Soil (6 page)

8

In town the next morning, Sandy Mize arrived late to her first-period English class. She swept in with the tardy bell and was startled, even a bit flattered, when her students met her with whistles and catcalls. She'd made herself late trying to look her best for a lunch appointment later that day. Her hair was in glamour curls, and she wore a new white tie-neck blouse and blue skirt with dramatic folds, a playful zigzag hem. She'd even put on heels and adorned herself with dangly earrings and scented lotion.

Passing before her thirty-odd seventh graders, she detected the tingle of their urchin eyes on her body, a hint of ridicule in their applause. She set an armload of newspapers on her desk and turned to stare into their primate ranks. Hormones and expectations filled the room like noxious gas. Snickers and whispers rebounded off the cinder-block walls. A desk leg screeched and someone snorted up a throatful of mucus.

Today is a new day
, she reminded herself. Last night, rock-bottom in a vanquished tub of powdered donuts, she vowed to correct all the miscalculations that had brought her here, so many blind corners gone from where she needed to be. No longer would she simply let life happen to her. She would struggle back to normal and then advance toward the excellence she'd forsaken somewhere during the past year.

The spell was broken by a kid in the corner scooting his hand across the desktop, drawing a farting squelch from the laminate. The noise earned an equal clamor of praise and rebuke from his classmates.

“That's enough now, everyone settle down,” she demanded.

“Miz Mize, why you look so nice today?” cried a girl up front, Balivia.

“I said
everyone
quiet!” She actually shouted at them and rapped the desk with the flat of her hand, surprising even herself. “Now take out your journals, please.”

There followed a general murmur of disapproval. They probably thought she was a bitch for refusing the compliment, but Balivia's loud graceless pleasantries were insidious and had to be routed straightaway. To apologize or confess gratitude would show weakness. They were animals who would just as easily turn on her as seek favor.

The intercom crackled to life with morning announcements. A rotating cast of students and faculty read dispassionately of club meetings, upcoming sports events, birthday listings, and a prayer disguised as “daily reflection.” The students listened halfheartedly, their restlessness creating a kind of vibration in the room.

Last year had been effortless. She'd shared a profound rapport with her students. Some of them still stopped by to visit and called out to her in the hallway. She'd been recognized as Most Outstanding First-Year Educator at awards day last spring, and some predicted she would achieve Teacher of the Year in three to five. But now, six weeks into the new year, she hadn't synced with these kids. They were still battling for trust that should have been won weeks ago. She knew it was her fault. When life was good, you were happy to share inspiration, but after the sudden disintegration of her marriage and the new squalid conditions she'd made for her young son, she simply hadn't been able to muster the will. It was like climbing a mountain each day with no prospect of reaching the summit.

But she'd revised her outlook. According to her father, it wasn't the peak she needed to appreciate but the climb.

By order of the intercom, the students rose and directed their attention to a limp dusty flag propped in the corner. She observed them, hands on hearts, awkward and fidgety as they droned through the Pledge of Allegiance, and then collapsed back into their seats, looking around to each other for validation or else down at their desks, striving for anonymity. She'd devised
an assignment that might engage them, get them talking to each other and thinking for themselves. She gathered the armful of newspapers and walked up and down the rows passing out pages from the Sunday
New York Times
.

“There's a big world outside of Madrid, and I want to know what you think of it,” she told them. “Just pick a story from your section and write about it in your journal. Whatever comes into your head.”

Balivia rattled her paper, staring bewildered. “What's this word, Miz Mize?”

Sandy peered over her shoulder and recoiled.

“Drought?” she replied.

“Drought?”

“Yes.” She worried Balivia wouldn't be able to comprehend the article if she couldn't read the headline. How did these kids pass from grade to grade without such rudimentary knowledge? She looked around and noticed similar confusion on the faces of other students.

“Just do your best here, push yourself,” she said. “The only way to fail is by not participating.”

The district discouraged teachers from touching students, so Sandy patted Balivia's desk. The wiry unkempt girl looked up, one eye bulgier than the other, and bared a baffled, candy-stained smile. Sandy winked in return. She thought the girl didn't mean to make trouble, only yearned for some validation that no one else in her life had cared to offer.

