I gave him a tissue from my desk. The students are always so honored when I give them a tissue from my rhinestone-encrusted tissue box. He used it to blow his snotty nose. I indicated the trash can. He properly disposed of the heavy tissue.
“I can’t come back to fourth grade next year. There’s no way I’d survive it. Please don’t make me! I can’t sleep. This’s killing me.”
I sniffed. “I carefully designed the curriculum so any typical fourth grade child can prosper while studying the course material. You are certainly a typical fourth grade child. Believe me. I have seen plenty.”
I smiled at him. As far as I was concerned, I had answered his question and our discussion was at an end. I smiled again and cracked my knuckles. The craaaaaaaack was incredibly satisfying and made him flinch.
That, too, was satisfying. To me.
He looked at me a long while. He was thinking something.
Then he smiled.
His smile was not terribly friendly.
Not friendly at all.
I had a feeling that, behind his eyeballs, deep in his little-boy brain, I could see old-fashioned gears turning and steam-powered pistons spinning heavy flywheels round and round and round. He was thinking something.
He said in a calm, pleasant tone, “Thank you, Mrs. Ravenbach, for being so kind and warm and understanding. Thank you so much.”
What a clever child. It was heartwarming that young Tobias Wilcox and I had been able to reach an understanding. An excellent and caring teacher can always reach an understanding with her students. A high, high, high High Point!
He waddled over and sat his fat little bottom at his desk, lifted the lid, and hid behind it until the rest of the children arrived and we began our schooling.
CHAPTER 8
It was with great anticipation that I journeyed outside to the playground. For several days, I had not had the opportunity to watch the children doing their running, owing to the heavy workload of grading little papers, reading little homeworks, attending to the little children and their little tiny problems.
Young Tobias Wilcox, however, was not a tiny problem. He was, in fact, a problem the size of the Graf Zeppelin. If you are not knowing what the Graf Zeppelin was, look it up in the World Book Encyclopedia at your school library. That is what the encyclopedia is for, for young children to look things up in. The Internet is a stupid way to look up something, if you have an encyclopedia.
It was with Zeppelin-size anticipation, yes, that I sat down at my preferred spot in the center of the playground and began the eavesdropping. Sitting on my elegant collapsible leather hiking stick/chair doing my knitting, I was able to hear clearly what the children were saying. After reading a private journal, the eavesdropping is the next best thing for peering into a child’s innermost thoughts, which makes the teaching experience so much more rich and profound.
It is always amazing to me how little children have no concept of how good a teacher’s hearing might possibly be.
Tobias Wilcox was running with his friend Richard Kaliski, doing out-loud internal musing. That kind of distracted, disorganized thinking is much like the doodles I saw on many pages in his journal. Anyone who doodles is unquestionably an intellectual lightweight. All teachers know this. It is a grand source of amusement and joy in the teachers’ lounge when the teachers come in and show off their students’ most recent doodles and laugh at them, knowing the children will never turn out well.
No child who doodled ever became a heart surgeon.
Through clever control and discipline, I was able to keep my antique ivory knitting needles from making a sound, and quite easily could make out what young Tobias Wilcox was saying to bald-headed Richard Kaliski. They were huffing and puffing a great deal. It sounded as if Richard was on the verge of a massive heart attack.
After an asinine, time-wasting discussion of Richard’s fervent desire to have his own iPod, which was doomed to failure because of a lack of available financing, Tobias said, “Want to come over on Saturday and work on Sub Club stuff?”
“Can we listen to the game?”
“Zip Tuggle rocks!”
“Baseball rocks!”
They did that stupid fist-bump thing, and then I heard Tobias say, “Do you think Fast Eddie LeJeune’s still alive?”
Oh, my.
“Good question. Want a Tootsie Roll?”
“If he’s not dead, where do you think he’s in prison?”
“Why you wanna know about Fast Eddie LeJeune?”
“She hated him. She hates me.”
“Worse than Arthur’s parents hate each other, if that’s at all possible. Wonder why.”
“Cause she’s stupid. You’re smart. You like me. She should too.”
Richard grunted in agreement. At least it sounded like a grunt. It may have been a stab of paralyzing pain in his left arm—the first step before a heart attack. That would have been a better story to tell in the teachers’ lounge than about the doodling: “At the recess today, my student dropped dead from a myocardial infarction. Too much cheese pizza.”
Tobias said, “Do you think there’s really a Mr. Ravenbach?”
“Why wouldn’t there be?”
“Who’d marry someone as mean as her?”
“Excellent point you make, young sir.”
I nearly got up and jammed my antique ivory knitting needles into that little boy’s eyes.
Tobias and Richard caught up to Arthur Hester, who stumbled along like a broken half-track. The three of them started talking about submarines and I started listening to a different, vastly more interesting conversation between two fourth grade girls about their parents’ problems with their parents, but Tobias’s brief exchange with Richard did not soon leave my mind.
I was shocked, dismayed, and appalled at the thought that young Tobias Wilcox was uttering the name Fast Eddie LeJeune to his dimpled-knee chum Richard. Everyone knows that the recess running is a sacred ritual and why would anyone, any student, any human being defile a sacred ritual with the mention of Fast Eddie LeJeune?
