Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids

DAY TWENTY. Thursday, May 15, 2014

HACKETT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, THIRD GRADE

STINK BLOB TO THE RESCUE

AT 8:25 A.M. I was in the parking lot of Hackett Elementary School, putting on my linen jacket so I would look like a proper substitute teacher and jamming my giant squirt bottle of Purell into my briefcase. Hackett was the school where I’d spent that somewhat hellish day with fifth-graders two months earlier. But now I was seasoned, maybe.

Room 4, Mrs. Fellows’s third-grade classroom, had three rows of wood-grain desks and red plastic chairs, some of which were already occupied. An ed tech, Mrs. Spaulding, a youngish high-octane gal in yellow denim pants who looked like a swimming coach, was in the room and the early-arrival children were doing arithmetic. “Everyone knows what to do,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Right, everyone?”

“Mhm!”

“Good morning,” I said. A girl named Antoinette was wearing a tricolored floral hair ornament. “I like your sparkly bow,” I said.

“There’s a lot of bling in this room,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “The girls love bling. Not the boys.” She took me aside for a quick orientation session.

“They know exactly what to do,” she said. “You’ve got a few young fellas who might give you a run for the money, but you’ll see. All you’ve got to do is keep them busy and remind them to do quality work. They’re good boys.”

“Just to forewarn you,” I said, “sometimes the noise gets a little loud in my classes.”

“I can help you out with that,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

I said, “I don’t mind, actually. If it’s bothering you, or if you think it’s a bad thing, then yes. But I figure it’s just part of what happens with a substitute.”

Mrs. Spaulding showed me the sub plans, which were four pages long and said PIZZA PARTY TOMORROW!! in green marker at the top. “What we do in our morning meeting,” she said, “after you introduce yourself, is tell them the expectations you have about quality work. They know what fun time is, which we don’t mind — but we also know what transition time is. We also have kids that owe recess time today because of some behavior. They know, believe me. They’re great students. But they’re eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds. Read through the plans and if you have any questions let me know.”

Mrs. Spaulding’s one-on-one student, Nell, arrived. “We have a sub today,” Mrs. Spaulding told her. “His name is Mr. Baker, and he’s going to be a lot of fun!” She winked at me.

“Let’s hope,” I said.

The first half hour of the class was called WIN Time; WIN stood for “What I Need.” They were doing adding and subtracting with regrouping. Regrouping involved drawing number blocks, turning a ten block into ten one blocks and ten one blocks into a ten block — Montessori with pencils. Not a bad thing.

Mrs. Spaulding was a talker. She chatted continuously through WIN Time — about the pizza party, about book buddies, about Mr. Baker, about regrouping, about the merits and demerits of the Kindle, about declarative and interrogative sentences. It was a wonder that any subtraction with regrouping got done, but it did. If she were a student, she’d definitely have lost recess. But she meant well. The room around us was arranged like an Istanbul bazaar, or a game of miniature golf, with little varicolored cubbies here and there for specific tasks, and its wall space and whiteboards were overlaid with posters and student art and flowery borders and learning targets and taxonomies of learning and codes of cooperation. A voice-level chart specified that 0 was silent, 1 was a whisper, 2 was regular inside, 3 was outside loud. A smiley cardboard pencil with a red tongue and goggle eyes held a scroll: “7 Good Writing Traits.” The seven traits, each printed on a different bright color, were Ideas, Voice, Organization, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Conventions, and Presentation. “Voice is the soul of the piece,” said white letters on a magenta background. “It’s what notes the writer’s personal style, as all his or her feelings and convictions come out through the words.” Learning target ELA.01.WPL.01.03 was: “I understand that brainstorming ideas for a specific audience and purpose is a part of planning my writing.” Under a big purple star hung an inspirational quotation: “Every time a bell rings an Angel gets their wings.”

“Good morning, Patsy!” said Mrs. Spaulding. “You’re the student of the day! Hi, Clark, how are you?”

“Good,” said Clark.

“Good! You’ve got a new math sheet to do. Make sure you sign up for lunch! Hi, Dyann! Make sure you do your own work. These are four-digit numbers, kids, make sure you raise your hands if you have any questions.”

She stopped talking for five minutes and let the third-graders do math. Then she started up again, in her number 3 “outside loud” voice. “This is Wilson Lemieux. We’re going to send him to the nurse. He has the cheek disease. They call it the fifth disease. It looks like you have a slapped face. Morning, Cody. Morning, Donny. Morning, Emerson. Clark, sign up for lunch and get started.”

The lunch chart was a red grid on the whiteboard. Each child put a magnetic-backed glass bead under chicken quesadilla, cheeseburger, SunButter and jelly, or “cold,” meaning brought from home. Half the class was cold, and nobody was having SunButter.

Talia, a girl with a neat Louise Brooks haircut, showed me her drawing. It was of a girl with a large smiley head and Louise Brooks bangs, with tiny yellow hearts on a hair bow, and earrings with purple peace symbols on them, and green tights with hearts, and a skirt with a big peace symbol in the middle of it. Her shirt said, “Best Friends for Ever!” It was totally wonderful.

“Reese and Glenn, let’s get started,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Have a seat. I want to see some effort on that math! If you’re done you can practice your spelling words. If you have any unfinished work in your folder, do that.”

The principal, Mr. Pierce, came on the PA system: “Good morning, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and school promise.” After the pledge, the children and Mrs. Spaulding chanted the promise: “TODAY IS A NEW DAY. I WILL ACT IN A SAFE AND HEALTHY WAY. I WILL DO WHAT I KNOW IS RIGHT. I WILL THINK BEFORE I ACT. I WILL TAKE CARE OF MYSELF, MY FRIENDS, AND MY SCHOOL. TODAY I WILL BE THE BEST ME I CAN BE.”

“Keep working, let’s go!” said Mrs. Spaulding, when everyone had sat back down. “Cody!”

The principal told us the lunch choices, and then he said, “The winner of the pizza party from the food drive last month is — Mrs. Fellows’s class.”

That was us. The class leapt up and cheered.

“Nice going, guys,” I said.

“Sit down and work,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Shh. Focus on your math. Study your spelling words. We’ve got five minutes before meeting.”

A boy named Stanley came up wanting help with a word problem. Milkshakes cost $1.83 apiece, and somebody was buying a milkshake for himself and two of his friends. How much would the milkshakes cost in all? Stanley had drawn number bars and gotten the right answer. Micah, a shy boy, was having trouble with a question about a toy store. The storekeeper, Billy, had put 1,573 toys on the shelf. At the end of the day, customers bought 862 of the toys. How many toys does Billy have left?

Mrs. Spaulding raised her hand. “Eyes on Mr. Baker, please,” she said.

“Good morning, everyone,” I said. “I’m filling in for Mrs. Fellows today. I’m Mr. Baker. I’m going to try to do the things that you normally do in class, because this seems like a really good class. Some of it I might need your help with. And one of the things that’s really helpful, when there’s a substitute, is if one person talks at a time when you ask me questions, because the substitute is learning, too. I’m trying to figure out what works in this class, and you guys have it down to a science.” I took attendance. Aubrey? Scarlett? Clark? Skylar? Patricia?

“Let him do the talking, please,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

Reese? Wilson? Kennedy? Stanley? Donovan? Paisley? Emerson? Micah? Eric? Ruth? Nell? Glenn? Roberta? Dyann? Cody? Talia? Antoinette?

I said, “So, Patsy, can you do me the great favor of taking the attendance sheet and the lunch count to the office, please?” I called the class over to a gray area rug under the whiteboard for morning meeting.

Mrs. Spaulding continued with her two-note commands: “Pencils down! Chairs in! You kids know the ropes. GUYS. Stanley, give Mr. Baker some space! Everybody scoot up, let’s make a nice circle! Who’s got the list of who’s sharing today? Can I have it, please?” She studied the list. “Okay, guys, LISTEN UP, PLEASE!”

“Did everybody get a lot of sleep last night?” I said.

“I got up at seven-thirty,” said Dyann.

“I got up at like six,” said Skylar.

“I think the flowers and plants do a lot of their growing in the middle of the night,” I said. “They soak up all that water—”

“And the leaves on the trees!” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Who’s sharing today?”

