Something to Hold (7 page)

The station wagon peels out of the parking lot in a big hurry and screeches around the corner up toward the highway.
Good riddance,
Báshtan.

When I enter the kitchen, supper preparations are in full swing. Mom puts down the hamburger spatula and takes the sack. She looks inside, counts the change, and then looks at me.

"How much was the milk?" she asks.

I knew it.
But I say only, "I bought a pomegranate."

Another quick glance back into the bag. "Where is it?"

For what feels like the first time in forever, I give her a big smile. "At the girls' dorm," I say, and go wash up.

M
R.
Nute plows down the aisle, handing out single-edge razor blades. Franklin follows him with squares of cardboard. On our desks, thin sheets of newspaper,
The Madras Pioneer,
are spread out under Dixie cups of tempera paint.

The social studies manual lies open on Mr. Nute's desk. Holding that fat book up in front of his face, he showed us the page with "Art of the Amazon" in big letters, after reading to us that Amazon tribesmen wore masks and little else. Mr. Nute says we understand a people through their art. He read that in there too.

Mr. Nute lays a blade on the newspaper that covers my desk.

"Be careful," he says out over my head. "Keep something under your work at all times. If you cut the desk, you'll be in big trouble."

Next to me, Pinky tilts her head. "What are we s'posed to do?"

I shrug. I don't want to draw Mr. Nute's attention. He has been stern with me ever since our conversation about Jewel.

I pick up the blade, careful to keep my fingers on the safe edge. I've never used a razor blade in art—or anywhere else, for that matter. This could be a
really
bad idea.

Mr. Nute picks up the teacher's manual and reads aloud, "Cut a diamond shape out of the cardboard. Make it big enough to cover your face."

The instant Mr. Nute starts talking, we start cutting. The cardboard is thick. The blades make a loud tearing sound as they work through it, drowning him out.

All of a sudden, Orin lets out a piercing shriek. All heads snap up. Mr. Nute drops the book and sprints over to Orin's desk.

Orin's head thrashes back and forth as Mr. Nute tries to capture his waving, spurting hand. "
Stop!
" Mr. Nute bellows. "You're getting
blood
on the
cardboard!
" Mr. Nute seizes Orin's bloody wrist and yanks him to his feet. The razor blade flies out of Orin's fingers and lands on Raymond's desk in the next row, spattering blood across the comics and Raymond's shirt.

"
Geez!
" yells Raymond, shoving himself backwards out of his seat. His foot catches on the desk leg, and he lands butt first in the aisle.

The gash in Orin's hand sprays blood across Mr. Nute's chest as he drags Orin across the room. They disappear out the door, and I hear Orin howling all the way down to Mr. Shanahan's office.

Raymond sits still for a second, then shakes himself off and gets back into his seat.

"Here. You can clean that up," says Pinky, handing him her handkerchief.

Raymond takes a couple of swipes at his shirt. Then he leans over, carefully picks up Orin's razor blade, and wipes it off on his knee.

During the rare times when we're left in the room alone, the class officers are supposed to take over. Benson calls out, "Hey! Where's the president?"

That's Orin.

"He's gone, you idiot," says Jewel. "So's Emerson." The vice president is spending the week in detention.

Everybody turns to Pinky. Only girls get elected secretary. You have to have nice handwriting.

"OK, then," she says, rising from her desk. "Let's get out our library books and read until Mr. Nute comes back."

You'd think the kids would go wild, but everybody is glad to have routine to hang on to. Pinky gives a little smile and sits back down.

I fish for a book deep inside my desk. When I lower the lid, the cardboard diamond slides down, and I see what I've done. The newspaper is slashed clear across the livestock report.

I shove that aside and discover the half-dozen sharp, distinct stripes etched into the varnish. I have cut the desk.

I glance over at Pinky. She sees it too. "Oh, no! You heard what he said," she whispers.

Mr. Nute huffs himself back into the room alone, beads of sweat shining on his forehead. His shirtfront looks like he got caught in the sprinkler. He must have blotted out the blood in the teacher bathroom. Wet spots melt across his chest and round stomach.

