Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids

DAY TWENTY-ONE. Friday, May 16, 2014

LASSWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, KINDERGARTEN

KEEP YOUR DEAR TEACHER HAPPY

ON FRIDAY, Beth asked me to teach kindergarten at Lasswell Elementary School. I didn’t want to. I’d been substituting all week, and I was tired, and I thought that kindergarten would be even harder than gym. The only vivid memories I had of my own kindergarten experience were that we’d done fingerpainting, which was fun, and that I’d once gone number two hugely in my pants during nap time: the teacher had handed me extra toilet paper under the door of the stall. “I’m not at all sure I’d be good at it,” I said, “but I’ll do it if you really need me to.”

“Frankly I’m running out of people to call,” she said. “You’ll like them, they’re cute.”

The air was soft and the ferns were visibly unfurling on the way to Lasswell. I found the little flat building pocketed among the pines. “Are you ready for this challenge?” said the school secretary, signing me in.

“Yes, I am,” I said.

“Awesome!” She gave me the keys to the room and a badge. “It’s Mrs. Price’s room,” she said. “Room twenty-seven.”

Mrs. Price’s room was stylish and relatively uncluttered: six primary-colored tabletops served as two-person desks, and a comfortable-looking gliding rocker sat in the corner. On the whiteboard was a five-tiered voice-level chart: 0 was no talking, 1 was a whisper, 2 was table talk, 3 was a strong speaker, and 4 was outside. The class rules were framed in a border of rainbows and smiling cartoon clouds:

Rule #1—Follow directions quickly!

Rule #2—Raise your hand for permission to speak!

Rule #3—Be a bucket filler!

Rule #4—Make smart choices!

Rule #5—Keep your dear teacher happy!

A framed plaque on a shelf said, “It takes a big Heart to help shape LITTLE minds.”

Westin, who had a big, wobbly, laughing head, was the first kindergartner I met. “My other friends are coming in,” he said.

Ava, with short brown hair and a collared white shirt, said, “You want to know what I saw? I saw a white frog at the bus stop, and in the bus I saw two baby flies. My bus driver kissed them. Not kissed them, killed them. He put them in a paper towel and threw them away.”

“I’ve got a Chihuahua named Boa,” said Madeline.

I asked if they’d known that Mrs. Price wouldn’t be in today.

“I saw Mrs. Price at my friend’s bus stop, and she was sick,” said Madeline. She had a stuffed bird named Princess. “She was being bad in daycare, so I put her in time-out.”

Westin wanted me to know about the system of rewards and punishments, which involved Tallies and Mighty Oh Nos. If the class got seven Mighty Oh Nos, then the teacher erased the row of tallies. “Mighty Oh Nos are because we do a bad job,” he said. I told him I probably wouldn’t be keeping track of Oh Nos or Oh Yeses that day. Hazel was the class star of the day, Westin said.

Just then Hazel walked in crying. She was wearing a shirt with big blue flowers on it.

“She misses her mom,” said Madeline.

“Have a seat right here and tell me about it,” I said to Hazel. “What’s your mom like?”

Through shuddering sobs, Hazel said that her mom was nice and that she missed her a lot.

I asked her if her mom went off to work.

“She works at home,” Hazel said. “She makes blankets.”

“Are they soft blankets?” I asked.

She nodded. “They’re baby blankets,” she said.

“It’s a great thing that you love your mom and she loves you,” I said. “It’s about the most important thing in the world.”

Hazel smeared her tears and sniffed.

I told a loud kid named Garrett, in a Myrtle Beach T-shirt, to get some work out and do his thing.

“Do these kids know the SOPs?” I asked Hazel.

She shook her head.

“Are they supposed to be working at their desks?” I asked.

Hazel nodded.

“Listen,” I said to her. “You’re very brave and you’re doing really good, and I’m going to help you all I can, okay?” She nodded. I thought a change of subject might be a good idea, and I asked her if she had any pets.

“Three dogs and two fish,” she said. She said she didn’t have to walk the dogs. “We let them outside to go to the bathroom.” I asked her who in the class was her friend.

“Everyone,” she said.

“That’s very generous,” I said.

She got out her morning work, Word Rings. Word Rings were done in pairs. One person held the Word Ring and played the teacher, while the other person had to read the words, which were written in marker on laminated colored paper.

“You know what I like about this classroom?” I said. “Everything is neat and organized. Is Mrs. Price nice?”

“She’s really nice,” Hazel said.

“Whoa, you’re really tall,” said Garrett, who was writing on someone’s whiteboard.

I asked him to figure out what he was going to do at his desk.

“We don’t have desks, we have tables,” Garrett said.

“Then will you figure out what you’re going to do at your table and/or desk?”

“Garrett gets into lots of trouble,” said January. “Also Westin. He’s been hurting people.”

Westin was flinging around a prism-shaped eraser.

“Hi, Westin,” I said. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing.”

“Good. Let me have the eraser.” I told him to pick a morning work.

A loud long bell rang, and I wrote my name on the board.

“Mr. Black?” said Garrett. “Mr. Blacker?”

“Are you kind of a baker?” asked Abby.

I said that maybe a long time ago my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather baked bread, but that I didn’t much. “My wife bakes bread,” I said. There was a sudden coruscation of sonic energy centered on Garrett and Westin.

“SHHHHH! MY NAME IS MR. BAKER, and I can tell you’re a really good bunch of kids, and you’re going to be absolutely great in this class. And one thing—”

Garrett started talking.

“SHH! One thing you’re going to do is help me know what the next step is all day long, because Mrs. Price has arranged this class so that everything works really well — right?”

“Yeah,” said Noah.

“So in order for the class to work today, you’re going to have to do a little teaching of me about what the next step is.”

A four-note bell came on the PA system. We listened quietly to the faint announcements coming from two first-graders. “The weather today will be partly sunny, with highs around seventy,” said a boy. Lunch was pizza bagels or cheeseburger, green beans, applesauce, and milk. A secretary announced two birthdays. And then we lustily pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

I said, “When there’s a substitute, the temptation is for the noise to get too loud. Have you had substitutes before?”

Yes!

“What happens when a substitute comes?”

“We listen!” said Madeline.

“Nice! If we’re having a discussion, it’s better if one person talks at a time.”

“There’s another word for it,” said Ava. “Polite.”

“Polite is a good word. I’ve already met almost all of you, and you seem like really polite kids. That’s a nice thing to see. Makes me proud to be a citizen of the State of Maine.”

I pulled out the attendance sheet. Angel, uncertain and plump-fingered, found her name on it.

“Mr. Baker?” said Madeline. “My body is feeling out of shape.”

I called out names and signed the sheet. “All right, guys, gather around,” I said. “We’re going to be going to an art exhibit. So what do we do when we go to an art exhibit?”

To my startlement, the class began reciting the class rules in unison. “FOLLOW DIRECTIONS QUICKLY, RAISE YOUR HAND FOR PERMISSION TO SPEAK, BE A BUCKET FILLER, MAKE SMART CHOICES, AND KEEP YOUR DEAR TEACHER HAPPY.”

“And I am happy,” I said.