Sandy took a seat at her desk and watched them trying to make sense of the words. One of the girls in the back resembled Lila Jenkins, her best friend in junior high. She thought back to all those weekends she'd stayed over at the Jenkins house. Lila's divorced mother, Sissy, would come in from work like a hurricane, always on her way somewhere else. She'd have Lila mix her a drink while she ran from closet to clothes pile, cursing at someone on the cordless phone, burning their frozen pizza in the oven. Later, as the girls pretended to sleep, came the laughter and strange male whispers, followed by horribly adult moaning and creaking, gasps and slaps, the shouting and sobbing and slamming of doors—things a child shouldn't hear. They'd
only wanted to play dress-up and be left alone with their sleeping bags and corn chips and R-rated horror movies, but Sissy kept exposing them to this futility of adulthood.

Now, twenty years later, Sandy had recently squirmed through one date herself. She'd wanted to prove that she could make it on her own without Jay. It was nothing more than a brief, awkward dinner, but it felt like a betrayal—against her estranged husband, sure, but mostly against her son, Jacob. If she was going to truly be single and wanted more than simple conversation with an adult, how could she ever bring a man like that back to their cramped apartment? What if Jacob were sitting up at night, listening to their groping and fleeting lust behind the bedroom wall? What kind of hatred would she be sowing inside of him? Already, at the age of six, he was facing life at a deficit. She shuddered to think what kind of man he might turn into, having witnessed his father unraveling.

Just then, out of the corner of her eye, Sandy caught her mentor and savior, Mrs. Puckett, walking past in the hallway. She jumped up to catch her and told her students, “Everyone quiet, let's pretend we have manners.”

She scampered into the hall on precarious heels. “Mrs. Puckett!” Sandy called.

Mrs. Puckett turned and smiled. The tall, elder teacher was dressed in bland attire, an embroidered sweater and long denim skirt. They met halfway between their rooms. “My, don't you look stylish today,” Mrs. Puckett said, brushing a hand against the fabric of Sandy's blouse. She detected something else in Mrs. Puckett's remark, just under the surface—
It's a bit much for school, don't you think?

“Thanks,” said Sandy. “I like your sweater.”

Mrs. Puckett accepted the fib politely.

“Can I ask a favor?” said Sandy.

“What is it, hon?”

“I have to make a delivery at lunch today, during my open fourth period. I was wondering if you would mind looking in on my fifth-period class in case I'm a few minutes late?”

Mrs. Puckett tightened her lips and considered the request. “You know, Principal Reynolds is on the warpath about leaving kids unattended.”

Sandy hadn't expected resistance. “I suppose you're right,” she replied. “I just didn't want to go through the ordeal of calling in a substitute for five minutes.”

“You know I wouldn't mind. I just don't want it to reflect poorly on
you
if something goes wrong. Turn your back for a minute and these kids will be at each other's throats.”

That was a rather pessimistic generalization for Mrs. Puckett. Sandy smiled in the awkward silence and considered her options. She had to take her father to the doctor at 3:30, otherwise she could have run her errand after school. Regardless, this was an appointment she couldn't put off any longer. It was the first order of her new action campaign.

“Oh, but aren't you lucky?” Mrs. Puckett said at last. “I nearly forgot, there's an assembly after lunch. Tell you what, I'll keep my eyes on your bunch in the auditorium. You'll still need to get back as quick as you can, before the program ends. I'd hate for anybody to worry something has happened to you.”

“Without a doubt,” said Sandy, relieved. “Thank you, Mrs. Puckett.”

“You're welcome, my dear.”

There was an edge to her voice, a growing distrust. Last year Mrs. Puckett had been Sandy's greatest advocate, but there was no denying she'd cooled toward her this semester. And she wasn't the only one. Maybe this was how some women were treated after leaving a husband. Another teacher had warned her, after Sandy won first-year honors, “They'll be gunning for you now.”

