—I suppose reading texts mid-interview did look a bit flippant. I NEED U. SCARING MYSELF. MEET @ THE TRACK.

  Tatum’s SCARING herself? What did that mean?

  It didn’t matter. I had to help her. She was my sister and she was in trouble. Period.

  “So sorry about this, but I gotta blaze,” I said breathlessly.

  “Blaze? Now? Exactly where are you going, Ms. Pitt?” Carl Papp inquired.

  I took a deep breath. “A student needs me. She’s in trouble and she says she’s scaring herself. I have to help her.” I started for the door and stopped before I exited. “Thank you for the opportunity and just know there’s no one that deserves this more than Ms. Pitt. I mean, me.” I closed the door behind me.

  CHAPTER 13

  I opened the car door and jumped into the backseat. “We have to get to the junior high track. Now.”

  “Wait, what’s going on?”

  “Tatum texted me. She said she’s ‘scaring herself,’” I said.

  “Oh, dear,” Hadley whispered.

  Mr. Hudson put the car in motion and we were off. His eyes connected with mine in the rearview mirror. “So? How did the interview go?”

  “Good, I think…. But then again, it’s sorta hard to tell. I mean, I split,” I responded. I was relieved the Prius could move so fast; we were sailing toward the junior high track.

  “You mean you just—” Hadley said in an agitated tone.

  “Took off. Yeah. Tatum’s in trouble. THAT’S more important,” I said.

&nb
sp; Mr. Hudson looked at Hadley as if to suggest, See my point about Ms. Pitt’s devotion? Then he did a little double-take.

  “You know, I must comment…. It’s nice to see you without your head in a book for once, Hadley. You’re always in that library, studying away,” Mr. Hudson said. Then his expression changed, as if he were realizing something. “I mean, not that that’s a bad thing! It’s not. It’s great! But…there’s more to life than studying. Besides, is there really that much homework in eighth grade?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hadley responded truthfully. She seemed lost in thought. “You really pay attention, don’t you, Mr. Hudson?”

  “I try. You set the bar pretty high.” Mr. Hudson blushed. It was getting a little crowded in the car.

  “Can we get back to this little thing called the interview?” I asked. “I did all I could do. I sang your praises left and right.”

  Both Mr. Hudson and Hadley whizzed their heads around and gave a quizzical huh? Why would I sing Hadley’s praises?

  “I mean…I did the best I could,” I explained. “And talked a lot about how devoted I am.”

  Thankfully it didn’t take long to get to the junior high. “I’ll park the car,” Mr. Hudson said. “And I’ll see if I can’t get the Malibu started again. Hadley, you go find Tatum.”

  “I’ll join you in just a minute,” I told Mr. Hudson, and flew out the door, leaving him mystified again.

  I could see Tatum in the distance, making lonely loops around the barren junior high track. I should have known we’d find her here. Whenever Tatum was down, she said exercise always made her feel better. It was way more productive than Ben & Jerry’s. Tatum had been on the junior high track team and was an incredibly strong runner. She was a natural, like a colt making gloriously strong loops around that course. I marveled at her grace and wondered if my legs would ever look that supple or run that strong. But she’d given up track when she joined high school cheerleading and never looked back. We’d never talked about it, but I’d wondered if doing quasi-ridiculous pony jumps and cheering for boys could ever compare to kicking some serious booty on the track….

  “Tatum!” I called. Tatum looked up and saw me—Ms. Pitt—waving wildly.

  She looked a bit confused by the sight of Hadley and Ms. Pitt, and she tentatively waved back.

  “She probably just wants to talk to me,” I said. “I did speak to her when she thought I was you and all.” I paused long enough to realize that was practically the most insane sentence I’d ever spoken. “But now it’s about family. We’re really close.”

  “You’re right. I’ll go down and talk to her then.”

  “And no mentioning our switch. Tatum’s stressed-out enough,” I added. “We’ll give you some privacy…but maybe I’ll just hang out under the bleachers over there.”

  “What, and eavesdrop?”

  “Basically, yeah.” I shrugged.

  Hadley nodded and headed toward the track. I ducked under the bleachers and watched Tatum and Hadley embrace. Tatum really clung to Hadley, and I felt warm knowing Tatum needed me so badly.

  I also managed to hear Tatum and Hadley’s entire exchange—score!

  “Oh, Hadley…” Tatum said, her cheeks wet with tears. “Did Ms. Pitt tell you?” She looked at Hadley with red eyes and a snotty nose and she still was vaguely glamorous. The nerve! Who does that?

  “She did—she was worried about you. And I’m so sorry, Tatum,” Hadley said. “So sorry.”

  “I’m pathetic. This whole thing is so embarrassing. I applied to a lot of schools. I mean, a lot of schools. Not even the greatest or the most competitive of schools! And you know how many of them wanted me? Zero. None. Nada. Zilch,” she said, and with each descriptive term for goose egg, she got more and more upset.

  Hadley hugged her again. Tatum was so special and probably thought the world had taken a cruel turn and would continue on this horrid course forever.

  “I mean, I applied to schools I thought were, you know, below me or something. Guess I shouldn’t have been so snotty, huh?” She blew her nose on her sleeve. “My life is over. What am I gonna do?” Tatum started to really cry again.