“Whoo-hoo!” said Abby.

“My dad is bald,” said Angel.

“It’s what happens sometimes to men,” I said. “The hair just comes off their head.”

Noah wanted to know what a pizza bagel was. I said that it was a little round bagel, circular, with a hole in the middle, and it had pizza topping on it. “It’s quite delicious,” I said.

“Mm, I want to have it,” said Noah.

January said, “Mr. Baker, smile! Click!”

“Okay, line up, line up, line up,” I said.

“Westin was a superstar yesterday, so today he has to go in the back,” said Abby.

I said, “Guys, dear children, in line please, and quiet. And remember, we’re going to go and see art that’s done by some of the older kids, so we’re going to be very respectful, and ask them questions about how they did stuff. Right? It might be a little loud in the cafeteria, but the key is not to add to the noise.”

We turned several corners and plunged through the wall of sound into the cafeteria, which was lined with large drawings, in front of which children stood. A second-grade teacher said, “It’s kind of like a museum. They’re just going to walk around and visit the animals, and the rangers will have information for them.”

We made a tour of the walls and saw two red squirrels, a fisher cat, a mountain lion, a bobcat, another bobcat with crazy eyes, a gray fox, and a black bear. Each drawing was mounted on a large sheet of red or brown construction paper, with a page of facts next to it. We came to an opossum, and a three-foot-high exuberantly crayoned moose. We saw beavers, raccoons, and an ermine. “Owls and martens eat ermines,” said the fact sheet. “They are ferocious hunters.” There was a skunk, another red fox, two gray squirrels, a lynx with very good eyesight, a porcupine with thirty thousand quills, a white-tailed deer, and a woodchuck. “A woodchuck is also called a whistlepig,” explained a second-grader. “They use a high-pitched whistle to warn members of their colony.” I didn’t know that. I loved these crazy animal-happy kids.

We paused to get our breath when we were out of the cafeteria. Ava said, “I can’t believe I actually saw my sister!”

“I saw my sister, too!” said Madeline.

“I saw my daycare teacher!” said Jaydon.

“One voice at a time,” I said. “I want to tell you that you were very good. We stopped at each person’s art. We didn’t hurt anybody’s feelings, and we listened to what they had to say. They really worked hard. That huge white-tailed deer, that enormous moose! You did a great job of admiring the work that they did, so thank you.”

Ava said, “My sister was the last one, and I hugged her, and she hugged me back and picked me up, and she was the white-tailed deer.”

Madeline said, “I saw my sister, and she got tackled by a little midget. And the little midget was me. She’s nine and I’m six.”

Westin said, “I saw my friend Jason from my old school. He was gone and I never saw him again. And now I saw him.”

During snack and book-reading time, Noah ate Yum Yums, January ate carrot sticks, and Garrett stood on one foot. A boy named Rick arrived late. I asked how many wanted pizza bagels. “I know what a bagel is, and I know what a pizza is, but I just don’t know what they look like together,” said Jaydon.

I said, “Imagine you had magical powers, and there was a pizza over here, and a little bagel over there, and you could go shwish, and put them together. You’d get a little round bite-sized bagel with pizza sauce and cheese deliciously sprinkled on top. It’s hot. It’s good.”

“Oh!”

Four people wanted pizza bagels, two wanted cheeseburgers, and three wanted SunButter and jelly. The rest had home lunch.

“I have a whole lot of dandelions and we’re planting a whole bunch of things in my garden,” said January. “Orange and pink flowers. I got a pretty purple one, and it’s really pretty. It’s going to be a bush.”

I opened a container of applesauce for Abby and said, “I talked to a guy last night who had planted one thousand five hundred strawberry plants.”

“Whoo,” said Abby.

“He’s a strawberry farmer,” I said. “He said they have a special machine to put the strawberry plants in the soil.”

“I have a blueberry plant,” said Hazel.

“I’m going to bring a robot to school,” said Jaydon. “I’m going to ask it to make flowers and strawberries everywhere.”

Angel showed me a book of minerals that she’d gotten at the book fair. The book had plastic pouches inside that held several minerals, including a speckled wishing rock of Dalmatian jasper. Angel held it up for the class, but nobody was looking.

“Time out for a second,” I said. “Angel’s got an amazing book. Instead of being filled with pages, it’s filled with…”

“Rocks,” said Angel. She held out her book so that people could see.

“These rocks are from all parts of the world,” I said. “These rocks, when you pull them out of the ground, they don’t look good. They look kind of jagged. Then they put them in a special machine, which is called a tumbler. It’s like a giant dryer, and it goes around and around, with all the other rocks, and all the rocks tumble and tumble, and they start to get smoother and smoother, and shinier and shinier, until finally they’re smooth and shiny like this one here, the crystal quartz.”

I asked the class if they knew where rocks came from. Many hands went up.

From the ground! From the dirt! From the mountain!

“How would they get down in the ground and in the dirt and in the mountain?” I asked.

Abby said, “There’s little ant holes, and they put the rocks in the holes.”

Angel said, “I’m hoping a moon rock can fall from the moon, or I can go up there, with my family one time, and try to get a moon rock.”

Madeline raised her hand and said that rocks come from grass. She’d seem them in the grass at her daycare.

“That’s true,” I said. “You think, How could a rock come from grass? Millions of years ago, when dinosaurs walked the earth, and they had big tall fields of grass, and no people were around, well, the grass would die in a marsh, and maybe the water would come. The grass would start to rot and go bad, and squish down, and then more grass would grow on top of that, and that would squish down. After a while you’ve got maybe two hundred feet of old rotting roots and grass, and it’s getting very dark and squishy and marshy. All the water goes out, and it gets harder and harder. More dirt on top of that, squishing down really hard, years and years go by. Finally you have something that’s so hard that it’s called rock. It’s called sedimentary rock.”

“Rocks are actually kind of like a toy,” said Abby. “Because you can use them for stuff. Like hopscotch.”

Hazel said, “There’s rocks at the beach and there’s lightning at the beach that will hit rocks and break them down into little pieces at the beach.”

“Okay, Hazel had a good idea,” I said. “Another way that rocks can form. Some rocks are formed because they’re melted. They could be melted down by lightning, or they could be melted down when they get so deep in the earth that there’s so much pressure that they form a volcano. A volcano is when the pressure of the earth presses so hard on the rock that it melts and turns red-hot, and it forces itself up the cracks of the earth, and then squirts out the top of a mountain. That’s lava, right?”

“And lava is so hot you can’t even touch it,” said Hartley, who was wearing a red-striped polo shirt and had a smart-kid’s lisp.

Angel wanted to show off her book some more. “Do you guys want to have a closer look down on the carpet?”

Hazel said, “Sometimes a volcano can stop erupting, and it never goes ever again. It gets yucky and old, and it breaks down and becomes rocks again.”

“Did everyone get a chance to see my rocks?” Angel asked.

Hartley said, “Mr. Baker, before even it forms into a volcano, it leaves a bigger piece of a rock with all these crystal rocks on top. It’s like a pie, kind of. There’s little rocks left on top.”

January said, “Mr. Baker, can I share my stuffed animals?” Maybe after recess, I said, because it was book time now.

