“Sure it will,” I said. I saw kids hurrying to class. “We’d better get to homeroom before we’re late.”
“Homeroom?” Mallory repeated vaguely.
“Yes, you remember homeroom,” I said with a smile. “The first class of every school day.”
Mallory laughed nervously. “Oh, yeah, homeroom.” She wandered off in the direction of her homeroom.
Wow! I thought. I’ve never seen such a bad case of nerves.
When it came time to teach my gym class, I felt pretty calm. Why be nervous? This was something I could handle.
I arrived at the locker room early, since I didn’t think it was very teacherly to change with the students. I didn’t put on my regular gym outfit either. The gym teachers didn’t wear the same T-shirt and shorts we wore, so why should I?
I wore plaid pleated shorts and a white short-sleeve polo shirt. Over the weekend I’d woven a blue-and-white lanyard and attached a whistle to it. I wore it around my neck like the other gym teachers did. I’d even gone over my sneakers with some white shoe polish so that they’d be super-white, like Ms. Walden’s sneakers.
I glanced at myself in the mirror and was pleased with my appearance. I looked exactly like … a gym teacher. Perfect.
The seventh-grade girls began entering the locker room. A few of them looked familiar. Some peered at me curiously. One girl asked, “Are you the TOT teacher?”
“Yes, that’s me,” I said. “We’re going to have a great class.”
She rolled her eyes and several girls giggled.
“You’ll see,” I assured her. “This will be the best gym class you ever had.”
“Yeah, sure.” She turned toward her locker.
I wasn’t going to let some some snippy seventh-grader rattle me. I went to the phys. ed. office in the locker room and took out the boom box the teachers use whenever music is needed. Since I was now, technically, part of the phys. ed. staff, I didn’t think I needed permission.
Holding the box with one hand and twirling my whistle with the other, I walked out the locker room door and into the gym, where I met Cary. He was slumped against the wall, his arms folded.
“Oh, hello, Kristin,” he said, pushing away from the wall. (He knows very well that everyone calls me Kristy.) “You’re just the person I wanted to see.”
“Hello, Cary,” I replied. “Why did you want to see me?”
I put the boom box near an outlet and kept walking, thinking it was best to make him follow me. You know — to set the tone for the rest of class.
He fell into step just behind me as I headed for the middle of the gym. “After our friendly phone call yesterday, I got the idea that maybe you might not want to work with me. That maybe you don’t even like me.”
His observation shocked me. I didn’t realize I’d been so obvious. It was probably better to smooth things over right away. I did have to work with the guy, after all. “Oh, I wouldn’t say —”
“I don’t want to work with you either.”
The out-and-out insult took me by surprise. I stopped walking and whirled toward him. “Fine,” I snapped. “Let’s go tell Ms. Walden and Mr. De Young that we won’t be working together.”
“Fine,” he agreed with a smug smile, as if this were all very humorous. “Let’s do that.”
I charged over to the gym teachers, who were standing at the other end of the gym. I had the annoying sense that Cary was mimicking my walk. From the corner of my eye I saw him taking long steps and swinging his arms in an exaggerated way. Any time I stopped short and turned sharply to him he stopped and smirked infuriatingly at me.
I tried to ignore him and continued on to the teachers. “Ms. Walden,” I began, “Cary would rather not work with me and that is completely okay.”
Mr. De Young stared hard at Cary. “Is that so, Retlin?”
“Yeah, I don’t think it would work,” Cary replied.
“It wouldn’t,” I agreed. “So we’ll keep our classes separate.”
“No,” Ms. Walden said. “Mr. De Young and I work together on this unit, and that’s how we want it taught.”
“This is our class, isn’t it?” I objected. “We’re the teachers.”
“But it’s going to be taught jointly.” Ms. Walden’s tone made it plain that there was no room for further discussion. “Teachers, your class is assembled,” she said, nodding toward the students behind us.
I turned and saw that the students had gathered in the gym. They ambled around, talking and joking with one another.
“You’re stuck with me, Kristin,” Cary commented.