Aubrey, a wide-faced sleepy girl, said, “I get up at four, because I live at Russell Lake and I have to go to my grandparents’, because my bus stop is at my grandparents’.”

“Man, four a.m.,” I said.

“Why, to feed the chickens or something?” Mrs. Spaulding said. She was irrepressible.

“No!” said Aubrey. “I have to get up because my mom has to get up early for work, and she has to drive me to my mimi’s from Russell Lake.”

“So, Patsy, what are you going to pass around for greeting?” said Mrs. Spaulding. “You want to get one of those stuffed animals?”

Patsy got a stuffed bear out of a blue bucket.

“Patsy, which way do you want to go, kiddo?” Mrs. Spaulding prompted, in her I’m-being-patient voice.

“Good morning, Ruth,” Patsy said softly, and handed Ruth the bear. Ruth handed the bear to Emerson. “Good morning, Emerson,” she said. Good morning, Clark. Good morning, Talia. Good morning, Cody.

“Paisley, squeeze in!” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“There’s isn’t room,” said Emerson.

“Uh, there is room, Emerson, stop. Sh!”

When the bear had finished its trip around the share circle, I said, “Wow, you are a nice bunch of kids.”

“THAT WAS VERY NICE, VERY QUIET,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

I said, “And now what happens, Patsy?”

Patsy started to explain, softly, but Mrs. Spaulding cut her off. “We have a list of shares. Patsy, do you mind if Micah goes first? He has to leave.”

Micah stood up. “This is my toy. It’s a barracuda.”

“Those are some serious teeth,” I said.

Micah held up a piece of paper. “And this is a thing that tells you all about the barracuda. I just found it.”

“Are there maybe two facts you want to share with us?” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Can you read two things for us?” Micah hesitated, and Mrs. Spaulding took his paper and pointed to the barracuda drawing posted on the whiteboard. “You can see up there who drew the barracuda, Mr. Baker.”

I said it was a beautiful drawing.

“Micah’s going to be a scientist or an archaeologist or something,” she said. She read from Micah’s barracuda fact sheet. “Let’s see,” she said. “It’s a great swimmer. Likes to live near coral reefs. Do you know those big rocks that are under the ocean, that are very colorful? And he’s sleek and flexible. So he swims like he’s almost not swimming. Effortlessly.”

Micah said, in his tiny voice, “My poppi was swimming under the water in Florida, I think, and he was scared because he saw a barracuda.”

“Beautifully done, Micah, thank you,” I said.

“Now sit down,” said Mrs. Spaulding, “and you get three questions.”

“How big do the barracudas get?” asked Eric.

“That’s something we can research, guys,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

I said to Micah, “You know what you can say when somebody asks how big they get to be? You can say, ‘Well, they get to be extremely large.’”

“They get to be extremely large,” echoed Mrs. Spaulding. “Second question!”

“Do they live in lakes and bogs?” asked Reese.

“They live in the open ocean,” said Micah.

Dyann raised her hand. “I forgot my question,” she said.

Glenn said, “What ocean they live?”

“Um,” said Micah.

“Another good question,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “There are a lot of different oceans. It would probably be, I would think, the Pacific.”

I said, “Where did your poppi say he saw them?”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “The Atlantic Ocean? Near Florida? Good questions, guys. Nice share. So, Micah, Stanley, and Cody, you kids need to go. Why don’t you grab your math papers, if you’re not done, if she doesn’t have work for you.”

When those three were bundled off, I asked Patsy to take it away.

“On Saturday I get to see my brother,” she said. “Because it’s going to rain on Saturday we were going to go to Funtown but now we’re going to go bowling or to the movies.”

I asked her if she used a big or a little bowling ball when she went bowling.

“Candlepin balls?” Mrs. Spaulding said. “The little balls? Where you don’t have holes for your fingers.”

“No, they have holes,” said Patsy. “Or maybe not.”

“I used to try to go bowling with those big bowling balls,” I said. “I would fling the ball but my fingers were sort of stuck, and the ball and I would go flinging down the center lane.”

“Micah just got a trophy for bowling,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

Patsy told a long, inaudible story about losing at bowling.

“Three questions, guys,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

Donny asked which bowling place she was going to go to, Ruth asked if she was going out to eat, and Clark asked how many balls you get.

“I think it’s three, or six,” Patsy answered.

“It’s three for a frame,” Mrs. Spaulding clarified. “Nice share, Patsy. Who’s next?”

Eric had a magic trick to share.

“We have a lot of magicians in this class, Mr. Baker,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Sh!”

Eric pulled on a white glove and held up a Beyblade spinning toy. “I’m going to make this disappear,” he said. The Beyblade disappeared, sort of. We applauded.

Question one was, had he learned the trick this morning, or had he been working on it for a while?

“I’ve been working on it on the bus,” said Eric.

What did you use to make it disappear?

“Special magic power,” said Eric.

What was it?

“A Beyblade,” said Eric.

Paisley showed us her new thing of pink lipstick. “I’m collecting them. I got one orange, one red, and this one. And here’s my book of jokes. What did the zombie like about school?”

Eric raised his hand. “That his brains fall out?”

“Nope,” said Paisley. “Stiff competition. Why was the monster kicked out of class?”

Skylar said, “Because it kept on spying on people?”

“Nope, his eyes were on someone else’s paper. And I might be going to Funtown over the weekend.”

Mrs. Spaulding asked the first question of Paisley: Was the book a library book? Talia asked, “Do you enjoy reading?” Paisley said yes. Emerson asked, “What’s your favorite joke?”

Reese was next. He said, “I’m not going to be here tomorrow, because my gram and gramp from Colorado are coming to visit. It’s only for two days, which kind of stinks.” Eric asked him if he was still going to play Pokémon. Mrs. Spaulding asked if Reese had been to Colorado. Jake asked what Nathan was going to do with his grandparents, anything fun? “I think we might go bowling,” said Reese. “Tonight we’re going to have clam chowder with them, with lobster in it.”

“Will there be extra?” said Mrs. Spaulding, and winked at me. “Nice share.”

For her share, Ruth showed a picture of her and her sister playing with a baby, and then she opened a large duffel bag and pulled out an ostrich Beanie Baby, one of a collection given to her by her mother. “I didn’t bring all of them, because I have seventy-nine,” she said. Her favorite was the ostrich; she stored most of her Beanies in a trash can in her room.

Talia said, “In five weeks I have to get braces.” What colors? She didn’t know, maybe gold. Gold and purple? She didn’t know! Which teeth? “My four top teeth.”

Sharing was done. I complimented the class on their ability to ask questions of one another. “Really good job,” I said.

“So let’s see how good we can transition back to our desks,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Put your shares in your backpacks, please! GUYS, QUIET TRANSITION! We’re going into writing. Nathan, Spenser, have a seat, come on, guys. KEEP YOUR MATH HANDY FOR LATER. PUT IT IN YOUR MATH FOLDER, so you know where it is.”

The sub plans said, “Pass out story about the stink bug. You can read as a group or have kids work in small groups.” I passed out “Stink Blob to the Rescue,” a one-page story with two pages of questions following it. Mrs. Spaulding said that three of the kids could not read the stink bug story because they had to finish a DRA, or Developmental Reading Assessment, beginning with Reese. “Put it away, Emerson, we’re working on a writing workshop from Mr. Baker.” She winked at me again.

“So this is a story called ‘Stink Blob to the Rescue,’” I said. “You guys can help me read. What is a stink blob, anyway?”

Nobody knew.

“Let’s see if we can figure it out from the first paragraph. Mom senses danger. It’s a villainous wasp—”

I stopped, because Mrs. Spaulding was scolding Reese and I wasn’t going to talk over her. She looked up and realized she was interrupting the class. “Reese, it’s too noisy to do the DRA,” she said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Baker,” she said.

“There are a lot of tricky words in this, by the way,” I said. “Words that are complicated for third grade. Mom senses danger. It’s a villainous— What’s villainous?”

“Bad,” said Natalie.

“Bad! A villain is a bad person. Often in cartoons the music changes, and the villain has a cape. He’s the bad guy. It’s a villainous wasp hovering just overhead. She quickly gathers her twenty-four nymphs under her triangular body. And then take it away paragraph two, Emerson!”