Abby said, “Excuse me? I got an A in gymnastics.”

Madeline said, “Mr. Baker, did you know I found a green crystal? A green one. It was all green. It was a square.”

“That’s beautiful,” I said. “Did you look really close inside and see the secret world of the inside of the rock?”

“I saw a little bit of white,” said Madeline. “And little moving stuff. I think I could find another crystal and maybe my mom could let me bring it in. And one of my cat teeth looks like a crystal.” She pointed to her incisor, which had silver on it. “This one, that had the surgery in it. It’s silver because I didn’t brush my teeth good. They’re going to pull it out. I’m sure the tooth fairy will give me extra money. Maybe a dollar.”

I asked her what book she was going to look at for the next five minutes.

“I don’t really know,” said Madeline. “I’m going to look at my library.”

“Did you guys want to go over there with my book?” said Angel. “I’m trusting you.”

Westin was unhappy because Angel wasn’t letting him touch the rocks. Look but don’t touch, she’d said.

“If you see something shiny and it’s yellow, that isn’t gold, right?” said Hartley.

“Westin, why don’t you find a book,” I said. “Find a Hop on Pop or something.”

Madeline put on her glasses, which had cranberry-red rims. “I only need them for reading, and we’re reading right now. I can only see far words. I’m farsighted. My sister’s nearsighted. She can’t see anything that good.”

I ate a chunk of coffee chocolate. “It helps me wake up, boyoing!”

“Are you sleepy?” asked Abby.

“I’m not yet sleepy, but I don’t want to become sleepy.”

“Does your wife kick snore?” asked Abby. “I heard a thing about kick snore.”

“You have a lot of stuff we can know,” said January. “Remember you said about the volcano and the rocks? You are amazing.”

“You’re amazing!” I said.

“I know how to make oak trees,” January said. “You need a nut, which is a acorn. Then you plant it in the ground, then you water it, and then it turns into a beautiful tree.”

Madeline brought a book over to me.

“Can you read this page?” she asked. The book was called Zendaya, and it was a biography of a teen singer, Zendaya Coleman, from a Disney TV show called Shake It Up. “In addition to Shake It Up, Zendaya also got to work on other cool projects. She sang on the three Shake It Up albums, and shot videos for several of the songs.”

“Wow, that’s a lot,” said Madeline. “I know how to shake it up. You like shake it and shake it and shake it. The song tells you what to do to shake it up. You have to shake it up over here, shake it up over there.”

I got her to sound out Shake It Up. “See that? Shake It Up. You read it.”

At 10:10 it was time to get ready for recess. “If you need to use the bathroom, now’s your chance.”

“Angel! Hazel! You don’t need to use your jackets, because it’s warm,” said Abby.

They lined up.

“I’m on recess duty,” I said. “GUYS, shh. I’m on recess duty. I want happy playing. I don’t want any grabbing. I like happy people who do not bump into each other, but have a good time playing. Yes, there’s a question.”

“Hi!” said Madeline.

“Hello,” I said. “So are we on our way?”

Yes.

Hazel led us out the big doors and everyone scattered. A minute later, Ava ran back. “Mr. Baker, I saw a white little baby butterfly!”

“I watch scary movies,” said Abby. “Yesterday I found a baby inchworm.”

“Hi, Mr. Baker,” said Hartley, from the top of the slide.

Percy ran up, the boy who wore the special vest in Mrs. Thurston’s second-grade class. “I know you,” he said. “You were an aid when Mrs. Spahn was out.”

A kid toppled off the tires and hit his head. “I was trying to walk across that thing and something banged,” he said.

“Take a moment to sit and make sure it’s okay,” I said. I brushed off the sand from his eyebrow. “Sorry that happened.”

I met two staffers, Ms. Solano and Mr. Frank, who gave me an emergency walkie-talkie. I gave it a puzzled look and spoke into it: “Roger.”

“Just hold on to it,” said Ms. Solano. “I don’t know how to use it, either.”

“You press the button?” I said.

“If you need to,” Ms. Solano said, “but you never need to, so it’s okay.”

Abby and Madeline ran up. “Mr. Baker, they said they finished their ABCs and I just got on.” The rule was, they explained, that when there was a line at the swing, the people who were waiting got a turn after they’d sung the whole ABC song. But people were rushing. I stood and listened to Abby sing, “Now I know my ABCs, next time won’t you sing with me.”

The boy politely got off the swing and let Abby get on.

Another kid ran up to say that Adam had gotten hit by a basketball in the middle of his face and the big kids didn’t even care. Adam was lying on the dirt, uninjured but unhappy.

I went over to the older kids. “Dudes, time out for a sec. If a kid gets hit by a ball, and it hurts him or he’s sad, you want to take a moment to say, Are you okay? and make him feel a little better. Got that?”

“Yeah, sure,” said the second-grader. “Over here!” The basketball game resumed.

Garrett asked me if he could take off his sweatshirt. “Yes, but don’t forget where you put it,” I said.

There was another boy down on the grass. “He’s just playing dead,” said his friend. “It’s just like Over the Hedge. ‘We die to live, we live to die!’”

Angel had found three new rocks to add to her collection. “We should call that the space rock,” she said, showing me a gray, angular fragment.

The bell rang. “Back up, please,” said an ed tech at the door. “QUIET, STRAIGHT LINES.” My class lined up quietly, but the ed tech picked another line to go in first: “Mrs. Harmon’s class, good job, you may go in,” she said. We were next. “Face forward, please,” said the ed tech. She spotted Angel studying her book of gems. “No reading while walking, not safe!” she said.

Angel was happy, though. Her gem book had been a hit in class and on the playground. “A lot of people really like this book,” she said.

“Angel, can I see your rocks again?” asked Abby.

Hazel had a mosquito bite. Westin told me that he and Garrett had chased a girl. “She was in second grade!” he said.

“You never know what’s going to happen on the playground,” I said.

“A lot of people like my book,” said Angel, dancing — but there was a price. Ava, whom Angel wanted to be friends with, was tired of hearing about Angel’s gems, and she moved to a table across the room. “Ava, come back,” called Angel.

“Have a discussion about the seasons and the senses,” Mrs. Price wrote in her sub plans. So we did. Winter seemed to be mostly about sledding wipeouts and hot cocoa, spring was about rain and butterflies. I wrote “grow” on the board, and “spinach,” and “leaf,” and then I handed Hazel a stack of worksheet packets to pass out. Garrett handed out the pencils. A reading specialist named Mrs. Willett arrived to take three children off to a remedial something-or-other. Before she left, she said, in her prison-guard baby talk, “if you are ready to do your paperwork, I need your pencils down, and both hands over your head. Now, who is ready? Caleb’s ready. Stretch your hands up high. I only see a couple people ready. I don’t see Hannah. Thank you.” She left with Garrett, Noah, and Hazel in tow.

