Substitute

  I said, “Why on earth did the writer write this article? Why did she write it? Well, probably because she’s paid to write articles for schools. But it’s also that feeling of pressure inside you. You want to say something. She’d learned about stink bugs and wasps, and she thought, Wow, I want the world to know this.” I looked down the answers. “That is a toughie. All four of those are sort of true, but the question is what’s the truest one. I would look at (b) and (d). One is to give information about stink blobs, and one is to give information about stink bugs. Now ask yourself, in this piece, we had all kinds of commotion. We had a stink blob, but we had lots of other stuff about—”

  “Stink bugs,” said Ruth.

  “Stink bugs! So really the best answer is (d), to give information about stink bugs. One good clue you can use to find out is look towards the end of the piece. The end of the piece is usually going to talk about the main idea somehow.”

  “Shhh,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

  “Anyway, I think we’re getting ready for snack,” I said, “and thank you so much for your hard work.”

  “NO SNACKS UNTIL YOU CLEAR YOUR DESK,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Not stuffing your math paper in your desk, Stanley! You’re going to go over that later. Mr. Baker can choose quiet kids that are ready to get snack.”

  “I know you’re all going to be quiet,” I said.

  “FRONT ROW CAN GO,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Second row can go get their snack.”

  Reese brought up his portrait of his friend Eric. “He’s half wolf,” he said. “He’s human in the morning, but he turns into a wolf. And he has ears, because he’s also half anteater.”

  I took a bite of a sandwich. Spelling was coming up, and Mrs. Spaulding told me a class rule: “Try not to begin all your sentences with the letter I.” She also said that the guidance lady, Mrs. Crane, was out today, and wouldn’t be coming in after snack. Then she told Stanley to get a paper towel. “You’re spilling.” She said, “I’m like, is there a special password to get in that juice? OKAY, IN YOUR SEATS EATING, YOU KNOW THE RULES. Mr. Baker will let you know what’s happening. We have to be flexible.”

  “What’s happening is chewing, snacking, eating,” I said. “Munching, cheesing.”

  “He’s cheesing!” said Skylar.

  “I’m banana-ing!” said Donny.

  “Nice verb, I like that,” I said.

  Eric asked me how to draw a wolf. He wanted to keep up with Reese. I told him to use his memory. He drew a pair of scary eyes, and small ears. He made a soft howling sound as he drew.

  “Stanley, in your seat,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “We don’t wander around at snack, sit down. SIT DOWN WITH THE BEVERAGE. Shhh!” She came around my desk looking for a packet of sticky notes, then went right back to being bad cop. “Reese! In your seat for snack, you know that.”

  I asked Reese how many cheese crackers he’d eaten.

  “Three.”

  “Three down, three to go,” I said.

  “Well, three and a half,” said Reese, holding up the one he was smilingly eating.

  “Ooh, fractions,” I said.

  “Roo-ooh-ooh,” said Eric.

  I let a moment pass. “Okay, guys, finish up your snack,” I said.

  Immediately Mrs. Spaulding did the grade-school hexaclap. “I’M HEARING MR. BAKER SAY TO START TO CLEAN UP FROM SNACK. RIGHT NOW. MAKE SURE THE GARBAGE IS IN THE GARBAGE CONTAINER! DESKS NEED TO BE CLEANED OFF. Clean up from snack, Antoinette, let’s go. Don’t make me set a two-minute timer! Ten thirty-five, we transition! You need to finish those crackers, Emerson. I think during this next transition, Antoinette, Reese, and Dyann, and Patsy, you should be able to work on your DRAs, because this will be quiet learning. There shouldn’t be any talking during this assignment, unless up goes the hand. We’ve done this many times.”

  Micah was drawing a fluorescent barracuda. “Hey, good coloring!” I said.

  “GUYS, ALSO TAKE A LOOK AT WHO OWES RECESS TIME TODAY. We’re getting a list from Mrs. Hearn, from yesterday.”

  Wilson, the kid with slapped-cheek syndrome, went off to see Nurse Chris.