Emerson read, “The wasp ap — ap — apreech. Apreeches.”

“The wasp approaches, good.”

Emerson read on, haltingly, with help from me. “Mom frantically waves her antennae. Not fazed, the wasp flies even closer. Mom turns her—tongue?”

“Tough,” I said.

“… her tough, shield-like back and quickly buzzes her wings.”

I reread the paragraph to suture it together, explaining what the word fazed meant. “Now what happens? Patsy.”

Patsy read, “The wasp ignores her threat and lands just out of reach. Mom kicks out her middle and back legs in another attempt to scare it off.”

“Good job,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

I said, “Whoever wrote this has really looked at wasps, probably through a magnifying glass. Her name is Sandie Lee. Good job.” We kept going. The bad wasp loops in the air once and returns. A baby stink bug, called a nymph, creeps out from under her mom’s body. The wasp darts toward it — but mama stink bug is ready. Reese read the next part. “Mom’s ready and silently drops her most powerful secret weapon… the stink blob. The wasp catches a whiff of this nox— Nauseous?”

“That’s a new word, gosh,” interposed Mrs. Spaulding.

“Noxious,” I said. “It means ‘stinky.’”

Reese continued, “... this noxious smell and zips away in the opposite direction. Lunch will have to wait.”

“Great reading,” I said. “This is really putting a picture in your mind. We’ve got a battle between a wasp and a stink bug. And the stink bug has a secret weapon, which is what?”

“The stink blob,” said several voices.

“The stink blob! It’s a blob of horrible-smelling foul liquid that is going to protect her babies.” What a fine story.

Scarlett read part of the next paragraph. To illustrate it, I drew a picture of the shield-backed stink bug and the wasp on the whiteboard, using green marker. “The wasp has a long droopy abdomen, and long waspy wings,” I said. “These two creatures have a little tension today.”

Eric struggled gamely through the succeeding few sentences. “All stink bugs have a large triangular structure on their backs. This raised covering points towards their hind end and is called the scutellum.” Mrs. Spaulding talked quietly to her special student, Nell, throughout the reading, which just about drove me nuts, but I didn’t say anything — it was her job, after all.

“So they gave you a crazy hard word,” I said, printing scutellum on the whiteboard. “This is a word I don’t know. It’s a word most grownups do not know. And when it’s a scientific word that most people don’t know, and it never comes up in conversation, sometimes they put it in italics, leaning forward, to show you that we’re being scientific. This whole thing is called the scutellum. And I think a scuta, in Latin, an old language, means ‘shield.’ It’s the shield. It’s the thing that protects that bug!” (Actually it’s scutum.)

Dyann raised her hand, and read: “However, the stench-gob is used only as a last resort since it saps the bug of most of its energy.”

Now that, I said, was a very interesting sentence. “This stink bug has to know that it is in serious trouble — so much trouble that it is going to use up all of its energy. It’s like when you’re playing one of those games, and your health is starting to go down. You’re going to use up all your health to make this blob of stench.”

Dyann read two more sentences and was stopped by the word secrete. “When the young wander off they secret a scent trail.”

“All right, here’s a word that looks like secret,” I said. “But there’s a letter at the end. See that letter E? So when the young wander off, they secrete a scent trail. When you secrete something that means you leak it out of your body somehow.”

Kennedy read last: “If in trouble they send out a powerful alarm scent. It’s Mom to the rescue as she follows this scent path right to her nymph.”

I said, “The baby stink bugs are wandering around, and they’re also secreting something. They’re not secreting stink blobs, but they’re secreting smell. That’s how insects, ants, keep track of each other. Dogs do that, too, right?”

“Bloodhounds!” said Clark.

“They’re insect bloodhounds. All right. That was fantastic reading, guys.” I turned the page. “So there’s a vocabulary activity, and I must say, these are some hard words.” They needed some review, I thought, and I asked them what villainous meant.

“Listen up, guys!” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“Bad?”

“Bad, right. Saps. That’s a tough one. If somebody saps your strength, it means they take your strength away. So saps means ‘take away.’ Commotion. If everybody in here were wild and crazy, what would that be?”

“A commotion.”

“That would be a commotion. And you’re not. Noxious is ‘nasty,’ right?”

Patsy raised her hand. “Noxious is like a really bad smell.”

“A gross, nasty, noxious smell. Secrete. It doesn’t mean ‘secret.’ When you secrete something, what are you doing with it?”

“You leak it out of your body,” said Reese.

“Right,” I said. “You might secrete blood. When you sweat, what are you doing? You’re secreting sweat. We’re just secreting people. So give it a shot, right now. Match each word with its definition. Don’t forget to write your name at the top.”

I went around giving hints where hints were needed.

“Do your own work,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Refer back to the text. It’ll all be there.”

One question stumped several kids. “I want to take a minute to talk about one really tricky question,” I said. “It says, Explain how the writer’s style changes in the last two paragraphs. Whoa. What’s that all about? What is a writer’s style? When a writer writes something, they can write it any number of different ways. You could write about this classroom like a scientist, and list everything and be very serious, or you could be funny, you could be kind of breezy and chatty. Or you could create a scary mood. That’s the style that you use to write about something. So this question is why the style changed in the last two paragraphs. I frankly didn’t notice that the style changed. Did you?”

They shook their heads.

I said, “But in the beginning, we were in a dramatic situation. Mom senses danger. The wasp approaches. Mom frantically waves her antennae. It’s drama, it’s excitement. It’s a story. And then, in the last two paragraphs”—I switched to a BBC accent—“Stink bugs range from six to twelve millimeters in size and come in various colors. So it’s much more scientific. That’s what that question is about. Does that make sense?”

They labored at the pages of questions for a while. “Focus till snack, guys,” said Mrs. Spaulding. She warned me that snack was in two minutes. “I’m just going to step out to the ladies’ room, I’ll be right back.”

I tried to sum things up for the class. “So incredibly enough,” I said, “you read through this story, which is filled with some seriously brand-new words — words that you never before saw, in some cases. What they used to do, when I was in school, is they would say, ‘We’ve got to pick only words that kids would actually know at that very moment, or just a little bit harder.’ This story is saying that a lot of times when you’re reading, especially in scientific writing, there are going to be words that are a little bit confusing, but that’s okay, because you can just charge on. That’s what this thing is teaching you.” I went over question 3, Why are stink bugs called the “parent bug”? While I was explaining how to skim back through the text to find the answer, Mrs. Spaulding came back and began shushing people loudly. “You have to be quiet while the teacher is talking,” she said. I stopped to let her finish with her interruption. Then I said, “What do parents tend to do? They make sure their kids are safe. They’re protective. The stink bug is unusual. Some insects just lay their eggs, wander off, and forget about it. They don’t have any parental responsibility at all. But the stink bug actually takes care of its little ones, which is an unusual behavior in insects. That’s why it’s called the parent bug. But I must say, that phrase was snuck in there.”

Ruth was puzzled by the very first question: Why did the author write this article? (a) To explain how wasps hunt for prey; (b) to give information about stink blobs; (c) to tell you how nymphs protect themselves; (d) to give information about stink bugs.

I said, “Why on earth did the writer write this article? Why did she write it? Well, probably because she’s paid to write articles for schools. But it’s also that feeling of pressure inside you. You want to say something. She’d learned about stink bugs and wasps, and she thought, Wow, I want the world to know this.” I looked down the answers. “That is a toughie. All four of those are sort of true, but the question is what’s the truest one. I would look at (b) and (d). One is to give information about stink blobs, and one is to give information about stink bugs. Now ask yourself, in this piece, we had all kinds of commotion. We had a stink blob, but we had lots of other stuff about—”

“Stink bugs,” said Ruth.

“Stink bugs! So really the best answer is (d), to give information about stink bugs. One good clue you can use to find out is look towards the end of the piece. The end of the piece is usually going to talk about the main idea somehow.”

“Shhh,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“Anyway, I think we’re getting ready for snack,” I said, “and thank you so much for your hard work.”