“All right,” I said. “Once you are lucky enough to get a pencil — and that is a lucky thing to have, believe me — you get to write your name on that first page.” The worksheet was titled “In the Spring.” Page 2 said, I can see ______. Page 3 said, I can hear ______. Page 4 said, I can smell ______. And page 5 said, I can feel ______. There were big blank boxes in which the kids were supposed to draw pictures of the words they’d filled in. “Can you smell stuff in spring?” I said. “Not if you have a clothespin on your nose.”

“No!”

“No, but you can if you don’t, and most of us don’t have clothespins on our noses, so we can smell things. Some of it’s good, some of it’s not so good. Does anyone have a dog? I love the smell of dogs’ paws.”

“Me, too,” said January.

“Ew,” said Angel.

“What are the lines for?” asked Westin.

“That’s where you can write something, like ‘I can see little baby birds in the nest.’ Or, ‘I can see cheese melting on the hot stove.’ Or whatever you can see in springtime.”

“I’m going to draw a bumblebee,” said Westin.

“What do we draw on the cover?” asked Angel.

“Close your eyes and think, what is a picture of spring in your mind? It could be a puddle. Or when the grass finally turns green, and you lie on your back looking up at the clouds.”

Ten seconds later Westin said, “Yay, I’m done with my first page: bumblebee.”

“Can you help me spell a bird?” said Madeline.

I wrote bird on the board.

“I don’t know how to spell,” said Westin.

“Well, spelling is something that you gradually learn over a long time,” I said.

Abby drew several beautiful trees.

“How do you spell bee?” asked Westin.

“Guys, you don’t ask how to spell,” said Abby.

That surprised me. “You don’t? Why not?”

“Because that’s what Mrs. Price says,” said Abby.

“Well, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to ask,” I said.

“How do you spell peep?” asked Westin.

“Peep is a wonderful word,” I said.

“P-E-E-P,” said Ava.

“Ooh, you are good,” I said. I wrote the word on the board.

Jaydon wrote that he could see CC and hear S C E R N S. He’d drawn a brown circle in the middle of the paper. I asked him what the first word was.

“Well, if you’re inside, and your mom baked cookies, you could see cookies.”

“Okay, great. And I can hear…?”

“Screams, sometimes?” Jaydon had drawn a scream cartoon coming out of a mouth.

“Ava just don’t want to do anything,” said Angel.

“Don’t worry about Ava,” I said. “You worry about yourself. Each of you is in a rocket ship going to the moon of spring.”

After I’d written bumblebee on the board, I went over to Ava. Her “In the Spring” booklet was blank. “Did you not want to do it?” I said. “What’s the deal? I don’t get it. I’m puzzled.”

“She never does her work,” said Angel. “Ever.”

Ava began shaking her head back and forth.

“You’re smart,” I said, “you could blaze through it.”

More head shaking from Ava.

I asked her if she liked running fast.

Head shake.

Running slow?

Head shake.

Walking fast?

Head shake.

“Is this something that doesn’t interest you?”

She nodded.

“She just doesn’t want to do it,” said Angel. “She’s always like that.”

“Well,” I said. “I guess you’d just prefer not to.” Ava nodded.

Ava was obviously observant, an enthusiast of spring: she’d seen the white frog and the two baby flies killed by the bus driver. And she was a better reader and speller than the others. I told her she could get a book to read, but she didn’t want to do that, either. Instead, she got out her poetry notebook. Poor thing: she was already fed up with being asked to do inane worksheets and she was only in kindergarten. Twelve more years to go.

I can smell my dog, wrote Abby. I can feel my mom.

I can see the sun, wrote Angel. I can hear birds. I can smell flowers. I can feel the table.

I can hear wind, wrote Rick. I can smell grass. I can feel air.

“Beautiful,” I said. “Because when you move your hand, you feel air.”

Madeline had drawn a wild strawberry plant. I can smell pizza, she wrote. I can feel sun. She said, “Cause when I put my hand up, it gets really hot.”

I wrote pizza on the chalkboard.

“Now what can I do?” said Madeline.

“You can look in your poetry book,” I said.

“Poetry journal,” corrected Madeline.

I let everyone work for a while. “WE’RE GOING TO BE MAKING A LITTLE TRANSITION PRETTY SOON,” I announced.

“What’s a condition?” asked Madeline.

“A transition is when you move from one thing, and you make a transition to another thing. Mrs. Willett is going to come in here at eleven thirty-five, so in about one minute.”

“Who’s Miss Willett?” said Jaydon.

“She is a…” I honestly didn’t know what she was, officially.

“Writing teacher!” said Abby.

“She’s a writing teacher,” I said. “So what Mrs. Price wants you to do is do a little stretch, use the bathroom, do whatever you need to do to get your ya-yas out before Mrs. Willett comes, so you can be attentive to her.”

Hazel stood and tipped from side to side. Hartley hopped around. Westin went berserk.

“Westin, you’re getting a little too wild there, man,” I said.

Angel handed Ava the book of polished rocks to look at on her own. “I made Ava happy!” she said. “I made Ava happy!”

“I love to see you smile,” I said to Ava.

Mrs. Willett blew in, book in hand, Garrett, Noah, and Hazel following behind. “We’ll do a mini-lesson,” she said, “and then I’ll send them off to their seats for writer’s workshop. We’re working on how-to books.”

“Can we still finish this?” Hartley asked me.

“Just leave it right there,” I said, “freeze it in time, and gather around to listen to Mrs. Willett.”

“OKAY!” contraltoed Mrs. Willett, to the assembled multitude. She was an extremely sure-of-herself woman with spike heels and a silk scarf. “January’s ready. I know you’re ready for writer’s workshop when you’re sitting, crisscross applesauce! Garrett’s going to come up here, I need to see him for a second.” She sat him down at her feet. “Westin, what are you waiting for? Just sit right down, because I want to get started with the mini-lesson! Westin!”

I told Westin to cool it and asked Mrs. Willett if she wanted me to go or stay.

“You can stay and kind of listen in,” she said, “and the two of us, when they’re writing, we go around if they need help stretching out their words.” She pointed around the double semicircle. “I see Garrett’s ready, and Rick, and Jaydon, and Madeline, and Angel. Hazel’s ready. What’s the problem over there? We don’t need folders right now, I just need you to sit and look at me!”

January walked over to me. “I have black stuff behind this ear,” she whispered. “Can you send me to the nurse?”

I whispered for her just to sit for now.

“Mrs. Price has been busy!” Mrs. Willett said loudly. “Can everybody see this chart that she made?”

Yes.

“Yesterday she wrote the ideas on the whiteboard. Remember, with the marker? And then it looks like she copied it over and made a chart for us. So this is a chart to help us when we are writing our how-to books.” The chart said “Learning from a Mentor.” “Remember we talked about a mentor is somebody that can help us? There are people who can help us, and then there are books that are called ‘mentor texts.’” She held up a book. “This is one of our mentor texts. Number one, we can learn the title of a mentor text. The title tells what the book is about. Can everybody tell us? What’s this book about? You can all say it.”

“Soccer.”

“We learned a lot about soccer yesterday, reading this book. Number two, the pictures can teach us in a book. Number three, a list of things that you might need. In a how-to book you might have to tell the reader what they might need. And number four — that’s the new part today, that I’m going to show you! I’m going to go back into My Very First Soccer Game, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.”