  “Amazingly efficient snack cleanup,” I said, when the time seemed ripe. “I was looking out over a devastation of cheese crackers and juice, and now it’s all gone. So, at ten thirty-five Mrs. Crane usually comes in and talks about feelings.”

  Mrs. Spaulding said, “He’s telling you! Save yourself a question and sit down.”

  “Mrs.—”

  “SITTING DOWN! EYES ON MR. BAKER.”

  I tried again. “Mrs. Crane talks about feelings and sometimes you role-play. Well, she has something else to do, and she can’t be here. So Mrs. Spaulding—”

  “SIT DOWN,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

  “Mrs. Spaulding and I have talked about it, and we’ve got a spelling worksheet. But since you’d normally be talking about feelings, when you look at these spelling words—round, ball, blue, held, dark, girl, instead, past, rode, either—when you write those words in a sentence, if you’re stumped, and you want to write a new and interesting sentence with the word, let’s say, dark, think about some kind of emotion. Think, I’ll write an angry sentence with the word dark. Or, I’ll write a funny sentence about the word dark. If you put some kind of feeling behind it, then you can write something interesting that sort of pops into your mind. If I said to you, Write a frightening sentence with the word ball in it, what would you come up with? Ball?”

  “There is a live ball in a haunted house,” said Scarlett.

  “Okay, immediately—”

  Mrs. Spaulding said, “I’ve got one!”

  “—you’re starting to think of this house,” I said. “You’re thinking of a strange, black, or maybe red, ball, hovering in the middle of a haunted house. All of a sudden, you’re thinking, Wow, I’ve never imagined that before. So think if you can mix an emotion with a word.” There was another hand up. “Mrs. Spaulding.”

  “I thought of like a ball of fire,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

  “A ball of fire,” I said.

  “Going across the prairie,” she said. “A ball of rope! A ball of yarn!”

  “And all they have to fight the ball of fire is one garden hose,” I said. “So here are some spelling words to put in a sentence. Have fun with it. Remember, the sentences can go in any direction you want, and—”

  “Mr. Baker,” said Mrs. Spaulding, “these kids are amazing writers and readers. But they still have to do their work. On the back take the words, only the words, and alphabetize them.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” I said.

  Mrs. Spaulding said, “Who knows what alphabetize means? All together. ABC ORDER. And kids, remember capitalization and punctuation. Super-creative sentences, folks. I don’t want all of them to start with I, either, please. And now we have to be super quiet, because we have three kids working on DRAs.”

  Emerson whisper-asked me how to spell around. I told him.

  “Finger spaces,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

  I whispered to Talia, “Finger spaces, what’s that? You put a finger between the words?”

  Talia nodded.

  “One or two of them can start with I,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

  Skylar said he wanted to use two spelling words in one sentence. I said to go for it. I told him how to spell kick.

  Paisley read me two sentences: “The boy went into the haunted house, and it was too dark, so he left. I went outside and I saw a ball with flames from a lightning strike.”

  “Very good,” I whispered. “Good job.”

  She took a deep breath and went on to her third sentence.

  Mrs. Spaulding came over. “I disappear in a little while to do lunch duty,” she said.

  “How sad,” I said.

  “I know,” she said, laughing.

  I went over to Cody, who had on a blue shi
rt. He wanted to write, “My shirt is blue,” and he needed to know how to spell shirt.

  Reese had used three spelling words in a single sentence: There is a round blue ball going past.

  “You are good,” I whispered.

  Mrs. Spaulding seemed not to want to leave. “Focus, everybody,” she said. “And underline your spelling words, too. Nice job, Nell.”

  I looked at the schedule. Mrs. Crane usually taught feelings from 10:35 to 11:15. It was only five of eleven. “Holy shit,” I whispered to myself.

  Donny raised his hand. “Does dawn mean ‘night’?”

  “Nice job, Stanley, I’m very impressed,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

  Glenn asked me, “Can I say ‘I rode my test’? No. ‘I rode my bike’?”

  Dyann had written, I held my sister’s baby. She whispered, “It’s going to be true. She’s having her baby soon, but I’m going to be holding him, so I just made up a sentence.” She’d written, Every body love’s round things. She said, “They’re usually addictive.”

