My father—who was not fat and old yet, but who could probably imagine himself that way—started to get a little louder. Not a good sign. "You might as well go work for that Martin Luther King."
"Maybe I will. He and Bobby Kennedy are the only ones who care that this country is about to explode."
"He's a Communist."
"Oh, there's deep political analysis. He's leading a demonstration for striking sanitation workers, so he must be a Communist."
"Now you've got it," said my father. "You start work Monday afternoon."
I think you can figure out how the rest of that conversation went, and how my mother and I didn't say much, and how we never did make it to dessert, and why it was a healthy thing for me to be running over the weekend.
Even though I hadn't done a thing.
Still, I was glad that Bobby Kennedy was running for president. It was hard every night hearing President Johnson and all of his generals with medals spread over their chests say how well the war was going and how the enemy was about to give up, and then having CBS News cut to pictures of soldiers who were wading through rice paddies and holding their rifles high above the water, or who were carrying out a buddy whose face was covered with dried blood, or who were huddled in holes and covering their heads as the mortars came over in Khesanh. After that, you just wanted someone to say the plain truth, and maybe Bobby Kennedy would be that someone.
I was glad he was running for president.
And so maybe, after all, I had done something to make my father mad. Just not out loud.
At Gym on Monday, Coach Quatrini had us run three miles, all at tempo. Let me tell you, after running for two miles and hearing "Can't you go any faster, you dang wimpy slug?" in your ears for most of it, you start to wonder if life is worth living. You still have four more times around the track, and the sky is turning darker, and the air is thinner, and you can't feel the ends of your fingers, and your legs are rock heavy, and there's something hurting deep down in your guts—probably your liver is about to explode—but that doesn't matter so much because your lungs are drying out, and that hurts so much that nothing else can get your attention.
"It'll be five miles on Friday," said Coach Quatrini when we were finished.
Five miles on the ides of March!
On Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Baker asked how my cross-country preparation was going.
"Death, a necessary end," I said, "will come when it will come."
Mrs. Baker smiled. "Do you think that death is coming for you on the cross-country course, Mr. Hoodhood?"
"You know what happened to Julius Caesar on the ides of March?" I said. "Cross-country tryouts will make that look like Opening Day at Yankee Stadium."
"It's because you run so straight up," she said.
"Because I run so straight up?"
"And tight. You run so tight. I've watched you. It looks as if you're digging your fingernails into your palms."
Which is exactly what I always did.
"Are you saying I could run better?"
She put down her copy of Julius Caesar. From her lower desk drawer she took out a pair of bright white sneakers and put them on. "Caesar shall go forth," she said.
"Where?" I asked.
"Out to the track."
"The two of us?"
"Are you embarrassed that I might be faster than you?" she asked.
"I'm not really worried about that, Mrs. Baker," I said.
"Perhaps you should be," she said. "Look what happened to Julius Caesar when he underestimated those around him."
So we went out to the track, with Mrs. Baker wearing bright white sneakers.
Really.
"Let's start with your stance," she said. "Let's lean you forward a little bit, so that you can always be moving into the next stride, instead of holding yourself back on each stride. Lean this way."
I did.
"Run fifty paces and come back."
I did.
"Again."
I did.
"At tempo," she said.
I did.
"That's fine. One could only wish that you took as easily to diagramming sentences. Now, your arm position, and then your head position, and then we'll get to breathing patterns."
By the end of the afternoon, Mrs. Baker had remade the way that I ran. "I look like a jerk," I said. "If Romeo was a runner, he would run like this."
"What you look like," she said, "is Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics running like that."
So, figuring that you can't argue with four gold medals, that night I ran like Jesse Owens through the dark March streets. Leaning forward. Arms and legs like pistons. Head straight and still. Hands loose. Breathing controlled.
And then I ran like Jesse Owens in Gym on Thursday, and came in before Danny. And in front of a whole lot of eighth graders. And I heard only one "Faster, you wimp!" Just one.
Running like Jesse Owens really worked!