“Capasilly!” said Noah.

“I’m going to skip some pages. Here’s one I wanted to show you. Game time. Together we run and dribble. And pass. Our feet start and stop the ball. Teamwork! Is what soccer’s all about. Step one. Put the ball next to the inside of your foot. There’s the arrow. Two. Move the ball forward, back, or even side to side. Tap and run, tap and run. That’s called—?”

“Dribbling!”

“Dribbling. The author, Alyssa, did something on this page to help us. Something that’s new that we haven’t really talked about much, this year. Something that authors will do to help us. I see a couple hands. Garrett, that’s distracting me. Thank you. Look closely. I see a few more hands. Abby, what is something that you’re noticing?”

“Um, the person is kicking the ball,” said Madeline.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Willett. “The pictures match the words, right, Abby? We have talked a lot about that this year — that pictures teach us, and we need our words to match our pictures. I’ll give you a hint. This is something new that she did that’s in the words. Abby.”

“Teamwork!” said Abby.

“Yes! What did she do to the word teamwork?”

“Teamwork is to work together,” said Abby.

“It means work together. And look at this. I’m going to read it. Teamwork is what soccer’s all about. This word, teamwork, starts with what letter?”

“T!”

“Yes, a T! Look at how it’s been printed in the book, compared to the other words in that sentence. January, what do you notice?”

“It’s blue,” said January, “and all the other letters are black.”

“Noah? Wait, January. Noah? Why did you move? You couldn’t see? Okay. So, January, say it again.”

“Because it’s blue,” said January, “and all the other words are black.”

“I can’t see,” said Jaydon.

“January, sit down,” said Westin.

“She was showing us,” said Mrs. Willett. “She can sit down after.”

“See right there?” said January.

“Do you see the blue letters that January was talking about? Westin, why do you think Alyssa C., the author — why do you think she put teamwork in blue? In a different color?”

Westin said, “Because teamwork means you’re like, um, cleaning up?”

“Yep, helping,” said Mrs. Willett. “Working together as a team. But I’m wondering why is it in blue?”

“Uhhhh,” said Westin.

“Why do authors do that? Rick?”

“They’s on blue teams,” said Rick.

“Could be that they’re on the blue team,” said Mrs. Willett. “Abby?”

“Because teamwork is a really special thing,” said Abby. “You have to really do it.”

“Right! It’s a really special, important word, teamwork. And we call that ‘bold.’ Can everybody say ‘bold’?”

“Bold!”

“Important parts in bold.” She pointed to Mrs. Price’s chart, where that statement was item number 4. “So sometimes, Hazel, authors will put those important words — guys? I’m going to wait. That’s distracting, Westin. I saw that Mr. Baker already spoke to you about that once, right? So now this is the second time. When authors want us to really remember something, that’s very important in a how-to book, sometimes they’ll put the word in bold. Either in dark black or in another color.” Mrs. Willett showed us several more bolded words in the book. “Is writing words in darker pencil, or even with a different-colored pencil, is that something that you might try, with some important words? In your how-to books?”

Silence.

“Give me a thumbs-up if you think that you might go through your how-to book today, and with some important words you might try to make them bold.”

Thumbs went up.

“Excellent! Excellent. Now I’m going to say a word, and if you think it’s a really important word for a how-to book, and should be in bold, give me a thumbs-up. Or thumbs-down if it shouldn’t. The first word is the. Is that a really important word? We need the word the, but in a how-to book is that going to really tell us how to do something?”

No.

In a book about flying a kite, she said, was string an important word? Yes, maybe it was. Hazel’s how-to book was about giving a party. Was a an important word in that book? No. How about balloons? Yes. “So you have to really think,” Mrs. Willett said. “You don’t want to put every word in bold, but it’s just something you can think about. Hands down for a minute, January. Do you have to put words in bold in your how-to book?”

No.

“No, this is just another strategy that you might want to try as a writer today. Because, Mr. Baker, wait till you see their how-to books!” She asked everyone to look through their how-to books and see if they wanted to add anything more, or if maybe they wanted to put some words in bold. “Now Mr. Baker and I will come around, like Mrs. Price and I do, but let’s tell him, what do you do if you need some help?”

“You raise your hand,” said Hartley.

“Yes. Because if everybody comes up to us, we can’t help everybody at once. Questions. Ava?”

“What if everyone raises their hand?”

“If everyone raises their hand, what I’ll usually do is I’ll say, ‘I’m helping Ava, and then, Abby, you’re next.’ And then you have to be patient. Because there’s a lot more of you, and there’s only two teachers.”

Angel had a question — did every important word have to be in bold?

“No,” said Mrs. Willett. “It’s up to you. You’re the writer. You might just pick a couple. Hang on, Garrett, we have a couple more questions. Hands to yourself, Garrett.”

Abby wanted to know what to do if a friend asks for help and you help them and they keep asking for help.

Mrs. Willett said, “I’d just use my words and say, ‘I helped you, now you need to do some work, and if you need more help, raise your hand for the teacher.’ Okay. Great. If you have your writing folder already at your table, you may go start writing. If you need to get your writing folder, you may make a line and get your writing folder.”

How-to books were in progress concerning How to Fly a Kite, How to Give a Party, and How to Brush Your Teeth. Most of the topics came from a list of ideas in the worksheet packet.

“I don’t brush my teeth,” said Jaydon. “I do, but I don’t have time every day.”

Madeline was working on How to Go to the Beach. Westin was doing How to Make a Sandwich. Abby was working on How to Make Friends. Noah was working on How to Walk Your Puppy. The first thing to do, Noah said, when you’re walking your puppy is “tell your parents.” I showed him how to write PARENTS. Rick was explaining how to go on a ride at Funtown. I showed him that the E in RIDE makes the I long.

January raised her hand and I sat down next to her. She hadn’t opened her writing folder. “My ear really hurts,” she said. “In this spot right here.” She pointed to her tiny ear, around which her thin blond hair flowed.

“Hm,” I said. “It looks a little red.”

“Can I go to the nurse? With my friend? It feels like it’s bleeding.”

“Is it a bug bite?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “It didn’t start hurting outside, it started hurting when we were reading. There are some black spots when I — when I—”

“I think you have some sand in your ear,” I said, peering. “Is that it, maybe? You feel the grinding grainy parts? If you check with the nurse, she’ll probably say it’ll feel better a little later, and she’ll send you back.”

“Can I just go?” said January. “She might just give me something or she might just take a look.”

That made sense. “Do you know the way?” I asked.

“Yes. Sometimes people bring us. They stay there, and then they bring me back.”

“Can you go by yourself?” I asked. “Because there’s a lot of work going on right now.”

“I’m going to ask if somebody will take me,” said January.

Mrs. Willett said that January needed a note for the nurse. I found the nurse forms and wrote a note: “January says her ear is hurting and hopes you can take a look. Thanks! — Nick Baker (sub).”

“My stomach hurts,” said Angel.

“Well,” I said, “keep an eye on it, if it’s possible to keep an eye on your stomach, and if it starts to hurt—”

“It does.”