Ignoring him, I headed toward the students. A blast of my whistle brought them to attention. “Hello, everyone. I’ll be teaching your class today.”
“We’ll be teaching the class,” Cary corrected me.
“A girl? Teaching boys’ gym?” a boy called out.
“Don’t freak,” Cary told him. “I’m your teacher. Girls, you can freak out because you’re now under the control of hammer-fisted Kristin, the Soccer Queen.”
I glared at him. Then I smiled warmly at the girls. “Hi, everybody,” I said. “Today we’ll be playing soccer. But first, our warm-up.”
Ms. Walden started all her classes with a military-style workout, complete with jumping jacks and squat thrusts. Everyone hated it.
“I’ve put together a new warm-up routine,” I told them. “You’ll find it way more fun than what you usually do.”
As I spoke, I moved toward the boom box. I took the tape I was going to play from my shorts pocket, Hits from the 70s. Mom had let me borrow it. “Everybody, just do what I do. Follow me,” I instructed.
When I clicked the tape on, a funky, upbeat song called “Joy to the World!” blared from the speakers. I began clapping over my head while I kicked out one foot, then the other. It was a move I’d seen over the weekend on an exercise show.
Everyone stood there, staring at me as if I were out of my mind. “Come on!” I encouraged them. “Clap!”
“Yes, kiddies, clap your little hands,” Cary said. With a ridiculous expression on his face he clapped and bounced in a circle. Some kids found this hysterical and followed his example. The others stood with arms folded, looking peeved.
I blasted my whistle. “Be serious!” I cried. “Do what I’m doing.” I began my next move, a light jog done while touching my hands to my shoulders and then stretching my arms out. A few girls began to jog along with me. “That’s it!” I encouraged them. “Keep those arms up high.”
The girls in front of me were cooperating so well that I didn’t notice what was happening on the other side of the class. But in a minute, I couldn’t miss it.
Cary had started a conga line that snaked around the gym. The kids kicked their feet out and flung their arms in total discord, whacking one another, tripping, and falling into each other.
I looked at Mr. De Young and Ms. Walden, certain that they’d call a stop to this. They just stood there, watching. They were leaving the class up to me.
I blew my whistle. “Stop!” I shouted with as much lung power as I could.
But the conga line kept right on dancing.
At lunch that day I sat with my head cradled in my hands. “It was a nightmare,” I told my friends. “And when we went outside for the actual soccer game, it got even worse. Cary picked up the ball and ran around the field with it. The kids began chasing him.”
“That’s awful. What did you do?” Stacey asked.
“I blew my whistle and blew and blew until they finally paid attention. Then I made them all do jumping jacks, just to bring them under control.”
Abby gazed at me doubtfully. “And they actually listened to you?”
“Well, I had help. Mr. De Young came out just then and finally he stepped in. He told the class to do what I said or they’d do nothing but jumping jacks for the rest of the year.”
“Boy, I bet they hated you for that,” Abby said.
I scowled at her. “They did not. I think a
lot of the kids were glad that someone was bringing some sanity back into the class. What bugs me is that I know I could have done a good job if Cary hadn’t been there. The warm-up would have gone well if he hadn’t started that dumb conga line. And I could have taught soccer, too, if he hadn’t started running with the ball.”
“You’re going to have to have a serious talk with him before the next class,” Mary Anne said.
“Tell me about it,” I muttered. “I’ve already made one suggestion that he agreed with. Next class, he’s going to coach one team and I’ll coach the other.”
“That’s brilliant,” Claudia said. “That way it will seem like you’re teaching together, but you’ll really be rivals.”
“Exactly. I hope we annihilate his team,” I added.
“Kristy, you need to lighten up,” Abby said. “I think you’re taking this too seriously.”
“You weren’t there,” I snapped. “You weren’t completely undercut by a total jerk.”
“That’s true. Still … it isn’t like this is your real job. It’s just, you know, school.”
“I want to show Ms. Walden how she can improve the class, and thanks to Cary Retlin I can’t get anything done. I don’t think it’s funny.”