So that afternoon, at the very end of the day, after everyone else had left, I went up to Mrs. Baker's desk.
"A big day for us both tomorrow," said Mrs. Baker.
"The ides of March," I said.
"Let's hope we both emerge unscathed." Which, in case you missed it, was the teacher strategy again to make me look up the word "unscathed."
"Mrs. Baker," I said, "you helped a lot with my running."
"Thank you, Mr. Hoodhood."
"So I thought I would try to pay you back."
"Pay me back."
"Yes. To help you get ready for tomorrow, when the school board comes."
"You want to coach me in teaching, Mr. Hoodhood?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever been a seventh-grade English teacher?"
"No, but you've never been a track runner."
Mrs. Baker raised a single eyebrow. "So what do you suggest, coach?"
"No teacher jokes," I said. "No one ever laughs at teacher jokes."
"All right.... No teacher jokes."
"And no folding your arms like this." I folded my arms across my chest. "It makes it look like you're about to shoot us if we don't do what you say."
"That is the point," said Mrs. Baker.
"And no rolling your eyes, even if someone says something really stupid."
"I never roll my eyes," said Mrs. Baker.
I looked at her.
"All right," she said. "No rolling my eyes. Anything else, coach?"
"When someone does something good, I think you should let them know, with some sort of code."
"I think you mean that when someone does something well—as in obeying the rules of proper diction—we should use a code. What do you suggest?"
"Well, maybe 'Azalea' for something good, and 'Chrysanthemum' for something really good."
"Thank you, Mr. Hoodhood. We'll dispense with the code, and I'll simply use the unvarnished English language to tell you when you've done something well. But as to teacher jokes, folding of arms, and rolling of eyes, I'll consider your advice."
I nodded.
"And, coach, one more thing before you leave," said Mrs. Baker. She reached into her lower desk drawer again and pulled out a wooden box. "Open it," she said.
I did. Inside was a round silver disk on a velvet dark red ribbon. "XVIth Olympiad—Melbourne—1956," it said.
Mrs. Baker leaned back in her chair. "It was for the women's four-by-one hundred relay. Don't look so surprised. You didn't think I'd spent my whole life behind this desk, did you?"
And I suddenly realized that, well, I guess I had. Weren't all teachers born behind their desks, fully grown, with a red pen in their hand and ready to grade?
"Go home now, Mr. Hoodhood," said Mrs. Baker. "And tomorrow, run like Jesse Owens."
The ides of March dawned on Friday with a green and brown sky, the color of the water in a dying pond. All morning, the sky hung low, and sometimes the green and brown clouds would roll up and rumble a bit, and then settle back down like a layer of unhappiness over everything
.
We all talked in whispers, and we waited for something to happen up in heaven.
Or maybe up in the asbestos ceiling tiles.
And since waiting gets boring really quickly, I decided that in the pause between nonrestrictive clauses and weak verb systems, I would tell Danny about the scene where Julius Caesar gets stabbed—which is a lot better than the scene where Juliet gets stabbed—and act it out with appropriate sound effects—which I do pretty well, since I have some experience acting out Shakespeare onstage, as you might remember.
I don't know if it was because of the green and brown sky or because of her cold or because of something else, but Mrs. Baker came over like Brutus himself to do Julius Caesar in.
"Mr. Hoodhood," she said, "I have not taught you the plays of William Shakespeare for the last five months for you to demean them by acting as though they were all about people stabbing each other."
I thought that was unfair.
"But they are," I said. "They do it all the time. Macbeth kills Duncan, Macduff kills Macbeth, Brutus kills Julius Caesar, then Brutus kills himself, like when Juliet kills herself after Romeo kills himself, but not before Romeo kills Tybalt—"
"And is that all you've learned from Shakespeare?"
I thought that was unfair, too.
Mrs. Baker held out her hand. "Give me the book," she said.
I opened up my desk.
