The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman

by Ben H. Winters

  Bethesda nodded miserably.

  “No! Come on! We’re—we’re necessary. It’s our show!” But it was too late. Principal Van Vreeland saw her opportunity.

  “Come now, young man. There is only one person crucial to the rock show, and that is Ms. Finkleman.” She was out of her chair again, back at the door with her hand at the knob. “Mr. Melville, you read my mind. A multi—What was that word again? The fancy one?”

  “Multifaceted.”

  “Yes! A multifaceted punishment for both cheaters! Now let’s all proceed to the auditorium for the Choral Corral!” She paused and gestured vaguely to Bethesda and Tenny. “Um, except you two, of course.”

  Bethesda looked through her fingers down at the rug. She simply couldn’t bear to look at Tenny Boyer. Her and her stupid Special Project! The rock show, this incredible event he had created, this is the project that was actually special … and now he wouldn’t even get to be in it.

  “Hang on,” said Tenny.

  Principal Van Vreeland glared at Tenny from the doorway. “ What now?”

  There was a look on Tenny Boyer’s face that Bethesda had never seen before. A smile twisted up the corners of his lips. His eyes were bright, glowing with inspiration and a hint of mischief. They had a glimmer in them, like—like Christmas lights.

  “Thing is, the Choral Corral isn’t an extracurricular.”

  Principal Van Vreeland stood at the door, one hand tightly clutching Jasper’s arm, staring daggers back across the room. Mr. Melville furrowed his brow with perplexed irritation. “What?” he said darkly, elongating the single syllable with a thick undercurrent of menace.

  Bethesda knew immediately where Tenny was going, and she joined him, like they were two guitarists playing in unison. “Of course. Music Fundamentals is a class. Participation in the Choral Corral is required!”

  “So I totally agree,” Tenny went on, picking up where Bethesda left off, “that we should be barred from extracurriculars. I mean, obviously. But the Choral Corral is an assignment!”

  “Now wait just one second,” Mr. Melville began. “Surely the spirit of the rule suggests—”

  Bethesda, now fully in lawyer-lady mode, interrupted.

  “Wait now, Mr. Melville. Are you saying that what the rule actually says doesn’t matter?”

  “You know perfectly well that is not what I’m saying, Ms. Fielding. However …”

  As this animated conversation continued, Principal Van Vreeland got redder and redder where she stood in the doorway. “Stop!” she shouted. “We need to settle this, and fast. Mrs. Gingertee! Get me Ida Finkleman.”

  Three minutes later, Ms. Finkleman walked into the room, though it took a long moment for everyone to realize that it was her. Never before had any of them seen the Mary Todd Lincoln Band and Chorus teacher in any color other than drab, unremarkable brown. Now she stood before them in a red leather skirt, hot pink leather boots, and a black leather jacket bristling with brass and copper studs. Her face had always been plain and unpainted; now she wore thick, elaborate slashes of makeup, in rich scarlet and purple, concentrated on her cheekbones and eyelashes like she was an Egyptian princess. Her hair, previously tied back in an unremarkable ponytail or hanging limply about her face, was now a wild, tousled pile of blacks and browns, teased across her eyes and streaked with red.

  The person standing in Principal Van Vreeland’s office hardly looked like Ms. Finkleman at all. She was a stranger, a stranger who had just climbed off a motorcycle that she had ridden in from somewhere smoky, dangerous, and dark.

  Even from the terrible depths of trouble she was in, Bethesda grinned to see her once-unremarkable music teacher so transformed. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Tenny was grinning, too.

  Ms. Finkleman looked WR. TWR.

  When everyone recovered from the shock of seeing Little Miss Mystery in person, Mr. Melville curtly invited her to take a seat and join the conversation. (Everyone recovered from the shock, that is, except for Jasper, who at the moment she crossed the threshold of the room fell completely, head over heels in love with Ida Finkleman. He heard not a word of the ensuing tense and combative conversation, as he was deep in his head, busily planning a wedding, honeymoon, and happy life together for himself and the new Mrs. Jasper Ferrars.)

  Mr. Melville cleared his throat noisily. “I am afraid,” he began, leveling Ms. Finkleman with an iron stare, “That these two children cheated on my American history test this morning.”

  Ms. Finkleman’s eyes widened, and her heavily reddened lips formed into an O of shock and disappointment. “They did …” She turned to Bethesda and Tenny. “You did what?”