“Hang in there. January has hung in there for a couple of hours. Try to drink some water. Usually if you drink some water it makes it feel better.” Angel had a long drink at the drinking fountain by the bathroom door.

Hazel wanted Mrs. Willett to help her with the spelling of teeth, but Mrs. Willett was, like many reading teachers, a believer in the primal importance of do-it-yourself phonetics, which supposedly built self-esteem and independent thinking habits — even when a kid was obviously eager to know what the real spelling was. “Just write the letters for the sounds you hear,” she said.

Dissatisfied, Hazel came over to me. “I have a question,” she said. “I wish my mom was here, because she helps me do my work faster. I don’t know what letter makes the sound ‘th.’” She’d written HOW TO BRS YOUR TEE.

The end sound in teeth was spelled with a TH, I said. Why not tell her, if she was curious? It was a useful sound to know.

Garrett wanted to spell help. Mrs. Willett helped him figure out the H. “What vowel says ‘eh’?” she said. “Eh, eh. It’s either A E I O or U. Eh, eh.” Garrett finally guessed E. Then L. Then P. “Great! Garrett is stretching out his words, and he’s hearing the sounds and then writing the letters down! Nice, nice. Noah and Westin, I want you to focus on your own how-to books. I’m going to go help Madeline.”

“I don’t know how to write animals,” said Garrett.

“Then just do your best,” said Mrs. Willett. “Write the letters for the sounds that you hear.”

I looked up at the blackboard and the whiteboard, where I’d written pizza and bumblebee and butterfly and ground and peep. I was violating pedagogical principles by telling the students how to spell those words — even though they’d asked me. Only a small group of short “sight words”—words like and, out, in, eat, yes, cat, cake, and them—were exempt from the make-your-best-guess requirement. Mrs. Willett was, it seemed to me, prematurely forcing kindergarten kids to write, and at the same time forcing them to write wrong. In practice the obligatory self-invented spelling made for sentences encoded in a weird phonetic Linear B that nobody, not even the struggling writer, could parse an hour later. It made for sadness, too. Some phrases were composed almost entirely of one-letter words.

I whisper-asked Jaydon how old the kids were in the class.

“Five,” he whispered back.

“Did you get animals written, Garrett?” asked Mrs. Willett. “You know how to stretch it out. Write the letters you think of.”

“I don’t even hear any, really,” said Garrett.

“You have to help yourself here, Garrett.”

“How do I help myself?” said Garrett. “I don’t even know what that means!”

“This is what it means,” said Mrs. Willett. “Say ‘ah nuh mulls.’ What sound do you hear at the beginning of ‘ah nuh mulls’?”

Angel said her stomach really hurt.

“Let’s check back after lunch,” I said. “If you’re in agony, then you should go to the nurse.”

“My back hurts,” said Madeline.

“Oh my god,” I said. “Everybody’s suddenly gotten hurty.”

Mrs. Willett’s voice was so loud and distracting that Ava began shushing her. “Shh! Shh! Shh!” Mrs. Willett didn’t notice, fortunately.

“Garrett,” she said. “Ah nuh mulls!”

“N again?” said Garrett.

“If that’s what you hear, write it down,” said Mrs. Willett. “Helping yourself means for you to stretch out your words.”

“Z?” said Garrett.

“No, it sounds like a Z but it’s an S,” coached Mrs. Willett. “Just one S.”

Angel took a magnifying glass out and looked at the warped room with it. She was upset that Hazel hadn’t returned from taking January to the nurse.

Time to wash up for lunch. “HOW MANY OF YOU WROTE ONE MORE PAGE TODAY?” asked Mrs. Willett.

Some hands went up.

“HOW MANY OF YOU WROTE TWO MORE PAGES TODAY?”

A few hands.

“I’m on my third one!” said Rick.

“Very nice,” said Mrs. Willett. “You know we can’t lose anything, so where does everything go? Noah, where does everything go?”

“In your folder.”

“Yep, IN YOUR FOLDER. Jaydon, ho boy. I’m going to help you, because you’ve got a lot of stuff out of your folder.”

January and Hazel returned from the nurse. “There was a tick in my ear!” January said, wide-eyed, to me. “It was this big!”

“Ew,” said Mrs. Willett, overhearing.

“They had to bend my ear to get it out,” said January.

“And it ate some blood of her skin,” said Hazel.

“January, you are brave,” I said.

“I was saying, ‘Ow, ow, ow,’ because it kind of hurted,” said January. She showed me where the tick had been hiding out behind her ear, under her earlobe.

“OKAY, FRIENDS,” said Mrs. Willett. She did the five-clap clap. “When your folder is put away, and your table is clean, you can wash your hands for lunch! Westin, that’s a messy folder. Messy, messy, huh?” She looked at me. “Good thing you sent her to the nurse,” she said, meaning January.

Angel was in the corner holding her stomach. “She can’t breathe,” said Abby.

“When I take a big breath, I still can’t breathe,” said Angel.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” I said. “We’re going to keep an eye on it. After lunch, we’re going to take a look.

“Did she use tweezers?” I asked January.

“No, she uses a little cup, and then she pinched it out. It looked just like a spider. It was a dog tick. It still stings right now.”

She went off to tell Mrs. Willett about it in detail.

“You’re cool,” Noah said to me.

“You’re cool,” I said to Noah.

“Well, it’s gone now, honey,” Mrs. Willett said. “You were brave. Have you washed your hands? Noah, show Mr. Baker our quiet lunch line!”

“Mr. Baker, we have lunch in here because it’s a half a day!” Noah shouted, beaming.

“Oh, honey, it’s not a half a day,” said Mrs. Willett. She chuckled.

“It’s Friday!” said Noah, in a screech.

“Right, but we don’t have half days every Friday. Just once in a while. Today you have a whole day of school.”

Squeals and moans and more screeches.

Westin had a loose tooth and was trying to pull it out and dance a jig at the same time. I told him to sit down for a second. When he’d gotten himself together, he took a place in line. It was 12:25 p.m. I raised my hand for silence.

“We have to wait until the line is ready!” said Mrs. Willett. She pointed at Hazel. “Oh, you look ready. Noah looks ready.”

“I feel ready,” I whispered. My stomach growled audibly and Abby suppressed a laugh. I told Angel that I hoped she felt better. “Thanks a lot,” I said to Mrs. Willett.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

In the cafeteria, Ms. Carlough, the young kindergarten teacher I’d talked to at the playground on Day Sixteen, asked me how it was going. I said it was going pretty well.

“I had two absent today, so I only had fourteen kids,” she said.

“It’s kind of a miracle how they slowly learn to read,” I said. “I can’t imagine how it happens. But it happens with almost everybody.”

“Especially around this time,” she said, as we walked back to the kindergarten hallway. “They tend to bloom around April. In the fall, not as good, but by the end of the year, they seem to be doing a lot better.”

I washed my hands and ate a cheese sandwich, and then I remembered that Garrett had left his sweatshirt on the playground. It was on the picnic table, just where he’d left it.

