close with her? More than just two people who attended the same school?”
“We—” And suddenly the urgency and the anguish disappeared and he grinned at me as he gathered up his books. “So I smoke,” he said loudly. “So what? I don’t do it inside school, and it’s a free country out here. So I’ll live a year less. Big deal, thanks for the lecture, but I’m not askin’ you to pay my health insurance, Miss Pepper.”
“What on earth are you talk—” Then I got it. “Some day you’ll be sorry, Woody,” I said, also in an overloud voice. “Young people think they’re invincible, but when you’re wheezing with a respirator—”
I am amazed at how easily I can slip into the role of obnoxious, meddling elder. Like those dolls that have two heads. Turn them upside down, invert their long skirt, and you have somebody all new. My change of costume came complete with a script and a sound tape of one meaningless prefabricated admonition after another.
Woody was just as good a quick-change artist. I watched him pull on his Hostileman cloak, face mask, and dialogue. He didn’t even need a phone booth for his quick-change.
It was a convincing exchange. His buddies slapped him on the back, looked at me with a bare minimum of grudging deference, then ignored me. “Gotta light?” Tony asked him just as the school bell—purposely loud enough to be heard across the street where we were—rang.
“Sure,” Woody said, and they moved toward the school with all due sluggishness, lighting up and dragging deeply.
As I passed the dawdlers I shook my head at their smoke screen. Woody made no sign. Woody, who thought April was dead and that he was to blame for it.
Woody, who’d just passed some sort of test with his friends. If only I knew what it was.
*
Once inside the building, I thought I heard another bell, or a warning siren. But it was Flora Jones, shrieking.
Flora, the elegant and unflappable, outside her classroom, splattered with viscous brown globs that leaked down her cream pantsuit jacket as she screamed. “Whoever did this! This is the absolute—”
A crowd of returning students and faculty formed around her. “Flora,” I said, “what happened?”
She turned in my direction. Dark goo dripped onto her forehead from her hair. “I quit ! This does it—I can’t take any more of this. My civil rights are—”
“What is that gross stuff on her?” a girl behind me asked.
“Dirt!” Flora screamed. “Dirt all over my room—dirt in my files and wet dirt smeared on the boards. Dirt on my computers! Dirt in a bucket over the door so that when I walked in— look at it in there! Go look at it!” A dozen students accepted the invitation, as did I, for a second.
There were dribbles and splats and small mounds of wet earth everywhere, smeared on the chalkboard, clogging the computer keys. The look of the room and its purpose felt lost, and for the first time I understood what the word defaced really meant.
“It says mud on the board. M-U-D! Do you know what that means?” Flora’s hands were shaking up to the elbows, the veins in her neck looked ready to pop, and tears filmed her eyes. I put my arms around her shoulders, trying to avoid as much mud as I could as I steered her away from her room, hoping we could make it to the nurse’s office, to any place with a couch, better still, with sedatives. I almost asked the gathered students if they had any spare downers.
“Don’t tell me it’ll be all right,” she said as we walked. “It won’t. It hasn’t been. I’m quitting, that’s what. I don’t know how I’ll afford grad school—won’t go, then, that’s what. Because I’m not coming back to this—this is—nobody should have to—intolerable! My computers ! My files ! I was at lunch ! The one day I go outside—it happens here — in a school !”
We approached the wide marble staircase to the first floor. “I hereby quit !” she announced to gape-mouthed students coming
“We—” And suddenly the urgency and the anguish disappeared and he grinned at me as he gathered up his books. “So I smoke,” he said loudly. “So what? I don’t do it inside school, and it’s a free country out here. So I’ll live a year less. Big deal, thanks for the lecture, but I’m not askin’ you to pay my health insurance, Miss Pepper.”
“What on earth are you talk—” Then I got it. “Some day you’ll be sorry, Woody,” I said, also in an overloud voice. “Young people think they’re invincible, but when you’re wheezing with a respirator—”
I am amazed at how easily I can slip into the role of obnoxious, meddling elder. Like those dolls that have two heads. Turn them upside down, invert their long skirt, and you have somebody all new. My change of costume came complete with a script and a sound tape of one meaningless prefabricated admonition after another.
Woody was just as good a quick-change artist. I watched him pull on his Hostileman cloak, face mask, and dialogue. He didn’t even need a phone booth for his quick-change.
It was a convincing exchange. His buddies slapped him on the back, looked at me with a bare minimum of grudging deference, then ignored me. “Gotta light?” Tony asked him just as the school bell—purposely loud enough to be heard across the street where we were—rang.
“Sure,” Woody said, and they moved toward the school with all due sluggishness, lighting up and dragging deeply.
As I passed the dawdlers I shook my head at their smoke screen. Woody made no sign. Woody, who thought April was dead and that he was to blame for it.
Woody, who’d just passed some sort of test with his friends. If only I knew what it was.
*
Once inside the building, I thought I heard another bell, or a warning siren. But it was Flora Jones, shrieking.
Flora, the elegant and unflappable, outside her classroom, splattered with viscous brown globs that leaked down her cream pantsuit jacket as she screamed. “Whoever did this! This is the absolute—”
A crowd of returning students and faculty formed around her. “Flora,” I said, “what happened?”
She turned in my direction. Dark goo dripped onto her forehead from her hair. “I quit ! This does it—I can’t take any more of this. My civil rights are—”
“What is that gross stuff on her?” a girl behind me asked.
“Dirt!” Flora screamed. “Dirt all over my room—dirt in my files and wet dirt smeared on the boards. Dirt on my computers! Dirt in a bucket over the door so that when I walked in— look at it in there! Go look at it!” A dozen students accepted the invitation, as did I, for a second.
There were dribbles and splats and small mounds of wet earth everywhere, smeared on the chalkboard, clogging the computer keys. The look of the room and its purpose felt lost, and for the first time I understood what the word defaced really meant.
“It says mud on the board. M-U-D! Do you know what that means?” Flora’s hands were shaking up to the elbows, the veins in her neck looked ready to pop, and tears filmed her eyes. I put my arms around her shoulders, trying to avoid as much mud as I could as I steered her away from her room, hoping we could make it to the nurse’s office, to any place with a couch, better still, with sedatives. I almost asked the gathered students if they had any spare downers.
“Don’t tell me it’ll be all right,” she said as we walked. “It won’t. It hasn’t been. I’m quitting, that’s what. I don’t know how I’ll afford grad school—won’t go, then, that’s what. Because I’m not coming back to this—this is—nobody should have to—intolerable! My computers ! My files ! I was at lunch ! The one day I go outside—it happens here — in a school !”
We approached the wide marble staircase to the first floor. “I hereby quit !” she announced to gape-mouthed students coming
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