  “I like round things,” I said. “I have one suggestion for you. Do you need that apostrophe? You might not need it. You might be home free without it.”

  Dyann had also written, I’m a girl, I think.

  “I think so, too,” I said.

  For past, she’d written, In the movie Frozen I like the part where she says the past is in the past.

  “Clark, turn around, that’s five extra minutes,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

  Micah had finished his sentences: The sky is blue. The sky is dark. I went around the ball. I held the car. I asked him how he was with alphabetizing.

  “I don’t like to do that,” he said.

  When almost everyone was done, I wrote past and passed on the board. “This is a word that gives people trouble—even grownups have trouble with this one. Past versus passed. They sound exactly the same. But if you say, I ran past the car and waved, it’s this one. If you say, I passed the car in the street, it’s this one. And that is a diabolical and villainous plan that English came up with to confuse us. But that’s the truth of it. If you said, ‘I drove past a moose on the road,’ which would it be?”

  “P-A-S-T,” said Talia.

  “Right. Now, if you said, ‘I passed a moose on the road,’ it’s going to be P-A-S-S-E-D, because the word is pass. I’m just throwing this out because it’s something you’re going to need to keep an eye on forever. I still make mistakes with it. Anyway, very good sentences, good alphabetizing.”

  “I have lunch duty now,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

  Kennedy started to talk.

  “QUESTIONS, YOU RAISE YOUR HANDS,” said Mrs. Spaulding. Then she left.

  I announced silent reading, and turned off the lights. Patsy was still working on her DRA. She’d been assigned to read a book about Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space. She was supposed to write down the most important thing she’d learned and she couldn’t think of what to say, having already written that Mae Jemison was the first African-American in space. What more did they want? “You could say something about how it’s important for all kinds of people to be able to succeed,” I said.

  After what seemed like an hour of throat-parching power-whispering, a buzzer buzzed ominously. “That means it’s five minutes until lunch,” said Antoinette. They had a half hour for lunch and then half an hour of recess, and I didn’t have recess duty.

  “Five minutes till lunch, everybody,” I said. “Start thinking about thinking about thinking about getting ready.” Shoes were changed, lunch boxes were distributed, and Paisley went off to get a light sweater. “Guys,” I said to Jake and Stanley, “can one of you take responsibility for not bouncing off the other?”

  Talia handed me a piece of paper that said QUIET. The class formed a line, I held up the QUIET paper, they obeyed, and we walked to the cafeteria.

  “You’re tall,” said Dyann.

  “Thank you, you’re tall, too.”

  I ate a sandwich and crumpled up my paper bag and played some music and let the hour of not talking pass slowly by. At twelve forty-five, the crowd was back from lunch and recess, flushed, knackered, and happy. “Mr. Baker, can we open a window?” said Skylar.

  “It was hot out there?”

  “It was like a microwave,” Skylar said.

  “Mr. Baker!” said Paisley. “Why was six afraid of seven?”

  “Because he might have gotten eight?”

  “No, seven eight nine!”

  Mrs. Spaulding had her eye on the clock and she began guiding us toward a state of preparedness. “Guess what, guys. Mrs. Hearn is on her way. You know what she wants. Clear desks. Time for literacy! Clean desks up! Desks clean!” She erased my stink bug and wasp drawings from the board.

  Reese held up a bag with something in it. “This is my share. Can I squeeze it in? I forgot it this morning. My mom brought it in.”

  I checked with Mrs. Spaulding. “How about after math?” she said. “Mrs. Hearn’s only here for twenty minutes. Don’t let me forget. Stanley, is this your whiteboard? Pick it up, please. Come on.”

  Aubrey showed me her bug bite. “I’ve had it for like thirteen days now.”

  “You know, kids, you’re doing a great job today,” Mrs. Spaulding said, when everyone was seated and the desks were clean.

  “That is true,” I said. “It’s been a pleasure to be in this class and to see what you’re up to.”

  “Marker up off the floor, please,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Patsy, did you finish your DRA, kiddo? Good, good, good. We read this book, Mr. Baker, yesterday, called Mr. Peabody’s Apples, written by Madonna. Did you kids like that book?”

  Yes.