Mrs. Thurston, the second-grade teacher, had lunch duty that day, and she was in a bad mood. She had her hand in the air. “WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO WHEN I HAVE MY HAND UP?” she said. “I SHOULDN’T EVEN HAVE TO PUT MY HAND UP RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE NONE OF YOU SHOULD BE SPEAKING. WHEN YOU CLEAR YOUR TRAY, YOUR HEAD GOES DOWN. AND YOU DO NOT TALK FOR THE REST OF LUNCH. THIS IS A HABIT YOU NEED TO BE IN. Every grade you go to does this. IT’S AWFULLY NOISY FOR A ZERO NOISE LEVEL.”

My class was sitting with their heads down, looking sufficiently cowed and compliant. “Shall we go?” I said, after a suitable interval. We marched roomward.

Angel said she still felt bad.

Garrett started crying. The dark blue sweatshirt I’d found wasn’t his, and he’d also misplaced his lunch box. The sub plans said it was star share time: “The star shares something s/he brought in, then takes 5 questions, comments, or connections. The star picks out a graph from the easel bucket. You all conduct the graph.”

Angel held her stomach, which was not small, and looked disconsolate, waiting for me to write a note for the nurse. She didn’t remember how to spell her last name, which was Deschaine.

Garrett was having a meltdown, kicking backpacks, looking for his sweatshirt. He was sure somebody had stolen it.

I found the nurse’s office notepad. “You have a stomachache, right?”

“No, I can’t breathe,” Angel said.

“My teddy’s not feeling very good,” said Madeline.

January took Angel off to the nurse. Hazel couldn’t take her because she was the star, and we’d come to star share time.

Hazel took a seat in the thronelike gliding rocker, and I sat next to her. “OKAY, SHH. This is star share. How was everyone’s lunch, good?”

Good.

“After lunch I feeled like I was going to puke,” said Abby.

“Well, that happens when you eat,” I said. “Okay, Star Hazel, take it away. You can share a thought, an idea, something that you have.”

Hazel held up her bracelet and her necklace, both of them plastic and sparkly.

“Three questions, comments, or connections,” said Madeline.

“No, five!” said Abby.

Westin said, “I really like the gold ones. Not the blue ones, or the white ones, or the green. Only I like these ones.” He touched the gold hearts on the bracelet. “And I hope you have a fun time with them.”

“Well done,” I said.

Madeline said, “I like your bracelet and your necklace because they’re really pretty. And silver sparkly, and green, and blue, and white are my favorite colors.”

Ava said, “I like it because it has everything’s favorite color. I like it and I hope you have a fun time with the necklace.”

Abby said, “I like the necklace because it has blue and green on it—”

“And white,” Westin interjected.

“Shh,” I said.

“And white,” said Abby. “And I hope you have a fun time with the necklace.”

I said, “When you’re having a conversation with somebody— CAN YOU PUT THAT DOWN? And come over here?” Garrett was carrying around a cardboard tube.

“GARRETT, STOP,” said Abby. Garrett put the tube down.

“Thanks, Garrett,” I said. “When you’re having a conversation with somebody, you want to bring them out. You want to ask them questions about what they’re doing. Instead of telling something about your life, you ask them something about their life. So if she was talking about that bracelet, I would say, Oh, that’s beautiful, where did you get it? Or, What made you choose that color? And then she has to say something else. So, where did you get the bracelet?”

Hazel suddenly got shy.

“Nowhere?” I said. “Just found it on the street?”

“You’re funny just like Mrs. Price,” said Madeline.

Garrett was in a tiny death spiral of disruption. “Garrett, will you sit right over there next to that green chair, please, RIGHT NOW.”

“I don’t want to,” Garrett said.

“Well, then you’re going to have a consequence,” I said.

“You’re supposed to put his name on a sticky if he’s being naughty,” said Hazel.

“Very naughty,” said Rick.

“Wicked naughty,” said Hartley.

“He’s fine now,” I said. “He did what I asked. Just relax, guys.”

“I wish Mrs. Price was back here,” said Hazel. “I miss her.”

January and Angel returned from the nurse. Angel was okay. “I love you, Ava,” she said.

I got out the graph, chosen by Hazel. “Have you ever given someone a flower?” asked the graph. Then it said, “Color in the box above your answer.” On cue from Hazel, Westin put a tally mark saying he’d given someone a flower.

“Mr. Baker, Garrett’s talking,” said Angel.

“Will you not worry about that? Just have a seat.” Angel was in a bad mood because the nurse had found nothing wrong with her.

One by one, very quietly, the children put check marks saying whether they had or hadn’t given someone a flower.

“I like this quiet!” I whispered. “I can practically hear a cricket chirping.”

“Can my bear do it, too?” said Madeline. “Please?”

I said she could give her own checkmark to her bear. Westin made a farting sound in his hand.

“Do not make rude noises with your hand, sir,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

“One more,” I said. “Garrett’s got to make a check. Give us your honest response.”

I added up the tally marks. “Okay, thirteen to nothing, people gave flowers!” I said. Next Hazel was supposed to pick out a book to read aloud. There was only a little time before gym, so I told her to pick a short book. We co-read some of Hop on Pop. “We are all tall. We are all small.” Angel started screaming. There was a tiny bug in the class. “It’s a sting bug!” said Madeline. I said, “It’s a tiny little bug, just trying to find a way out. It’s not going to sting anybody, believe me,” I said. I skipped ahead in the book. “He, me,” I said.

“HE IS AFTER ME,” recited the class. “HIM, JIM. JIM IS AFTER HIM.”

“You guys are really starting to read! When you started this school year, could you read this book?”

“NO!”

“Your brains figured all this out. That’s pretty incredible.” I read on. “Three, tree. Three fish in a tree.”

They roared it out: “HOW CAN THAT BE?”

An unhappiness arose because Angel said that Abby said that Noah was stupid. “She’s telling me that I said stupid and I didn’t,” said Angel.

“Guys, I want to say something very important,” I said. “Which is that I’ve watched all of you. I’m a hundred percent convinced that every one of you is an incredibly good kid. In general, you’re good listeners, you’re good workers, you’re nice to each other. Every so often, there seems to be a tension. As far as I can tell, the things that you disagree about are very tiny. If you didn’t let yourself be bothered by what somebody else did, it probably wouldn’t be a bad thing. So my suggestion is to just sort of go with the flow.” The class was listening, so I went on. “And here’s the thing that I understand about this school, that I can see. People tell you what to do all the time. Isn’t that true? All day long, you’re being told what to do. It’s exhausting. I would be exhausted. In lunch, they tell you what to do. In recess, they tell you what to do. Line up, and be quiet, do this and do that. And there’s a lot of learning you have to do. It is hard, and I understand that. I want to say, I really admire you guys. I mean it. From my heart. I admire what you’re doing.” I didn’t want them to see that I had tears in my eyes, so I looked at the clock. “And now it’s time to go to gym, where they will also tell you what to do.”

“You’re funny,” said Madeline.

“You’re funny just like Mrs. Price,” said Abby. She tried to hug me and made kissing noises.

“Okay, okay, thank you,” I said, fending her off.