“NO SNACKS UNTIL YOU CLEAR YOUR DESK,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Not stuffing your math paper in your desk, Stanley! You’re going to go over that later. Mr. Baker can choose quiet kids that are ready to get snack.”

“I know you’re all going to be quiet,” I said.

“FRONT ROW CAN GO,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Second row can go get their snack.”

Reese brought up his portrait of his friend Eric. “He’s half wolf,” he said. “He’s human in the morning, but he turns into a wolf. And he has ears, because he’s also half anteater.”

I took a bite of a sandwich. Spelling was coming up, and Mrs. Spaulding told me a class rule: “Try not to begin all your sentences with the letter I.” She also said that the guidance lady, Mrs. Crane, was out today, and wouldn’t be coming in after snack. Then she told Stanley to get a paper towel. “You’re spilling.” She said, “I’m like, is there a special password to get in that juice? OKAY, IN YOUR SEATS EATING, YOU KNOW THE RULES. Mr. Baker will let you know what’s happening. We have to be flexible.”

“What’s happening is chewing, snacking, eating,” I said. “Munching, cheesing.”

“He’s cheesing!” said Skylar.

“I’m banana-ing!” said Donny.

“Nice verb, I like that,” I said.

Eric asked me how to draw a wolf. He wanted to keep up with Reese. I told him to use his memory. He drew a pair of scary eyes, and small ears. He made a soft howling sound as he drew.

“Stanley, in your seat,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “We don’t wander around at snack, sit down. SIT DOWN WITH THE BEVERAGE. Shhh!” She came around my desk looking for a packet of sticky notes, then went right back to being bad cop. “Reese! In your seat for snack, you know that.”

I asked Reese how many cheese crackers he’d eaten.

“Three.”

“Three down, three to go,” I said.

“Well, three and a half,” said Reese, holding up the one he was smilingly eating.

“Ooh, fractions,” I said.

“Roo-ooh-ooh,” said Eric.

I let a moment pass. “Okay, guys, finish up your snack,” I said.

Immediately Mrs. Spaulding did the grade-school hexaclap. “I’M HEARING MR. BAKER SAY TO START TO CLEAN UP FROM SNACK. RIGHT NOW. MAKE SURE THE GARBAGE IS IN THE GARBAGE CONTAINER! DESKS NEED TO BE CLEANED OFF. Clean up from snack, Antoinette, let’s go. Don’t make me set a two-minute timer! Ten thirty-five, we transition! You need to finish those crackers, Emerson. I think during this next transition, Antoinette, Reese, and Dyann, and Patsy, you should be able to work on your DRAs, because this will be quiet learning. There shouldn’t be any talking during this assignment, unless up goes the hand. We’ve done this many times.”

Micah was drawing a fluorescent barracuda. “Hey, good coloring!” I said.

“GUYS, ALSO TAKE A LOOK AT WHO OWES RECESS TIME TODAY. We’re getting a list from Mrs. Hearn, from yesterday.”

Wilson, the kid with slapped-cheek syndrome, went off to see Nurse Chris.

“Amazingly efficient snack cleanup,” I said, when the time seemed ripe. “I was looking out over a devastation of cheese crackers and juice, and now it’s all gone. So, at ten thirty-five Mrs. Crane usually comes in and talks about feelings.”

Mrs. Spaulding said, “He’s telling you! Save yourself a question and sit down.”

“Mrs.—”

“SITTING DOWN! EYES ON MR. BAKER.”

I tried again. “Mrs. Crane talks about feelings and sometimes you role-play. Well, she has something else to do, and she can’t be here. So Mrs. Spaulding—”

“SIT DOWN,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“Mrs. Spaulding and I have talked about it, and we’ve got a spelling worksheet. But since you’d normally be talking about feelings, when you look at these spelling words—round, ball, blue, held, dark, girl, instead, past, rode, either—when you write those words in a sentence, if you’re stumped, and you want to write a new and interesting sentence with the word, let’s say, dark, think about some kind of emotion. Think, I’ll write an angry sentence with the word dark. Or, I’ll write a funny sentence about the word dark. If you put some kind of feeling behind it, then you can write something interesting that sort of pops into your mind. If I said to you, Write a frightening sentence with the word ball in it, what would you come up with? Ball?”

“There is a live ball in a haunted house,” said Scarlett.

“Okay, immediately—”

Mrs. Spaulding said, “I’ve got one!”

“—you’re starting to think of this house,” I said. “You’re thinking of a strange, black, or maybe red, ball, hovering in the middle of a haunted house. All of a sudden, you’re thinking, Wow, I’ve never imagined that before. So think if you can mix an emotion with a word.” There was another hand up. “Mrs. Spaulding.”

“I thought of like a ball of fire,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

“A ball of fire,” I said.

“Going across the prairie,” she said. “A ball of rope! A ball of yarn!”

“And all they have to fight the ball of fire is one garden hose,” I said. “So here are some spelling words to put in a sentence. Have fun with it. Remember, the sentences can go in any direction you want, and—”

“Mr. Baker,” said Mrs. Spaulding, “these kids are amazing writers and readers. But they still have to do their work. On the back take the words, only the words, and alphabetize them.”

“Oh, my gosh,” I said.

Mrs. Spaulding said, “Who knows what alphabetize means? All together. ABC ORDER. And kids, remember capitalization and punctuation. Super-creative sentences, folks. I don’t want all of them to start with I, either, please. And now we have to be super quiet, because we have three kids working on DRAs.”

Emerson whisper-asked me how to spell around. I told him.

“Finger spaces,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

I whispered to Talia, “Finger spaces, what’s that? You put a finger between the words?”

Talia nodded.

“One or two of them can start with I,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

Skylar said he wanted to use two spelling words in one sentence. I said to go for it. I told him how to spell kick.

Paisley read me two sentences: “The boy went into the haunted house, and it was too dark, so he left. I went outside and I saw a ball with flames from a lightning strike.”

“Very good,” I whispered. “Good job.”

She took a deep breath and went on to her third sentence.

Mrs. Spaulding came over. “I disappear in a little while to do lunch duty,” she said.

“How sad,” I said.

“I know,” she said, laughing.

I went over to Cody, who had on a blue shirt. He wanted to write, “My shirt is blue,” and he needed to know how to spell shirt.

Reese had used three spelling words in a single sentence: There is a round blue ball going past.

“You are good,” I whispered.

Mrs. Spaulding seemed not to want to leave. “Focus, everybody,” she said. “And underline your spelling words, too. Nice job, Nell.”

I looked at the schedule. Mrs. Crane usually taught feelings from 10:35 to 11:15. It was only five of eleven. “Holy shit,” I whispered to myself.

Donny raised his hand. “Does dawn mean ‘night’?”

“Nice job, Stanley, I’m very impressed,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

Glenn asked me, “Can I say ‘I rode my test’? No. ‘I rode my bike’?”

Dyann had written, I held my sister’s baby. She whispered, “It’s going to be true. She’s having her baby soon, but I’m going to be holding him, so I just made up a sentence.” She’d written, Every body love’s round things. She said, “They’re usually addictive.”

“I like round things,” I said. “I have one suggestion for you. Do you need that apostrophe? You might not need it. You might be home free without it.”

Dyann had also written, I’m a girl, I think.

“I think so, too,” I said.

For past, she’d written, In the movie Frozen I like the part where she says the past is in the past.

“Clark, turn around, that’s five extra minutes,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

Micah had finished his sentences: The sky is blue. The sky is dark. I went around the ball. I held the car. I asked him how he was with alphabetizing.

“I don’t like to do that,” he said.

When almost everyone was done, I wrote past and passed on the board. “This is a word that gives people trouble — even grownups have trouble with this one. Past versus passed. They sound exactly the same. But if you say, I ran past the car and waved, it’s this one. If you say, I passed the car in the street, it’s this one. And that is a diabolical and villainous plan that English came up with to confuse us. But that’s the truth of it. If you said, ‘I drove past a moose on the road,’ which would it be?”

“P-A-S-T,” said Talia.

“Right. Now, if you said, ‘I passed a moose on the road,’ it’s going to be P-A-S-S-E-D, because the word is pass. I’m just throwing this out because it’s something you’re going to need to keep an eye on forever. I still make mistakes with it. Anyway, very good sentences, good alphabetizing.”

