A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room (10 page)

“Why are you hanging yourself this way? You can
teach, why not go with the flow? Just a little?”

Eyes on the hills, he smiled. “Hey now, better watch
yourself— that sounded suspiciously close to a compliment.” He blew
over his steaming tea. “I played the game, but I didn’t like it. I
did it because I had to—I had a family. Then one day I didn’t
anymore, so I just thought, why bother, you know?”

She scalded her tongue on her tea, set it roughly on
the desk behind her, sending it sloshing over the rim of the mug.
He was so frustrating. “You know this isn’t a game. Those letters
are for real. In two days, the board will terminate you.”

He cradled the cup in his hands, warming them,
answering in little more than a whisper. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? Maybe what? Don’t you get it? It doesn’t
matter how good you are, how dedicated, how right. You won’t get
another job, not in a classroom, not in this district, not
ever.”

Curious, he turned to look at her. “Does that matter?
to you, I mean?”

She felt an icicle stab her chest, but held his gaze,
looking him hard in the face. “It can’t—it can’t matter to me.” She
went back to her briefcase and fighting to keep her hands steady,
found a schedule. “And what about this? You’ve got Spanish,
Physical Science, History, Basic Math, PE, AP Lit, and
Geometry—that’s seven preps, and no prep period. And you’re always
on the move between rooms. What kind of schedule is that?”

“They thought they could get me to quit.” He shook
his head. “I’m still here. Oh, and here’s another letter for
you—there’s a faculty meeting today after school I’ll be missing.”
She slammed the notebook back in her case. “Why? It’s just a
faculty meeting. You’ve been to hundreds.” It didn’t make sense.
“Why make my job so easy?”

The bell rang and he shrugged. “You want to see why I
stopped going? All right, but you better bring your laptop. You’ll
need it.” Before she could ask him why, the room filled with noisy
tenth graders. They sat down under his watchful eye, and at the
bell began looking up the vocabulary words listed on the board.

One boy kept talking.

O’Connel asked him to get to work.

He kept it up.

Looking bored, O’Connel put a paper on the boy’s
desk. “Give me— ‘I’ll do my best every day’ twenty times quietly,
please. If you write quietly, it’s over.” As O’Connel turned away,
the boy flicked the paper off the desk with a nail, smiling over
his shoulder, proud of himself Several boys in the back were
enjoying the show while not yet willing themselves to be a part of
it. They wrote, but didn’t miss a thing.

O’Connel went back to the front lab table and wrote
out a referral.

Tearing off the pink copy, he placed the first three
carbonless sheets on the edge of the lab table.

“Goodbye, Mr. Dodson. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll
try it again.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, writing, now.

O’Connel sat down at his desk and went to work.
“That’s the problem, all right enough. Take that to the office,
please.” The boy made no move to leave, and someone in the back
tittered.

“Mr. Dodson, can you get to the office on your own,
or will you need my assistance leaving the room?” His voice was
very calm, very matter of fact as he continued marking a stack of
papers.

Writing had stopped. Pencils stood poised over
papers. Thirty students held their breath as eyes moved from
O’Connel to the boy, and back.

O’Connel stood. “I see you do.”

“I’m going!” The boy made a show of closing his
binder, slamming his book shut, crumpling the paper O’Connel had
given him.

“Tell Mr. Parnell that if he sends you back up here,
I’ll take you right back down to him myself. Have a good day, Mr.
Dodson.”

As he went out the door, he paused to look back.
“You’re a crappy teacher, nobody likes you.”

O’Connel went on marking papers. “You don’t have to
like me, Mr. Dodson. What you will do…” He looked up. “…is respect
me. See you tomorrow, now.”

The boy slammed the door shut behind him and the
class went back to work.

Solange released a breath. How long had she held it?
Her hands found the home keys on her keyboard, but were still. It
took something to stay that calm. She didn’t know if she could do
it. Hugh said he had kicked out a dozen kids from his classes
already. If this one was still here, what had the others been like?
What was happening that a boy should say that to a man like this
one? As a child she had worshipped teachers with a fraction of his
talent.

