by Rob Buyea
“Charlie was at my house when I got home from school yesterday,” I said. Danielle’s pumping stopped. “Mom told me they were just sharing a cup of coffee and some conversation.” Danielle pumped slowly again, but she still didn’t say anything. “If Charlie marries my mom, what would that make us?” I went on. “Sisters!”
Danielle put her feet down and hopped off her swing. She turned to face me. My pumping slowed. Was something wrong? She looked right at me.
“Anna, Charlie will never marry your mother,” Danielle said. “My family would never allow it.”
I stopped my swing. Jessica and Lexie stopped theirs, too. “Why?” I asked.
“My family …,” Danielle started to say, then her chin and voice lowered. “My family doesn’t approve of your mother.”
I felt like I’d just got run over by Charlie’s red truck. My whole body grew weak. “But my mom’s a good person,” I said.
“I know,” Danielle said. She scuffed the mud with her foot. “But it’s not that easy. If it weren’t for Mr. Terupt’s accident, I don’t think I would have ever been allowed to go over to your house.”
I learned something that day. Even after all this time, my mom was still ostracized for something that happened long ago. And because I had contributed to Mr. Terupt’s accident, I was going to pay for it the rest of my life.
Jessica
Act 10, Scene 2
I discovered another reason for Mr. Terupt’s predicament the day Anna and Danielle and I were on the swings—a reason bigger than simply getting Danielle over to Anna’s house. That was only a start. Just like Mr. Terupt had helped Lexie reunite with Anna, Danielle, and me, I had to wonder if maybe Mr. Terupt’s accident was going to help Danielle’s family accept Anna and her mother. I hoped so.
Jeffrey
Boring day after boring day puttered by. Life was back to normal, where everything sucked. We all thought about the same thing, but never talked about it—not everybody together. Little groups whispered here and there, but that was it. I didn’t participate. Too many bad, scary memories. Then somethin’ happened to break the silence.
Jessica
Act 10, Scene 3
Enter Miss Kelsey.
“I came up here today to share some news with all of you,” she said, a smile on her face. How could she smile at us like that? Didn’t she know? “James is going to be leaving school.”
More sad news, I thought. Great.
“This is wonderful for James. He’s been doing so well in school—he now has a chance to join a classroom like yours, in the town where he lives.”
We stayed quiet. I knew I was supposed to be happy for James, but I didn’t feel excited about anything right now. I think everyone felt the same way. Miss Kelsey started to look puzzled. She didn’t understand our silence, but Mrs. Williams gave her an encouraging nod.
“The Collaborative Classroom would like to invite all of you to a surprise going-away party for James,” Miss Kelsey went on. “You’ve invited us to so much, and done so much for us, that we decided it was our turn to invite you to something. Plus, James loves you. You guys really made the difference. You’re the reason he’s improved and gets to move on.”
We made the difference. I felt good for a second, but then I thought about how none of this would have happened if it weren’t for Mr. Terupt. I couldn’t feel happy about anything. Not without my teacher.
Jeffrey
Miss Kelsey brought us good news, and it fired me up.
“James is leaving,” she said.
How was that supposed to be good news? Everybody I ended up likin’ I ended up losing. Why did I even bother tryin’?
LUKE
We made our way down to the Collaborative Classroom. It was James’s surprise going-away party. I wanted to be happy for him, but it was so difficult.
Terrible/Worrisome News (Mr. Terupt) + Happy Party (James) ≠ Happy Luke
Invasive species are organisms that are introduced into a new environment. Since they have no natural predators there, they thrive. They suck up all the resources, leaving nothing for the organisms that were there first. The native species suffer and die. Going down to the Collaborative Classroom, I was afraid that our whole class would act as the invasive species, sucking up all the happiness with our sour attitudes. Lucky for us, the antidote was present at the party.
The lights clicked on. “Surprise!” we yelled when James walked in. His face beamed. I automatically smiled, too. And then it happened.
James walked over to Peter and gave him a hug that shattered (dollar word) his shield. Everybody stopped and watched. This was the first time any of us had really looked at Peter since the accident. We had each made the choice to make him invisible. But now we saw him.
James finally let go and stepped back. He looked into Peter’s eyes.
“Peter, not your fault. Not your fault.” James’s voice rose. “Peter!” Now he yelled. “Not your fault! Accident! Accident!”
The room was dead quiet, holding its breath. Peter began crying, softly at first, but then he lost it. His entire body shook with each sob.
I couldn’t be a silent onlooker any longer. I stepped forward.
“James is right, Peter,” I said. “It’s not all your fault.”
I told everyone about Mr. Terupt’s early concussions, and the bleeding, and the looming surgery.
“Besides,” I said, “Peter threw the snowball because of me.”
I cried now, too. Accepting responsibility can make you do that, I guess. I hugged Peter. Right there on the spot. I walked over and hugged my Elmer’s sneakers nemesis.
And then our crying classmates hugged us.
Thank you, James.