“Don’t worry. Ms. Walden will know what you had in mind when she reads your lesson plan,” Mary Anne said.
“I didn’t do one,” I mumbled.
“You didn’t?” Mary Anne looked shocked. “My social studies class today went really well. But without the lesson plan to check, I wouldn’t have been half as organized.”
“Gym is different,” I said. And in fact, Ms. Walden hadn’t asked for the plan, so I assumed she agreed with me and didn’t think much of lesson plans for gym.
* * *
I had English class right after lunch. I knew it would be taught by Mallory, and I figured she was a jumble of jangled nerves by now.
Mary Anne and I walked to class together. “Keep your fingers crossed for Mal,” I said to her.
“I’m not worried. She’s as prepared as can be.”
I thought about that and felt a twinge of guilt. Should I have been more prepared? No. Who could possibly have been prepared for Cary Retlin? No matter what kind of carefully detailed lesson plan I’d written down, he’d have thrown it off track.
We arrived at the door of our English classroom and found Mallory waiting there. “Hi,” I said. She wriggled her fingers at me. Her face was pale.
“Aren’t you going inside?” Mary Anne asked her.
She nodded but made no move. “When?” I asked.
“N-n-now.” She didn’t budge.
“Listen, Mallory,” I said, “you know me, and you know Mary Anne. Teach the class as if you were speaking to us. Just focus on us, at least until you relax a little.”
Mrs. Simon came to the door and smiled. “We’re ready to start,” she said. Mary Anne and I nudged Mallory into the classroom. She hovered by the door while we took our seats. “Class,” Mrs. Simon began, “today’s student teacher is Mallory Pike. She’s going to talk to you about a poem called ‘The Jumblies’ by Edward Lear. I’m sure you’ll all give her your attention and cooperation. Go ahead, Mallory.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Simon,” Mallory said as she moved to the middle of the room. I was pleased to hear her voice come out more forcefully than it had in the hall.
“I’m going to pass out copies of the poem for each of you,” she told the class. “Please take one and pass the rest to the person behind you.” She stepped up to Lily Karp, who sits in the first seat of the first row by the door. As she reached out to hand the stack to Lily, the papers tumbled from her hands and fell to the floor. This brought on a few giggles from the class. When Mallory bent to pick up the papers, another stack slid from her other hand.
That — combined with Mallory’s horrified expression — caused a lot of laughter.
Mallory grabbed up the papers, but now they were a mess. “Those papers have got a bad case of ‘The Jumblies’!” Pete Black called out. He’s a pretty good guy and didn’t mean any harm by it, but Mallory blushed a deep red.
I jumped up, took the papers from her, and began handing them out. “How cute,” Cokie whispered as she took her sheet. “Helping your little buddy.” I ignored her.
“As you can see,” Mallory began once I sat down again, “ ‘The Jumblies’ is a long poem. But Edward Lear is really most famous for —”
“For inventing the Lear jet!” a boy named Lane Reynolds shouted out.
At first Mallory looked surprised. Then she smiled. “No. That would have been impossible because Edward Lear was born in eighteen-twelve.” She turned toward the board to write this down. I could see her hand shaking. I suppose the whole class could see it.
She turned back toward us. “He was best known for the limerick, which is a short, humorous verse form consisting of five lines. The first, second, and fifth lines rhyme, as do the third and fourth.” She’d obviously memorized this and her voice had a stiff, robotic rhythm to it.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed Alan Gray wadding up a spitball. An unwrapped straw lay on his desk. I cleared my throat loudly in his direction. He glanced at me and I gave him a Look — my most deadly glare, which I reserve for times when I really want to get a point across. He got my message and held up his hand in a silent surrender sign.
I turned my attention back to Mallory and saw she was once again writing on the board. Her hands still trembled terribly as she wrote down an example of a limerick.
There was an old man who supposed
That the street door was partially closed;
But some very large rats
Ate his coats and his hats
She didn’t finish the limerick because the chalk cracked with a loud snap and went flying across the classroom. “Duck!” Alan shouted, which everyone did.