“I have lunch duty now,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

Kennedy started to talk.

“QUESTIONS, YOU RAISE YOUR HANDS,” said Mrs. Spaulding. Then she left.

I announced silent reading, and turned off the lights. Patsy was still working on her DRA. She’d been assigned to read a book about Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space. She was supposed to write down the most important thing she’d learned and she couldn’t think of what to say, having already written that Mae Jemison was the first African-American in space. What more did they want? “You could say something about how it’s important for all kinds of people to be able to succeed,” I said.

After what seemed like an hour of throat-parching power-whispering, a buzzer buzzed ominously. “That means it’s five minutes until lunch,” said Antoinette. They had a half hour for lunch and then half an hour of recess, and I didn’t have recess duty.

“Five minutes till lunch, everybody,” I said. “Start thinking about thinking about thinking about getting ready.” Shoes were changed, lunch boxes were distributed, and Paisley went off to get a light sweater. “Guys,” I said to Jake and Stanley, “can one of you take responsibility for not bouncing off the other?”

Talia handed me a piece of paper that said QUIET. The class formed a line, I held up the QUIET paper, they obeyed, and we walked to the cafeteria.

“You’re tall,” said Dyann.

“Thank you, you’re tall, too.”

I ate a sandwich and crumpled up my paper bag and played some music and let the hour of not talking pass slowly by. At twelve forty-five, the crowd was back from lunch and recess, flushed, knackered, and happy. “Mr. Baker, can we open a window?” said Skylar.

“It was hot out there?”

“It was like a microwave,” Skylar said.

“Mr. Baker!” said Paisley. “Why was six afraid of seven?”

“Because he might have gotten eight?”

“No, seven eight nine!”

Mrs. Spaulding had her eye on the clock and she began guiding us toward a state of preparedness. “Guess what, guys. Mrs. Hearn is on her way. You know what she wants. Clear desks. Time for literacy! Clean desks up! Desks clean!” She erased my stink bug and wasp drawings from the board.

Reese held up a bag with something in it. “This is my share. Can I squeeze it in? I forgot it this morning. My mom brought it in.”

I checked with Mrs. Spaulding. “How about after math?” she said. “Mrs. Hearn’s only here for twenty minutes. Don’t let me forget. Stanley, is this your whiteboard? Pick it up, please. Come on.”

Aubrey showed me her bug bite. “I’ve had it for like thirteen days now.”

“You know, kids, you’re doing a great job today,” Mrs. Spaulding said, when everyone was seated and the desks were clean.

“That is true,” I said. “It’s been a pleasure to be in this class and to see what you’re up to.”

“Marker up off the floor, please,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Patsy, did you finish your DRA, kiddo? Good, good, good. We read this book, Mr. Baker, yesterday, called Mr. Peabody’s Apples, written by Madonna. Did you kids like that book?”

Yes.

“Lot of messages in the book on using your words kindly towards people,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Kind of like what Madonna’s been through, because she’s so different, and vocal. It’s nice to be different. Emerson, stick the ruler in your desk. It’s a great book.”

I said I’d always liked “Material Girl” and “Holiday.”

“I love her music,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “It’s great workout music. It’ll be my pleasure not to put any names up to owe recess, but you know, we have rules that we follow. Hi, Mrs. Hearn!”

Mrs. Hearn, the literacy specialist and guidance counselor, was a solid woman with turquoise beads and a reedy, carrying voice. “We’re going to reread the story to refresh our memories,” she said.

“Mrs. Hearn, this is Mr. Baker. Guys, nice transition. Go up so you can hear the story, let’s go! Everybody, take a scoot forward! Everybody!”

“All right, Mr. Peabody’s Apples, by Madonna,” Mrs. Hearn said. “Artwork is by Loren Long.”

“She’s a great artist, Google her, ask your mom, she’ll know,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

“Look at this beautiful artwork,” said Mrs. Hearn.

“Shhhhhhh,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Have you got a baseball game tonight?” she asked a boy.

“All right, you ready? Paisley, you ready? In the town of Happyville, which wasn’t a very big town, Mr. Peabody was congratulating his Little League team on a great game. They had not won, but no one really cared, because they had such a good time playing. Isn’t that how kickball is at recess? Who won doesn’t matter, as long as you had fun.”

After the game, on his way home, Mr. Peabody waves at everyone in town and they wave back at him because everybody’s happy. Then, on the way past Mr. Funkadeli’s fruit market, he takes a shiny apple without paying. A suspicious onlooker named Tommy Tiddlebottom thinks Mr. Peabody has stolen the apple and he skateboards off to tell his friends. The same thing happens again the next Saturday, and the rumor of Mr. Peabody’s purported apple thievery spreads. Nobody but little Billy Little, Mr. Peabody’s biggest fan, shows up at the next Saturday’s Little League game. Billy Little tells Mr. Peabody that everyone thinks he’s an apple thief. Together they have a chat with Mr. Funkadeli, the fruit seller, where Billy learns that Mr. Peabody always prepays for his apples. Tommy Tiddlebottom, the rumor-spreader, is confronted with the truth and apologizes for his malfeasance. Mr. Peabody orders him to go home and get a pillow stuffed with feathers.

“Now, yesterday,” said Mrs. Hearn to me, over the heads of the listening children, “they had to try to figure out why Mr. Peabody would want Tommy to get a pillow with feathers. And some of them were pretty close. Don’t raise your hand, Paisley! You already know!”

“It was a lesson on predictions,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “They did a real good job.”

“They had to predict why Mr. Peabody would want Tommy to bring his pillow to the baseball field,” said Mrs. Hearn. Emerson was twitchy. “Emerson, we’re going to be doing work on this. This is to help refresh your memory. An hour later, Tommy met Mr. Peabody on the pitcher’s mound.”

Mr. Peabody marches Tommy up to the top of the bleachers and orders him to cut the pillow in half and let the feathers flutter out — thousands of feathers, all over the field. Then he tells Tommy to go pick up the feathers. Can’t do it, says Tommy. Ah, well, says Mr. Peabody, it’s just as hard to undo the damage you caused by spreading that rumor. Each feather is a person. Tommy reflects on the truth of this statement. “I guess I have a lot of work ahead of me,” he says.

Mrs. Hearn said, “Why did Tommy say that: ‘I guess I have a lot of work ahead of me’? Why did he say that? Clark.”

“Because he had a lot of things to do,” said Clark.

Mrs. Hearn went on toward the end of the story. “‘Indeed you do,’ said Mr. Peabody. ‘Next time, don’t be so quick to judge a person. And remember the power of your words.’ Remember when we did Donovan’s Word Jar? One word made people feel happy or sad.”

“Reese, pay attention, please, hon,” Mrs. Spaulding said.

“Then he handed Tommy the shiny red apple and made his way home. He handed him the apple to show him what, Marc?”

“Um, forgivingness,” said Marc.

“Forgiveness,” said Mrs. Hearn. She pointed to the picture. “And there’s the pillow sewn back together and feathers floating in the window.”

“The pillow looks like a baseball mitt,” said Eric.

“It does, the way they sewed it, it does kind of look like a baseball mitt. I want—ope, I’m waiting! We’re going to look at this paper. I’m going to pass out this paper so we can look at the questions together. If you’re paying attention this will be easy p—”

“EVERYBODY SIT UP STRAIGHT, EYES ON MRS. HEARN,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“—easy peasy. Right?”

“Reese, take one and pass it along,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Pass it along!”

“Come on, quick, quick, quick!” said Mrs. Hearn. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” A worksheet rattled. “Ope, I don’t want to hear the papers doing that.”

“Pass it along,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Emerson. Who hasn’t got one? WHO DOES NOT HAVE ONE? Anybody else? Anybody else? Cody, you’ve got an extra one. Give one to Mr. Baker.”

“Thank you,” I said to Cody.

Mrs. Hearn told the class to put their names on the worksheets, plus the date and the name of the book, and the author. “Who’s the author?”

“Madonna,” said the class in unison.

The first worksheet question they had to answer was What connection can you make to this story?

“This is part of the DRA — that’s why we need to know this,” said Mrs. Hearn. “What connection can you make to the story? Have you ever thought something that wasn’t true? Did you see something and you didn’t understand it? Or you thought you heard something, but it wasn’t really what you heard?”

