Chapter 3
Kayla
“Alright, friends, we’re going to stop what we’re doing.
I want to see hands in the air.” I hold my hands up in front of me, showing the students an example.
“Perfect,” I smile, as all students lift their hands up into the air, all equally as messy, all various colors from the paint. “Good job, guys.”
Since the last two blocks of Friday are slotted for art, and I couldn’t find evidence of Mrs. Cannon having anything started, I had the kids paint their parents' Easter cards—using only paint and their fingers. It’s a little early, but it was easy to plan, and the kids loved it.
The desks have seen better days. “Okay, folks. I know we’re not all done, but we can finish these off next week. For now, it’s time to clean up.”
Two weeks in and things are still going well.
I’m getting to know the kids in my class, and we’re getting a routine sussed out.
Sure, sometimes I crave adult conversations, but there have been times when I’ve been able to sneak away to the staff room at lunch and talk to my coworkers.
They’re all middle-aged or older, so we don’t have much to talk about, but that’s okay.
I’m determined to make a friend here. One who is old enough to vote.
“Aw, fuck-a-roni.”
“Ben!” The little boy in a John Deere baseball cap looks up from the puddle of yellow paint coating the floor. The other children giggle at the boy’s foul language.
“Sorry, Ms. Carson!” He has the decency to look abashed, but this is the third time in two weeks that he’s sworn in class. I think I’m more disappointed by what that means than he is.
“Alright, enough with the giggles,” I wave away the kids, grabbing a roll of paper towels. “Everybody needs to take their paint trays to the sink, line up, and wash them off.”
Once the other kids are occupied with their task, I kneel beside Ben, handing him a wad of paper towels. “Ben, we’ve talked about this,” I remind him gently. “School is not the place for you to be using that kind of language.”
“I know, but Dad uses it all the time on the farm!” He reminds me, as if he didn’t just tell me yesterday, after his inventive use of the word ‘shitsicle’.
“I don’t know what your parents allow on the farm,” I tell him, helping him mop up yellow paint. “But it’s not okay in the classroom.”
“Are you going to call my parents?”
“I’m going to have to, Ben.” His shoulders slump, but he nods his head in understanding. He’s a smart boy, and his parents have raised him well, that much is obvious. He’s a little western gentleman, just with the mouth of a sailor.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Carson,” he repeats dejectedly.
“We’ll work on it,” I wink at my little buddy. “Thank you for helping clean this up. Why don’t you go get your tray cleaned off, and I’ll finish this up?”
Nodding determinedly, he runs off to join his friends in line, while I finish trying to wipe the wet paint off of the linoleum tiles. Bundling the dirty towels into a pile, I stand with the groan of an old lady. The floor’s clean enough, if anything, the yellow brightens the place up.
“Make sure you clean your hands too,” I remind the kids, as I start wiping down their desks.
I could leave it for them to do, but I left the clean-up until too late in the day, and the bell’s going to go any moment now.
Plus, if I leave it to them, it won’t be done properly, and I’ll end up doing it anyway.
“Ms. Carson! What do we do with our bunnies?” Lilah, an eight-year-old girl with a bit of a klepto problem, calls out, lifting her construction paper up. It drips with paint, buckling under the weight.
“We’re just going to leave them on our desk over the weekend,” I decide in the moment. “We’ll get them stored away safely on Monday morning.” Once I find somewhere to put them.
“But what about our chairs?” Lilah asks, putting her painting down. “We can’t put our chairs on top of wet paint,” she informs me, eyeing me like she’s doubting my ability to make decisions.
“We’ll leave them down for tonight,” I tell them.
Normally, they go up for Carl, our janitor, to come in and sweep the floors, but honestly, the floors are clean enough.
I made them clean up after they left a mess in the class during lunch, and it still looks pretty clean.
“Okay, once your desk is clean, I want you to stop and wait for my go-ahead to go pack up.”
Like a drill sergeant, I check each child’s area to make sure there’s no mess before sending them out into the hallway to get ready to go home. The second I dismiss the last kid of the day, I drop down behind my desk, resting my head against the wood.
All I want to do is go home and have a warm bath to celebrate another successful week, but there’s no tub in my little apartment—there isn’t even a real shower—and even if there was a tub, the hot water isn’t working at the moment.