“Sorry about that,” Mallory said.
“What a spaz!” Cokie whispered loudly to Grace Blume.
“Spaz Girl, Spaz Girl,” Grace chanted softly, giggling. Several kids looked at Mallory and laughed.
Mallory was well aware of them. She was mortified.
Mrs. Simon stood and clapped her hands sharply for silence. “There’s more chalk on the right-hand side,” she told Mallory.
“Don’t give her another missile to attack us with!” cried Shane Miller. “We’re too young to die!”
“She’s armed! Look out!” Parker Harris added.
“Class!” Mrs. Simon snapped. “Be quiet and listen. I’m going to give you a quiz on this and I’ll expect you to know this information.”
I realized Mallory was staring hard at Mary Anne and me. She was trying to pretend we were the only two students in the room. I shot her a smile and a thumbs-up, but she didn’t smile back.
“The Jumblies” is a fun poem about this group of nutty people who set out to sea in a sieve. But despite the poem, Mallory looked and sounded as if she were about to burst into tears.
Her obvious misery inspired some kids to take pity on her and ask thoughtful questions. It brought out the worst in other kids, though. They asked dumb questions and Mal knew they were goofing on her.
While she was trying to finish up the poem, I noticed a paper being passed around. It was causing a lot of laughter and I didn’t want to think about what was on it. Before too long it was passed to me. Unfortunately, this is what it said:
A Limerick
There was a Spaz Girl named Mallory
She taught, but not for salary
Her joy was to aim
Deadly chalk and maim
Her students, like ducks in a shooting gallery
Each line was written in a different handwriting. It had been a joint effort among five people — five morons. I crumpled the note and crammed it into my jeans pocket.
After what seemed like the longest forty-five minutes of my life (and of Mallory’s life too, I’m sure) class finally ended.
“Thank you, Mallory,” Mrs. S
imon said. “That was very interesting.”
Mallory nodded but couldn’t even manage a smile. She just walked out of the classroom.
Mary Anne and I hurried after her. When we caught up with her, tears were pooled in her eyes, ready to splash over. “It wasn’t that bad,” Mary Anne said, which was a fib, of course, but for a good cause.
“It was,” Mallory insisted in a choked voice.
“Hey, my class was a disaster too,” I told her. “Maybe all first classes bomb.”
Mallory took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. “Do you think so?”
“Sure,” I said. At least, I hoped so. Even though my class had been bad, hers had been much worse. Anger welled up inside me. You’d think a bunch of eighth-graders would give a break to a poor kid who was two years younger than they were.
About six or seven kids from Mrs. Simon’s class came down the hall. Cokie and Grace were among them. A boy’s voice loudly whispered “Spaz Girl!” as they passed.
Mal turned an even deeper red than she had in the classroom.
I wanted to murder whoever had said it, but I had no idea who it was.
After school that day, Mallory was supposed to baby-sit at her house along with Stacey. But since Mal was desperate to speak to Mrs. Simon about the class she’d taught, Jessi agreed to replace her. (Jordan was sick in bed, so an extra sitter was needed.)
Jessi and Stacey arrived at the Pikes’ and found Vanessa assembling her students. “Everyone on the couch,” she commanded.
Margo ran behind Stacey. “Save me from her,” she pleaded in an urgent whisper. “She hasn’t stopped since last Thursday when Claudia was here. She really thinks she’s a teacher.”
Mrs. Pike entered the room and sized up the situation. “Margo, you don’t have to play school with Vanessa if you don’t want to,” she said as she took her jacket from the front hall.
“She makes me, Mom,” Margo replied. “She follows me all over the house until I agree to be her student.”
“Vanessa,” Mrs. Pike called into the living room.
Vanessa looked at her mother and then turned back to Nicky and Claire, who were sitting on the couch like obedient students. “Excuse me, class,” she said to them. “I have to have a word with the principal. I’ll return in a moment.”