The class nodded.

“Yes. All of you have come to me complaining about something, or to Mrs. Spaulding, and we figured out that it wasn’t quite what you thought it was.”

To Cody, Mrs. Spaulding said, “Stop flipping that around.”

The next question was, What do you think the author is trying to tell us in this story?

“Don’t say it out loud,” Mrs. Hearn said.

“Do we write it now?” asked Scarlett.

“NICE COMPLETE SENTENCES,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“No, when we finish this,” Mrs. Hearn said. “Tell me one thing the author is trying to tell us, Patsy.”

“Words are really strong?” said Patsy.

“Words are really strong,” said Mrs. Hearn. “Rumors spread really fast?”

“Don’t always believe what you hear,” said Micah.

Then they were supposed to write what the most important thing was that happened in the story, and why.

Mrs. Hearn said, “Got it? Tell me why, and back it up. Give me some proof of why it’s the important part of the story.”

They also had to name the most important character — impossible question — and where the story took place.

“Then it says, Do you like this story, yes or no? And you’re going to flip your lovely paper over, and you’re going to tell me why you liked the story.”

“Can we draw a picture?” asked Patsy.

“Did I say anything about drawing? Or did I only talk about writing?”

“WRITING,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“Writing,” said Mrs. Hearn.

“Or why you didn’t like the story,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Tell me if you would recommend this story to a friend.”

“SO DOES EVERYBODY UNDERSTAND THOSE SENTENCES?” asked Mrs. Spaulding.

“Is everybody clear?” asked Mrs. Hearn. “Any—”

“Glenn, sit down, please,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“—questions? Eric, questions? Cody, questions? Antoinette, question?”

“Can we skip around?” Antoinette asked.

“You may answer in any order you want,” said Mrs. Hearn, “as long as you answer every single question. Except for the last one, where it says, Do you like this story, yes or no? I want you to save that one for last. Okay? Sound like a deal?”

“BACK TO YOUR DESKS QUIETLY, GET YOUR PENCILS OUT,” Mrs. Spaulding ordered. “Shhh. Donny, have a seat. Back at your desks, pencils out. Super-good handwriting. Come on, Donny, back to your desk. Guys, complete sentences. Name and date.”

Mrs. Hearn said, “We’ll put Mr. Peabody’s Apples up on the board for you.” She asked me to write the title and author on the board.

“Antoinette, get in your own space,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Get your legs in your space.”

“What are you doing with that?” said Mrs. Hearn, to Eric, who was fiddling with his Beyblade. “Put it away!” She got irritable. “EVERYBODY SHOULD AT LEAST HAVE THEIR NAME AND DATE ON THIS PAPER ALREADY! What are you doing?”

“LET’S GO, LET’S GO!” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” said Mrs. Hearn. “High-quality work!”

While the pencils moved in their little levered circles, Mrs. Spaulding and Mrs. Hearn conferred.

“Can you write Happyville on the board?” Paisley asked me. I wrote it.

Glenn asked Mrs. Hearn if he had to answer the first question.

Mrs. Hearn said, “Yes, everybody can make a connection to this story, in some way, shape, or form. You have teachers, people play sports, there are all kinds of connections you can make. If this was a DRA, you would have to make a connection to this story somehow. Have you forgiven someone for saying something to you? Stanley, get over in your space! Aubrey, get the name of the book and the author on there. Let’s go!”

“What’s your connection to the story?” prompted Mrs. Spaulding. “It could be something outside the school.”

“Come on, Eric!” said Mrs. Hearn.

Skylar raised a hand. “Can I do a connection with baseball?”

“I just said that,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Make it a good connection, though. Make sure it makes sense with the story! Super-good handwriting. I have erasers if you need them.”

“You’ve got to answer this in order to answer this,” said Mrs. Hearn, tapping Reese’s paper with her lacquered fingernail. “You’ve got to tell me what the most important thing is in the story, why was it important, and which character did it involve. I like how people are restating!” said Mrs. Hearn. “Make sure you’re restating! ‘The author is trying to tell us…’”

I cleared my throat in a low wolfish groan that only I could hear.

“Come on, restate the question!” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“Everybody should be different!” said Mrs. Hearn. “Everybody should have a different connection. Eric, pull your desk back so there’s a space between you and Cody.”

Cody asked how you spell friend.

“F-R-I…?” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“E-N-D!” said the class in unison.

Mrs. Spaulding wanted to hear it again. “Come on, kids, HOW DO YOU SPELL FRIEND?”

“F-R-I — E-N-D!”

Mrs. Hearn wanted to hear it again. “How can you forget!” she said to Cody. “F-R-I—”

“E-N-D!” said the class.

“Put it to a Madonna tune, and rock it,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “We’ve been spelling that since—”

“Let’s see your best Madonna move, Mrs. Spaulding!” said Mrs. Hearn.

Antoinette, Paisley, and Talia began dancing and chanting, “F-R-I — E-N-D!”

Mrs. Hearn cut it short. “Okay, FIVE, FOUR, THREE.”

Silence. “Nice,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Eyes on the page.”

“Mrs. Spaulding,” said Mrs. Hearn, “I’m going to take Cody for ten minutes so we can go over some things.”

Cody made a throttled roaring sound.

Mrs. Hearn pointed at me. “Judge. Can you put the word judge on the board?” I wrote judge on the board. She and Cody disappeared.

I whisper-helped three kids spell rumor.

Mrs. Spaulding helped a kid spell something.

I helped Micah write I feel bad for Mr. Peabody. I helped Glenn spell by, as in “Don’t judge people by,” and own, as in “Mind your own.”

“One time I stoled one of my brother’s toys,” Glenn confessed to me. “I shouldn’t have do it, but I wanted it bad.”

“I finished my paper,” said Talia.

“You are a speed demon,” I said.

“So what do I do?” she said.

“I guess you just have to twiddle your thumbs,” I said. I showed her how to twiddle her thumbs. “You can pass about five minutes that way, but your thumbs will get tired. No, do anything you want. You’re doing good.”

“Can I draw?” she asked. Of course.

Mrs. Spaulding said, “I’ll take your papers for Mrs. Hearn. If you’re not done, you’ll be getting them back. If not today, tomorrow, maybe at recess, or first thing in the morning. We’re going to get ready for Book Buddies. You don’t need to bring a book. I think she’s got some kind of project she’s going to have us do. So give me your papers, sit down, and Mr. Baker can start lining you up. SIT DOWN, STANLEY. Thirty seconds. Good job. Everybody better have something written down. Stanley, you’re going to work on this tomorrow. Leave your scissors here. The first-graders will be doing the cutting. LEAVE YOUR SCISSORS HERE. I’m not going down the hall with a bunch of scissors.”

“Do we bring a pencil?”

“Do we ever bring a pencil to Book Buddies? No. Voices off right now. Show me when you’re ready! SHOW MR. BAKER WHEN YOU’RE READY. Books away. NO BOOKS. Glenn, are you ready? Emerson!”

Mrs. Spaulding picked the quietest line, and cued me to tell them to line up. “Okay, line up,” I said. “Do you guys know the way to Mrs. Latimer’s class?”

Yes.

“You know everything,” I said.

Mrs. Spaulding said, “Super-quiet walking! I’m at the end. Nope, don’t take anything. Shh! Voices off!”

In the hall, just outside the door to a classroom, I spotted Toby, the fifth-grader who told me he sucked at everything, sitting by himself at a gray table. “Hi, I know you,” I said. “How’s it been going?”

“Good,” he said. He looked broken and hopeless — he had a worksheet in front of him that he couldn’t do. I hurried to catch up with the class.

Cody joined the line, after his talking-to by Mrs. Hearn. “Cody, your shoe’s untied,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “When you get to class, please tie it. Let’s catch up.”

Mrs. Spaulding, twenty-two students, and I stuffed ourselves in Mrs. Latimer’s crowded first-grade classroom. “THIRD-GRADERS, VOICES OFF,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“First-graders,” said Mrs. Latimer, “if you can hear me, and see me, then I need you to turn your voices off. Third-graders need to know how they’re going to help the first-graders. My first-graders are going to get a new math journal. The very first thing you need to do when you get your new math journal is third-graders are going to help the first-graders rip out activity sheet nine. FIRST-GRADERS! James!”

