Mrs. Ravenbach's Way

by William M. Akers

  In the back of the classroom, by himself, next to my hand-rubbed walnut bookcase, young Tobias Wilcox was perusing my collection of old yearbooks.

  “Tobias!”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  Young Tobias Wilcox tossed the yearbook down and scuttled like a crab across the floor, endeavoring to return to his seat as quickly as possible. I am certain that the young lad also wished he had been quite invisible. Fourth grade boys often wish they could be invisible.

  Tobias’s fat little bottom slapped the hard wood of his chair. I could tell he was sweating. Sweat is not a pleasant thing in a fourth grade boy.

  “Why were you away from your desk?”

  He said what all fat little fourth grade boys say, but in this case, with a tiny voice that sounded like it was coming from the dark side of the moon: “I didn’t know I was supposed to be at my desk, Mrs. Ravenbach.” But, I thought I detected a faint note of sarcasm . . . I drew in my breath in surprise. The tone of that child’s voice! So snooty. So holier-than-thou. So grating. So unpleasant. So disrespectful to his adoring teacher.

  It was astounding, but, evidently, true: Mrs. Button’s heartfelt refrigerator lecture had not worked! That sweaty tub of sass, evidently, still . . . wanted . . . to go . . . his own . . . way.

  I would see about that.

  I turned my magnificent blond head to Drusilla. My favorite student. “Drusilla?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Ravenbach? How may I help you?”

  “You may help me by telling young Tobias Wilcox what the instructions were that I left for the entire classroom when I went up to the teachers’ lounge to make my good strong German tea.”

  Drusilla stood up brightly beside her desk. “Mrs. Ravenbach, you told everybody we were to remain at our desks working quietly until you returned.”

  Drusilla curtsied, sat down, and folded her well-manicured hands on her desk. Her mother makes me homemade pastries and sweets and little tarts with my name in pink icing across each one. They are so beautiful, I almost hesitate to eat them. Almost. Drusilla is a sensible child, and has been gifted with a sensible mother.

  “Tobias?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Why were you nosing about in my collection of yearbooks?”

  “I was conducting a personal research project. I wanted to see what kinda clothes people wore a long time ago. They were really ugly.”

  I picked up the yearbook. 1993. I sniffed. I remember beginning to put together a question in my mind about why he had picked the yearbook for 1993 to root through, but the bell rang for dismissal. I replaced the yearbook on the shelf in its proper spot with all the other yearbooks and turned my magnificent brain toward thoughts of parent-teacher conferences.

  The parent-teacher conference which is beginning with the smell of the freshly baked bread is sure to be a wonderfully successful parent-teacher conference. Nothing pleases me more at the beginning of a parent-teacher conference like the crinkle of a paper bag marked “The Floured Board.” Oh my, my, my, my. Because the warm, friendly, bakery-smelling, crinkly white bag marked “The Floured Board” that Tobias was holding in his nervous, chubby little hands was exceptionally large, I knew that this parent-teacher conference with young Tobias Wilcox and his mother and father was going to go exceptionally well.

  I have never met a mother or a father who did not seek and value my advice on how they could better do their important job as a parent. The fact that I have no actual children of my own has nothing to do with my knowledge of pediatric behavior. All the parents know and respect this.

  Because he started at the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children only this semester, this was the first time I had met the parents of young Tobias Wilcox. Because of the immense size of the crinkly paper bag marked “The Floured Board,” it was clear they understood that a successful education is an important thing in a child’s life.

  Mr. Wilcox, I am sorry to report, was fat. He had a round face and a round little tummy. It would be cute on a young boy of nine or ten years old, but on a grown man it showed a lack of the order and the discipline.

  Mrs. Wilcox was quite pretty, if you like that sort of look.

  I had before me, on my hand-inlaid Biedermeier desk, a list of items for discussion about Tobias Wilcox, beautifully written in magenta fountain pen ink. Every single item on my desk is in perfect alignment with every other item on my desk at precisely an angle of 90 degrees to the bottom edge of the desk. So comforting to be precise. The order and the discipline, ja!