  Hadley took a deep breath, grabbed Tatum, and looked her dead in the eye. “I tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to deal with it and everything is going to be absolutely fine.”

  Tatum was taken aback with Hadley’s strong turn. “It is?”

  “Absolutely. Because you know what can be the best thing for your soul sometimes?” Hadley asked with a sage twinkle in her eye.

  “No. What?”

  “Not getting what you want. Sometimes not getting what you want is exactly what you need.”

  “What do you mean?” Tatum was skeptical.

  “Because when you don’t get what you want, that’s precisely when you learn the most.”

  “I’ve learned I may be the most popular loser in town.”

  “All right, no more talk like that. Period. You know deep down you’re an exceptional person, Tatum. You’re kind and you’re creative and you have gifts. You may not have gotten into your first choice of college—”

  “Or the eighteenth,” Tatum interrupted.

  “Or the eighteenth, sure. But life is NOT over. You can easily get into a community college, work hard, and transfer to a great state school. People do that all the time,” Hadley explained.

  Tatum looked down, forlorn. “You mean a lamebrain state school.”

  Hadley took a deep breath. “Listen to me. Could you handle turning out like Woody Allen or Jonas Salk?”

  “Sure…”

  “Well, they’re both state school grads and they seem to have done okay in life. Ever heard of Ball State University?” Hadley asked.

  “Ball State? Ick. Where’s that?”

  “Muncie, Indiana. And it was good enough for David Letterman. He has a hall there that’s dedicated to all the C students of the world,” Hadley went on.

  “He does?” Tatum’s eyes grew larger—she was feeling better, it was obvious.

  “Yup. Bottom line, Tatum, is that it’s not where you get your education, but what you do with it. It’s not your popularity or hair or boyfriend, it’s you that matters.”

  “Jeez, Hadley. How’d you get so smart? You are such the Jedi brilliant little sister. Seriously, you’re like my personal Yoda, aren’t you?” Tatum joked. She then broke into her excellent Yoda impersonation. “Such wisdom are you. Much brainpower in young package…”

  Hadley had to laugh. “So you’re feeling better?”

  Tatum nodded. “Look, I’m still a little screwed. But…I could handle turning out like David Letterman. I’d be fine with that,” Tatum said.

  “Yeah, you’d be okay with your own TV show? That could work?” Hadley joked.

  “Yeah, I could deal with that just fine.”

  “So you’re sure you’re going to be all right, then?” Hadley looked into Tatum’s green pools that had some of their trademark sparkle back.

  “Eventually.” Tatum grinned.

  They hugged, and I knew I had to hightail it back to the car before Tatum was clued into the fact that I had basically spied on their entire exchange. I didn’t want to be downgraded from diligent, involved teacher to obsessive creep in one fell swoop!

  CHAPTER 14

  When I got to the parking lot, I turned to wait for Hadley.

  And I gotta say—usually you never get to see yourself except on the occasional family video or some random filming of a piano recital, which inevitably is a wooden, false representation of what you really look like. I studied myself and wondered if Ms. Pitt made my body move differently or if that was really what I looked like. Did I stand like that? Walk like that? It was almost like when you get into those really bizarre moods and stare at your reflection, almost asking out loud, like in a bad after-school special, Who am I? Who am I really? Is that…me? Well, I got to do that through another myopic and potentially warped lens. I realized Hadley—I—wasn’t ne
arly as tragic-looking as maybe I had feared. Sure, I was no Tatum—frankly, who was? Overall, the effect wasn’t disastrous. I had to bottle this revelation.

  “Did I hear right? Is she okay?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Tatum is going to be fine. She’s going to investigate some community colleges now and it doesn’t seem as bleak,” Hadley said with a grin.

  “Oh, thank goodness. I’m so relieved. Thank you. Because if anyone is unequipped to deal with things going wrong, it’s Tatum. I mean—the streetlights see her coming and they practically turn green on cue,” I said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure,” Hadley responded. “Maybe that’s what you see, but I doubt Tatum feels that. You may think Tatum has everything, but maybe today has taught you that no one’s perfect.”

  “Maybe there’s just perfect students. Like 4.9 GPA–Cindy Pang, for instance.”

  Hadley shook her head. “Again…no one is perfect. No one.” She paused and studied me. “You really need to figure that one out, don’t you?”

  I was stunned.

  “In fact, perfectionism is slow death,” Hadley said slowly with Ms. Pitt’s distinct earth mother delivery.

  “Who said that?” I asked.

  “Someone very, very smart.”

  I looked down at the ground and realized tears were kinda sorta welling in my eyes. Okay, today was an emotional day and I was potentially losing my mind, but what Ms. Pitt said rang true. I have been knocking myself out and slaving over homework and obsessing over being perfect at school because I feel so inadequate compared to my sister’s perfection. But perhaps Ms. Pitt was right—there ain’t no such thing.

  And then Ms. Pitt’s wisdom boomeranged right back to me! She wasn’t so innocent on this one, either. “Sounds like you could learn a lot from yourself,” I said.

  “How’s that?”

  “You’re telling me not to obsess about perfection, blah blah blah—”

  “Blah blah blah?”

  “Hear me out,” I said. “You yourself are guilty of trying to be this perfect teacher. You know—the most prepared, the most involved, the most beloved…. blah blah blah…” I savored the words. “And, as they say, ‘perfection is a slow death.’”