Had he but asked, I could have told Tobias with great precision where Fast Eddie LeJeune was to be found. Germans invented the precision. Fast Eddie LeJeune was, and Tobias would have known this had he ever paid attention in class, in a stone-walled building with abominable food, unsanitary bathing facilities, and highly unpleasant companionship every day for the rest of his life. Not unlike living in France.
Ha-ha, my little joke.
I abandoned my listening post just before the recess came to an end. It was a successful recess, to be sure. Plenty of running. But only four children threw up. Always room for the improvement!
In class that afternoon, Mr. Grossinger was our special guest. He worked for the district attorney’s office. He was a fingerprint expert. On his head he had little white hairs that poked out in all sorts of funny directions. He had little, tiny, round glasses and little, tiny, slit eyes that belonged in a pig. I mean no harm when I say that, as it is just the truth, which Mrs. Ravenbach always, always tells.
As he gave his fascinating lecture on the fingerprinting, Mr. Grossinger explained about inking the plate and inking the finger by rotating the hand from the easy to the awkward position. This keeps the fingers relaxed so they may be lifted from the card without smudging or blurring the fingerprints. He was so exact. I do appreciate exactness.
Mr. Grossinger had a lovely smile.
The little children liked the fingerprint expert more than possibly I could have imagined. The fingerprint expert was the funniest person to come in my classroom in many a long time and the children, they loved him enormously. He was terribly jovial, waving wanted posters of real criminals and putting them up beside each child’s face and saying, “Are you wanted for extortion?!” “You look like you might be on the lam for armed robbery!” and other amusing things like that.
What the children liked the most, of course, was the inking of the fingers and the rolling of the fingers on the paper
and generally making a gigantic mess all over everywhere, including much laughing by yours truly, Mrs. Ravenbach, who, I am quite emphatic to say, had never been fingerprinted in her life.
For some unknown reason that day, Tobias was superbly attentive.
Each little child lined up in a row and Mr. Grossinger took their little hand in his enormous, firm hand and rolled their fingers on the inked glass and then carefully rolled their fingers on the fingerprint paper. He was very precise, almost like a German.
Tobias Wilcox and Richard Kaliski and Arthur Hester nudged each other and chatterboxed and asked many questions, most of which were not terribly stupid for a change. I was delighted they were perhaps at last taking an interest in something besides submarines.
When it was time to fingerprint Mrs. Ravenbach, Mr. Grossinger took my hand gently in his large and strong hand, and I could feel the warmth as he held my hand in his and the soft look in his eyes as he gazed upon me, and gently squeezed my fingers one by one, rolling them in the warm ink and on the warm paper in the sunshiny classroom.
There is nothing like the tender handling by a government employee.
Mr. Grossinger told several witty stories about pursuing bank robbers, car thieves, and a woman who stole a white angora sweater, all imprisoned because of the fingerprinting. Mr. Grossinger was quite the superb storyteller. I do like a jolly man. They liven up the house after dinner. Had there not been a Mr. Ravenbach waiting for me at home, perhaps I might have given Mr. Grossinger my telephone number.
When Mr. Grossinger had departed, amid great applause and peals of laughter and smiles and friendly waves from the children, I handed each child their fingerprint sheets.
Everyone had one except me. How very odd.
I am quite certain Mr. Grossinger took it with him, perhaps as a tender souvenir of our pleasant afternoon together.
CHAPTER 9
It is of paramount importance that each and every child do all of his or her homework every day. If they are not keeping up with their homework every day, they will become stragglers. And eventually, stragglers will have to be shot.
Ha-ha. A little joke that amuses me.
I’m sure you understand, something not even slightly amusing, and far, far worse than being a straggler, is being a liar.
Young Tobias Wilcox was always a forgetful child. He would have his book, he would not have his book. He would leave his gym clothes at his home. He would forget to have them washed. He would forget his sneakers. He would remember his sneakers but forget the gym clothes. He would forget what his homework assignment was. He would complete his homework during the study hall, take it home with him (despite my wisely suggesting he leave it in his desk), and then he would, of course, forget it at home and not bring it to school the next day. He was an amazing child for the forgetfulness. He invented new ways of forgetting things. Tobias Wilcox was the Albert Einstein of forgetting his things!
On this particular day, we were studying the science. The science is beautiful because it is precise. But the science will not work unless the student has done the night before his or her reading at home. No work at home, no learning in the classroom, and I become vexed.
I had come into class early, as is my nature. To be punctual is to be before time, not on time. Any idiot knows that. As I was tidying up, I checked in every student’s desk. It is important to know what is going on in their little lives and to see what perhaps they might be hiding.
In Tobias’s desk I found his science book. The little forgetful child had forgotten his science book. This means the reading the night before he could not possibly have done. No work at home, no learning in the classroom. Indeed, I was quite vexed.
When it became time for the science class, I asked Tobias about his homework. He said he had done the reading.
Behind my great, round bosom, my heart nearly flip-flopped to a stop.