  Then, struck by something, she turned back to Mr. Melville. “Wait. You gave your test today?”

  “Hardly the point,” replied Mr. Melville heavily.

  In a dither of impatience, Principal Van Vreeland snatched up the thread of the conversation. “What matters at present is deciding what to do! And that ball, Ms. Finkleman, is in your court.”

  And so Principal Van Vreeland laid the entire question at Ms. Finkleman’s leather-boot clad feet: Did she, as the relevant instructor, consider the Choral Corral an in-class assignment? Or was it an extracurricular activity? Could the cheating students be barred from participation? Or not?

  “Make up your mind quickly, please,” Principal Van Vreeland concluded, aiming a stern finger at Ms. Finkleman. “The Choral Corral begins in—” She grabbed Jasper’s arm and twisted it around to look at his watch. “Two minutes. I need you on that stage! ”

  Ms. Finkleman looked around the room at all of them looking at her: Principal Van Vreeland with quivering impatience, Mr. Melville with self-righteous irritation, Tenny and Bethesda with silently pleading desperation. Well done, rock star, she castigated herself bitterly. Very well done.

  At last she shook her head slightly. “I’m sorry, children,” she began. “I’m afraid I must defer to—”

  “What? ” Tenny leaped out of his chair. “Come on!

  NO!”

  “Young man!” bellowed Mr. Melville. “Sit!”

  But Tenny Boyer had heard enough. He bolted the room, furious, and Bethesda shot off after him, slamming the door behind her. Ms. Finkleman lowered her head into her hands, a pair of tears trailing twin black trails of mascara down her cheeks.

  “Okay! ” said Principal Van Vreeland cheerfully. “Let’s rock! ”

  28

  “JANITOR STEVE IS GONA FREAK”

  The original plan was for the kids to wait in the Band and Chorus room until it was their turn to go on, and then file down Hallway C to the auditorium. But after seeing a documentary about the Rolling Stones on PBS, Hayley Eisenstein came in one day and said that they really ought to have a green room. A green room, she explained to the others, is a special backstage area where rock stars hang out before a show. The way Hayley described it, it was like paradise: lots of mirrors, big comfy chairs, a minifridge stocked with all the candy and soda you could want. The green room Ms. Finkleman arranged for the students of sixth-period Music Fundamentals was a supply closet just off the auditorium stage, which had been vacated for the morning by Janitor Steve. The custodian had not been too happy about the arrangement, and had left copious evidence of his displeasure in the form of little yellow Post-its reading DO NOT TOUCH plastered all over the room.

  As the minutes ticked down to the start of third period and the Choral Corral, Ms. Finkleman’s students clustered in the center of the room, carefully NOT TOUCHING any of Janitor Steve’s buckets or bottles or brooms, and wondering what was going on.

  “You know what?” said Ezra McClellan, drummer for the Careless Errors, nervously buttoning and unbuttoning the vintage jean jacket he had bought for the show. “I bet the whole thing is called off.”

  “What? Why would it be called off? ” answered Bessie Stringer, in a blue sparkling evening gown modeled on one she had seen Aretha Franklin wear in a YouTube clip. (The kids had been responsible for their
own outfits.)

  “Uh, because our lead singer and lead guitarist aren’t here,” Ezra said sarcastically.

  “Well, that’s too bad for your band, but all our band members are here!” retorted Todd Spolin of Band Number One, gingerly patting his hair, which he had spent twenty minutes aggressively moussing into a spiky pile. Hayley Eisenstein and Rory Daas of Half-Eaten Almond Joy agreed. “No reason we can’t go on.”

  “Man! I can’t believe Bethesda and Tenny got arrested for cheating,” groaned Chester Hu, shaking his head.

  “They weren’t arrested, Chester,” Victor Glebe corrected. “A person can’t get arrested for cheating.”

  “Oh. Huh. My dad totally lied to me.” Victor and Chester were each wearing a single shiny glove, like Michael Jackson.

