They do it all the time, the little animals.
“Perhaps young Tobias stole the sterling silver hairbrushes and mirror and comb that my great-great-grandmother had given me because he wanted to sell them on the black market. Or perhaps he wanted to cause me emotional pain or embarrassment. Or perhaps for some other, unknown reason. In any event, he took them. They were found in his desk. He wanted them. He took them. Everyone in the classroom saw them in his desk. Everyone in the classroom is knowing that your son is a thief.”
Tobias said nothing. He was having a little bit of trouble with his breathing.
“So, Principal Hertenstein and I have decided for young Tobias’s future development that it is imperative he repeat the fourth grade.”
There followed a long period of quiet, quiet silence.
Mrs. Wilcox said, “Toby, do you have anything to say?”
Naturally, the child had nothing to say. Other than a barely audible, “No. No, ma’am.”
Naturally, I had something to say.
I said, “Mrs. Wilcox. Principal Hertenstein, as he has a low regard for thieves, came very, very close to expelling Tobias from the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children. It required every ounce of my eloquence to convince him not to. Your son Tobias is very lucky he is not at this very moment slumped in a sloppy gutter filled with gum wrappers and wet cigar butts, but instead has the great good fortune to be coming to a wonderful school next year and enjoying the fourth grade. Again.” I looked at young Tobias Wilcox. “You are the luckiest little boy in this entire city.”
“Expelled?” said his mother, her voice about to break from the tears that I could see on the edges of her eyes. She had beautiful blue eyes. I wondered why young Tobias had such ugly pig-like eyes, when his mother had such gorgeous ones.
My voice was as hard as San Francisco Bay when a person lands on it after jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. “I would advise you to count your blessings. Repeating the fourth grade is not that awful. Going to the penitentiary later in life because one was expelled from the finest school in the city is very, very awful.”
His parents did not hear young Tobias softly whisper, “Someday, something horrible is going to happen to you . . .”
When I said, “I doubt that,” I gave a small cough, for camouflage. The little boy’s parents, again, did not hear. I am a master at the cough-talking.
Because they were so upset, this family needed the beauty of my smile shining down upon them. I could see that it gave comfort to Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox as they lifted their fat little boy and dragged him from my classroom.
Truly, the most satisfying moment of my teaching career!
I sat at my desk with my back erect, feet flat on the floor, my big, hard belly and grand bosom jutting out proudly. I picked up my knitting and patted my big, hard belly. I rubbed it. I patted it again. You don’t get a solid belly like this without excellent breeding and a lot of Strudel. The sun came shining in my beautiful classroom. All was right with the world. I had taught a child a valuable lesson. He would go through life, having repeated the fourth grade, secure in the knowledge that his teacher loved him and cared for him even more, perhaps, than his own parents.
I heard the Wilcox family whispering in the hallway.
In an instant, on my toes, I was across the room. My elegant Christian Louboutin high heels made no sound on my Bokhara rug as I slipped delicately as a ballet dancer to the open doorway.
The tone of voice Mr. Wilcox was using pleased me no end, the totally correct tone of voice to use with a child who was about to repeat the fourth grade. He said, sounding quite a bit like Darth Vader, “Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost?”
Mrs. Wilcox said, “We could take in boarders. My mother has alway—”
“Not a snowball’s chance. Don’t ever forget, your dad was happy when he got cancer.”
I distinctly and clearly heard Mrs. Wilcox say, “Toby, Toby, Toby! Why on earth did you steal your teacher’s hairbrushes?” Nothing could be more thrilling for a teacher than to know she has driven a wedge between parent and child! For the parent to mistrust the child in comparison to the teacher is an amazing and wonderful thing.
“I didn’t . . . steal her stupid . . . stuff. She put it in my desk so . . . you won’t . . . believe me . . . She’s horrible . . . and you’re worse, you . . . don’t . . . believe me either.”
Music to my ears. Like the click, click, click of my antique ivory knitting needles.