I regarded that little boy from high above him with my strong, German eyes, and I said, “You have not.”
I was surprised at how his eyes were able to meet mine. Most children look away when Mrs. Ravenbach gives them even her most friendly look, and this look was not that look.
“I did the reading,” said Tobias.
Every small face in the classroom was watching me with great anticipation.
I said, “You. Are. A. Liar.”
Did he cry? He did not.
Did he admit that he was a liar? He did not.
Did he shake and tremble and prostrate himself before me? No, the wretched little child did not do any of these things.
With great impudence he said, “I am not a liar, Mrs. Ravenbach. I did my reading.”
I told the impertinent child to open up his desk. He did so. I said, “What is in your desk?”
He said as he rummaged, “Well, a bunch of paper, my baseball glove, a ruler, a pencil box, Pokémon cards, more paper, a Tech Deck, a stink bomb, Silly Putty, a rubber band ball, two packs of Big League Chew, more paper, and a design I made for my Halloween costume as Frankenstein.”
I said, “What books are in there, young Tobias?”
“My poetry book, a book about Danny Dunn and anti-gravity paint, and my science book.”
Well, then, the entire class knew, of course, the child was not telling the truth.
I spoke to him as kindly as I could. “Tobias, I want you to write a letter to your parents. I want you to tell them how you have lied to your teacher and to your classmates, and that you could not possibly have done your homework because your science book has been here in your desk all the night long.”
He protested even more, saying, “But Mrs. Ravenbach, I did my homework. I read the reading. I promise you, I did.”
I said, “This conversation, we have finished. Do not continue to lie to me any further. Write the letter to your parents, have them sign it, bring it to me tomorrow, and I will show it to the class and Principal Hertenstein. And then we shall see what we shall see.”
Every child in the classroom was giving young Tobias Wilcox a look of “you are a stupid-faced liar.” Except Richard Kaliski and Arthur Hester. They were terrified for their friend.
“Call my parents. They’ll tell you.”
“I do not need to call your parents. I know you are lying.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I do not.”
“You don’t believe me even when I’m telling the truth.”
“You are not.”
“That’s. What. You. Think!”
Every single child, with the exception of bald-headed Richard Kaliski, gasped. The classroom had a feeling, a wave, a current coursing through it like an electric eel. I sensed rebellion.
I was in grave danger of losing control, the iron-clad, hot-riveted control I had patiently constructed hour by hour, day by day, week by week since that first class back in the hot, sweaty days of August.
And now this.
Only the thought of my fifth Golden Apple award for Excellence in Teaching kept me from falling on the floor and having a conniption fit.
That little boy! His dirty cheeks. His filthy hat. His bumpy little teeth. His nasty little tone of voice, his nasty little face. Something inside me reached a breaking point. My fear for his classmates, running wild without the order and the discipline, boiled over . . . all of them would end in the penitentiary!
I had had enough of this contrary child who did not have enough sense to know when his teacher had his best interest at heart. I reached for him, my hand outstretched, my bright red fingernails shaking with feeling, about to grab him by his filthy dirty collar—with a crystal-clear vision of what would happen next . . .
What would happen next would be the dragging of the child to Principal Hertenstein’s office. There would be the tears. The sobbing. The evidence. Followed by many more tears and then, triumphantly, the truth.
And the truth would be followed by . . . the expulsion!
Tobias Wilcox would be expelled from the McKegway School for Cleve
r and Gifted Children!
Heaped in shame, he would drag his torn and dirty book bag across the school parking lot and get into the cheap automobile of his mortally embarrassed mother—while the entire student body of the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children jeered at him and threw the spit wads.
To lie to a teacher is a terribly poor idea. The child will always be caught. To lie to Mrs. Leni Ravenbach is a very terribly poor idea. The child will always be expelled.
These delicious thoughts were racing through my over-heated but beautiful brain as I reached for the child’s grape jelly–encrusted shirt—
The little wretch said, in the calmest tone of voice you can possibly imagine . . . “Mrs. Ravenbach?” He said it so sweetly, it was as if little birds were singing.
All of the students, with the possible exception of Sykes Granberry, who was, no doubt scratching his bottom, became perfectly silent. So perfectly silent that I imagined I heard, as young Tobias Wilcox was smiling up at me, his teeth perfectly white—I noticed for the first time, he did have beautiful teeth—I thought I saw a tiny bright white star shimmer off one of his front teeth, accompanied by the tiniest ping! of a glockenspiel. It seemed so real that I momentarily forgot where I was and I barely heard the loathsome child say, “Mrs. Ravenbach . . . why don’t you look in my backpack?”
Everyone was holding their breath.
I unzipped the backpack of Tobias Wilcox. Reached into the festering interior. Closed my elegant fingers around something hard, rectangular, and gummy. From the dark recesses of his dirty backpack, I removed . . . a science book!
He said, “Pretty neat, hunh?”
Awash in a dark, deep, ghastly sinking feeling, I could tell the children were all on the verge of rebelling. I could see it rolling up from their toes to their bellies and a huge explosion was about to come flooding into the classroom like a tidal wave of disorder and anti-discipline.
This was about to be a disaster.
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