by Fran Kimmel
So that was it, then. I waited for Christie to get off the elevator, grabbed the key from her farmer’s fist, sprinted down the hallway and unlocked our door. Then I counted my escape money tucked between the covers of Sociology in Crisis. $321.37. Leftovers from the Rotary scholarship, my grand prize for being the student most committed. Glassy-eyed Rotarians listened closely while I read my winning essay, “An Apple for the Teacher — Passion with Purpose.” Most had polished off their chocolate mousses by the time I came to the closing sentence — “And that is the weight of it, this call to the classroom, to forge a new imagination, a better world in the hearts of children.” There was a great upheaval as they collectively stood in the Chamber of Commerce meeting room. Clapping and stomping. I felt light as water, as convincing as butter pecan ice cream.
I stuffed my clothes into two canvas bags, wrapped my night lights in towels and shirts: my feather-winged angel and church tower; my dead starfish; my stained glass leaf with a broken stem; and my plastic clown, whose red nose gets feverishly hot when I plug him in.
Christie wouldn’t face me when I sat at her desk.
“I’ve got a teaching offer. In Winter Lake. I’m leaving Regina. As soon as I get these references done.” I frantically pounded on her keyboard and typed three letters, designing new letterhead for each. Sincerely yours, James Knight, Yours truly, V. Stefansson, and Best Regards, Hugh Evans: northern explorers who, despite being dead, believed in my worthiness more firmly than most.
“When did you have your interview?” Christie had her back to me and scratched at her scalp. She always scratched when she felt change coming.
“When I get there.” I gathered my bags and walked out the door. “You can keep my sociology books.”
I arrived at the Greyhound terminal ticket counter at a quarter to two, then waited four hours for the Winter Lake connector bus to back out of its stall. I sat in the single seat at the back, across from the toilet smells, with the reading light on. I studied my reflection in the window through the long dreary night. I’d given myself a terrible haircut. Again. My bangs were too short. My eyebrows too arching, eyes too far apart, pupils indistinguishable from irises. It took a long night of staring at myself, seven stops, one driver replacement, a nineteen-degree temperature drop, and twenty-two hours before me and my polished boots and two canvas bags lined up at the office counter of Messenger School.
“By bus? Through the night? Instead of a phone call? I’ve never heard such a thing.” Mrs. Bagot steered me into her principal’s office and pointed to the blue upholstered chair beside the plastic palm. I hadn’t eaten since Regina and couldn’t tear my eyes from the jar of red and green striped rock candy sitting beside the pencil holder. I had to clasp my hands together to stop them from reaching in.
Mrs. Bagot thumbed through the contents of my manila envelope. She started with my unblemished transcript. Then, the Rotary scholarship certificate on embossed paper with the gold seal. Then the sample lesson plan for contrasting simple vowel phonemes — pit, pet, pat, put, putt, pot. Last, the three reference letters.
“Those are excellent references, Mrs. Bagot. To assist you with your decision.”
Mrs. Bagot breezed through the dead explorers’ accolades, looking up every so often to study the girl who had garnered such praise. Mrs. Bagot later told me she was surprised by my lack of an accent, my prairie heritage, “When I appeared so, well, from so far away.” I said nothing when she told me that. People smell a whiff of “difference” on me. I don’t want it explained.
During my interview, I recited pieces of my Rotary essay beginning with page two and adding appropriate pauses and occasional stumbles to make it appear I was choosing my words for the first time. My mouth moved in one direction, my mind in another. I was thinking about what got me to this place. I suppose if I traced it all the way back it was that boy in the Luther cafeteria. That boy with delicate wrists, long fingers reaching into his plastic bag, pulling out orange carrots, red and yellow pepper slices, a mixture of lettuce leaves, arranging these painstakingly, as though he were a painter and his plate the palette. I sat two tables over in the noisy cafeteria, surrounded by liberal arts students I didn’t know. The giant fig tree separated my table from the boy’s, so I could watch without being noticed. Thick glasses magnified his worried concentration as he chewed through the colours. He had lips like a woman. He was beautiful in his otherness, so much so that he drowned out everyone else’s roar until all I could hear was the sound of his breathing. When the boy stood to leave, I stood too. As he walked away, his timetable fell from the pocket of his book bag. I scooped up the crumbled paper and studied his choices. It was the first week of my second semester. By day’s end, I’d switched from Arts to Education and changed all my courses to match his. If it wasn’t for that boy, I might have been a sociologist. And sociology is dead — clearly.