  As you may not be aware, my desk is on a two-foot-tall platform that raises it high above the little students. It gives them a sense of well-being to know that their teacher is above them, looking down on them, watching them carefully, like an eagle inspecting its prey.

  I could tell the parents were a bit nervous. It is important to be a little uneasy in front of an authority figure, especially one tall and imposing and with beautiful blond hair such as myself.

  Sitting there, below me, in front of my desk, young Tobias Wilcox stared at me and stared at me and stared at me. Fortunately the eyes are not laser beams or I would have been sliced into sixteen pieces of wonderful German woman.

  What I needed was a stiff riding crop I could smack on the desk each time I made an important point, which was often, knowing that the smack on the shining wood would certainly get the parents’ attention, not to mention the attention of young Tobias Wilcox, who needed some attention-getting, I can assure you.

  Sadly, I had no such riding crop. While they cowered before me, I thought about purchasing several.

  I smiled kindly. “Tobias. Hat.” He carefully placed his filthy headgear on his knee. “Now, Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox. I have been delighted to have your son Tobias in my classroom.”

  Mr. Wilcox said, “We like to call him Toby.”

  “I prefer Tobias. Formality is critical in the well-balanced student-teacher relationship.”

  “We’re not very formal people,” said his mother.

  “Tobias, Toby never you mind. It is still the same sweet, adorable, intelligent child. And thank you for the bread. It smells absolutely delightful and delicious.”

  “You’re welcome,” said his mother. Her name was not important.

  “We are working very hard in the classroom to make your child a better student and a better citizen.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Ravenbach,” said Mr. Wilcox.

  “We appreciate all you’re doing for him,” said Mrs. Wilcox.

  Mr. Wilcox said, “Right, Toby?”

  The child did not wish to speak and I helped him achieve that goal. “Mr. Wilcox, as this is a parent-teacher conference and not a parent-teacher-pupil conference, I do believe we can dispense with remarks from young Tobias.” Tobias shrank back in his chair. Good little fellow!

  “It is fascinating and wonderful and quite to the point that you are bringing the bread to this parent-teacher conference when I must be discussing with you the nutrition, and young Tobias’s eating habits.”

  “Toby eats just fine,” said Mr. Wilcox.

  “He’s right in the middle for all his height and weight percentiles,” Mrs. Wilcox smiled. She was quite proud of her son’s being average. How sad.

  American parents will allow their children to eat anything, willy-nilly, just to leave the parents in peace. Most parents in America would give their children a nose bag of sugar if they thought it would keep them quiet for five minutes. I said, “Are you aware that young Tobias at lunchtime only eats the french fries with the ketchup—and may I say, quite an enormous amount of ketchup?”

  “It’s hard to make him eat,” said Mrs. Wilcox.

  I thought to myself, It’s hard to make him eat delicious, nutritious food! Getting roly-tummy Tobias Wilcox to eat the junk food, a one-legged retard could do that! To Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, I did not say these things out loud. I did say, “I have asked him, on several occasions, to replace his french fries with something more nourishing. Such as the vegetables.”
The disgusted expression on Tobias Wilcox’s face nearly made me laugh, but it is bad form to laugh at a student unless he or she is throwing up. “What is reflected in his eating habits, Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, is that your child is exhibiting disturbing signs of the disobedience and the headstrongness and the freethinking. At the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children, this is behavior we are not encouraging. The students must understand that it is their teacher who is knowing the best way for them to be doing their thinking. If we do not follow our good role models, how can we learn, I ask you?”

  “Well . . .” said Mrs. Wilcox.

  “Well . . .” said Mr. Wilcox.

  I decided it was time to be honest with them.

  “Mrs. Wilcox, Mr. Wilcox, young Tobias.” My voice was the teeniest bit . . . harsh.

  “Please call him Toby. That’s what he likes,” said Mr. Wilcox.

