CHAPTER NINE
Since it was a Friday when Brent brought the gun to school and classes were cancelled, everyone had an unexpected three day weekend. This was very fortunate for Miss Fairbanks, since the combination of the prison letter and Brent's rampage had so completely drained her that she was hardly able to function. As it was, she did little more than go home and sit in a chair in her dingy apartment all weekend, staring emptily into space while rocking gently back and forth like an old lady. Occasionally she would sigh and pick up a book to read, only to set it down again, unread, a few minutes later. She ate almost nothing, leaving her skinny frame more weakened and scrawny than ever. It was an emotional battle she was fighting, and she knew that food would not help.
The letter had started it. The letter that had picked the worst possible time to arrive, showing up just as she had started her new job and was developing new friends. The letter that served as a stark reminder that her world was a shattered world, without hope and beyond repair because of what she had caused. Brent's rampage had only confirmed that. And just as had occurred twenty years ago, all she had been able to do was stand by and silently cry while unthinkable things happened around her.
Day passed into night, and night into day, and still Miss Fairbanks still sat unmoving in her chair. She hardly stirred all through the endlessly long weekend. But in the end, time passed as it always does, and Monday morning arrived again.
Miss Fairbanks finally dragged herself out of her chair and prepared as best she could to go to school. While only the week before she had been full of life and vitality, playfully coming up with ways to keep control of her classes, today, she wasn't sure she would be able to do much more than walk in the door. She knew only too well that she was asking for trouble to show up at Inner City Junior High School in her condition. But she had a job, and felt like she couldn't let down Principal Clyde or the students, even if they destroyed her. And so with great effort, she dragged herself to school and into her classroom.
Fortunately for her however, Miss Fairbanks had underestimated her students and the unexpected transformation created by their resume guessing game on Thursday. As the final bell rang and Miss Fairbanks found herself weakly looking at her first period students, fully expecting them to torment her and make her day a living horror, she was surprised to see eagerness in their eyes. 'Armpit' Arnold expressed their collective feelings when he suddenly blurted, "So, whatcha got for us today, ugly? Something else as awesome as last week?" The way he said it was almost pleading, as if he and the other students were begging to once more have an unusually pleasant learning experience in this school that was otherwise nothing but a constant torture chamber. Obviously, Friday's gun incident had been completely forgotten as just another commonplace incident at this school.
Surprised, Miss Fairbanks put her hand over her heart. "Well ..." she stammered weakly, not knowing quite what to say. "Since you were all so successful at your resumes last week, I thought you might all write ..." her voice trailed off. Her mind was a blank and she had no idea what to say. She had a sense that the detailed descriptive writings she'd previously had in mind would not go down well. And she knew she didn't have the energy or creativity today to make such an assignment sound fun and attractive.
While her students stared at her curiously, keeping unusually quiet in the hope that she would come up with something fun once more, Miss Fairbank's eyes wandered aimlessly across her scarred desk. To her surprise she noticed a comic strip drawing of Garfield in one corner. It must have been put there by Heather, since she was the one last Thursday who had suggested putting up pictures of funny comic strip characters on the walls.
When had she brought it? Certainly it must have been after the whole Brent-gun incident, since it hadn't been there on Friday. Which meant that Heather probably guessed what Miss Fairbanks was feeling, and was trying in her own way to make her feel better ...
Miss Fairbanks suddenly felt her eyes going moist again. She cleared her throat and tried her best to focus her mind on the task at hand. Otherwise, she knew she could easily lose control once more, and start blubbering like a little baby. But fortunately the picture of Garfield had given her an idea. It was a wild idea, actually, and rather desperate. But she had nothing else to go on, and hardly any strength either.
"We're going to do something a little different today," she said weakly, walking over to the blackboard and picking up some chalk. The schools where she had done her student teaching all had the nice, new whiteboards and markers, as did most of the schools across the state. But not Inner City Junior High School. The blackboards in all of its classrooms were truly ancient, old-fashioned blackboards that required chalk. They probably had been sitting in the school since it was built, staring dumbly out at students for decades.
"We're going to try our hand at a unique kind of writing," she said in a voice that her anxious students had to strain to hear. "This writing has to be extremely short and condensed, since it has to fit into a very small space. Today we are going to create a comic strip!"