“And I suppose that is it, this call to the classroom.” Unlike the Rotarians, Mrs. Bagot neither clapped nor stomped. “My apologies for my long speech, but I feel passionate about teaching.” I didn’t, of course, but there are parts of a girl she must keep private, especially during an interview.
“And why Winter Lake? Why here?”
“I’ve been researching carefully.” I knew nothing of Winter Lake other than its position on the map. “This area has an amazing history. And this school an excellent reputation.”
Mrs. Bagot looked dubious. “You have no direct teaching experience.”
“But I was top of my class.” I felt light-headed from lack of food, sleep, light.
“And you are very young. Compared to the other teachers.”
“My youth works in your favour, Mrs. Bagot.”
“We’ve been relying on substitutes for over two months now. The children have become unruly, I’m afraid to say.”
“I can fix that.”
Perhaps Mrs. Bagot sensed the truth in this bit.
The next morning, after a second sleepless night, this time in the bowels of the Inn on Main Hotel, I arrived at my classroom at a quarter to nine and surveyed the thumbprint patterns etched on grimy green walls, the dishevelled stacks of cardboard along the window ledge. I routed through my predecessor’s paper scraps in my top drawer.
• Cabbage and canned tomatoes (× 6)
• Diet Ginger ale
• Weigh in — 4:00
• Big clothes to Jo-ann’s Slightly Used
• Body Jam — 6:00 PM class
As children bounced in from the cold, I blocked the doorway to inspect each child singly. I must have gripped their shoulders too roughly. When I let go, they ran to their desks like calves after branding. With the hallway emptied, all children in, I walked first to the deep sink, scrubbed my hands, then I marched straight to the board and printed “Miss Bel” in large letters. The room was quiet as a whisper.
“Well, here we go then. We’re going to clean up this dump. Scrub every inch.”
* * *
My mother smacked my left hand so often with the wooden spoon those fingers still burn when they reach for a pencil. Rebee is left-handed. I love the way her fingers curl when she concentrates, smudging the letters as they inch across the page. I love the way her body stays still when she sits at her desk. She hasn’t once raised her hand, joined in a discussion, or asked to go to the bathroom.
As for the others, they natter incessantly. The girls cluster like grapes; they flatter and fidget. The boys crush their juice boxes in their sweaty little fists and pound each other’s foreheads and other flat surfaces.
It’s a funny business, the way the mind works. I used to spend hours in my room at the farmhouse, conjuring up desks filled with breathing bodies shaped like me. I surrounded myself with girls in velvet dresses with satin sashes, boys in shirts crisp as white paper. I stole my classmates from the radio songs that drifted up from my mother’s kitchen.
The real assortment is sorely disappointing. Now I find myself longing for my bedroom, away from the heat of
so many grubby bodies. It’s been three months now. Three paycheques, one report card, twelve Thursday after-school meetings in the teachers’ lounge. There are nine green linoleum squares between my desk and the door. Sometimes I simply walk from the classroom, past the mudroom, and into the cold where I stand under the cracked canopy and suck in frigid air.
Yesterday I stood at my classroom window, inside when I was assigned to be out. It was my turn to supervise the recess raucous, but I couldn’t bear another moment. Inhumane, what Mrs. Bagot expected from her teachers. I stared into the twisting, churning mass of bodies wrapped around the play equipment. A clump of girls emerged from the mouth of the vortex. It was Vanessa and Susan, and they were dragging Rebee between them, headed in my direction.
When I got to the mudroom, a blast of angry cold rushed in. Rebee stood in the open doorway between the two girls. I pulled the children inside, out of the howling entrance and slammed the door closed. Vanessa and Susan flung snow wads in every direction.