  I could see Mr. Wilcox sweating the teeniest bit above his eyebrows. In a parent-teacher conference, I like a parent who sweats. It means they are paying attention.

  “Of course I shall be happy to call him Toby. Whatever pleases him. Now, it is very important that you listen very, very carefully to what I am about to say because it truly, truly matters.”

  Mr. Wilcox leaned forward. Mrs. Wilcox leaned forward. Young Tobias Wilcox leaned back. I lowered my voice until it sounded as if it had been dipped in the acid and was being dragged across a slaughterhouse floor.

  “If Tobias . . . does not straighten up and, as they say, ‘fly right,’ he will not be allowed to progress to the fifth grade.”

  There followed a longish pause. Quite a longish pause, actually.

  They sat there blinking. Like the dumb animals before the slaughter.

  “Huh?” said young Tobias Wilcox. Even his “huh” sounded dull-witted.

  “Excuse me?” said Mr. Wilcox.

  “We didn’t realize he was doing that poorly,” said Mrs. Wilcox.

  The parents, they never do.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox. I spoke clearly, if admittedly with a slight, if elegant, German accent, but I’m sure you understood me. However, I am happy to repeat myself. If your child continues to behave in this incredibly headstrong and, may I say, belligerent manner, young Tobias will fail in his education and will be compelled to repeat the fourth grade.”

  It was as if, in the classroom, I had set off a satchel charge.

  After the explosion, so quiet and peaceful.

  It is so satisfying to get a parent’s attention and, I must say, it is even more satisfying to get the attention of a fat little fourth grade boy.

  I sure had Toby’s.

  CHAPTER 5

  It was the most beautiful kind of a day. The sun came streaming through the squeaky-clean schoolroom windows, shining a gorgeous warm light on every child, heads bent down industriously writing in their personal journals. As I knitted, the sound of the fat pencils scratching on the paper filled the room, as you could almost see the thought and the care and the precision with which each child was writing in his or her own private diary.

  It warmed my heart to watch every child, head bent submissively, dutifully, carefully writing their innermost thoughts, spilling them on the page for no one at all to read.

  Even Tobias.

  I don’t think in all my days as a teacher I’d seen a child write with such passion. It warmed my heart, as I said, to watch young Tobias work, knowing that it was I who had inspired him to write his thoughts in his journal so well and so lovingly.

  It is a wonderful thing to be that one teacher who makes a child step across the little stream from one side to the other, from childhood to grown-upness, knowing that many years from now, the child will look back and think to himself or herself, “Mrs. Ravenbach turned me around. She made me what I am today. Mrs. Ravenbach is a hundred percent responsible for all of my successes. Had I not had Mrs. Ravenbach in fourth grade at the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children, I too, like Fast Eddie LeJeune, might have ended my days behind the cold stone walls of a penitentiary!”

  Wunderbar!

  From time to time, young Tobias Wilcox would silently mouth some words, stare at the wall, thinking deep, profound, impressive thoughts. I must say it gave me a Schauer (which means a shiver, a delightful shiver) to think it was I who had led this child to do such wonderful work. I knew the work he was doing was wonderful because he was writing with such speed. Children who write rapidly in their journals are connecting their hearts to the page. You cannot imagine the warmth of the feeling that swelled up inside me as I watched young Tobias Wilcox write and write and write and write and write.

  Oh, what a wonderful poem it was going to be!

  The All-School Poetry Contest at the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children is, as I am sure you are well aware, one of the greatest events in the school year. It trumps the Easter Egg Hunt, the Barbecue Flop, the Glorious Christmas Concert, the Halloween Pageant, even, to be completely truthful, German Pastry und Strudel Day.

  The All-School Poetry Contest is a time for the luckiest teachers to shine, because their students will stand before the entire school and recite a splendid poem of their own devising. Such a sweet moment for the student, such a proud moment for the teacher.