Alexia
Like, isn’t it weird that Peter called them retards way back when Teach first told us that we were going to work with them? And then it was like, one of the “retards” that helped save Peter. We’re lucky some people are so full of goodness.
Like Jessica and Anna and Danielle. I was mean to them, but now they’re my friends again. I’m lucky. I was lonely without them.
I bet Peter was lonely, too. But like, none of us did anything about it until James said something. Then I felt bad for Peter. I gave him a hug. He didn’t deserve to be all alone.
It feels good being nice. I like it better than being the old Lexie. I hope Teach gets to see how he helped me.
Jeffrey
Things happen for a reason. Jessica told me that.
I didn’t hate Peter. Even if I wasn’t smilin’ on the outside, he had me laughin’ on the inside a lot. He just liked to have fun, and the good fun went real bad on him that day in the snow. That’s all. It wasn’t all his fault. James told us that. James had more courage, more good heart in him than any of us “smart” kids.
I don’t know if James’s words alone woulda been enough, but then Cool Man Luke came to the rescue. Not just Peter’s rescue, but all our rescues. We needed to talk. Thanks to James and Luke, we started to.
Things happen for a reason. I can’t find all the reasons. Did everything we did with the Collaborative Classroom lead toward this moment? Is this why it all happened? Why did it have to be Peter? And why did it have to be our teacher in a coma? Was it so that I would learn that life isn’t fair sometimes? ’Cause I learned that a long time ago with Michael.
anna
Things are working out, sort of. There’s been good news for James, Lexie’s back to being nice, and Peter’s part of our class again. But it’s hard to stay positive when Mr. Terupt is about to have brain surgery. I get scared when I think about it for too long, and I think about it all the time—that and my mom.
Danielle’s words crushed me. I didn’t get mad at her, though. In a way, I felt sorry for her. I know she wants to be my friend, but her family doesn’t want that to happen. That’s got to be hard. This time I talked to Mom about it as soon as I got home that day.
“Mom, Danielle said her family disapproves of you, and that you
and Charlie will never be allowed to get married.”
“Whoa! Slow down, Anna,” Mom said. “First of all, Charlie and I aren’t looking to get married. Second of all, I know their family disapproves of me.” My jaw fell open. “Sit down, honey.”
I sat at the kitchen table across from Mom. She had been looking over the mail and drinking a cup of coffee (cream and sugar) when I burst in on her.
Mom explained. “Charlie and I went to school together. When I ended up pregnant with you, he didn’t treat me kindly—just like everyone else. In fact, one day he got me so upset I kicked his truck. I put that dent in his door.” I could see my mom reliving those painful memories as she spoke. “He’s actually apologized to me for how he behaved back then.”
“But why would Charlie say he’s sorry if his family disapproves of you?” I asked.
“Danielle’s parents and grandparents are pretty old-fashioned and religious. Just like my parents, who couldn’t find a way to be accepting of me and my situation all those years ago. They still can’t.”
For a second I wondered about my mother’s mom and dad. I’ve never met them. Were they really that unforgiving? Were Danielle’s?
“I think Charlie just went along with everyone else when we were teenagers, but now he’s ready to think for himself. It’s always good to make up your own mind,” Mom said.
So I have Mr. Terupt to thank. If it weren’t for his accident, Danielle might never have come over, just like she said. Thanks, Mr. Terupt, but you didn’t need to go and get hurt this bad so that I could be friends with Danielle. Don’t get me wrong—I’m very grateful—but I’d really like you back now. You’re going to get better. Be positive. You taught me that.
“Maybe Danielle and Charlie will be able to change their family’s opinion of us,” I said. “I’m going to be positive. Mr. Terupt would want that.”
Danielle
I know what it’s like to have people gang up on you. Being big, I learned real quick. It stinks. I never thought I’d do that to someone else, but I did. I didn’t even realize it.
Peter must have felt that no one in the whole wide world liked him. I see it now but I didn’t see it when it was happening, when it mattered most. Not until James and Luke made me open my eyes.
Selfishness caused me to be blind. I only thought about how bad I felt. I’m not saying I would have done anything different, had I seen it earlier. I’m just glad it changed. For all of us.
Luke told us that Mr. Terupt’s going to have brain surgery. All the girls started crying when he told us that. And the boys didn’t make fun of us for it—not like every other time. Luke kept talking. He told us about Mr. Terupt’s wrestling and concussions and it not being all Peter’s fault. It was an accident, a real honest accident, with lots of us to blame. Luke said that Peter threw the snowball because of him. But he wasn’t the only one who got Peter mad that day. Others of us started confessing. I prayed for God to cleanse us all.
I hugged everybody at James’s party. I was sorry for so much, but really sorry for Peter. Even though we all told him it wasn’t just his fault, I think he still felt it was.
I felt bad for Anna, too. I hoped she wasn’t mad at me after what I had told her. I wanted us to still be friends. I also wondered what Charlie’s intentions were toward her mother, so I asked him.
I found Charlie out in the barn early one morning before school. He was sitting next to one of the cows and pulling her teat to get her started for milking. “Morning, sunshine,” he said. “What brings you out here?”