I stepped around the wet and stood in front of the drizzling trio.
“What’s your problem?”
“Rebee’s bin kilt,” Vanessa yelled from behind her soggy scarf. Her mittened hand pointed at Rebee’s face, which was hidden by her pink scarf save for wide eyes, wet eyelashes.
“Rebee’s not been killed. She’s standing right here.”
“See, see,” Susan started giggling. Rebee stood perfectly still, eyes focused on my stomach.
“Well, let’s take a look then.” I stepped behind Rebee and fumbled with her scarf, the frozen knot, mutton bone hard. I was ready to give up, march into the staffroom, grab a cleaver, chop the scarf in two.
The knot finally gave, so I moved around front of Rebee and pulled the scarf from her face. Susan let out a walloping screech. Rebee’s mouth was bloodied, red-caked lips forming a small doughnut, pink bubbles gathering in the hole. A blood smear had stained one cheek, her chin. Snot ran from her nose. She wouldn’t look at me. Didn’t cry. Didn’t make a sound.
Susan’s giggles turned to sobs.
“Pipe down, Susan, it’s just a little blood.”
I tugged and pulled and peeled the layers until Rebee was wet socks, rumpled T-shirt and baggy pants. Vanessa started shedding, too.
“Stay dressed, Vanessa. You too, Susan. Where does it hurt, Rebee?”
“In her mouth,” Susan yelled.
“What happened?”
“Rebee got banged,” Vanessa added.
“Banged how?”
“By Kenny’s head.”
Vanessa wriggled and squirmed, words tumbling like marbles in no coherent order. How Kenny pushed Rebee from behind. How Rebee lost her balance and fell. How Rebee’s mouth slammed against the curved lip of the frozen slide. How Peter laughed and pointed and the others joined in. Vanessa yakked on and on. Behind the blood splatters, Rebee, pale as a feather, still hadn’t uttered a peep. Her socks were too small, heels folding at the balls of each foot.
“Leave us now. Susan and Vanessa. Both of you. Out.”
They didn’t want to miss the show, so I pushed them into winter and slammed the door behind them. Rebee was trembling by this point. She smelled like washing day, damp cloth, a faint trace of Christmas orange. I marched her to the bathroom and stood her in front of the sink.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, then. See what we’ve got.”
Rebee stared into the oval mirror at her blood-smeared face. She had a faraway look, as though she were looking at her older self. She was in some trailer park, some burnt-out town, some snarly boyfriend with swollen knuckles hovering in the background.
I started with the cheek. Rubbed a paper towel until the blood was all gone. Then I ran warm water over more paper, squeezed out the excess and dabbed at her chin, under her nose, around the corners of her eyes. I could see no swelling, no black and blue rising, no broken skin.
“That doesn’t look so bad. Rebee, open your mouth.”
Lips stayed sealed.
“Fine. Then spit into the sink for me?”
Rebee leaned over and spat a pea-sized pink plop into the sink. I still couldn’t see inside her mouth. I turned on the cold water and filled one of the paper cups that sat by the tap.
“Now you take a drink and swish it all around and then spit it out. Pretend you’ve just brushed your teeth.”
Rebee took the cup slowly, turned eyes first to me, then she swished and spat daintily onto the porcelain. Crimson fizz, then the plink of a little white tooth. We both leaned into the sink to get a better look.
“What is that?” she whispered.
I got a good look at the gap in the front of her mouth.
“Congratulations. You’ve popped your front tooth. Just like you’re supposed to.”
She lowered her head further, studying the tooth, poking it with her fingers. Then she turned and stared at me. Our faces were inches apart.
“Well?”
Rebee’s fingers pinched my sweater. It was the first time I had really looked into her eyes. They were as grey as the end of the world, exhausted.
“Will the Tooth Fairy come?” She asked this reverently, like this might save her life.