  “What about Ms. Finkleman?” wondered Guy Ficker, the Careless Errors’ Hammond organ player. “Shouldn’t she be here by now? ”

  “Oh my god! ” Natasha Belinsky brought her hand to her forehead in sudden astonishment. “Maybe she was cheating, too! ”

  “Cheating on what?” said Violet Kelp. “What are you talking about? ”

  Todd Spolin was shaking his head vigorously. “You know what? Some of us studied for that test! Me and Natasha were at the library for over forty-five minutes last night, and we learned all that junk about George Washingmachine, and we shouldn’t suffer just because certain other people slacked off! ”

  Ezra looked uncertain. Victor nodded in agreement and adjusted his silver glove. Hayley chewed her lip thoughtfully. Shelly Schwartz turned to Suzie and mouthed, “Washingmachine?”

  All in all, it was a confused and tension-filled atmosphere in the Mary Todd Lincoln green room/supply closet as, onstage, the Choral Corral began. The first performance was a set of polka numbers from the students of Amelia Earhart Junior High School, followed by a medley of show tunes from Buzz Aldrin Science and Technology Preparatory Middle School. Through it all, the Mary Todd Lincoln kids sat in silence in their green room, listening, twirling their drumsticks, cracking their knuckles, looking miserably at one another, and trying their best not to touch any of Janitor Steve’s stuff. Some were more affected by the tension than others. Suzie Schwartz had to sit down on an overturned mop bucket with her head between her knees, overcome by nerves, and perhaps by the room’s strong odor of ammonia.

  What were they going to do?

  It was at this darkest moment that Pamela Preston made her move.

  “I know it sounds crazy, guys, but maybe we should go back to singing folk ballads.”

  For a long moment, no one said a word. Victor Glebe scratched his head. Suzie looked up from where she sat on the mop bucket, looked green, and immediately looked down again at her bucket. Onstage, a Buzz Aldrin seventh grader reached for the high notes on “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”

  Pamela was the only one dressed in what they’d been asked to wear for the Choral Corral, before the rock show came up: crisp black slacks and a white button-down dress shirt. “I mean, we all know ‘Greensleeves’ still, right? I think—I mean, I’m pretty sure I do. I remember my whole solo. This way at least we can still have a show, and we can all be in it. And we don’t need Bethesda and Tenny, or Ms. Finkleman, to do it.”

  “Huh,” said Ezra.

  “Yeah,” said Lisa Deckter. “I mean, maybe …”

  Kids were nodding. Pamela’s suggestion did make a certain amount of sense. Maybe it was better to do a perfectly fine performance of traditional English folk ballads from the sixteenth century than to do a half-baked rock show.

  But then, from over by the mops, someone shouted, “No! Absolutely not!”

  “I’m sorry? ” said Pamela, who was unscrewing the top to her water bottle, preparing to enjoy her moment in the spotlight after all.

  “I said absolutely not,” Kevin McKelvey repeated. “And her name isn’t Ms. Finkleman, either. Not today.

  Her name is Little Miss Mystery.” The Piano Kid stood on the lowest rung of a stepladder and addressed the whole group. He wore his signature blue blazer, but he had meticulously covered the whole thing in rhinestones, and his red tie also. Kevin glittered as he waved his arms, exhorting his classmates. “She’s given us so much these last six weeks, people. I mean …” He stopped for a second and took a deep breath. “She changed our lives.”

  “Kevin, that is extremely, like, touching,” Pamela said with singsong sweetness. “But if Ms. Fink—sorry, if Little Miss Mystery were here, wouldn’t she want us to put on a good show? ”

  “What we want to do is what’s right! ” Kevin thundered. “Right? We wait for them, and then we rock!”

  Kevin McKelvey and Pamela Preston stared at each other across the closet. No one said a word.

  Then the door flew open, and Tenny Boyer ran red-faced into the room.

  “The rock show is off!” he shouted, and slammed the door behind him, causing a giant pile of buckets to topple over and go skittering across the floor. (“Oooh,” whispered Rory Daas. “Janitor Steve is not going to like that.”) Tenny continued, his normally placid face tear-streaked and twisted by rage. “Forget it. We can do the stupid ballad whatevers.”

  “Well,” said Pamela with a surprised smile. “That answers that.”

  “What are you talking about? ” asked Chester Hu.

  Kevin McKelvey looked angrily at Tenny from where he stood perched on the stepladder. “You can’t call off the show, Tenny.”

  “I can! It’s mine. Ms. Finkleman didn’t create this show—I did.”