The sound of happy children slowly fades away as the kids make their way out to the buses and the staff clears out of the building one by one, following contract hours to a T. One day, I’ll be able to do that too.
Groaning, I stare down at my phone and force myself to keep breathing steadily. This is my least favorite part of teaching. The phone calls home. My mentor teacher once made me phone parents to tell them good news, on top of the times I had to phone with bad news. I detested every moment of it.
Why can’t we all rely on email? Email is good. Email is trustworthy.
Huffing out a breath of air, I dial the number linked to Ben’s file, specifically skipping over the dad section of the form.
“Hello?” The feminine voice on the other side of the phone sounds out of breath, like she’s just finished running a marathon.
“Hi, Mandy. This is Kayla Carson phoning from the elementary school.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Sorry, yes. Ben’s on his way home now,” I promise, easing her worries as best I can.
“I did want to phone about a little issue we’ve been having in class with Ben recently.
It’s nothing too concerning, but I do think it would be worth having a meeting about,” I grimace.
I have no idea if I’m nailing this or epically failing.
“Oh no,” she sighs. “This is about the swearing, isn’t it? I told Colt this was going to happen.”
“He’s been quite inventive with the use,” I offer as a positive. “He’s very creative.”
“He’s just repeating what he hears on the farm.” I can’t see Mandy’s face, but I imagine she’s scowling. “You know what, I’m gonna send Colt down there, and he can deal with this,” she tells me firmly.
“You know what, since you know about the issue, maybe a meeting isn’t necessary,” I try to backtrack. There’s a reason I phoned Mandy, and not Colter. I don’t need this all to turn into a solo meeting with him. I’d prefer a phone call.
“No, he needs to hear this from a professional,” she tells me earnestly, and I try not to scoff. Right, cause Colter’s gonna take me seriously. “He can be at the school in an hour,” she continues, taking my silence as a go-ahead. “Or, if you would like, he can meet you on Monday.”
Rubbing my forehead, I look around my classroom—from the new yellow highlight on the floor to the bare bulletin boards that still need backgrounds and borders. “I guess I can stick around for the hour.”
“Perfect! You are amazing! Sylvie and I definitely owe you. Especially if you can get Ben to stop swearing in public.”
I want to tell her that my job as her son’s teacher is to teach the state-approved curriculum, nothing more and nothing less.
Manners fall under the parent category. But realistically, I knew when I signed up for this job that there were some things that made teachers great.
Going above and beyond for your students is one of those things.
“I’ll try my best,” I promise.
“Great! Shit, the goat just got out, I have to go. But hey! Can you talk to Colt about Ben’s math while he’s there? You are amazing! I promise to bring you coffee next week, okay? Daisy, get your ass back here!”
The phone clicks, and the call ends. I pull the device away from my face and stare at it in shock, not totally sure I heard any of that correctly.
I somehow feel like Mandy’s best friend and employee all from one conversation, and I’m really not too sure if I like her or dislike her.
Then again, I have no idea if she’s presumptuous or just expects everyone to be as friendly and accommodating as she is.
That distinction would make a huge difference in understanding Mandy.
When Colter arrives an hour and a half later, I’m balancing on his son’s desk, barefoot and struggling to get the math symbols poster straight. “Stupid fucking thing,” I grumble as the top of the poster flops over, smacking the top of my head.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Holy shit!” Stumbling and barely catching myself, I find my balance and turn to face the intruder in my classroom. “You need to wear a bell or something,” I point at the surly giant standing in my doorway, looking anything but impressed.
“Would you get down from there before you kill yourself?” He frowns, looking me over from my bare feet to my knee-length dress.
“I’m fine,” I huff, but I do as he says, hopping down gracefully and modestly so that I avoid flashing him in my dress.
I drop the poster on top of the desk and place my hands on my waist, huffing out an exasperated breath.
“Sorry about all that,” I gesture behind myself, towards the much more colorful wall.
I’ve gotten a lot done in the last hour or so.
“Is anyone even here, or is it just you?” His eyebrows furrow as he steps further into the room, his voice like gravel.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. Chances are, all the other teachers have left for the day.
“What if you had fallen?”
“Then I would have phoned for help.” I stare pointedly at my phone that’s sitting right there on the bookshelf.
“Don’t do it again,” he tells me. As if he has any say in what I do.