I remembered tooth fairies and sugar plum fairies and angel fairies. Somehow, my parents had inherited a book of Classic Fairy Tales, a book as weighty as a fattened pig. I heaved the book onto my bed and read and reread stories of frog princes and talking cats and shoes that would not stop dancing. I waited for those fairies. They never did find their way to the middle of nowhere.
“Will she come?” Rebee asked again.
My mother had a peculiar use for lost teeth, hers and mine. She laid each on the splintered cutting board, and brought down the swinging hammer with a mighty force. Then she scooped up the specks as fine as powdered milk and fed them to her spindly geranium plant.
“What do you know about the Tooth Fairy?”
Rebee shrugged.
“What has your mother told you?”
Rebee shook her head, sadly I thought. Surely her mother had no geraniums.
“Recess must be over,” I said, unwilling to drag it out further. My teacher training lacked tips for this kind of moment. “It’s time to go back to the classroom.”
But Rebee wanted more. “Vanessa said that when her tooth came out she put it under her pillow and she saw the tooth fairy and she had wings. The tooth fairy stayed in Vanessa’s bedroom and twirled and then was gone and she got monies.”
“Money. She got money.”
“Does she come, Miss Bel?”
I had no decent answer. I wanted the fairy to come, my longing as sharp as Rebee’s, but I had no way to find her. I yanked a paper towel from its holder, folded it twice, dug the tooth from the sink, and wrapped it snugly.
“Put this in your pocket.” I passed her the tooth package. “It’ll be safe there. And don’t tell Vanessa. Talk to your mom instead?”
She held out her hand, opened her pocket of her pants, and tucked the paper towel as far down as it would go. I made her scrub her hands with soap and water so hot it made her eyes water. Then we marched back to the classroom, neither one of us saying a word.
It wasn’t until the end of the day, after the kids were long gone, after I had disinfected my desk and stepped out into the biting wind to face the dark sky that I buried my hands deep into my coat to stop the sting. Somehow the paper towel had slipped into my pocket. I pressed my fingers around the folded square, felt the hard bump of the tiny tooth. I never thought to ask how it got there, when she might have slipped into the staffroom, chosen the exact right coat. I simply clutched that small piece of Rebee, hanging on for dear life, trying to keep it warm.
* * *
I live in Delta’s furnished basement suite. If Delta’s not the oldest living prairies teacher, I can’t imagine who is. She does all her teaching sitting down and has trouble answering questions because her hearing is so poor. When I sneak past her classroom to get outside, she’s often nodded off, he
r sixth-graders huddling over desks, speaking in low voices, like it’s campfire time and the grownups have been put to bed. Mrs. Bagot has a great respect for elders. She believes in corporal punishment and checks on Delta’s classroom more frequently than mine.
Mrs. Bagot made the arrangements for my stay with Delta. She marched into Delta’s Grade Six classroom at the farthest corner of my wing and told her it was high time she got a new renter. Delta’s last tenant, Martha Flem, collapsed from a stroke in the downstairs bathroom and got wedged between the toilet and countertop. This happened eleven years ago. Martha Flem lay there for three days, semiconscious. Delta found her, twisted and blue with cold, her nightie bunched over swollen kneecaps. Martha must have been a large woman. I can easily sit on the floor beside the toilet, pull my knees up, and twirl a 360. She went straight to a nursing home after that, and I have to bang on Delta’s upstairs door each evening and twice a day on weekends just to let her know I’m still breathing. “Delta,” I yell, pounding on the door, “I’m doing just fine, no need to worry.”
Often, at night, I sit on Delta’s floor, my night lights glowing from every spare wall socket, bordered by overstuffed burgundy chairs, striped afghans, Royal Castle bone china girls, starched frilly doilies floating on every flat top.
I think about Buttercup, the mad dog in Delta’s kitchen, locked behind baby gates. She’s some kind of poodle, with matted pink curls like Delta’s, a red-veined underbelly and filmy eyes. Delta has told me she needs to be put to sleep, but she can’t bear to make that decision. So Buttercup chases herself in circles, round and round, always the same direction, crashing into her water bowl and garbage can. Table legs are especially problematic.