Nobody Told Us

Nobody told us, so we sat in the classroom waiting for her to show up.  We sat in silence, holding our pens and looking at our notes from last time, or at clean pages, or at each other.  Our desks were in a circle, like they always were.  Lyle, who usually came in late, looked around and sat down with the rest of us.            

Nobody brought up the rule – who knows if it was even true – that if the teacher didn’t show up for fifteen minutes you were free to go.  Instead, after fifteen minutes had passed, we started to speak.  Sarah went first. 

“She always begins by telling a little story, about anything, what her weekend was like or whatever.  But really it always has something to do with the day’s lesson.”            

“An illustration,” said Brian. 

“But not that direct,” Sarah insisted.  “At a kind of angle.”

“Like trying to find something in Tyndall,” said Dara.  The stacks in Tyndall were narrow and connected by little switchback stairways.  

“I thought the reading for today was interesting,” said Kevin, glancing at the door.  He was the suck-up, but we all looked, too.  

After another few minutes we started to speak again.  It was Carrie this time. 

“Once I saw a light up in her office when I was coming back late from Tyndall.  I saw the shape of her head and shoulders bent like she was at sitting her desk, reading.  Later I realized from that angle I could only have seen her if she’d been standing up.”  She paused.  “Like at a lectern.” 

The odd word hung in the middle of the circle like it was about to become a real lectern. 

“Did anyone hear a noise?” said Kevin. 

Nobody but Kevin had heard the noise. 

“She doesn’t know how to dress,” said Annie, in a way that made it sound like the continuation of a topic.  “Her clothes are a mismatch of different styles.  And those big, boxy jackets!  But she carries it off.”

Tom spoke next.  “I had a teacher just like her in second grade.  Except easier, obviously.  Now she’s totally replaced the second-grade teacher in my imagination.”

“Your memory,” said Sarah.

“I’m not so sure,” said Tom.

“I was struck by one of the comments she wrote in the margin of my last paper,” said Dara.  “It was right next to the big point I was trying to make:  ‘Nobody thinks this.’  I thought that was a pretty snotty way to put it.  But now I realize she was right – I didn’t even think it.”

“She’s a good teacher,” said Kevin.  He looked at the door again.

“I don’t even know if she’s a good teacher,” said Dara.  “All I know is I keep taking her classes.”

Sarah nodded.  “My first year, I was having a lot of trouble.  Not with the schoolwork, but it was reflected in my work.  I had her for a class at the time and one day she took me aside and gave me something, a stone.”  Sarah unzipped her backpack and pulled out the stone.  “She said it came from the farm where she grew up.” 

“It’s shaped like a turtle,” said Lyle. 

“I saw her in the grocery store once,” said Debbie, who hadn’t spoken until then.  “I was at the end of the aisle and she was by one of the refrigerator cases, holding the door open with all of that mist curling around her feet.  When she saw me looking, she threw something into her basket and dashed away – I mean really dramatically so that everyone stared.  But at the other end of the aisle she turned back for a second and grinned.”

“Does anyone—” Dara began.  

“Wait, I’m not finished.  Later on in a different part of the store I pulled down a box of Pop Tarts and there behind it was this bag of frozen peas.  What were you going to say, Dara?”

“I was just going to ask if anyone wanted a Tic Tac."           

Everyone was quiet after Dara put the Tic Tacs away.  Finally Tom spoke.

“Anyone ever had a dream about her?”  And after a pause: “Not that kind of dream!”

Only Kevin had ever had a dream about her.  We were all there in the circle, just like we were today, except that she was with us too, in the seat that was empty now, wearing her long scarf.  We were working our way through a very difficult text, with pages that didn’t even look like they were in English.  They weren’t even pages, in fact, but tablets of some kind, and we were all bent over touching the markings with our fingers.  Each time one of us spoke it was to give the wrong answer, and each time one of us gave the wrong answer, she took the long scarf and wrapped it once around her neck.  But we all kept giving wrong answers that day, so soon the scarf was around her chin, and then around her nose, and then her eyes and ears.  Eventually only a tuft of her red hair was showing.  When her head was completely covered, the dream was over.

“That wasn’t a dream, you moron,” said Sarah.  “That was class last time.”

Kevin looked at his notes.  “Yeah.  Sorry.”

It was winter so it was already getting dark outside.  It was dark in the room too, and cold.  Carrie spoke.

“Maybe we should start a fire.”

“We could use the desks,” said Brian.  There were more desks outside the circle. 

“And the newspaper to get it going,” said Sarah, touching a corner of the newspaper under Dara’s notebook.

“I was saving this,” said Dara.

“Our notes,” said Tom, touching his notebook.

“I’ve got a lighter,” said Lyle, who smoked.

Soon we had a nice fire going in the trash can, which we had moved to the center of the circle.  Every once in a while someone got up to feed in pages from their notebooks or a piece of desk. 

BIO:  Recent work by Edmond Caldwell has appeared in A cappella Review, Pear Noir!, Sein und Werden, wigleaf, Lamination Colony, elsewhere.  He lives in Cambridge, MA.

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