Educating Esmé (7 page)

I read in Melanie's journal that her birthday came and went without a cake. She had to remind her mom that it was her birthday. So I got her a cupcake and a candle and gift-wrapped a little purse. I had her wait in the room after school, while I picked up her little sister outside. We had Melanie cover her eyes. When she uncovered them, the candle was lit. We sang “Happy Birthday” to her. She looked moved—kind of a weird thing to see in a ten-year-old—quiet, thoughtful, smiling. She said thank you very nicely,
very sincerely. I was glad, because I think she understood that I did it because I care about her.

The kids are studying about Anne Frank. They ask a lot of questions about the concentration camps, but I don't tell them in any detail. They seemed to grasp the gravity of the history when I compared the Nazis to the Klan. In their private journals, there is a disproportionate number of references to the Klan, considering we live in the city. Zykrecia even wrote about a dream where the Klan was riding through the streets of her neighborhood on horses, clad in their white sheets. Maybe it's because some of the kids spent time down South, I don't know, but when I compared Nazis and white supremacists, an audible groan of recognition went up. I don't tell them about the gas chambers or cremations. If they want to learn more on their own, they're sure to unearth the terrible information, and I'll tell them at the end. But what's the point of desensitizing them or frightening them with depictions of bodies being plowed into mass graves, like the seventh-grade teacher is doing? They're still children, for God's sake!

They are quite interested and involved, asking questions like “Why?” and “How could people let it happen?”
Some of them have been staying in from recess to listen to a recording of Otto Frank talking about his daughter's work. Valerie was weeping at her desk during free choice reading time. I looked over her shoulder and discovered she was making a “Holocaust word search,” where you find words like “anti-Semite” and “Nazi” and “genocide.” Fifth-grade response to the dramas of our century.

T
HE KIDS HAVE
free choice reading time in the afternoon, usually twenty minutes. This week, though, the kids have been reading for forty-minute stretches, so intently, I could hear my own breathing. It was eerie. A teacher popped in for something and saw this. “My God,” she said. “So quiet and involved! Must be the weather.” But it's not the weather. I've worked so hard to get them to this place, harder than I've ever worked in my life, and now it seems they have arrived. I want to take credit for getting them there, and they can have the credit for being there. We worked together to achieve this; it's hard to explain, except that it's not the weather or the boy-girl ratio or luck or any other such bullshit. It's that I try and they're trying, that's the bottom line.

Let it be known that I had one really good week teaching at this school!

THE CUSTODIAN'S THOUGHTS

A lonely job this is, letters on their pin-hinges
          hung,

Crooked. The children have gone.

The posy on the desk is elliptical on its stem,

Kept after school, bent with remorse.

Look at the teacher, gathering her things to go,

Her hair severe, foreshadowing the ebb of her life's
          tide.

Dumb bitch! Someday I'll give her a grab,

That ought to respirate 'er, surrender up a

Dimple or a laugh, for my dustpan . . .

Tsk! Don't these kids do anything all day

But crumple and pick at their papers, chew
          gum?

Give me the chalk! I'd teach them a thing or two

About tattoos, music and brooms:

Things a man can use.

Read-aloud time is my favorite time. We are starting
King Matt the First
by Janusz Korczak. It has hundreds of pages. It could take the rest of the year! It's so good, about a country run by a little boy king. Korczak was a pediatrician who ran an orphanage in Warsaw. He wrote the book for his charges. Eventually they all perished in the Holocaust. It's a good follow-up to
Number the Stars
by Lois Lowry, about the Danish resistance, which they read over the winter break (I bought all thirty-one copies myself, but it was worth it). The kids love the book so far. Even if I read for forty minutes, they complain when it's time to stop. Every chapter ends with a bit of a cliff-hanger.

R
UBEN HAS A
crush on me, I think. When we gather near the lamp for read-aloud, he always sits right next to my legs. Sometimes he touches my calf gently. The girls die laughing.