Between the teacher and the student, everyone will always believe the teacher.
Because it is the teacher who is always, always telling the truth.
CHAPTER 14
When you are a tall and wonderfully sculpted person such as myself, finding an easy place to hide for the eavesdropping is not a simple matter. My firm bosom and wonderfully large, round, hard belly make it a little bit difficult to conceal all of me, ha-ha.
As you may know, my favorite spot to do the eavesdropping is the coatrack in the hallway outside my classroom. There is always a row of rain boots scattered messily on the floor under the coats, then there are the coats on the hooks, and a shelf for hats and book bags and notebooks and backpacks and things that are important to fourth grade children. I have learned that if I stand with my feet behind the rain boots, and hide behind the coats, my round belly is not noticeable. At least, no child has yet remarked upon it when I was hiding behind the coats in my favorite eavesdropping spot. Students sometimes are so naive!
So it was one bright and sunny Monday afternoon at the semester’s end, a few days before the All-School Poetry Contest at the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children, that I found myself in my favorite eavesdropping spot patiently waiting to see what random conversation might be had between any two of my students.
It is incredible sometimes what a teacher can observe when the students are unaware that the teacher is watching. Students should realize that the teacher is always, always watching!
I heard loud, thundering footsteps in the hallway. Bald-headed Richard came down the hall picking his nose. I can assure you, I have never needed to pick my nose in my entire life. And were I to pick my nose, I would take care to use a lace handkerchief. One has no idea what kind of pestilence might be introduced into the temple that is one’s body if one were to put a bare finger up one’s nose. What an unpleasant thought!
Most of Richard’s finger had disappeared inside his head as if he were searching for a misplaced chunk of gold.
I heard Richard say, “Hey, Toby!”
“Yo, Richard. We gonna have a Sub Club meeting Saturday?”
“We should, but I don’t think Arthur’s ready with his drawings.”
Despite hours and hours and hours of Tobias’s and Richard’s and Arthur’s lunch table discussion of submarine design, I was quite certain that no submarine would ever be built by these three. Maybe a leaky dinghy for Stuart Little built of the popsicle sticks, but not a fully functional U-boat, and certainly not a craft worthy of the name Kriegsmarine!!!
Sometimes boys are the dumbest things in the world!
It was then, peering between two rather smelly coats, that I noticed Richard had an iPod.
Tobias said, “Cool!”
“What?”
“When’d you get an iPod? I thought your parents said you couldn’t have one, and wouldn’t give you the money.”
“Um. Ah.”
I felt my blood freeze. It was all I could do to keep from bursting from my hiding place and yanking Richard out of that hallway like a movie stuntman jerked by a wire after he’s been shot. One problem with a super-secret eavesdropping spot is that you cannot break from the sanctuary of your eavesdropping spot or the student will know you are doing the eavesdropping! This would not be popular with the parents or the principal of your school.
Richard mumbled, “Um. Err.”
“Where’d you get it? Your grandmother die or something?”
“No, man. She made us b
rownies last week.”
“Where on earth did you get an iPod? They’re real expensive!”
Richard’s little lower lip was trembling. He was so pathetic, I wanted to slap him hard across his face. It is sad that, in the United States, they do not allow teachers to slap the children on their face. Education would move forward with much more speed but the teacher’s hand would often get covered with jelly, or dirt, or sticky marshmallow goo.
It was at that point that Richard Kaliski began to shake.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You kidding? Nothing? Something’s up! What’s the problem, man? Tell me what it is. That’s what friends’re for.”
Richard began to shake harder. I knew this was not going to go well for me, but there was not a thing I could do but stand there, hidden behind the coats like a Dummkopf.
Tobias reached his fat little arms forward and hugged his friend. Seeing little boys hugging one another made my skin crawl. Boys are not supposed to be hugging other boys. Boys are supposed to be throwing javelins at one another. Boys did not hug other boys during the Third Reich!
Tobias said, “What’s the matter?”
