He clasped his hands together and took a deep breath. “Well, Ellie . . . she died.”
“She what?”
Gabby shook her head sadly. “Poor ol’ thing passed in her sleep, but at least she’s with her maman and papa now, God love her.”
Ellie was close to panic. “Doc, what are we gonna do? I can’t teach the whole school by myself!”
“I know it’s a lot, Ellie,” he said in a voice she imagined he reserved for expectant mothers in labor. “But you can do it. I’m sure you can. Bonita and Gabby will be right here with you every step of the way. And my office is a stone’s throw away if you need me.”
“Doc, I’ve never taught high school.” Ellie looked frantically about, as if she might find a rescuer somewhere in the classroom. “I don’t even have lesson plans for them.”
“Everything’ll be alright, Ellie,” Doc assured her. “Like I told you that first day, Miss Harrison, rest her soul, was way past teaching the older children anything more than the very basics, which they repeated year after year. And most of the bayou students leave school when they’re fourteen or fifteen. So they’re not really high school students. They’re just a touch older than what you’re used to. That’s all.”
“But there are so many children for one teacher!” Ellie insisted.
“One teacher and two fine assistants,” Doc countered.
“You not gonna quit, are you, Miss Ellie?” Bonita asked her. “We got kids at home needs to learn how to read and do their numbers. You not gonna leave us, are you?”
Ellie pulled up a chair and sat down to collect herself. She took some deep breaths to steady her nerves and then answered, “No, Bonita, I’m not a quitter. I just need to figure out how to manage all these children.”
“You don’t have to manage ’em all by yourself,” Gabby said, putting a hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “Me and Bonita’s been wranglin’ kids since we was kids—you give us mean boys, you give us gigglin’ girls, we can handle ’em.”
Ellie looked up at her. “Y’all really think we can do this?”
“’Course we can,” Bonita said.
“Fo’ sure,” Gabby agreed.
“Well, then,” Ellie said, standing up, “I reckon we’d better get after it. And y’all can drop the ‘Miss Ellie.’ Far as I’m concerned, the three of us are soldiers in the trenches, so I’m just plain ol’ Ellie from now on.”
“Ellie it is,” Gabby said with a smile.
“Alright then,” Ellie said. “Here’s how we’ll get through today. Since we’ve got to handle all the kids, I think it’s best to keep them on one floor. Otherwise we’ll run our legs off going up and down those stairs. The classrooms are huge, so we should be able to manage it. This morning, I’ll take first through fifth. Gabby, you and Bonita take the older kids. There’s a blank class roll on the desk. You just need to get every student’s name on there. And then there’s a record book where I like to keep the names of each child’s parents and any other close relative I could call on in case of emergency. Y’all mind doing that?”
“We’ll do it,” Bonita said. “Where they gonna sit—the extra kids from upstairs?”
Gabby was quick with a solution. “We gonna make them big strappin’ boys haul us down some desks. Ain’t gonna hurt ’em to do a little work fo’ their school.”
“Thanks, Gabby,” Ellie said. “Once they’re all settled in, I want y’all to have each student write a letter—to me—and they don’t have to sign it if they don’t want to. But I want them to tell me everything they hate about school and how they wish it were different. I want them to write down all the things they want to learn about and anything they wish they could change.”
Gabby and Bonita stared at her, openmouthed. “You serious, Miss—I mean Ellie?” Gabby asked her.
“Very serious,” Ellie said. “I can’t make them love school till I find out why they hate it. Is it just the nonsense about never speaking French, or is there more to it than that? I really want to know.”
A clearly doubtful Bonita shook her head. “If you say so.”
“The truth’ll set you free, ladies,” Ellie said with a grin. “It’s about time for all the kids to get here, so why don’t we meet them outside by the school bell and sort them into our two classes. And may the good Lord help us all.”
“Amen,” Doc said. “Ellie, I’m mighty proud of you.”
“Why, Doc? I haven’t done anything yet.”