“Ruben, you're invading my space,” I remind him.

“Sorry,” he says genuinely, “but they're so smooth.”

More gales of laughter. Ruben reddens, smiles sheepishly.

I tutor him one day a week after school with a yo-yo. He can “walk the dog” and almost do “around the world” now!

Miss Clark is the special education teacher. She keeps a lot of charts with gold stars. She's blond and thin and gorgeous. She makes them brownies when they all master a multiplication table. Isn't that nice? The kids eat her alive.

She tried to do a whole class lesson on her own, to make it up to me for blowing off helping my class as much as she's supposed to. I was in the back of the room getting some paperwork done. “I'm invisible,” I told them. “Treat Miss Clark like she's your homeroom teacher.”

Unfortunately, they did. They weren't paying good attention and defied her, even though she kept saying please. Then she said, “Now we're going to do the nine-times tables.”

“What'll you give us?” asked Kirk.

My mouth dropped open. I put down my pen.

Even more shockingly, Miss Clark answered, “Stickers.”

“What'll you get! What'll you
get
!” I roared, suddenly becoming visible. “You'll get an education, that's what you'll get! Which is more than you deserve, for the rotten way you've been treating Miss Clark! You aren't getting
stickers
, you aren't getting
brownies
, you aren't getting
please and thank you
, you're getting to work, and you'll work double the assignment that Miss Clark gives you, I'll be checking on it. Now, who else wants to
get
something?”

Nobody else did. I thought I'd hear a chorus of tongue-clucking, but I didn't hear a peep. Everyone got to work. A couple of kids even quietly apologized as they passed Miss Clark to go to lunch.

Alone together, Miss Clark wept dainty tears from her luxurious lashes. “I just want them to like me,” she squeaked.

“It's not our job to be liked,” I reminded her. “It's our job to help them be smart.” Secretly, I thought, Who gives a rat's ass if they like us? Sometimes I can hardly stand them!

Billy Williams is just out of control with the whining and tongue-clucking. “You always giving us homework, and you ain't never give us no free time in class! I hate you!”

“You can hate me all you want. That's your prerogative, your choice. But no matter how you feel about me, I will always love you.” I mostly say this because I know it just drives them crazy.

Sure enough, this sends Billy into a tongue-clucking frenzy. He stands up behind his desk. “I hate you!” he roars.

“I'm sorry you're angry, but I still love you, and I won't allow you to fail.”

“Dang! Dang! You always saying you love us. Well, your love mean nothing to me, woman!”

“Oooh, you breakin' her heart, Billy Williams,” laughed Selena. We all laughed.

“You think it's so hard to be on your side of the desk,” I told Billy, “but you sure make it hard from where I stand. I'm pretty sick of it. How about you see
how hard you make it for me? You teach tomorrow.” The class went up for grabs.

“Shiiiiiit! That your job! I ain't doing it!”

I put up a thumb for attention. All was quiet. “Here's the deal. Teach tomorrow or be suspended for swearing, arguing, and not doing your work. Take your pick. Or rather, pick which one your mother would prefer when I call her about your decision tonight.”

Billy looked like he would kill me.

“Would Mr. Williams please pick up his students.” I got ahold of the intercom. Ms. Coil was made privy to the disciplinary action. The morning bell had rung. The class waited outside, delighted, in a perfect line. Billy was hiding in the boy's room. I told his mom the night before not to let him say he was too sick to come to school today. I waited for him. Finally, he emerged.

“You really gonna make me do this?”

“Just for a day.”

“All day? You crazy!”

“No, I'm Billy.” I took off his jacket and headphones and put them on. He's as big as me, so they fit. I put one of my boyfriend Jim's ties around his neck. “Got any gum, brother-man?” He didn't think my imitation was funny.

The rest of the class did.

I handed him the Trouble Basket.

“I ain't doing this!”

“Then you'll have more troubles than this one basket can carry,” I threatened. “Don't forget to say ‘Good morning.'”