“I wanted to know why you went to see Terri Adams,” I said.
“To share a good cup of coffee with a fine woman,” he said, “and to ask for her forgiveness for the way I treated her when we were in school.”
Charlie slipped the machine onto the cow’s udders and got her milking. “Good girl,” he said, patting the cow. Then he walked over to the next one, squatted down, and started the process over.
“Do you think Anna and her mom are bad influences on me?” I asked.
“Nope. But I don’t think you should try to change Grandma’s or Mom’s opinions on that score.”
“Are you going to see Terri again?”
“I’d like to,” Charlie said. He stood and moved to the next cow. Charlie had four machines, so he could milk four cows at the same time. He did the milking every morning and night.
“Then are you going to try and change their opinions?”
“Nope. I see no reason to start a family war—you shouldn’t, either,” he said.
“That’s easy for you to say, because you can just drive yourself over there whenever you want. Sooner or later my teacher won’t be in the hospital any longer. He’ll either be back or in the ground, and I won’t have any reason to go over to Anna’s house. I want to be friends with her and her mother. I like them.”
Charlie stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said. “And let’s continue to pray for that teacher of yours.”
“Do you think he’ll make it through the surgery?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “I wish I could tell you, but I only know animals.” He walked over to me and wrapped his arm around me, giving me a little squeeze. “It’s time for you to catch the bus. Go on. Have a good day at school, sunshine.” He made me smile a little. I hoped I didn’t smell too much like the barn.
Jeffrey
If anyone knows silence, it’s me. The silence in our classroom wasn’t the worst. There was always someone you could turn to and whisper. It contained tons of sadness and guilt, but it wasn’t absolute.
Even Peter’s silence was over. He was lucky.
My silence at home pressed on—with nobody for me to turn to, and with nobody in sight to rescue me. That silence was absolute. The only company in my house was more sadness and guilt.
But somewhere along the way this year, Terupt taught me to see things different. To think about things different. To think about more than just me. It was always my silence, and my fault. But now I started to think about Mom’s silence. And Dad’s silence. Mom’s fault. And Dad’s fault. They were hurting, too. Why did I have to wait for them to talk to me? I didn’t.
A few days after James’s party I crept into Mom’s bedroom, where she lay on the bed in her pajamas. I climbed in next to her and put my arm around her. Then I told her, “It’s not your fault. I love you.” She didn’t do anything, but I lay there and fell asleep, holding my mom.
When I woke up, I felt good. I hoped my words had helped her. I thought of Terupt as I walked out of her bedroom. He had helped me reach out. I missed him. I wished I had a chance to tell him how I felt, too. I wanted him back so bad.
I found Dad sitting in a chair in the family room—better called the “be-alone room” in our house. He was home, so I must have slept for a while. I wondered if he had seen me with Mom. Immediately, I knew it was gonna be much harder for me to say those same words to him. We never talked to each other like that, not even before Michael died.
“Hi, Dad.” I sat on the sofa near his chair.
“I saw you in there with your mother,” he said. “She needs you, Jeffrey. You might be the only one who can help her.”
“Dad, it’s not your fault,” I blurted out. He didn’t say anything. I knew my words surprised him. That they hit hard. I got up and went over and hugged him. “I love you,” I said. I let go after a few seconds and headed out of the room.
“It’s not your fault, either,” Dad said, before I was gone. I heard his voice breaking up as he said it. I felt that good feeling again, and thought of Terupt.
I thought about what my dad said about Mom needing me. I didn’t know what else to do, so every day after school, I started going home and resting next to her in bed. It felt like the right thing to do.
I tried. Terupt taught me that, too.
may
Jessica
Act 11, Scene 1
Welcome to the hos
pital waiting room, where every face is a concerned face. Who knows what’s on the minds of all these worried people? They keep busy in different ways. Some read, a few watch television, one lady knits.
Enter us. The kids from room 202.
We sat quietly, kind of looking around—anxiously awaiting the outcome of Mr. Terupt’s surgery. Was it even okay to talk? I wondered. A lot of other people from school sat waiting, hoping for Mr. Terupt. Mrs. Williams and her red-haired secretary, Mrs. Barton, waited. Mr. Lumas and Mr. Ruddy sat and waited. Everyone at school liked Mr. Terupt. That was just another testament to him.
Technically today was a school day, but Mrs. Williams helped us make arrangements to be here.
“I can’t make this a school-sponsored field trip,” she told us about a week ago. At that point we knew when Mr. Terupt’s surgery had been scheduled, and Mrs. Williams realized our entire class planned to be there. “I can’t have all of you climb onto a bus and be taken to the hospital,” she said.
“Our parents can drive us there,” Anna suggested. “And we can help each other with rides.”
“I like that idea,” Mrs. Williams said. “Then you can leave when you want, or not go at all—if you’d rather not.” I thought about Jeffrey.
Ms. Newberry, Miss Kelsey, and Mrs. Warner also came. The school was able to provide substitutes for their classes, but not everyone’s. I expect all the teachers would have been here if it weren’t a school day.