“Oh, yes you have. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
Ellie and the Toussaints followed Doc outside just in time to see a drove of children, lunch pails in hand, walking toward them. Ellie shored up her courage and rang the school bell. Normally, schoolchildren would come running at the sound of a bell, but not these Cajun students. They walked glumly toward Ellie with a look of pure dread on their faces. Many of the little ones were wiping tears. Ellie was so shocked by the sight of such misery on the faces of innocent children that for a moment she couldn’t speak.
Remy stepped from the back of the crowd and came to her rescue. “This is Miss Ellie, y’all. She’s not mean and scary like all the others. Let’s say good mornin’.”
Oddly enough, even the older kids were so unhappy to be there that they took direction from a seven-year-old and offered a grim “Mornin’, Miss Ellie.”
Ellie managed to gather her wits and force a smile. “Good morning, everybody. And thank you, Remy. I want all of you students to do me a favor. Raise your hand if you hate school.”
All the littlest hands shot up, but the older children looked at each other, unsure of what they should do.
“Come on,” Ellie said, “tell the truth. Raise your hand if you hate school.”
Every student haltingly put up a hand.
“Well, let’s get busy changing that,” Ellie said. “First, we need to split you into two classrooms. If you haven’t had your eleventh birthday yet, I want you to line up right here in front of me. If you’re eleven or older, please line up in front of Miss Gabby and Miss Bonita over there. Let’s go, boys and girls!”
Apparently too bewildered to do anything but obey, Ellie’s pupils fell into their lines, the older ones directing the littlest. Before they even made it into the schoolhouse, Ellie could see that Gabby and Bonita would have no trouble managing their group. A couple of older boys were sneaking up behind the girls and pulling their hair. Gabby and Bonita each took one of the mischief makers in hand, grabbing his ear and twisting it till he hollered and fell in line.
Ellie led her terrified youngsters into the room Raphe had helped her decorate. She watched their eyes widen and their mouths fly open when they spied the colorful quilts on the wall and the white alligator she had painted on the floor.
“L’esprit Blanc!” exclaimed a tiny little girl with long blonde braids, pointing at the alligator.
“No French!” an older girl loudly whispered, putting her arms around the younger, both of them clearly fearing Ellie’s retribution.
All the other children stared at their teacher, waiting to see what punishment she would mete out.
“Tell you what, boys and girls,” Ellie said, “let’s take a little time to get to know each other. You two fellas over there—what are your names?”
“I’m Antoine Doucet, and this is my brother, J.D.,” answered a boy with dark hair and eyes.
“And how old are you boys?”
“I’m ten,” Antoine said.
“I’m nine,” J.D. said.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Antoine and J.D. Now I need your help. Would you please take three of the quilts off the wall and spread them here in the center with the alligator?”
Antoine and J.D. obeyed, laying Ellie’s quilts all around the alligator.
“Thank you, boys,” Ellie said. “Everybody, kick off your shoes and find a spot on the quilts.”
The children hesitated at first, but then Antoine gave them a nod and they followed him to the quilts, where everybody took off th
eir shoes and sat in a circle.
Ellie sat barefoot with them, spreading her full skirt to cover her legs. The little girl with the blonde braids was silently crying.
“Sweetheart,” Ellie said, “are you scared?”
The child nodded.
“You’ve got nothing to be afraid of, honey—come over here and sit with Miss Ellie.”
The child came and sat down on her lap, pressing her face against the peacock-blue cotton of Ellie’s dress.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Ellie wrapped her arms around the little girl, who was shaking all over.
“Jean,” the child whispered.
“Jean? Why, that’s one of my favorite names in the whole world. Did you know that?”
Jean looked up at Ellie and shook her head. Ellie wiped her tears away.
“It’s my grandmother’s name. I call her Mama Jean. And her family came here to America from a country called Scotland, way over the ocean, just like your families came here from a place called Canada, way up north.”
J.D. was frowning at her. “But I thought we was French.”