Billy tried to take attendance. “There's some boys still out in the coat room,” I heard Selena point out. I was having fun, hanging out in there with B. B. and Kirk.

“Come out of there!” Billy stuck his head in. “How I'm 'posed to take attendance! Damn!” B. B. and Kirk, realizing the consequences that Billy would deliver after school should they not cooperate, reluctantly went to their seats. I moseyed.

“Come on! Or I'll give you five dictionary definitions to copy!” Billy warned me.

“Dang, man, don't have a baby! I'll git there when I git there, and if that ain't good enough for you, well, ain't that too bad!” I leered.

Billy maintained his character, looking slightly saddened, but ignored me. Some smart girls offered to help him with the lunch count. He got everybody lined up for art in the room across the hall. He let them enter, then proceeded himself.

“Where do you think you're going?” I stopped him. “Do you see me go to art? You have lesson plans to prepare. Lucky for you, it's a double period.”

We went to the teacher's lounge. I brought books with various science experiments in them. Of course, he liked some exciting ones, but I reminded him that there weren't many materials at his disposal. He finally decided on paper airplanes. He had to choose which pages to make handouts from. He ran the copy machine. Then he took notes for background knowledge. I reminded him to use the washroom before picking up the children, that it would be his only chance in the day.

Billy picked up the class and took them to the washroom. By now the novelty of the situation was on
the wane, and the children were in full form. Two girls started smacking each other.

“Cut it out!” Billy broke it up. They went back at it. “Don't make me suspend y'all!”

“
You
can't suspend us, Billy Williams.”

“That's
Madame
Billy Williams today,” he corrected, “and I believe I
can
.”

The girls turned to me for reassurance. “What cha'll lookin' at me fo'? Like what you see?” I flashed them my winning Williams smile. The girls looked at me, then Billy, laughed nervously, and fell into line.

Walking back, I followed about six feet behind the rest of the class, like Billy does.

“Come on, yo' highness!” Billy imitated.

“Dang! Dang! Always raggin' on me!” I railed.

“Five definitions.”

“You hate me!” I clenched my fists. “You hate me 'cause I'm black!”

“I love you,” he retorted, “but I don't always love the choices that you make.”

When we returned to the classroom, Billy added a letter
W
to the “h-o-m-e” that was already spelled out
on the board from yesterday. If it spells “homework” on Friday, that's what they get. The kids howled.

“That's for fightin' and arguin' in the hall. Ya'll know better.” The kids continued to complain noisily. “Next time, you'll make a better choice,” he consoled. I had to hand it to him.

“Now, Mr. Williams and elephants never forget,” he sing-songed, using one of my pet phrases. “Test time.”

“Oooh!” The kids complained, none louder than me.

“We ain't got to do what the teacher says! He ain't the boss of us!” I tried to incite mutiny, as Billy does whenever a test is mentioned. “He ain't said nothin' about no test!”

“Says here on the board “t-e-s-t,” which I believe spells test, and “T-h-u-r-s-d-a-y,” which I believe spells today, so get out your pencils, which should already be as sharp as I know your answers will be.”

I nearly fainted. For a kid who doesn't do what I say, he sure hears what I say.

“Wait! Is Madame Esmé taking Billy's test?” Selena queried. Billy looked at me.

“Of course,” I came out of character for a moment to announce, “I'll take it, as Billy would.”

Billy didn't look very comfortable. “Did you study?” he asked as he handed me the test.

“Ya'll didn't say nothin' 'bout no test! Dang!”

Billy rolled his eyes.

Throughout the test, I made a point of leaning over to see Ruben's answers, tossing paper at kids' heads for their attention, and sighing audibly with frustration. Billy sent me a mixed assortment of disapproving looks. Finally, I turned in a C test, figuring that was at least a full grade above his average.

Billy took the children to lunch. I bought him a teacher's lunch, and he ate with me in the teacher's lounge. He looked funny, sitting with all the men and women in his T-shirt and tie.