With the class, O’Connel went over a list of a dozen
questions, having them repeat in Spanish, repeating the same
sentence several times if the pronunciation was not just right.
Next, on their own, they translated the question and answered it in
Spanish. Solange was amazed at their response. It was as if he had
offered them a new puzzle to solve. Eagerly they began.

No one stared out windows, no one whispered. They
hadn’t the time. Watching O’Connel through narrowed eyes with
grudging admiration, Solange had to admit it—he had them. In his
maddening way, he was a pro.

“Okay, be prepared for a Spanish-speaking guest
tomorrow.

You’re going to interpret.” They groaned.

“That’s right, and it’ll be for eight points, so get
this vocabulary down cold, and be prepared to ask questions.” When
the room emptied, Solange got up to stretch.

He spoke over his shoulder as he wrote a formula on
the board.

“So how’s Doc?”

Noble’s faction would love to know how ill he was so
they could use it against him. “What do you mean, how is he?”

“I was just wondering how he was. I don’t know him
very well, he just seems like a nice guy to me. I know everybody
makes fun of him with his little black book, but I kind of like
him.”

She chewed the inside of her lip, wondering how much
to tell.

There was absolutely no reason to trust him, but for
some reason she did. “He’s not good, he worries too much about
everything. The job’s not good for him.”

“Why doesn’t he quit?”

“He’s a fool—he cares about the kids.”

“He doesn’t sound like a fool to me,” O’Connel
said.

Didn’t he get it? “He sent me here, you know that,
right?”

“Yeah, I know it. I figure he’s just doing his job,”
he said, dusting chalk from his hands, his eyes smiling. “Like
you.”

Stomach churning, she turned back to the window. He
was a bastard. A ceiling of dark cloud hung low over the tree line.
There would be no clearing today. For some reason she wanted to
tell him. She faced him. “If I can’t get enough documentation to
terminate you by Thursday, Mrs. Noble and her faction on the board
will force him out.”

He frowned. “Well, would that be so bad? I thought
you said his health—” A smile spread slowly across his face. “Ah,
now I see…he goes, you go, that it?”

She felt blood rise to her face. She had never before
been ashamed of what she did. She didn’t like the feeling.

“So,” he said, “It’s you or me.” His gaze made her
uncomfortable. She was relieved when the class began to fill
again.

When the class had quieted, he hunkered down at her
desk, mouth close to her ear. “I want you to watch her,” he said,
nodding at an obese girl in a striped pink and white blouse. “Her
name’s Sally. She’s an artist; watch her work, but don’t let her
know you’re watching.”

While the rest of the class had already begun
entering the experiments on the board in their journals, Sally
watched those around her. O’Connel smiled, and with only a gesture
asked her to begin.

Sally nodded rapidly as if to say she had the matter
well in hand.

With extreme care, she opened her binder. This done,
she proceeded to turn the pages of each section slowly, searching
for just the right page on which to begin her entry. When she found
a fresh piece of lined paper, she paused to inhale deeply.

She snapped open the rings and removed the sheet,
which she placed on the desk in front of her. The binder she closed
and put into the backpack at her feet.

Next came the pencil.

After a noisy search through the deepest recesses of
her pack, she came up with a brand new one. Extracting herself from
the desk, she waddled slowly to the sharpener, making several stops
on her way to check the progress of other students. Arriving at the
sharpener at last, she inserted her pencil and, in consideration of
those working, ground the handle with excruciating care. After what
seemed to Solange like minutes of meticulous grinding, she withdrew
the pencil, bringing it close to her small eye.

Nope, not quite right .

More muted grinding .

A second examination was no more successful, and the
process was repeated.

Mouth hanging open in disbelief— Solange looked
around the room in amazement. The class ignored Sally; they had
seen it all before.

On the third examination, the pencil, now barely half
its length, passed muster, and Sally returned to her seat. She
shook out heavy arms. This was it—now she would write. She got
comfortable in the seat. Her pencil, sharpened to perfection, hung
poised over the blank sheet. Electricity charged the air.