“M—M— Mrs. Ravenbach . . . she . . .” he could not go on, the sap.
“She what?”
Richard took a great, big, giant, deep breath. He had taken such a deep breath, I felt I could see his toes swelling up. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry. I did a terrible thing. I’m so sorry! Please tell me you’ll forgive me!”
Dismayed, Tobias stepped back from his friend. I was so pleased.
“What’ve you done? What has Mrs. Ravenbach done?!”
“She, she, she pays me to tell her what you’re doing.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of.”
Richard was wailing like a Luftalarm air raid siren. “THAT’S HOW I GOT THE MONEY TO BUY THE IPOD!”
“What’d you tell her?!”
“Stuff.”
Stuff? If they ever wanted to take over the world, children needed lessons in the use of specific information. Fortunately they do not desire very much the world domination, or they would have better organization and far better grammar.
Richard said, “I told her your parents were mad at you, and also about your crush on Drusie, and a bunch of other dumb stuff, and . . . and . . . I gave her your journal.” He howled in agony.
Tobias stood back, his jaw hanging down in complete surprise. Naturally, he looked like a moron because he had at that instant discovered he had been betrayed by his best friend.
“You ratted me out to Mrs. Ravenbach! For money?! That’s the worst thing I ever heard!”
“She told me if I didn’t do what she said, she’d make me repeat fourth grade. I feel so horrible.”
“You should.”
He drew back his arm. Tobias was about to hit him. It was a moment of delicious anticipation for me, the teacher.
Then young Tobias Wilcox did something I did not think he had the gumption to do. He hugged his friend again, even harder. He hugged the person who had betrayed him. The idiot.
Tobias said, “She’s awful. I’d’ve done the same thing. You’re lucky she didn’t sit on you.” Bald-headed Richard, his finger wet from having just been up his nose, wiped his eyes with that same wet finger, and stood in the hallway hugging his friend. I was embarrassed for him. Tobias said, “It’s okay. She’s sooooo awful.”
“Yeah. With retch-o bad breath.”
“And smelly feet.”
“And a big bumpy brown mole with hair growing out of it on her face.” Tobias laughed. He laughed about the mole of which I am so proud! Richard laughed too. Richard said, “Big bumpy brown mole!”
Tobias said, “Big bumpy brown mole!” and they bumped their hips together like dancing.
“Big bumpy brown mole!”
“Big bumpy brown mole!”
“Big bumpy brown mole!”
“BIG BUMPY BROWN MOLE!”
“BIG BUMPY BROWN MOLE!”
“WITH HAIR GROWING OUT OF IT!!!”
“WITH HAIR GROWING OUT OF IT!!!!”
“ON HER FACE!!!”
“ON HER FACE!!!”
They laughed like the fools that they were. I desperately wanted to step out from my hiding place, bash their heads together, and strangle them with their belts. I refrained.
It was most unpleasant. First the nose picking. Then the hugging. Then the forgiveness, which came as an awful surprise. Then the business about my wonderful mole. Then the laughing. Especially the laughing.
All of it terribly dispiriting for me, a teacher.
Several times during the next days, to my great displeasure, I saw bald-headed little Richard whispering with young Tobias Wilcox. Several times when they were whispering, I had the unpleasant sensation, like the spiders crawling up my back, that they were whispering about me. Being whispered about is a vaguely unsettling feeling that is not altogether wunderbar. There is nothing about the whispering that is pleasant. Unless, of course, one is doing the whispering oneself.
CHAPTER 15
At last the morning came that we had all been waiting for. The annual McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children All-School Poetry Contest!
Once a year, in the gymnasium, a new King or Queen of Poetry is crowned. The child who is crowned Queen or King of Poetry is praised to the heavens and showered with a lifetime of glory and honor. It is the Academy Award, the Nobel Prize, and the MacArthur Genius Grant all rolled into one. When your most humble narrator was a child in East Germany, she won the Grundschule Poetry Contest and was heaped with honor and glory. There is nothing like a wonderful boost for a child’s ego, early in life, to send her on the wonderful path of the teaching and the scholarly appreciation. That warm feeling of triumph is a memory I treasure to this day.
