Snow Globes and Hand Grenades (18 page)

Mimi was home sick. She got a chill Saturday night and by Sunday night had a runny nose, cough, and low-grade fever. Although she was feeling better by Monday morning, when her mom told her to stay home and rest, she was relieved. The pressure of the past week had left her exhausted. She lay on her back listening to the birds outside and a passing train and dozed off smiling at the thought of Miss Kleinschmidt noticing her crackers missing.

“Well, it's the last week,” Miss Kleinschmidt told the class, “but that doesn't mean we're going to get lazy or coast. Who can name the planets?”

Several hands went up. Miss Kleinschmidt looked around. She noticed Tony's hand was not up.

“Mister Vivamano,” she said turning toward him, “stand up.”

Tony got up.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Mister Vivamano, I believe you and I have had this discussion before about the importance of knowing more than just that you are alive on planet Earth when you go to … where is it?”

“St. Aloysius.”

“That's right. I forgot. But a proper freshman at St. Aloysius should know his planets. Don't you agree?”

“I guess so, ma'am,” Tony said softly.

“You guess so? Can you name the planets for us this morning?”

Tony rubbed his face with his hands. “Maybe.”

Patrick watched. Everyone watched, hoping that Tony could do it. If he could, Miss Kleinschmidt might go easy on the whole class, maybe for the rest of the day. Nine planets hanging in space, somewhere beyond the school roof, had to be named in the correct order, or else she would explode.

“Stand up straight,” she told him.

He threw back his shoulders and held his hands in together in front like he was going to communion.

“We're waiting,” she said.

Tony closed his eyes to imagine the center of the sun, which he remembered was twenty-seven million degrees hot. Moving away from the sun's core into space he began to see the planets lined up as best he could.

His lips parted. “The first one, closest to the sun is Mercury.”

“That's easy enough, go on.”

“The second one is Venus.”

“I know you know the next one, it's your favorite.”

“Earth.”

Miss Kleinschmidt waited, knowing Tony would falter next and name the moon. She was poised to lash out at him for being a failure in planetary science. But Tony surprised everyone.

“Mars.”

The students began to wriggle in their desks, moving their lips silently to name the next planet, hoping Tony knew too.

“Jupiter.”

The class erupted in cheers.

“Silence! This isn't a hockey game,” Miss Kleinschmidt said scowling at the class. Everyone put their hands down and she turned back to Tony. “Don't stop. If you really know your planets, don't name them in dribs and drabs, rattle them off!”

“Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.”

The room was silent. Miss Kleinschmidt was disappointed, but also proud of herself that she had finally taught Tony to learn the facts. “OK, OK, you can sit down now, Mister Vivamano. Don't stand their gloating over something everyone with any sense knows. You got it right this time. Now, let's all get out our science books and I want you to review the Milky Way for the final test.”

Tony sat down and everyone shot him approving glances. They got out their science books, knowing it was going to be a quiet morning, because Tony had robbed Miss Kleinschmidt of her chance to get mad. She sat down at her desk and opened her desk drawer to have a cracker.

They were gone.

“Who took them?” she said.

Everyone looked up.

Miss Kleinschmidt reviewed her movements of the morning to visualize when the desk had been unguarded—and who was in the room and who wasn't. She looked at Tony and Patrick, but remembered they had only arrived after the bell when she was at her desk. She looked for Mimi, but her desk was empty. She throttled back her chair and stood up.

“I want to know who took them! Who took them?”

Sarah Jebbs, a girl who never did anything wrong, raised her hand.

“Was it you?” Miss Kleinschmidt thundered.

“Why, no, I mean, I was only raising my hand to ask what somebody took.”

“So, you don't know?” She paced back and forth studying faces. “Nobody knows? You expect me to think that something like this could just happen, after what already happened with the snow globe? Well, we'll just see about this.” She pointed at Patrick and shouted. “You! Mr. Cantwell, go downstairs right now and ask Sister Helen, Detective Kurtz, and Father Ernst to come up here right away.”

Patrick leaped up. “Yes, ma'am. What should I tell them?”

“Tell them it's an emergency.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He ran out the door and down the stairs.

“And the rest of you, empty out your desks. I want the complete contents of your desks on your desktops right now.”

Everyone obeyed. Textbooks thudded on desktops, followed by notebooks and scraps of paper. No one knew what it was about—no one except Tony. A slight smirk crossed his face and Miss Kleinschmidt spotted it.

“Vivamano!” she yelled, pointing a boney finger at his face, “What makes you so happy?”

“Me? I'm just happy I know the planets.”

Miss Kleinschmidt hurried back to Patrick's desk, emptying it out herself. His book on Dillinger came out last and she threw it on the floor. Then she hurried toward the back of the room, keeping one eye on the students, while she peeked in the cloakroom. It was such a warm day no one brought coats to hide the crackers in. Hurrying to solve the case, she went over to the bookcase, flinging books on the floor to see if the crackers were hidden behind them. She started calling out the title of books as she threw them.

“
Moby Dick, Treasure Island, How to Win Friends and Influence People
…”

The principal and Detective Kurtz and Father Ernst ran in followed by Patrick. They all stopped by the door and saw Miss Kleinschmidt panting by a pile of books on the floor.

“Good Lord, Miss Kleinschmidt, are you all right?” Sister Helen asked.

Nodding yes, and holding her index finger in the air, Miss Kleinschmidt caught her breath and hurried over to her desk.

“What is it?” the principal asked. “Is there a medical emergency?”

Miss Kleinschmidt shook her head no. Sister Helen, Father Ernst, and Detective Kurtz all looked at each other wondering what was wrong.

“It's this!” she said pulling out her empty desk drawer and holding it up for all to see. “They've stolen my crackers.”