“Eyes on Mrs. Latimer,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“It has—”

“SHHHH!” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Scarlett!”

“—a little perforated line, where you have to gently rip it out. Make sure you’re just getting activity sheet nine.” She ripped out the sheet, making a farty sound. Loud laughter. “It makes a funny sound,” she said. “And then with scissors, first-graders, with the help of the third-graders, need to cut on the dotted lines. Be very careful not to cut off the numbers, because those are important. You need to cut them all out. Then, on the back of the journals, my first-graders need to write their initials. Third-graders, you can help them.”

“Kennedy!” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Chair down! Shh.”

Mrs. Latimer said, “When they are all cut out — Katie, keep the table still, please — then you will end up with your fact triangles. And then you’re going to help them with their math, if you wouldn’t mind. The way you use fact triangles—”

“LISTEN!” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“—is you hold them in your hand, and you put your thumb over one of the numbers. So let’s say you put your thumb over the top — the top is with the dot — so the answer is five. So you ask your first-grader, ‘What is three plus two?’ Without them seeing the answer, they figure out that it’s five. Then you cover another corner. And then it will be five take away two, and they would need to give you the answer of three. Then you turn the triangle around and you cover another corner. So you’re quizzing them on their facts. There’s quite a few of them here. So cut out, first; initials on the back second; third thing you do is you start quizzing your first-grader on their facts. Okay? Make sense? Careful cutting on the edges, Kai!”

Mrs. Spaulding said, “Third-graders, you hear that? We’ve all done this, haven’t we?”

Mrs. Latimer went over the fact triangles quiz a second time. Each number triangle was called a fact family.

“Don’t let these first-graders fool you, they’re pretty smart!” said Mrs. Latimer’s ed tech, Mrs. Huntley, who had an even louder, lower voice than Mrs. Spaulding’s.

“Listen up!” said Mrs. Spaulding. Mrs. Latimer read off the names of the paired children. I followed Cody and his first-grader, James, out into the hallway with several pairs of trianglers. James was wearing a snappy cowboy costume. “How much does it cost?” asked Cody.

“Thirty-five dollars,” said James.

“So the trick with perforation—” I started to say.

Cody ripped out the activity page roughly, leaving some of it behind in the book.

James made a sad cry.

“You’re fine,” I said. “Cody avoided the triangles.”

I showed another first-grader, Taylor, how to fold the page back and forth over the perforation so that it separated better. “Just get it started real easy,” I said.

The kids were in a rush to finish cutting out all the triangles.

“How tall are you?” said Reese, from my class.

I told him.

“My brother’s six foot one. He’s seventeen.”

Was he at Lasswell?

“He’s homeschooled,” said Reese. “He goes to something called Reveal. It’s a Christian program. My uncle is like six foot eleven.”

“Amazing,” I said. James was scissoring like mad. “You cut a lot of triangles there, sir,” I said. “Good cutting.”

Paisley’s first-grader, Rosa, said, “I’m already done.”

Paisley quizzed her, holding her thumb over one number on a triangle: “What’s six plus two?”

“Eight,” said Rosa.

Paisley turned the triangle. “What’s eight minus two?”

“Um — six.”

Cody began to wander among the pairs of book buddies, saying, “What, what, what, what? What, what, what? What, what, what?”

Sitting on the floor was uncomfortable; I wanted to lie down and take a nap. I said, “Cody, you’ve got to hang with your book buddy. He needs your help. He’s working. Look at him work — encourage him. You’ve got to actually sit down on the rug.”

“I don’t feel like sitting down,” said Cody, “because my legs hurt.”

While standing, Cody put his thumb over a number and quizzed James. “Three plus four,” he said.

“Six,” said James.

“Seven,” said Cody.

I showed James what three plus four was on my fingers. He understood.

“Seven minus three,” said Cody.

“Four,” said James.

“Excellent, breakthrough,” I said. “That’s how it works.” I made an enormous yawn. “Excuse me.”

“I get sleepy almost every day,” said James.

“It happens to me around this time in the afternoon,” I said. “I get the woozies. What are you going to do when you get home?”

“I have something very difficult to do,” said James. “I’m building something in Minecraft.” His class had earned an extra recess by filling up their pom-pom jar, he said.

Paisley said, pointedly, “Yeah, and Cody, we haven’t filled up our marble jar yet.”

Mrs. Spaulding collected the scissors.

Cody said, “If we earn our jar bank, we’re going to have thirty minutes of recess.”

“That is almost unthinkable,” I said. “How far are you? Halfway there? She’ll start tossing marbles in toward the end.”

It was time to grunt and get up slowly from the carpeting.

“FIRST-GRADERS, GET ALL YOUR TRIANGLES!” said Mrs. Latimer.

“THIRD-GRADERS, IN LINE,” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Eric, five minutes if you don’t get up!”

We processed back to room 4. Reese said, “Nine times nine is eighty-one.”

“That’s some serious math,” I said. “I know kids in sixth grade who don’t know that. Some people have a hard time with math.”

“Some people never learn their times tables, literally,” said Reese.

In the classroom, Mrs. Spaulding said, “Everybody in your seats. FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO.” A few stragglers rushed to their chairs. “EVERYONE ON YOUR BOTTOMS. Listen to Mr. Baker.”

I began handing out pizza party announcements for all to take home. The announcement said, “Dear Parents, We earned a PIZZA PARTY tomorrow, May 16th, for lunch!!!! Our class collected the most food for the food pantry!!!! Thank you so much! You will not need to send your child with a lunch tomorrow but definitely send in the normal snack. Sincerely, Mrs. Fellows.” At the bottom of the page was a picture of a pizza with a smiley face on it made of discs of pepperoni.

“So, guys, how are you doing with multiplying by one digit?” I asked.

“Shhh!” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Voices.”

Eric came up to the board to demonstrate how to multiply 56 x 4. “Well, six times four is twenty-four,” he said, “so I do the four down there and carry the two up there.”

I asked him to stand a little to the side so people could see.

“Skylar!” said Mrs. Spaulding in the back, scanning the class for daydreamers.

“And then four times five is twenty,” said Eric. “Plus that two. So it’s twenty-two, and there’s your answer: two hundred twenty-four.”

We applauded. He was a whiz.

Patsy came up and did 56 x 8. “First you multiply six times eight, which equals forty-eight,” she said. “You put the eight down, and you put the four up. And then you do eight times five, which equals forty, plus four, so it would be forty-four. And that’s your answer, four hundred forty-eight.”

“Nice job,” said Mrs. Spaulding, as we clapped for Patsy. We did a few more problems. Some kids counted expertly on their fingers; most knew how to get the answer.

Then Aubrey passed out blue correcting pens and we went over the morning subtraction problems, one by one, painfully slowly.

“Everybody, eyes on the board!” said Mrs. Spaulding. “Clark!”

The class was getting tired of arithmetic and so was I. “Wow, there are a lot of numbers in life,” I said.

“Ugh!” said Wilson

“Wilson!” said Mrs. Spaulding.

Subtraction problem 4 was 8,261 − 4,950 = ______. Kennedy did it at the board. “One take away zero would be one,” she said. “And then six take away five would be one. And then you can’t take nine from two, so you have to cross the eight out and put a seven, and then twelve take away nine would be three. And then seven take away four would be three.” Phew.

As number fatigue grew, the class began to confuse multiplication with subtraction: one minus one became one, not zero.

“I’m going to put some names on the board if the voices don’t stop!” said Mrs. Spaulding.

After math, said the sub plans, we were supposed to play Bingo, but the Bingo boards were not in evidence, and Reese wanted to present his share, a bird’s nest. He walked around the class letting people touch it. “I think it’s from a blue jay,” he said. “It was on the last step of my porch. I saw it and I got my mom. She said my brother had found it and he put it on the railing, but it must have blew off. I was like, ‘Hey, maybe I could share it tomorrow!’ So here I am, sharing it. We have another one on the window by our upstairs bathroom. It’s huge.”