Solange found herself anxiously waiting for Sally to
go to work.

Surely she was ready now. Surely she would have to
begin.

Wait.

Something was not right.

Sally sat up, squinting down at the sheet of blank
paper. She cocked her head, looked again. No, it wouldn’t do. She
brought out her notebook, and again found the correct spot. She
opened the rings, and delicately replaced the unsullied sheet.
Yes—she would write in the binder after all. She slumped into a
comfortable writing position.

Now, she could get down to business.

She looked up at the board.

She frowned.

She squinted.

She pursed cherub lips.

She moved her head forward, back, side to side.

Another rummage through her pack yielded a case
containing a pair of glasses. These on, she once again regarded the
chalkboard.

Shaking her head dramatically, she took them off.

Incredulous, Solange watched as once again Sally
rustled in her pack, coming out with a tissue. A couple of noisy
exhalations on each lens, and she gave them a thorough rub down.
Sighing heavily, from the effort, Sally glanced up at the clock,
then settled back in her seat.

At last she was comfortable.

At last she was prepared.

Her pencil descended, coming ever nearer the surface
of the paper.

Solange gripped the edge of her desk, knuckles white.
Now! Now, at last she would do something! O’Connel glanced at the
clock, came to his feet. “Time’s up.

Pencils down, please. Have your periodic charts
out.

Sally’s mouth fell open wide in dismay. She was
crushed. After all her painstaking preparations, she would not,
after all, be able to copy down the experiments. Taking this
disappointment in stride, she sat up and earnestly began to search
her backpack for her chart.

Solange looked up, and O’Connel, meeting her eye,
came very close to smiling. He had expected this, she could tell.
Dear God, it went on like this every day? O’Connel came from behind
the lab table to sit on the corner of his desk. “Okay, we’ve been
talking about the elements, and today we have several gases to
test— oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, helium, neon, and a mixture of
acetylene and oxygen. Volunteers will test each for combustion and
explosion. First is nitrogen. Take a deep breath.” They breathed
with him.

“You’re breathing mostly nitrogen right now. Some
plants can take it out of the air and make their own fertilizer.
Legumes— beans, peas, locusts are all legumes. Beans are good for
you because they contain a high percentage of protein.”

“Is that why they give you gas?” It was Sally.

“They give you gas because you can’t digest them
completely, and what’s indigestible ferments in your colon.”

“You know how they say you should light a match?”
Sally said.

“Why do they say that?” The class was paying
attention, now. This was killing them.

“They say that because gas is part methane, like what
comes out of a gas stove, so it burns.”

“Is that why it stinks when you fart?” This sent them
into hysterics.

Solange hid her mouth behind her hand. This was the
first time she’d seen him with such a young group. He was taking it
pretty well, she thought.

“It smells because it came out of your bowel.” A
dozen hands went up, each with a story about methane, but O’Connel
waved them down. “Okay, guys, save your stories until after we get
done. If we have time, then, I’ll let you tell them. The first
person to tell me the mass of nitrogen will be our volunteer.” The
volunteer was given a pair of safety glasses and a long bamboo pole
to the end of which was secured a match. This was lit, and placed
under the balloon.

It collapsed with a dull pffft.

The experimenters were outraged and disappointed at
the lack of conflagration. O’Connel explained that nitrogen is not
flammable.

They were not appeased. With much groaning, they
dutifully wrote their conclusions.

Next was oxygen. He explained that oxygen was very
dangerous because it accelerated combustion, and that many horrible
fires had begun when oxygen was used in hospital rooms. He had the
first row move their desks back, and he ducked behind a cupboard.
The student with the pole, fearful, crouched low.

Solange squinted, not sure what to expect.

Pffft· They groaned.

It was no good.

It was boring.

“You fooled us!” Solange smiled at herself for
falling for his trick.

“Did I? Okay, remember, oxygen’s necessary for
combustion, but is not itself flammable.