"Put your heads down." This is how he handles a crisis.

I slap both palms over the cuts and plop my face down before anybody else has moved. I expect him to start yelling, but all I hear is one boot heel after the other pacing up and down in front of the room.

Pretty soon I hear steps coming down the hall. The boots stop marching over by the window and pivot to face the door. "Mr. Nute," Mr. Shanahan says, "we've sent him to the clinic. He'll need stitches." And then the quick steps recede back the way they came.

When he does speak, Mr. Nute's voice is tight. "Franklin, pick up the razor blades.
Nobody
else touch them. Benson, dump out the paint cups, and Kitty—you get the newspapers. The rest of you keep reading. Absolutely
no
talking." He sits down at his desk and picks up the
Pioneer
sports page that he had saved for himself.

I leave my book open on top of the scratches and go collect the newspapers. A wary quiet settles over the classroom.

There is not much left of the day. We put our library books in the bin, and Mr. Nute passes out spelling worksheets. He glowers through these final routines. His shirt is dry now, but you can still see faint splotches in the fabric.

When the last bell rings, Mr. Nute says, "Go home."

I know there is no way to hide my desk when I'm gone. I stuff the worksheet into my notebook and follow the crowd out of the room. I pluck my jacket from a coat hook in the hall and push through the big double doors.

Pinky catches up with me at the sidewalk. "Hey, why don't you come down to my house? We can do the spelling together."

I could use some company right now. "OK."

Mom won't care, as long as we're working on homework.

We take our usual route to the trail down to Pinky's house on Shitike Road. As we go, I think about that first time I worked my way down this hill, the day we went with Jimmy to the swimming hole and I met Raymond and Jewel. Everything was scary and strange back then. Now, each time I walk this way, I feel more at home. That eases some of the worry about Mr. Nute.

Pinky's house is small like ours. Neat, compact yard leading to a front porch. Big windows on either side of the door. A braided rug to wipe your feet. But it feels different—it has a "this is my house" feel. Not like the sameness of white paint and green shutters of the government houses on the upper campus, where I live.

Pinky throws the door open. "Mom," she calls out. "Kitty came home with me."

My eye is drawn to the large fireplace in the center of the front room. Something my house definitely doesn't have. Woven bags, tan and black, are spread out in a row on the mantel like in a museum. Figures on the bags resemble animals and birds. On the large bag at the end, a diamond shape looks like a face with large eyes. My cardboard mask would never have looked like this.

"My grandmother made them," Mrs. Wesley says behind me, pride in her voice. I turn and she is standing in the doorway, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, her dark hair curling gently around her face. I'm almost as tall as she is, and I can see where Pinky gets the sparkle in her eyes. Her smile matches the voice I've come to know through the radio.

"Welcome," she says. Mrs. Wesley comes over to the fireplace, lifts the bag with the eyes, and hands it to me.

I turn it carefully. The face pattern is repeated all around the sides of the bag. "Who are these people?"

"The old ones," Mrs. Wesley says. "The ancestors who came before us." I think of Mrs. Queahpama sitting on our couch, telling me about the animals who were people.

"They're
beautiful,
" I say, and her smile lifts the weight of the day off my shoulders.

I
N
the morning, Pinky waits for me at the bottom of the school steps. I have my spelling done, all checked over. Mr. Nute will have no reason to look twice at me. But I didn't sleep very well.

"You look terrible," she says. "Still worried about the desk?"

"Well, yeah—wouldn't you be?"

"I'm telling you, he does not pay that much attention to us." Pinky steadies her books in the crook of one arm while sliding a bag of marbles into her pocket.

She isn't supposed to bring the marbles to school. She's already won every steelie and cat's-eye in the fifth and sixth grades. The boys put up such a fuss that Mr. Shanahan called her parents, and she was banned from the marbles ring at recess.

Pinky wore the ban as a badge of honor for a few weeks, until the boys got cocky and begged her to play so they could win back what they'd lost. She's cleaned out about half of them again. This time, they're too embarrassed to tell on her.