Her students looked at her as if she had completely lost her senses. A few of them started to guffaw and smirk, and it was obvious there would be a complete loss of control if something was not done quickly. But of course, Miss Fairbanks knew she was not up to controlling them or outwitting them today. She was just trying to survive. And she was doing so by turning to one thing that always helped people in times of stress--humor.
Quickly she drew four large squares on the chalkboard, that took up the entire space. "We will draw the pictures of our comics later," she said. "I'm sure many of you are much more talented artists than I am, so I will let you do the art. Right now we will just concentrate on the words, to be written in the balloons at the top of each square, just like the comics you see in the newspaper. But of course, to do that, we must first have our characters in mind. The characters are the people who live in our comic strip world. We only need two or three people or animal characters, and that's all. You've all seen comic strips before, so you know the kinds of characters I'm talking about. Who should our comic characters be?"
"Roaches!" cried out Armpit Arnold wildly. Like all the other students, he was ecstatic that their frail little teacher had once again come up with a fun idea, instead of something stupid. He had no idea how bad off she was, or that her idea was not planned at all, but was a desperate attempt at survival.
"Principal Clyde and the lunch ladies!" cried someone else.
"My dad and a thousand maggots!" cried another voice.
Miss Fairbanks smiled, in spite of herself. The twisted imaginations of this class knew no bounds. "Comic strip characters have to be both common, and at the same time unique," said Miss Fairbanks. "They have to be easily identifiable, but there also has to be something that sets the characters apart from other comic characters."
"Roaches are unique," piped up Armpit Arnold.
"So is my dad," said a short kid with his purple hair. "He puts up pictures of famous politicians all over the wall, then throws darts at them. Since he's got so many pictures up, he never misses."
"I still think we should have principal Clyde and the lunch ladies," said a black-haired girl with tattoos on her ears. "The comic strip can be about how they're trying to poison us."
Suddenly everyone was talking at once, screaming suggestions, pounding their desks and throwing out ideas fast and furious. Miss Fairbanks looked at them all gratefully, knowing that they were helping her in spite of themselves. She smiled again and opened her mouth, pretending to say something. Scar face immediately yelled for everyone to pipe down so she could be heard, then backed up his words by punching people. The noise in the room quickly subsided.
"It may not be good to have people we know personally be our characters like the lunch ladies, since they might come in and see our comic strip and not like it," said Miss Fairbanks. She didn't mention Principal Clyde's name of course, but that is who she really had in mind. She could just imagine how livid he woul
d be if he came in and saw his image all over her blackboard.
"Let's vote on your other suggestions though," she said rapidly, before the noise level could fully pick up again. "How many want roaches?" Nearly half the class raised their hands. "How many want maggots?" There were fewer votes this time. Miss Fairbanks then went through the other suggestions that had been thrown out. The class voted on whether to have skunks, stinkbugs, roadkill, the people they most despised from TV commercials, the two senators from their state, and a variety of other odd people and creatures. In the end, the vote came out in favor of an octopus on crutches (six crutches, to be exact) and a butterfly dragon that was light as a feather but could melt steel with his fire breath.
"Now that we have our characters, we need to picture them in our minds, and try to imagine what they might be doing in our comic strip," said Miss Fairbanks. "We need to create the setting for the tiny little story we will be telling in these four boxes."
Once more the class erupted in total noise. It was obvious they were enjoying themselves, without realizing they were working at one of the most challenging of all labors--creativity.
"They should be doing the backstroke in a river of jelly!" yelled Armpit Arnold.
"How about fighting space invaders with pickle guns!" cried the purple-haired kid.
"I think they should be blowing up Inner City Junior High School!" sang out scar face, following, which there was thunderous applause. No vote was needed to know that this is what their bizarre characters were going to be doing in this four-panel comic strip.
"Good," said Miss Fairbanks. "We have our characters and we know what they're going to be doing. Now, to help us in creating the words, it would be good to have in mind how they're going to blow up the school--"
"With stink bombs!" cried Armpit Arnold.
"With lasers stolen from an alien spaceship!" said the purple haired kid, who was immediately booed and hissed.