“You mean were, J.D.—‘we were French,’ not ‘we was,’ okay?” Ellie corrected him.
“Yes, ma’am, I thought we were French.”
“Oh, you are,” Ellie assured him. “But your families didn’t come here from France. They came from a country called Canada, where a big community of French people—much bigger than Bernadette—had settled. They were called Acadians. And over time, people shortened the last part of that word—‘cadien’—to Cajun. See how that works? ‘Cajun’ is just a short way of saying Acadian, which is another way of saying French Canadian. Your ancestors were French Canadians.”
“What’s a—a—ansister?” Jean asked, looking up at Ellie.
“Your ancestors are the people you came from—people you’re related to—who lived hundreds of years ago. Isn’t that something, class? Just think, you and your families here in Louisiana are connected—kin, even—to people who lived hundreds of years ago in a place so far north that the snow gets as high as swamp grass in the wintertime.”
There was a brief moment of silence while the children took in Ellie’s story. And then the floodgates opened as they peppered her with questions.
“Why did we leave Canada? How did we get there in the first place?”
“When did we move to Louisiana?”
“Are there bayous in Canada?”
“Were there alligators up there?”
“How come our other teachers never told us about Canada? How come Maman and Papa don’t talk about it?”
Ellie kept an arm around Jean and put up her free hand to quiet the children. “Hold on, everybody! Hold on!” she called out over them, laughing. “Listen, boys and girls. The story of your people is amazing. It’s sad and it’s brave. It’s an adventure and it’s a love story—”
“Yuck!” said one of the older boys in back, which made everybody giggle.
“I promise you we’ll get to all of it,” Ellie said. “But I’ll be honest with you, class. I hadn’t planned on being the only teacher here. I thought I’d be able to separate you older children from the little ones, but it looks like we need to find a way for all of us to learn in this one room together. I’ll need you to be patient with me and with each other till we figure out the best way to go about that. Will you help me?”
A chorus of “Yes, Miss Ellie” followed.
“Thank you! Now there’s something very important we need to talk about. Here at school we speak only English, d’accord?” Ellie gasped and put her hand over her mouth, pretending she had accidentally slipped into French, which brought laughter from her students. “Listen, boys and girls, there’s nothing wrong with French. It’s a beautiful language. It’s the language of your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. It’s part of who you are. But when you grow up, you might need to leave the bayou for one reason or another. Maybe to find work. Maybe for marriage. I know, I know—yuck! Marriage!” Ellie made a face and had the students laughing again. “It’s very important that we speak English in school, but no one’s going to punish you if you slip into French now and then. We’ll just try it again in English, alright?”
The children smiled and nodded.
“Good! Now let’s go around the circle, and you all tell me your names. We can’t be strangers if we’re going to learn together.”
AFTER LUNCH AND RECESS, Ellie swapped classes with Gabby and Bonita. Looking around the room, she saw not the open, trusting faces of young children but the suspicious, dismissive ones of adolescents and teenagers. Their eyes grew wide when she sat down on top of her desk instead of in the chair behind it.
“Class,” she began, “I believe in being honest with young men and women. And the truth is that most schools would have three, maybe even four, teachers for the number of students we have here in Bernadette. Your school has one, plus two wonderful assistants that we’re lucky to have. I expect you to treat Miss Gabby and Miss Bonita with the same respect you show me—and I expect you to show me plenty, because there are many of you and just one of me. I can’t teach you what you need to know—what you want to know, based on the letters you wrote this morning—if I’m spending all my time making you behave. So I need you to just do that on your own. Just behave. Period. I can’t force you, so it’s up to you. Will you do that for me?”
The older students looked dumbfounded. They exchanged glances before a girl of about fourteen stood up in back and said, “We can do it, Miss Ellie.”
“Thank you.” Ellie smiled at her. “And what’s your name?”
“Marceline,” the girl said. “Marceline Ardoin.”