  “Her name,” cried Kevin, now as red-faced and angry as Tenny, “is Little Miss Mystery! ”

  “I don’t care who she is,” Tenny spat. “She’s been lying the whole time! Every note you’ve gotten, every idea, the whole plan came from me. She’s nothing but a big fake. I bet she never even was a rock star.”

  Everyone looked around, stunned, trying to figure out what was going on, wondering if this could be true. Pamela Preston just grinned, thinking, Oh my god! I was right!, and then, Of course I was right. I’m Pamela Preston!

  From the stage came the sounds of an Afro-Caribbean medley, being performed, terribly, by the students of J. Edgar Hoover Middle School.

  Braxton Lashey shook his head. “I dunno. Why would Ms. Finkleman—sorry, Kevin, Little Miss Mystery—why would she lie to us?”

  “Well, uh …,” Tenny stammered. “I’m not totally sure. But she did.”

  Just then the door flew open again, and Bethesda Fielding ran in and directly into Tenny, who bumped into a rack of disinfectant sprays, which clattered to the ground. (“Oh, man,” muttered Rory darkly. “Janitor Steve is gonna freak.”) Instantly aware of the entire sixth-period Music Fundamentals class staring at her in tense silence, Bethesda stopped short.

  “Tell them, Bethesda,” Tenny demanded. “Tell them about the deal. Tell them the truth about Ms. Finkleman.”

  “Tenny … I …”

  Bethesda, avoiding Tenny’s fierce stare, found herself staring at Kevin McKelvey. He looked back at her, mouth slightly open, eyes glistening with tears. “It’s not true,” he said softly. “Right?”

  Bethesda took an uncertain breath. From the auditorium, the crowd applauded politely for the students of J. Edgar Hoover. Next was A.C. Doyle Academy and their Celebration of Eastern European Folk Tradition—then it would be Grover Cleveland, and then it would be their turn. The students of Music Fundamentals looked urgently at Bethesda, and for the second time that day she felt a hot flush creep up her neck to her face. Her Converse sneakers squeaked nervously on the green room’s concrete floor.

  I should tell them, she thought. I should take Tenny’s side.

  Tenny was her friend. Also, he was right: Ms. Finkleman was lying. Not only had she lied about the rock show, but she had never been a rock star at all. She was just a teacher, and not even the kind who stands up for her kids when they’re in trouble.

  But I can’t tell them, she thought.

  Because how could Bethesda re
veal the secret truth about Ms. Finkleman to the whole school—again?

  So who’s it going to be? Bethesda asked herself miserably. Who are you going to hurt now?

  The door opened again, slowly this time, causing no further crashes or bangs. The woman who entered, with her red leather skirt, smeared punk-rock makeup, and wildly tousled hair, looked for all the world like Little Miss Mystery. But when she spoke, it was in the kind, soft voice of Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School’s unremarkable music teacher.

  “That’s okay, dear,” Ms. Finkleman said gently, placing a hand on Bethesda’s shoulder. “I’ll tell them.”

  In the auditorium, Principal Isabella Van Vreeland and her assistant principal, Jasper, raced in and took their reserved seats just in time for the second-to-last group performance: Grover Cleveland Middle School.

  Principal Van Vreeland’s eyes swept the auditorium, at the rows of rowdy Mary Todd Lincoln students and earnest, goofy Mary Todd Lincoln faculty. These are my people, she thought proudly. Today’s victory belongs to them.

  Also to me. Mostly to me.

  After a brief introduction from their bald, cheerful principal, Winston Cohn, the students of Grover Cleveland took the stage: twelve extremely attractive young people dressed identically in gold pants and silver shirts with black GC monograms on the lapel. The Grover Cleveland Band and Chorus teacher, who looked like a walrus, smoothed down his massive black mustache and signaled them to begin.

  The Grover Cleveland students performed four Gregorian chants in intricate twelve-part harmony, each chant featuring an extended solo from a freakishly talented young man named Richard Beaumont. According to the program notes, this particular seventh grader had recently transferred to Grover Cleveland from a school in Mongolia, where his father had been the United States ambassador, and where Richard had mastered the ancient art of bitonal throat singing. He could, in other words, sing two notes at the same time, a skill possessed by only a couple hundred people on Earth, and which one therefore rarely sees displayed at middle-school choral competitions.

  As Richard ululated vigorously through his final solo, Principal Cohn looked over his shoulder at Principal Van Vreeland and gave her a nice big wink. She ignored him.