"With firecrackers!" yelled a boy who had freckles on top of his freckles. Everyone turned to look at him as if he'd lost his marbles. But to their surprise Miss Fairbanks from the front of the room suddenly said, "That sounds good!"
Now everyone turned to stare at her as if she had lost her marbles as well. "Just think of comic strips for a minute," she said. "They have to be funny. They lead up to a surprise or twist in the last of the four boxes--something you don't expect. And they use a lot of exaggeration, and often emphasize the impossible. What would be more impossible than blowing up the entire school with little firecrackers?"
"Are you nuts, ugly?" said Armpit Arnold. "You can't blow up this school with firecrackers, no matter how many you use."
"That's just the point!" said Miss Fairbanks, flinging her arms wide in a needless gesture of emphasis. Her eyes were still moist, but she felt renewed strength slowly coming back to her--the strength born of creativity. "Remember, comic strip characters aren't always very smart. Maybe they think one single firecracker would be enough."
"That's stupid!" grumbled Armpit Arnold.
"No it isn't, dimwit!" said scar face hotly. "Teach knows what she's doing. One firecracker, that's all."
An argument broke out which took five minutes to subside. In the end the class settled on one firecracker, even though many of them were still grumbling about it.
"So, what should be the words in our first box?" asked Miss Fairbanks, turning to the chalkboard.
"How about this," piped up the purple haired kid, making everyone cringe since his ideas were always so wild. "The octopus says to the dragon butterfly, "Here, stick this firecracker in your ear, and I'll reach in your other ear with a match and light it inside your head!" Several kids liked this idea, but were shouted down by the ones who pointed out that would just blow up his head, not the school.
"Probably that's too many words," said Miss Fairbanks. "Remember, we have little space and have to be very brief. We build our story in each box, so we should probably start off small."
"One of them could say to the other, 'Did you bring the firecracker?'" suggested a short boy on the front row with large owl glasses. It was the first time Miss Fairbanks had ever heard him speak. A new argument broke out about how this idea was too simple, like the simple brain of the guy who proposed it. But in the end, Miss Fairbanks wrote these words at the top of the first box.
"So the picture will show the two characters standing outside the school, and one of them speaking these words to the other," said Miss Fairbanks.
"I still don't see how a single firecracker is going to blow up the school," said Armpit Arnold grumpily.
"That's brilliant!" said Miss Fairbanks unexpectedly, causing everyone to stare at her curiously. "Those can be the words for our second box!" She started to write them on the board. "That creates a story where one of them has a secret plan and the other is as mystified as we are about how it can possibly work."
"But can it possibly work?" asked Armpit Arnold. "There's no way a single firecracker could blow up the whole school."
"Sure it could!" cut in the kid with purple hair. "If it had a little help."
"What kind of help?" asked the girl with ear tattoos.
"Maybe the firecracker is like the sparkplug in an engine. It just ignites a bunch of gas."
"The lunchroom!" yelled half a dozen voices at once. "It's always full of gas!" But Miss Fairbanks shook her head. "We don't want to offend the lunch ladies, remember?"
"Who said anything about lunch ladies?" asked scar face. "Have you ever walked between the tables when students at this school eat lunch? There's enough gas to launch a spaceship to the moon!"
"Well, I don't know," said Miss Fairbanks slowly. "Remember, comic strips have to appeal to a wide audience. Many people consider it indelicate and in bad taste to refer to unpleasant bodily functions, like the creation of gas. Can you think of something else?"
"How about the boy's locker room in the gym?" asked scar face. "There's enough fumes from unwashed clothes in the lockers to launch two space ships to the moon!"
Miss Fairbanks was still not sure, but the class voted her down. And so, the final version of their comic strip started with the octopus asking the dragon butterfly "Did you bring the firecracker?" In the second box he answered saying, "Yeah, but I don't see how a single firecracker will blow up the whole school." In the third box the octopus said "we just light it and toss it through that window into the boy's gym," followed by the final box in which the octopus followed up happily by saying, "the fumes from all the unwashed socks and shorts will ignite and do the rest!"