She returned to her classroom, and sure enough there was a commotion in progress. Sitting in the front row, red-faced and humiliated, Myla Robbins straightened her white blouse while Scotty Dawson behind her gave himself away with a sneer.

“What's going on?” she demanded. “Scotty? Myla?”

The girl tucked her head. “He was trying to turn my shirt around backwards.”

“You did what, Scotty?” Sandy marched over to confront him.

“Ms. Mize, that wasn't none of me!”

“It was too! That boy done lied!” cried Balivia.

“Ms. Mize!” Scotty pleaded.

“Scotty, out of my room!” The class drew in a breath.

He feigned shock. “Ms. Mize, what'd I do?”

“I don't accept that.”

A knock at the door drew everyone's attention. The gaunt rat face of Principal Reynolds hung there.

“Just the man we wanted to see!” cried Sandy.

The principal's beady gray eyes betrayed no emotion. He dodged his authority by stating flatly, “Ms. Mize, this police officer is here to see you.”

Her first thought, always, was for Jacob. A montage of tragedies cycled through her imagination. The classroom broke out in scandalized whispers.

She swished into the hallway, where she was surprised and then relieved and finally mortified to see, leaning cool against a row of lockers, the deputy Danny Shoals. He wore a tight blue T-shirt with the words “Clean Living” rippling across his hard chest and abdomen. He shot a glance back at Reynolds's hunched silhouette slinking away and then straightened to attention. “My Lord, girl, you look pretty today. Didn't nobody tell you smoking aint allowed in school?”

She felt his eyes moving hungrily over her. He was the aggressively friendly deputy with whom she had shared the awkward dinner date some two weeks prior. Since then he'd turned up so frequently she feared he might be stalking her.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded in a whisper.

“I was invited to give an assembly about the dangers of drugs.” He laughed like it was a joke between them. “Anyway, I thought I'd stop by and give you and your class a free preview.”

“I don't think so, Danny, I'm—”

“Oh, come on, I want you to see how these kids react to me. You'll love this.”

He walked around her and entered the classroom, clapped his boisterous
hands and launched straight into his spiel. “All right, listen up! I'm Deputy Dan. You can call me County Dan, Doctor Shoals, whatever. I've been asked to give you this warning—there's a killer on the loose, in this very school. He's roaming the halls looking for his next victim.”

Sandy cringed in the doorway, watching her students as their eyes went wide with terror. Some clutched their book bags, ready to run. They'd all been dreading the day when one of their peers brought Daddy's gun to school and made everyone pay for his teenage humiliation.

“All of y'all have heard about this killer. His name . . . is drugs.”

The class breathed a sigh of relief, all murmurs and smiles. The deputy had them, and there was nothing Sandy could say to derail this.

“I know your friends will tell you it's cool, but believe me, I've seen plenty of dope pushers laid up in the jailhouse, and every one of em are exactly the same. Ugly, stupid, teeth falling out. Drugs make you do terrible things, like hurt people and steal stuff. And that's when guys like me step in. And let me tell you, buddy, I spare no punishment for drug pushers.”

The deputy made tiger strides back and forth in front of the kids. They were all a little frightened of him and plenty interested too.

“I remember one old butter-toothed junkie, took a mess of drugs and beat up his own mama. We threw him in the holding cell and later that evening I caught him drinking out of the toilet like a dog! Look here, you don't understand . . . we don't hardly ever clean them bowls. Can you imagine doing something like that? Drugs will make you do it. Even things ten times worse.”

The kids rocked in their seats and whispered to each other, their mouths open in wonder. This was real life, not some incomprehensible newspaper.

“We found him dead the next morning,” Shoals said soberly. “Pooped his pants and drowned in his own throw-up.”

He paused amid cautious laughter to let that image linger. Sandy wanted to escort him from the room, but then he might direct his wayward commentary on her.

“The killer had struck again.”

The kids were all suitably impressed and shocked into silence, all but
Balivia, who cried out, “Deputy Dan, you need to arrest that boy right there.” She stood up and pointed to Scotty in the corner. “He been acting mannish. Stretched that little girl's shirt right there.”