We pomp-and-circumstanced to the gym, and the doors opened. “Just a jog, not a run,” said Mrs. Weld, the gym teacher. “Just a jog! Noah! Westin!” Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” came on while they ran. I used the free half hour to squirt several more squirts of sanitizer on my hands and call my wife, who’d found a dead bat in the living room fireplace.

Half the kids were lined up along the side of the echoey gym. I said hello to Ava. “Jaydon, you may line up!” said Mrs. Gym Teacher. “Angel, you may line up. January. Westin. Garrett, you may line up. Nice job. You’re sweaty because you worked hard today. That’s very good!”

In the hall Madeline said, “Noah was following me, and he was swinging with me at recess, so I think he loves me.”

“How exciting,” I said.

“Does my hair still look good?” asked Angel.

“It’s still got some tent in it,” I said. “You look really nice.”

“Thank you.”

“You, too!” said Madeline politely.

Friday folders were handed out one by one, chairs leapt up clankingly on tables, a line formed at the door.

“Ava cut in line!” said Westin.

“She didn’t cut, she was there already!” said Angel.

“But she got out of line!” said Westin.

I said to Westin, “Let me ask you, as an intelligent observer of life, how important is it to you to be number two or three or four in line? Does it matter? It doesn’t matter to me. I’m going to be here in the back of the line. I don’t care. Doesn’t matter. I’m happy. You’re supposed to walk the playground for fifteen minutes. Mrs. Harmon is on duty.”

“Mrs. Arm?” said Rick.

“Mr. Baker?” said Hazel. “When you wrote your name on the board this morning, it won’t come off.”

Again I hadn’t used a dry-erase marker. I scrubbed at my name furiously. Luckily it came off, all but a ghostly residue. “I thought maybe it was going to be there forever,” I said. “Can you see it?”

“No,” said Hazel.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Ava had disappeared. I found her hiding behind some stacked chairs in the back of the room.

I opened the door to the little playground and watched them all take off. They weren’t walking, they were running. Some were running backward. I said hello to Mrs. Harmon, who had a kind face.

“This is an arduous day for them,” I said.

“Oh, we make them work,” Mrs. Harmon said. “Most of our activities are morning-based, because by the afternoon, it’s too much for them. So it’s nice to have the afternoon for specials, and to kind of veg.”

During my fifteen free minutes I went to the office to find out where the lost-and-found was, so I could take Garrett there — then I had recess duty. Without the first- and second-graders, recess was a lot easier to oversee.

January came up with a grievance. “Mr. Baker, I asked them to stop and they’re still not stopping. They’re following me, and I’m not liking it.”

“Dang. Well, let’s take a walk, and I’ll keep them off you.”

“I want to play by myself,” January said, “but they want to play with me and I don’t want to.” She pointed out the two boys, who had retreated to the shadows of the play structure.

“Do you want me to talk to them, January, or just hang out here?”

“I want you to talk to them.” She led me toward Enoch, in a white mesh shirt and camo pants. “He’s hiding from you,” she said.

To Enoch I said, “If somebody doesn’t want to be followed, don’t follow them. You know that. Makes sense, right?”

He nodded and scuttled off. Some girls found an anthill. A scrimmage of boys screamed.

“Mr. Baker, I’m a math genius,” said a girl named Hadley. “I know ten times ten: a hundred. Two times two I think is twenty?”

“Do ticks like big grass?” said Noah.

“Yes, they like tall grass,” I said. “But you won’t necessarily get a tick just because you walked in tall grass.”

“We sat in it, too,” said Noah. “I got a tick once. It bited me. Is it time to line up, because I really want to line up!”

Westin opened his mouth and screamed, “LINE UUUUUUUUUUUUUP!”

January came over. “They’re chasing me again.” I told her I’d given Enoch a talking-to. She ran off.

The school secretary came up, saying that January’s dad was there to pick her up for a doctor’s appointment.

Westin called, “JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANUARY!”

“Westin, that’s not necessary,” I said.

“You’ll sleep good tonight,” said the school secretary. We filed back inside; Garrett saw his sweatshirt and made a cry of joy.

Five minutes into the end-of-day chaos, Jaydon said, “I think I’m going to throw up a pizza bagel. It’s coming back out.”

“Don’t let it,” I said.

The bell rang. It was the principal, asking for our attention in order to name the Team Lasswell campers of the week, Marie Ballard and Lewis Hook. “Marie is a hardworking student who exemplifies what it takes to be a good friend. Lewis is a dedicated student in all areas of school, who is always in search of a way to make improvements and progress. Congratulations once again to Marie and Lewis for being named this week’s Team Lasswell campers of the week.”

Mr. Mullins, a bus conductor, began calling out the digits of bus numbers. “TEN SEVENTY-THREE!” he bellowed. “TEN SEVENTY-THREE.”

“Mine is thirteen seventy-three,” said Madeline.

“I’m zero five seven one,” said Garrett.

Mr. Mullins bellowed, “ZERO FIVE SEVEN ONE! ZERO FIVE SEVEN ONE.” Then he called, “TWO TWO FOUR! TWO TWO FOUR. THIRTEEN SEVENTY-ONE. THIRTEEN SEVENTY-ONE.”

“GUYS, CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION,” shouted Hadley, the math genius from the playground, in imitation of Mrs. Thurston. “TEN TIMES TEN IS ONE HUNDRED. REMEMBER THAT! OKAY? I DON’T HAVE TO YELL!”

A girl from the class next door said, “What’s your name?”

“Mr. Baker.”

“What color is the sky?”

“Blue.”

“What’s the opposite of down?”

“Up.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Baker blew up!”

Ava said softly, “Mr. Baker, Westin lied.”

He did?

She nodded.

“Let me tell you something,” I said. “It’s been great having you in class. I like the fact that you can read that Hop on Pop like nobody else. You’re a very interesting person. Keep it up. Do you want me to say something to Westin?”

“He said I was cutting in the line,” she murmured.

“THIRTEEN SEVENTY-THREE. THIRTEEN SEVENTY-THREE! TWELVE SEVENTY-ONE! TWELVE SEVENTY-ONE!”

To Westin I said, “Did you say something you shouldn’t have said about Ava?”

“No,” said Westin, “Garrett lied about—”

“THIRTEEN SEVENTY-TWO! THIRTEEN SEVENTY-TWO!”

That was Westin’s bus. He bounced off.

“THIRTEEN SEVENTY-FOUR! THIRTEEN SEVENTY-FOUR!”

That was Ava’s bus.

“How long did it take you to memorize all those numbers?” I asked Hadley.

“Five years,” said Hadley.

“TWELVE SEVENTY-TWO! TWELVE SEVENTY-TWO!”

Bye! Bye! They were all gone, except Jaydon.

I walked Jaydon to Y care. He said his parents worked really late. He sat down at a cafeteria table with eight other Y care kids, whose assignment was to write about the best thing that had happened that day.

My note to Mrs. Price said, “What a pleasure it was to spend the day in your classroom — the kids were attentive, good-natured, and full of ideas! Thank you for letting me sub — Best regards, Nick Baker.”

I locked the door and signed out.

“You ready for a nap?” said the secretary.

“A nap might come in handy, yes,” I said. And that was it for Day Twenty-one.