“Shh, hey, guys, be respectful!” said Mrs. Spaulding.

Skylar asked why it had a leaf hanging from the bottom.

“Because the bird made it that way,” he said. “I can’t exactly answer that.”

Paisley asked why there was a bit of ribbon inside the nest.

“Because the bird put it in there,” Nathan said.

“It must have liked it,” said Paisley.

Reese said, “I just noticed that there’s some kind of yellow-white hair around the top.”

“Maybe it’s your mom’s hair,” said Roberta.

“Maybe it’s yours,” said Reese.

Clark asked how he knew it was a blue jay’s nest.

“I’m guessing,” said Reese, “because the other nest outside our bathroom is a blue jay’s, and it has a piece of that ribbon, too.”

“Well done, good sharing,” I said. “You know what it makes me think about, guys? If you were a bird, and your job was to make a secure home for your eggs, how would you do it?”

Paisley said, “I would get some straw, I would get some wood, I would get some paper, I would get everything I could take.”

Reese said, “Paisley, you’d be a bird.”

I said, “So once you gathered—”

“LISTEN, PLEASE. MR. BAKER’S TALKING!” said Mrs. Spaulding. “SIT DOWN, STANLEY, OR IT’S A CHECK MARK.”

I drew a branch. “So once you gathered that stuff, how would you build the nest? Remember, birds are miraculous. They can do things with their arms, but their arms are wings. So they can’t hold on to anything with hands. They have to do everything with their beaks. What’s up, Stanley? So here’s the bough. First you’ve got to pick a good spot, that’s up far enough out of the way of cats, and raccoons. Then, once you’ve picked the right spot, you have to be an architect.”

“COULD YOU PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL TO MR. BAKER?” said Mrs. Spaulding. “He’s done a wonderful job today. Turn around, watch him!”

“Some birds use mud as glue,” I said. “But then they do the thing you can see in this nest, which knocks me out. They make it soft and round and perfectly safe for the eggs, so the eggs won’t get hurt, and they won’t fall out. Have you ever seen a bird trying to build a nest?”

“Shh!” said Mrs. Spaulding. “He’s talking, Reese!”

I said, “Every single piece of that nest had to be flown one at a time in the bird’s beak. It’s like making cotton candy.”

“It’s really soft,” said Reese, stroking the inside of the nest.

“The bird is making something really soft that’s the shape of an egg, even before the eggs are born,” I said. “How do they learn how to do that? It’s instinct.”

“Mother Nature,” said Talia.

“Mother Nature!” I said.

Reese was still feeling the inside of the nest. “It might actually be dog hair,” he said.

I nodded. “We have a corgi,” I said. “He sheds all over the yard, and the birds make nests of his dog hair.”

Scarlett said, “I have a bush right next to my window, and in the middle we have two robins nesting in it. And three eggs. We watched it, and it took them six weeks to get that nest done.”

“Six weeks!” I said. “Think how hard that is.”

“I know how they made it,” said Scarlett. “Can I go out to the board?”

“Please,” I said.

“We have about five minutes before we start packing up,” Mrs. Spaulding warned.

Scarlett started drawing how the birds in her yard built their nest. “They put three or four sticks. And then — my dog sheds like crazy. It’s a German shepherd. And then they take grass and slip it in through the trees. And they start curving it, and once they’ve done curving it, and making it like a bowl, they go out in my back yard and get the moss that’s on the ground, and they lay it in here, for the babies, and they nest in there.”

A hand from Paisley. “Next door at my house, I looked in a bush and I saw a bird’s nest. I actually saw a bird in it but I didn’t want to disturb it, so I just backed out.”

“That’s a really good thing to do,” I said. “These birds are really struggling to make their home, and be in private, and sometimes you want to just leave them alone, right?”

“Can I show how they built it?” asked Paisley.

“If you can in about twelve seconds,” I said, “because we’re going to start packing, stacking, racking, and flacking.”

“So this is the bush that the bird—” said Paisley.

“YOU’VE GOT ABOUT THIRTY SECONDS, PAISLEY,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “Ope, Skylar, talking!”

“And I’m right here,” said Paisley, drawing herself on the board, “and I backed up. And once an egg fell on the ground and it almost breaked, but I picked it back up, and brought it to the mom.”

“The saver of birds,” I said. “All right, guys, thank you for being a really fun class to be with. Now, pack and stack.”

“DESKS CLEANED OFF,” Mrs. Spaulding said. “WE’VE GOT SEVEN MINUTES.”

“And if anybody has ‘Stink Blob to the Rescue,’ hand it in,” I said.

“Shhh! Mr. Baker is speaking!”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m just gathering stray copies.”

Mrs. Spaulding went to full volume. “QUIET, KIDS, GO GET YOUR BOOK BAGS, PLEASE. PACK AND STACK. GUYS! MAKES SURE YOU’VE GOT THOSE YELLOW PAPERS IN YOUR BAGS. SUPER IMPORTANT.”

Reese erased the spelling words from the board.

“Oh, stop it, Stanley,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

Stanley slumped angrily in his seat. Mrs. Spaulding had given him a check mark. “I hate this school,” he said to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’ve been here for four years,” he said bitterly.

Reese wrote, “Mr Baker is the best,” on the board.

“Aw, thanks, man,” I said. “It was fun being in your class.”

“CLASS, WE HAVE A SPELLING TEST TOMORROW,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“Thank you for being our sub,” said Talia and Paisley.

“Thank you for being good students!”

I wanted them not to get rode wrong on the spelling test, so I wrote, “I RODE my bike on the ROAD.”

“You should probably write ‘on the side of the road,’” said Talia, with a serious expression.

“You’re right.”

Talia used an orange marker to put a caret in the sentence where the words should go, and I wrote “the side of.”

“BACK AT YOUR DESKS,” said Mrs. Spaulding, holding up her hand. “FIVE, FOUR. THREE. AT YOUR DESKS, EVERYBODY.”

“Do we have any homework?” Kennedy asked.

“Just look at the stars and sleep,” I said. “I don’t think with a sub you should have to do homework. Do you?”

“No,” said Kennedy. “So should I say to my mom the sub said no homework?”

“Yes. Tell her the sub said you did such good work today you can take the night off.”

“I DON’T WANT TO SEE ANY YELLOW PAPERS OUT,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

Kennedy wrote out a note in her day planner for me to sign: “Sub said I did so good so I have no homework.” I wrote “It’s true,” and signed it.

The buzzer buzzed.

“DON’T FORGET SPELLING WORDS, AND LET’S SAY THANK YOU TO MR. BAKER!”

“THANK YOU,” the class said in unison.

“Thank you all, thank you very, very much!” I waved.

“Mr. Baker, I have bus duty,” said Mrs. Spaulding.

“Can I sit in the hallway?” said Stanley.

“Just hang out in here and be happy,” I said.

“I don’t want to hang out in here,” he said.

“I’VE GOT MY EYES ON YOU GUYS, I KNOW YOU CAN BE GOOD!” said Mrs. Spaulding, before she ducked out.

“Bye, Mrs. Spaulding!” said Antoinette.

The second buzzer buzzed, but it wasn’t quite time to go: we had to wait for third-graders to be called on the PA system. A soccer ball came out from somewhere and scooted around under the desks.

“Mr. Baker,” said Reese, “do you want to see something that I drew?” He showed me a picture of a monster.

“Nice shading,” I said. “Fire-breathing!” Reese’s mother came to the door to pick him up. Great kid, great bird’s nest, I said to her. When it was time, I said, “LINE IT UP AND BE QUIET! Lead the way.”

Backpacks bouncing, they threaded their way through the hallways and out the front door, and one by one they leapt onto the high first steps of their buses. While I was back in the classroom writing a note for Mrs. Fellows about what a privilege it was to be in her class, Mrs. Spaulding came by. “Everybody’s cool?” she said.

“Everybody’s cool,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

“The kids really enjoyed your sharing,” she said. “They work hard. They’re good kids.”

“They’re good kids,” I said. “Thanks, take care.”

I picked some stray pencils up off the floor, and stacked up the stink blob worksheets and the math papers. Easy peasy. I heard the janitor emptying trash in the hallway.

Day Twenty, finished and done.