All the students looked at the principal and the investigators to see what they would do.

“They've stolen your crackers?” the principal repeated, hoping she had heard it wrong.

Miss Kleinschmidt nodded, still a little winded. “That's right. I bought a full box just the other day. It must've happened this morning. I told them to empty out their desks for the search.” Her eyes were wide open like a fisherman with a big one the line. “Now, if you'll help with the search—” She started coughing badly and made a dramatic gulp to get the phlegm back down.

“You need some water. Come with me,” Sister Helen said.

Miss Kleinschmidt started hacking up even more mucus and followed the principal out the door. Father Ernst walked behind the children along the back of the room. He could see their desktops stacked with books and empty compartments below their seats. “Children, what do we know about this?”

They all turned around shaking their heads and saying “nothing.”

Father Ernst looked at Detective Kurtz. Kurtz walked up to Miss Kleinschmidt's desk and sat behind it. All the kids looked at him. He opened the middle drawer, full of pens and pencils and charts. Closing that, he opened the bottom right drawer and saw the box of crackers. He looked up at Father Ernst. Then he pulled out the Saltine Jumbo Size box and put it on Miss Kleinschmidt's desk.

He looked around the room to see who looked guilty. Tony and Patrick looked away when his eyes met theirs. Their guilt could be related to the
snow globe or the crackers, or both. He didn't know. He noticed Mimi's desk was empty.

Detective Kurtz got up and walked out of the room without saying anything. That was the scary part for Patrick and Tony. What was Kurtz thinking? Father Ernst followed him out and shut the door. All the kids started laughing and talking. Patrick and Tony didn't tell anyone what they knew. It was the best morning they had ever had in eighth grade. They only wished Mimi had been there to enjoy it. She was probably at home picturing the whole thing unfold just the way she planned it. That Mimi was a genius. She was probably laughing her guts out having a great time.

Mimi was home alone vomiting into the toilet.

MIMI WAS PREGNANT. Or so she feared. How could this be? She had only had sex once—without planning to—but she knew that was all it took. It had been Easter break when the ground on the golf course was still warm at night and Skip had told her he loved her. They were kissing and grabbing and rolling in the grass and just kept going. That stupid, damned Skip, that stupid, damned golf course, that stupid, damned thing, love. For Mimi, it was a one-time sin she was willing to forgive him for, and avoid again, because she had loved him, too. She had loved him enough to try to switch high schools and be with him. Now, after vomiting, she had puked out every last chunk and morsel of feeling she once had for Skip. She flushed the toilet.

Mimi took off her clothes to take a shower and turned to look at herself in the mirror. Her breasts looked bigger than the day before. She held them in her hands for size and winced. It was the tenderness that sent her running naked across the hall to her room to find the
Seventeen
magazine on the floor, the issue with the article about pregnancy that she had read once and cast aside.

She picked up the magazine, sat on her bed, and read the whole article again.

“Maybe it's just a cold,” she said aloud.

Then she read the list of symptoms again and cried.

She hid the magazine under her bed and got under the covers and put a pillow over her head against the sunlight. Sleep came, but it was a jittery sleep. She wished she had never met Skip, never dreamed of going to public school with him. She wished she were like all the other kids, graduating in a few days with nothing but a carefree summer ahead. She wished the hand grenade had worked.

THE REST OF THE MORNING was tense. First the principal came in and told the class in her soft, authoritative voice that they should all pray for Miss Kleinschmidt, and be nice to her and make the rest of the school year go smoothly, because she was “under a tremendous strain”. No one felt moved to pray for her. She had only gotten what she deserved after months of cruelty. Then the principal ordered the students to put away all their textbooks, and pick up the ones on the floor to put back in the bookcase. After the classroom was tidy, she left, and Miss Kleinschmidt returned.

“Class, I have something to tell you,” she said limping up to her desk.

She sat down and apologized for getting mad. She said that teachers give up their whole lives to help children become adults and she only got mad because she cared so much about their future. Nobody believed that, but she seemed to believe it. After a few more stories about her walking to school in the snow as a girl and studying hard to get ahead, she looked at the clock and told them they could all go outside and have an extra recess today, because the school year was almost over.

“Thanks, Miss Kleinschmidt,” Sarah Jibbs said.

She smiled at Sarah and at a few other students who also seemed appreciative. Tony was heading toward the door when he heard her call her name.

“Mister Vivamano?”

He stopped and turned around. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Go see Father Ernst and Detective Kurtz. I understand they have something for you.”

Tony looked at Patrick, who raised his eyebrows to say he didn't know what that could be.

“Yes, ma'am,” Tony said.

THE MOST FUN Tony and Patrick ever had was the night they slept out in a tent in Tony's backyard with their fishing poles and tackle boxes ready by their bikes to go fishing before sunup at Holy Footsteps Academy. The pond at Holy Footsteps was renowned for catfish as big as footballs, along with leagues of bluegill, frogs, and snapping turtles. It was late in the summer before fifth grade. Tony's family had just moved into the parish, and when he met Patrick, they liked each other right away. They had met on the altar boy's serving team, but hadn't been fired yet.

“Time to get up,” Tony said.

A little before five o'clock in the morning, they rose out of the tent, put on their tennis shoes, ate beef jerky, and drank ice water from an army canteen. They rode their bikes to the pond—the same pond where later they would wait when Mimi sneaked into Holy Footsteps. Only this time, it was just the two of them, and the water was stirring with promise of dawn. They baited their hooks and cast out with a plop. Catfish and blue gill were biting. Cars went by on the road, the cars of parents who had to go to work, even though it was summer. Some looked over at the boys wishing they were young.