  “Lot of messages in the book on using your words kindly towards people,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Kind of like what Madonna’s been through, because she’s so different, and vocal. It’s nice to be different. Emerson, stick the ruler in your desk. It’s a great book.”

  I said I’d always liked “Material Girl” and “Holiday.”

  “I love her music,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “It’s great workout music. It’ll be my pleasure not to put any names up to owe recess, but you know, we have rules that we follow. Hi, Mrs. Hearn!”

  Mrs. Hearn, the literacy specialist and guidance counselor, was a solid woman with turquoise beads and a reedy, carrying voice. “We’re going to reread the story to refresh our memories,” she said.

  “Mrs. Hearn, this is Mr. Baker. Guys, nice transition. Go up so you can hear the story, let’s go! Everybody, take a scoot forward! Everybody!”

  “All right, Mr. Peabody’s Apples, by Madonna,” Mrs. Hearn said. “Artwork is by Loren Long.”

  “She’s a great artist, Google her, ask your mom, she’ll know,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

  “Look at this beautiful artwork,” said Mrs. Hearn.

  “Shhhhhhh,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Have you got a baseball game tonight?” she asked a boy.

  “All right, you ready? Paisley, you ready? In the town of Happyville, which wasn’t a very big town, Mr. Peabody was congratulating his Little League team on a great game. They had not won, but no one really cared, because they had such a good time playing. Isn’t that how kickball is at recess? Who won doesn’t matter, as long as you had fun.”

  After the game, on his way home, Mr. Peabody waves at everyone in town and they wave back at him because everybody’s happy. Then, on the way past Mr. Funkadeli’s fruit market, he takes a shiny apple without paying. A suspicious onlooker named Tommy Tiddlebottom thinks Mr. Peabody has stolen the apple and he skateboards off to tell his friends. The same thing happens again the next Saturday, and the rumor of Mr. Peabody’s purported apple thievery spreads. Nobody but little Billy Little, Mr. Peabody’s biggest fan, shows up at the next Saturday’s Little League game. Billy Little tells Mr. Peabody that everyone thinks he’s an apple th
ief. Together they have a chat with Mr. Funkadeli, the fruit seller, where Billy learns that Mr. Peabody always prepays for his apples. Tommy Tiddlebottom, the rumor-spreader, is confronted with the truth and apologizes for his malfeasance. Mr. Peabody orders him to go home and get a pillow stuffed with feathers.

  “Now, yesterday,” said Mrs. Hearn to me, over the heads of the listening children, “they had to try to figure out why Mr. Peabody would want Tommy to get a pillow with feathers. And some of them were pretty close. Don’t raise your hand, Paisley! You already know!”

  “It was a lesson on predictions,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “They did a real good job.”

  “They had to predict why Mr. Peabody would want Tommy to bring his pillow to the baseball field,” said Mrs. Hearn. Emerson was twitchy. “Emerson, we’re going to be doing work on this. This is to help refresh your memory. An hour later, Tommy met Mr. Peabody on the pitcher’s mound.”

  Mr. Peabody marches Tommy up to the top of the bleachers and orders him to cut the pillow in half and let the feathers flutter out—thousands of feathers, all over the field. Then he tells Tommy to go pick up the feathers. Can’t do it, says Tommy. Ah, well, says Mr. Peabody, it’s just as hard to undo the damage you caused by spreading that rumor. Each feather is a person. Tommy reflects on the truth of this statement. “I guess I have a lot of work ahead of me,” he says.

  Mrs. Hearn said, “Why did Tommy say that: ‘I guess I have a lot of work ahead of me’? Why did he say that? Clark.”

  “Because he had a lot of things to do,” said Clark.

  Mrs. Hearn went on toward the end of the story. “‘Indeed you do,’ said Mr. Peabody. ‘Next time, don’t be so quick to judge a person. And remember the power of your words.’ Remember when we did Donovan’s Word Jar? One word made people feel happy or sad.”

  “Reese, pay attention, please, hon,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

  “Then he handed Tommy the shiny red apple and made his way home. He handed him the apple to show him what, Marc?”

  “Um, forgivingness,” said Marc.