  As you know, each child must recite their poem in front of his or her grade. The winner of each grade goes on to recite the poem in front of all of the students, the principal, the alumni, the parents, adoring grandparents, teachers, and even the custodial staff, such is the magnitude and importance of the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children All-School Poetry Contest!

  None of my students had ever won the Poetry Contest.

  It was a black, sticky spot on my Permanent Record. Were one of my students to be crowned the King or Queen of Poetry, I would most certainly be awarded a much-deserved fifth Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching!

  At the day’s end, the little children closed their grubby little journals with their grubby, fat little hands, smearing them with jelly and dirt and God knows what all as they replaced them in their desks.

  They gathered their book bags, their textbooks and notebooks, their pens and their pencils, and their clear plastic rulers, and trooped slowly from the classroom out to the carpool line and their parents’ car, sporting events, karate classes, piano lessons, other mindless after-school activities, home, homework, dinner, more homework, more homework, and then at last: bedtime, blissful bedtime . . . sleeping peacefully, dreaming gently, serene in the knowledge they had told their private journals everything there was to possibly tell.

  Trevania Sumner traipsed out the door, her little skirt twitching just enough for me to see her frilly white underpants. She went into the hall and I was alone in the classroom for the first time since the morning.

  An empty classroom is a joyous and wonderful thing.

  The first thing I did was to put on my lipstick. I have Ovid Schiesser Nr. 03 imported from Germany, as I am sure comes as no surprise to you. I straightened my hair. I straightened the lace around my cuffs. I straightened the lace around my collar. I stood up. My elegant Christian Louboutin high heels made a tac, tac, tac as I regally walked toward the desk of young Tobias Wilcox.

  When I opened his desk, Gott im Himmel, what a revolting mess. I shoved through piles of untidy paper until I found, first, a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich, second, a dead centipede, and third, his personal journal.

  I carefully removed his journal and carefully carried it back to my desk, where I laid it out lovingly on the warm, shining wooden surface of my beautifully varnished Biedermeier teacher’s desk.

  I reflected for a moment.

  It was time to amplify my effort to help young Tobias Wilcox to stay out of the penitentiary.

  As I reached my well-manicured and soft hand gently toward the cover of Tobias Wilcox’s personal journal, my heart fluttered. I was filled with a feeling of love and affection for that little boy unlike any I had felt before. I was going to pe
er into his innermost thoughts. I was going to reach my hand in, like God reaching to his soul, to praise him and help him to become the person he needed to be, launched forward from the fourth grade classroom of Mrs. Leni Ravenbach into the wonderful fullness of life.

  I felt at peace.

  I cracked my knuckles. It sounded like a bamboo forest breaking in two.

  I opened his journal.

  I began to read.

  Because German is my native language, when I am reading the English, my lips move a tiny bit. It is for this reason I read only when I am alone. I don’t want the little children to poke fun.

  The more I read the journal of young Tobias Wilcox, the faster I moved my lips because the more I read, the faster I went. I read so quickly, it was as if my lips were on fire. The wonderful things I hoped to discover, the delightful thoughts I had been expecting with all my heart, they were not there.

  How could this be? How could this possibly be?

  Tobias Wilcox was working on his poem for the All-School Poetry Contest, the little beast.

  I read his entire journal.

  No wonder he had been writing so fast. Every single ghastly page was all about the terrible things he wanted to do to me! Mrs. Leni Ravenbach, his teacher! It was a truly a terrible, awful, nasty, disgusting, loathsome little journal!

  Never before in the twenty-seven years of my teaching had I actually hated a child, but I hated little Tobias Wilcox!

  What was particularly upsetting about the entire unfortunate event was the way Tobias Wilcox had managed to shatter my perfect mood, my exquisite moment of joy and happiness. When I opened his composition book and started to read his journal, I was filled with love and care and affection for the fat little freak. That warm feeling had been shattered like a gigantic Steuben cut-glass vase falling to a marble floor and smashing into a thousand trillion sharpened pieces ready to jab into the bare foot of any unsuspecting passerby. From happiness to shattered glass!