The morning was boiling hot, but all the children were dressed in their finest clothes. Little patent leather Mary Janes shined. Hair tied neatly in beautiful pink bows. Lace-up shoes polished. Jackets and ties. No food on any shirts! It was a glorious, glorious morning. All the school was there. The parents. The teachers. Not the staff, of course. The grandparents. Even the children of the custodians were in their nicest frocks and overalls. The mood was festive. Fröhlich. Upbeat.
It was as wonderful a day as is possible to imagine.
Well, not totally.
When you work at a place with only one German employee, things can quite easily get into disarray. The McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children was no exception to this ironclad rule. Children were running every which way. Teachers were yelling. Parents were wondering where they should sit. Grandparents were staggering around and bashing people with their canes. There was actually even a dog in the back of the gymnasium, barking. Not one solitary person had the presence of mind to take it outside and lock it in a hot automobile.
The gymnasium, on a blistering day in June, was a festival of disgusting smells, most of them involving the sweat. I was certain that, behind a bleacher somewhere, a sweaty child was throwing up.
From my seat where I was doing my knitting surrounded by my beloved pupils, my sharp and clever eyes noticed a man looking at me from across the room. I was not sure who this man was, but I felt that, once upon a time, he may have been a student of mine. So many attractive men had been my students at one time or the other.
The beastly dog’s incessant barking was getting on my nerves. The yelling of the children, the moaning of their parents, the hysterical screeching of the grandparents wandering lost, were getting on my nerves. What I needed was a bottle of Schnaps and a fistful of tranquilizers.
Mr. Hertenstein took his position on the stage. Everyone instantly got quiet like dead bunny rabbits. It would be wonderful to be the principal of a school and be able to make seven hundred people become quiet and still simply by stepping up to a podium!
Even more wonderful than winning a Golden Apple the fifth time for Excellence in Teaching at the McKegway
School for Clever and Gifted Children, I must confess, it would be deliciously wonderful to become the principal of the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children. This was a thought I almost never allowed myself to think. Sometimes when he had a few brandies, Mr. Ravenbach would have this thought and speak it out loud to me. I would always say, “Tut-tut” and say no more about it.
But, deep inside, I must confess, a tiny flame did burn.
Perhaps, if Tobias Wilcox won the All-School Poetry Contest . . .
Handsome Mr. Hertenstein said, “It’s fantastic to be gathered here today for the annual McKegway All-School Poetry Contest. Each and every child wrote and learned his or her own poem all by themselves, from kindergartener to eighth-grader. Isn’t that fabulous?!” Mr. Hertenstein applauded vigorously. Everyone applauded vigorously. Everyone wanted the principal to adore them.
My applause was the loudest.
“Will the children who won for their grade please come onstage to say your poem for the All-School Poetry Contest. Kindergarten on my right, eighth grade on my left.” More joyful applause.
Mine was the most joyful. I am certain Mr. Hertenstein was pleased.
The nine children stood up and awkwardly threaded their way down front, then up the steps to the stage and a row of hard wooden chairs.
Susie Clementine sat first. So adorable with her pink shoes. Followed by first grader Matteen Taheri. Then, for the second grade, Alejandro Gonzales. Third grade was rather poorly represented by Amanda Pennington. Then, as you are quite well aware, along came young Tobias Wilcox, representing the fourth grade, and in particular, the wonderful classroom of wonderful Mrs. Leni Ravenbach. Wunderbar!
As he marched up on that glorious stage, young Tobias Wilcox was radiant. Positively, extravagantly, radiant! I had never seen a more handsome boy. And, in this flattering light, such an interesting thing, can you believe it? He did not look even the slightest bit fat!
I felt quite an outpouring of love and affection and tenderness and caring for my young pupil. His poem was, like his adoring teacher, wunderbar!
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