The scratches did not magically disappear overnight. I see them as soon as I walk into the classroom. I set my tablet on top of them and pick up the bin of library books we collected yesterday afternoon. I'm class librarian this week, a helpful distraction right now. I drag the bin down the hall.

The main office door is open, and so is the inner door to Mr. Shanahan's office. He's pacing in front of the doorway, and I hear his voice, loud and angry. Mr. Nute sits in the same chair where I sat in October. He's looking down at the floor, like a kid when the teacher is ranting.

I ease my way past, careful not to catch Mr. Shanahan's eye. Then I hear him say, "Why on earth would you give them
razor blades?
"

I hustle the book bin into the library and get back to class as the first bell rings. Pinky picks up the roll sheet, calls out, "OK, say 'here' if you're here," and reads off the names.

But Mr. Nute still does not show up. Pinky pokes Dora, the flag salute leader, and we all recite the pledge.

Finally, Mr. Nute thumps through the doorway. He looks downright surly. He doesn't thank Pinky or apologize for being late. He just says, "Get out your math books."

Mr. Nute pulls his teacher's manual out from under the mess on his desk and quickly scrawls a string of page numbers on the board. The continued torture of dividing fractions.

"Do the odd problems on these pages," he says. Then he stands at the window, his back to the room.

***

As the clock ticks toward the end of the day, I wonder how much longer I can hide the scratches from him. At three o'clock we clear our desks and go home.

Pinky and I have walked a couple of blocks when I tell her I'm going back. I have to get it over with.

"You want me to come with you?"

"Yeah—but I have to do this on my own."

When I go back into the classroom, Mr. Nute is sitting at his desk staring at a piece of paper in his hand. He looks up, his eyes dark.

He knows.
I stand there like a dope.

I breathe in, then say, "I'm very sorry, Mr. Nute."

"It's over," he says, his voice flat.

He mustn't tell my parents. Never in a million years would they expect something like this from me. My throat starts to close up.

"I didn't mean to," I whisper.

Mr. Nute frowns. "
What?
"

"My desk. I ... I didn't mean to cut it."

Mr. Nute just stares at me. And then something comes across his face, and he begins to laugh, a cackle that starts in the back of his throat and rises over the room. He sounds like a crazy person. I back up until my hands find the side of the door.

When he calms down, Mr. Nute pulls out his handkerchief and wipes his eyes. "You think
that
matters?" he asks, shaking his head.

"Mr. Nute," I say finally, "is something wrong?"

He sits there. Then he holds up that piece of paper. "I'm done," he says. "Fired."

Mr. Nute is in a whole lot more trouble than I am.

S
URE
enough, the classroom is empty on Monday morning. Except for Jewel and Dora going through Mr. Nute's desk.

"What are you
doing?
" I ask.

"Told you he's gone," Dora says to Jewel.

I set my stuff on my desk, check the doorway, and go up to the front of the room.

"Look," says Jewel, and she pulls open the top drawer. Not even a pencil shaving or a paper clip. Same for the big file drawers at the side, and the bookcase behind the desk has been cleared out too. "Where'd he go?" she asks.

"Don't know and don't care," says Dora with a grin. "We got rid of him."

I am off the hook, but the way it happened doesn't bring the relief I was hoping for.

"I wonder who we'll get this time," Jewel says.

Any new teacher should be an improvement.

"What are you girls doing in here?" A voice snatches me back to Earth, and I slowly turn to face it.

A woman fills the doorway. Not fat so much as tall and bosomy. Brown plaid dress with a teacher sweater draped over straight shoulders. Trim hair and old-lady shoes, even though she looks about my mom's age. She has a clipboard tucked under one arm, a stack of books cradled in the other.

"Excuse me. Do you not hear well?" She tilts her head to glare at us over her glasses.

"I'm sorry!" pops right out of my mouth. "We ... uh ... were trying to find Mr. Nute."

"In his desk?"

"No."

"No?" she repeats.

"No, I mean..." I glance sideways at Jewel.
Help me out here!
She stares off like she is no longer in the room. "We don't have any business up here," I say quietly.

The woman nods, as if to say
Good answer,
and hangs the clipboard on the hook by the door. "Go on outside until the bell rings."