"Shakespeare is all about the power of goodness and honesty and faithfulness," she said. "It is about the abundance of love. It is about the weakness of armies and battles and guns and..." She stopped. Her mouth worked back and forth. "It is about the endurance of love," she whispered. "Give me the book."
I handed it to her—at the same moment that the classroom door opened and Mr. Guareschi walked in, accompanied by Mr. Bradbrook and two other members of the school board.
"Mrs. Baker," said Mr. Guareschi.
Mrs. Baker looked at him. Both of our hands were still on Shakespeare.
"Mrs. Baker, you know Mr. Bradbrook, of course, the chairman of the school board. And Mr. Smilzo. And you know Mrs. Sidman, who has just returned from Connecticut and been appointed to our school board."
Mrs. Baker nodded to each one. "How good to have you back, Mrs. Sidman," she said.
Mrs. Sidman smiled. Her eyes darted around a little bit, like she was expecting something awful to happen but didn't want to show that she was expecting it.
"Mrs. Baker is one of our very finest teachers," said Mr. Guareschi.
"She will have a chance to show that to be true," said Mr. Bradbrook. He pointed to the book that Mrs. Baker and I were still holding. "What are you giving to that young mind?" he asked.
Mrs. Baker looked at me, then back at Mr. Bradbrook. "This is a volume of Shakespeare's plays," she said a little weakly. She let go of the book.
Mr. Bradbrook came over to my desk and peered at the book. Then he took it from me and weighed it in his hands. He looked at the gilt edges, and fingered the red ribbon tied at the spine. "This seems like an awfully expensive volume for our schools to be purchasing," he said.
"It is my own copy," said Mrs. Baker.
Mr. Bradbrook was relieved. He looked down at me. "Young man, do you think you'll enjoy reading the Master's plays?"
"I already do," I said.
"When I was a boy your age," said Mr. Bradbrook, "I would memorize long passages and recite them whenever I was called upon to do so. When you read the Master's lines, perhaps you, too, will be moved to memorize some. Perhaps one day you may even enact some."
"I already have," I said.
"Or perhaps Mrs. Baker will assign selected lines to you. Do you think that you might enjoy learning a line or two?" He patted the top of my head. Really. He reached out and patted the top of my head.
Danny Hupfer nearly fell out of his chair.
"He has already memorized quite a bit," said Mrs. Baker.
"Has he?" said Mr. Bradbrook. He seemed sort of surprised. "Well, let's hear some from the boy."
Mrs. Baker looked down at me. I couldn't really tell what was in her eyes. I thought at first that there might be a death threat, but either I'm getting used to them or that wasn't what was there.
"Holling Hood, do you know any lines or not?" That was from Mr. Guareschi.
And I almost said, "You block, you stone, you worse than senseless thing" to him. But whatever it was in Mrs. Baker's eyes, it told me that that might not be the right thing to say.
Probably a Caliban curse wouldn't work, either.
So I tried something else.
"This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world,'This was a man.'"
Meryl Lee clapped.
Even Doug Swieteck clapped.
I looked at Mrs. Baker's eyes.
"Azalea," she said quietly.
"What was all that about?" said Mr. Bradbrook.
"The power of goodness and honesty and faithfulness," said Mrs. Baker. "Now, if Mr. Guareschi will show you your seats, the class will work through the day's lesson." She went up to the board.
"This is the sentence you'll be diagramming," she said to us all, and wrote it out:
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
Then she turned to us. "Who can identify the implied verb?" she asked.
For the next hour, we did pretty well by Mrs. Baker. We answered everything she threw at us, and even Doug Swieteck helped out. (He answered the implied-verb question.) And Mrs. Baker did her part, too. There were no teacher jokes. She never crossed her arms. And when Doug Swieteck, who I guess thought he was in the rhythm after he got the implied-verb question right, called Alfred, Lord Tennyson—and you have to admit, it is a bizarre name—Alfred, Lord Tennis, Mrs. Baker did not roll her eyes. Not even a little.