“I appreciate your help, Marceline, and I’m pleased to meet you.” Ellie picked up the stack of letters the students had written that morning. “I spent your lunch period reading these letters. And I want you to know that I take everything you said very seriously. This school doesn’t have the resources to teach some of the things you want very much to learn, but don’t worry—I have a few resources of my own, and I’ll use them to teach you as much as I possibly can about the subjects you’re excited about. Things will be different from now on. I promise you that. Now about this English-only rule . . .”
ELEVEN
“LEMME SEE ’IM.”
Lura Poteet looked up from her desk in the outer office of Senator Roy Strahan’s suite at the capitol building in Baton Rouge. She calmly adjusted her reading glasses, peering over them at the man standing before her. Cheap fedora, dirty boots, bowie knife in a holster strapped to his belt. Trash. Pure-D trash.
“Take a seat,” she said. She met his stare, unblinking, as he narrowed his eyes and leaned on her desk.
“You think just ’cause you gotta press some button to unlock his office, that makes you the queen o’ Sheba?” he said.
Lura slowly rose to her full height—all six feet eight inches of her—and opened her desk drawer.
“Now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” the man said. “Go on and press your little button.”
But Lura had no intention of pressing any buttons. Instead, she reached into her desk, pulled out a Smith & Wesson, and cocked it as she aimed it squarely at his head, her voice as steady as her gun. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
SENATOR ROY STRAHAN heard gunfire in the outer office. Somebody must’ve ticked off Lura. Likely Luetrell. Just showed what a poor judge of character he was. Lura grew up on the toughest cattle ranch in Texas. Sure, you had to repair the occasional bullet hole, replace the occasional lamp, pay the occasional hospital bill. And should he ever actually need statehouse security, they wouldn’t show because they had grown accustomed to the sound of Lura’s Smith & Wesson. But Big Roy never had to deal with anybody he didn’t want to, and he always knew what trouble was brewing in the statehouse before anybody else. On any given day, he could tell you what the governor had for breakfast and any other details of his personal life that might come in handy. Lura sa
w to that.
Big Roy was sitting at his polished mahogany desk, studying a geological map of his state’s southwestern parishes as he puffed on a Cuban cigar—the gift of a very grateful, filthy-rich constituent whose no-account son would’ve landed in the penitentiary without a word to the governor from Big Roy. He held a magnifying glass over three red X’s marked on the waters of Bayou Teche. Gig Luetrell might be a cur dog that deserved to be put down, but he had a sixth sense when it came to crude oil. He could find it every time, especially under water—just didn’t have the means to get it out. But Big Roy did, and he paid Luetrell handsomely for his services.
The Teche was covered up with French-speaking Cajuns who kept to themselves—made it dang near impossible to find out what they were doing or thinking when it came to oil rights. And bribes were useless down there because they didn’t trust anybody who hadn’t lived on the bayou longer than the alligators. On the upside, a convenient prejudice against Cajuns had flowered in Louisiana—a happy accident helped along by a crazy preacher. Big Roy threw gas on that fire—and money at it—every chance he got, especially now that Luetrell had marked three spots and was sure there were more.
Then there was Boone, the only son Big Roy loved but couldn’t respect. He was so much like his late mother, rest her precious soul—not an ounce of fight in him. It was just a bonus that the need for discretion around Bernadette had at last created some use for him. Big Roy had already decided that once the boy served his purpose in the bayou, he’d cut him loose and let him ride off into the sunset to whatever state park he wanted to oversee. For now, however, Boone would play his part, which was giving Luetrell cover. That roughneck would stick out anywhere, but in a little bayou town like Bernadette? No. Best to tamp down local curiosity before it even flared up.
Big Roy was having another look at those enticing X’s on the map when he heard a second gunshot in the outer office. He chomped his cigar and chuckled. Luetrell better mind his manners or he’d be leaving the statehouse in an ambulance. Lucky for him Lura didn’t shoot to kill. Most of the time.
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