"Very well done," said Miss Fairbanks to the class after all the words were up. "A comic strip doesn't have to make people laugh out loud to be good. All it has to do is make people smile."
"That one doesn't make me smile," said Armpit Arnold grumpily. "I don't like it."
"Do you think you could do a better one on your own?" asked Miss Fairbanks.
"Yes!" said half the class at once.
"All right then," said Miss Fairbanks, grateful they had fallen into the trap of giving themselves an assignment. "For the rest of the class, see if you can do it. I'll give extra points to any that I think are as good or better than this one." There was a rustle of paper as her students started to work right away, determined to prove they could make a better one, regardless of any points. None of them seemed to realize they had been tricked into working for the third day in a row.
"But remember!" said Miss Fairbanks. "No profanity or indecency or sexual references. Let's keep it clean and fun, and not descend to weak mindedness."
"Who's going to draw the art in those boxes?" asked the kid with purple hair. "We can't just leave boxes with words and no pictures." Instantly there were a dozen volunteers to draw the art, and a new argument over who would get to do it. In the end, Miss Fairbanks chose four students, one for each box.
And so it was that when Principal Clyde stuck his head in Miss Fairbanks classroom five minutes later, he once more jealously saw that the s
tudents were busily working on papers, rather than screaming and acting insane like normal. Fortunately, he didn't look at the chalkboard or see the comic strip boxes, since one of the students had drawn the dragon butterfly to look a bit like him.
He motioned for Miss Fairbanks to come out to the hall. Once she got there he said, "I'm frankly surprised to see you here today, after what happened Friday. In fact, I wasn't sure I'd see you again at all!"
"Well," said Miss Fairbanks off handedly. "I had a job to do, so I knew I had to come in today."
Principal Clyde shook his head. "You must be crazy, Miss Fairbanks," he said bluntly. "No offense mind you, but most teachers in this school jump at any flimsy excuse to take a day off and get a break from these awful students. And you certainly had a good excuse after what happened on Friday!"
Miss Fairbanks just smiled up at him weakly. "It turns out these 'awful students' are just what I needed to help me get over what happened Friday. I'm glad I came."
Principal Clyde's jaw dropped, and he gawked at her for a minute, clearly clueless how the disgusting students in this school could possibly be helping her. Then he said, "Well, just so you know, Brent Llewelyn is in juvenile detention. Looks like he'll be there for quite awhile. When I called his dad and told him about it, he just laughed and said he was glad." Mr. Clyde shook his head. "With parents like that, no wonder the students in this school are such fruitcakes."
Miss Fairbanks face had taken on a distinct flash of color. Her strength truly had been restored! "That was his step-dad you talked to, and he's the one who caused the whole thing!" she said hotly. "He killed Brent's cat, which was all he cared about in the world!"
Principal Clyde looked at her as if a piece of broccoli had just sprouted out of her ear. "A cat?" he said dumbly. "That stupid kid brought a gun to school and scared the wits out of everyone and nearly killed people all because of a CAT!"
"That's right," said Miss Fairbanks, her chin quivering. "And he never would have used the gun. He was just feeling hurt and upset, and didn't know what to do." Principal Clyde looked at her as if she was obviously crazy. Then he turned and slowly walked away, shaking his head in disbelief.
As Miss Fairbanks walked back into the room a paper airplane floated past her head. "My comic strip," said Armpit Arnold triumphantly. "And it's a better one than that stupid thing on the board!"
Miss Fairbanks opened the paper airplane and looked at what Arnold had done. Once again there were four boxes. In the first one, the octopus asked the dragon butterfly, "Did you bring the firecracker to blow up the school?" to which the dragon butterfly answered, "Sort of." In the second box the octopus asked, "What do you mean 'sort of?' Do you have it or not?" to which the dragon butterfly vaguely answered "Well …" In the third panel the dragon butterfly said, "I was pretty hungry, and you know how I like crackers!" The fourth panel showed the octopus panicking while he said, "You didn't!" The dragon butterfly responded, "It tasted pretty good, but now I feel like I'm about to explode …"
Miss Fairbanks smiled. "See?" yelled Armpit Arnold triumphantly. "Made you smile! It's a good one!"
Miss Lydia Fairbanks and the Losers Club Page 9