It was an hour of pretty spectacular stuff. Let me tell you, we could have been America's Model Classroom of 1968. Mrs. Baker was so pleased that she even let me act out the stabbing scene from Julius Caesar after all—probably because she had forgotten all about the soothsayer business, which she shouldn't have, since when I got to the "Et tu, Bruté? Then fall, Caesar!" part, an asbestos ceiling tile over Mrs. Sidman's head that wasn't even bulging suddenly gave way, and it wasn't Julius Caesar who fell. It was Sycorax and Caliban who plummeted onto Mrs. Sidman's lap.
I think that she was the only one in the classroom who did not scream—and I'm including Mr. Bradbrook and Mr. Guareschi in that. We all crashed over chairs and tables and desks to the sides of the classroom, so that Mrs. Sidman was left completely alone, at her student desk, with two huge rats in her lap, who were shaking their heads and trying to get some idea of what had just happened to them.
Then they pulled up their snouts and clacked their yellow teeth.
Okay, so I panicked, too. After living with the bulging ceiling tiles for all this time, we had gotten to believe they would never come down. But now we were face to face with huge, scabby, yellow-toothed, angry rats, looking at us with eyes reddened with anger. And all we could think about was putting distance between us and them. And I want to point out, for the record, that it was members of the school board who were up on Mrs. Baker's desk first. Just about everyone else climbed the bookshelves and window shelf and radiators after throwing aside anything that got in our way.
Except for two people.
One was Mai Thi, who took off one of her shoes and stood beside her desk, ready to swing at anything that had yellow teeth. She looked as fierce as all get-out.
And the other was Mrs. Sidman, who I guess had determined that nothing more was going to happen to her at Camillo Junior High School without her say-so.
She grabbed the rats by the back of their necks—which was not easy, since they were so fat—pulled them off her lap, and hoisted them into the air. Their paws scrambled, their mouths hissed, their yellow teeth clicked, but Mrs. Sidman didn't care. She stood and held them up, like Macduff holding Macbeth's head.
By now, the screams—which had been increasing in volume—had brought Mr. Vendleri.
"Where do you want them?" asked the triumphant Mrs. Sidman.
"I've got a cage in the basement," he said.
"Lead the way," said Mrs. Sidman.
And he went ahead of her, closing all of the classroom doors as he went. But I wish that everyone in Camillo Junior High could have seen her, the noblest school board member of them all, Mrs. Sidman with her vanquished enemies still squirming in her hands, marching to the basement to dispatch them.
While the school board members went to have an emergency meeting in Mr. Guareschi's office, we tried to put Mrs. Baker's classroom back together, since absolutely all of the desks had been knocked over. It took us most of the day to get everything right. Someone—I think it was Mr. Bradbrook—had knocked the globe of the world off Mrs. Baker's desk, and there was now a deep valley where the Himalaya Mountains had once been. The red Thorndike dictionaries were going to need some help; most of their covers had come off when we stepped onto them to climb higher up the bookshelves. And at least two of our desks were gone for good, since all of their legs had splayed out.
Julius Caesar's army wouldn't have left such a mess after crossing the Rubicon.
That afternoon, Coach Quatrini held his cross-country tryouts. By then, the story of Sycorax and Caliban was all over school, and so we figured that tryouts might be delayed. And it might be that some coaches somewhere would delay a tryout on an afternoon when some of the tryoutees have just been traumatized by two gigantic rats falling out of their classroom ceiling. But Coach Quatrini thought it would give us motivation.
"The Big M," he said. "Motivation. You won't run fast unless you really want to run fast, and really wanting to run fast is what gives you Motivation. The Big M."
He had set out a course for us that stretched to someplace beyond human endurance. We were supposed to start at the gym doors and go around the parking lot (where Sycorax and Caliban were hissing in their cage, waiting for the exterminator to come put them in his truck), past the fence that enclosed the tennis courts, out onto Lee Avenue, down past Goldman's Best Bakery, around in front of the school by the main lobby, behind the elementary school wing, and so back to the gym doors.