Chapter 8
EIGHT
LYNETTE
Have you heard anything yet?
Bria’s text landed in our sisters’ group chat in perfect sync with Alejandro M. informing me he forgot to bring his essay. Again. I had two Alejandros in my class, last names Rios and Menendez. Both were sweet kids. The latter had an issue with forgetfulness.
I left Bria’s text unanswered and slipped my cell phone into the top drawer of my desk. I’d respond to big sis during first recess, advising there was no news from UT Austin.
I gave Mr. Forgetful my attention. “Alejandro, you lose five points each day an assignment is late. You remember that, right?”
The worried look he’d worn when approaching my desk magically evaporated. “Oh, yeah! Five, not fifteen.” He smiled broadly and tilted his head, looking off as if doing fast math. “That means I only lost ten points. That leaves me with ninety.”
“Assuming you had a perfect one hundred to begin with.” Which, knowing you and your problematic subject–verb agreement, you didn’t. “Plus, you’re at eighty-five, Alejandro. You’ve lost fifteen points already. Today’s day three.”
“But it’s Monday, the first day of the week.”
“Yes, and your essay was due last Thursday. I’m being generous not counting the weekend.”
“Oh… okay.” His joy sagged a bit. “When I get home can I change my essay date to tomorrow’s date and print a new copy, so when I turn it in tomorrow it won’t be late?”
I stared without blinking as if I had no eyelids. “That would be a no, Alejandro. Put your backpack away and have a seat.” I exhaled through pursed lips, wishing I hadn’t forgotten my Tums at home as he walked away.
“Ms. Stanford, Chester’s missing!”
I hopped up so fast my chair pitched backwards. I caught it before it crashed, staring at Serena as if at a six-headed alien. “He was in his cage when you brought him back from the weekend, right?”
“Yes, but I just looked when I got up to sharpen my pencil and he’s gone!”
“Ooo, lemme see!”
Frozen in place, I watched my students race towards Serena like blood-loving looky-loos to a crime scene.
You’re their fearless leader who survived attic phantoms and eating amniotic sacs so get it together, Lynette! You’re braver than this, sis.
I shook off rodent-induced paralysis and hurried to the classroom’s rear counter, where my twenty-eight students jostled to see inside the rat cage where Chester should have been. Granted, Chester was a hamster, not a rat; but I saw no need to differentiate.
Ooo, I gotta tell Shay! I couldn’t wait to terrorize baby sis with today’s escapee shenanigans. “You’re positive he was in the cage? You did the welfare check, right, Serena?”
“Yes! See.” She handed me the clipboard where Chester’s daily care sheet was clipped.
I verified Serena’s initials where she’d jotted them on the sheet when she arrived.
Each week a different student was designated as Pet Patrol—as my class dubbed the role.
Pet Patrol was responsible for feeding the class mascot, ensuring its well-being and daily check-ins, and updating the class on Chester’s condition.
The critter spent the weekend in their care with parent/guardian permission.
Now, courtesy of Serena, Chester’s condition was “missing.”
“Dang, Serena, that’s lame. How you lose a whole hamster?”
“Insults aren’t necessary, DeAndre.” I placed an arm about Serena’s shoulders and hugged her gently. The child was close to tears. “Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”
I addressed my huddle of students. “Class, class!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Good morning and happy Monday. We’ll get our Chromebooks out and pull up our English lesson in a moment. Right now, I need everyone’s help finding Chester.”
A braver teacher would have continued with her day, providing simple instructions that the class be cautious when moving about. I wasn’t that woman. I didn’t detest them the same as arachnids. Still, four-legged creatures of the scurrying kind belonged anyplace I wasn’t.
Lord, I should’ve opted in on a virtual class pet instead of this.
I’d agreed to a live class mascot for the value add.
It allowed opportunities for responsibility and research skills as the Pet Patrol was required to share a new fact with the class each week.
Additionally, a small, reportedly harmless creature was a comfort animal for some.
Right then in that moment, I wished I’d ignored my students’ begging and pleading and sold them on the cute, but dumpy, inanimate Squishmallow perched atop my desk that Justus gave me last Mother’s Day.
I still wasn’t sure what the fluffy lime green, purple, and pink thing was supposed to be, but it didn’t pee, poop, bite, or breathe. And it couldn’t escape a cage.
That made it the perfect pet in my humble estimation.
I separated my students into groups and put them to work looking for the four-legged fugitive.
Ten minutes in I conceded defeat, feeling like Chester was somewhere watching.
I knew the thing was out there waiting for an opportunity to shoot from his hiding place and scare Jesus out of me.
Still, I took a few cleansing breaths and moved forward with our English lesson.
“Ms. Stanford?”
I paused my explanation of interrogative versus imperative sentences to see Madysyn Sparks waving a hand in the air. With siblings Malynda and Camryn, clearly their parents had an affinity for the letter Y where other vowels should have been.
“Can I go to the nurse’s office? I don’t feel good.”
Madysyn complained of ailments multiple times a week. She was my resident hypochondriac. Her sickness of the day typically manifested before a test or quiz. Most times she returned from the health office within minutes of leaving with confirmation that she’d live.
I omitted all traces of irritation from my voice. “What’s the issue today, Madysyn?”
“I guess… I ate… the wrong… thing…” Per the sudden, regurgitated reappearance of her latest meal, she’d guessed correctly.
“Ewww!”
Screaming students scrambled like roaches from Raid, avoiding the pool of sewage-scented vomit.
“OMG! She got some on my backpack. Lawyer! Lawyer! That’s some whack-ass defilement!” DeAndre Thompson, a child the size of a third grader with the personality of a grown man, hopped about holding his backpack aloft, displaying its contamination.
“Mr. Thompson, you just lost ten points for inappropriate language.”
“But I get those ten points back for using ‘defilement’ in an everyday sentence. Right, Ms. Stanford?”
The word was on last week’s spelling test. He was technically correct about my ten-point policy, but there was too much commotion for me to award anybody anything. The pandemonium incited a recurring, nagging headache.
“Alright, everybody. Enough. Quiet!” I clapped out a pattern that commanded silence.
One, two. One, two, three.
Ancestors, help me. Come through, Grandma Zinnie!
I grabbed the laminated hall pass and rushed it to Madysyn—with the extra, unnecessary Ys—while carefully bypassing her upchuck on the carpet. “Serena, can you walk Madysyn to the nurse’s office, please?”
And don’t lose her like you did Chester.
I sent them on their way and got everyone back to their seats before covering Madysyn’s mess with paper towels. Grabbing my phone, I called the front office, and asked that Mr. Burrows, our head custodian, be sent an urgent S.O.S.
“What about my backpack? Can Mr. Burrows fumigate it?” DeAndre asked. “If not, I’m calling the NAACP.”
Son, you ain’t calling a daggone thing.
I put on a pair of disposable gloves and a face mask left from my pandemic stash.
I grabbed disinfectant wipes from a nearby cupboard and cleaned the dime-sized defilement from the backpack.
I sent it and DeAndre to his desk before washing my hands and making the mistake of glancing at my Apple watch.
Was I only eighteen minutes into my workday?
Lord, remind me please: when is spring break?
“They best be glad Texas is a no-strike state. Otherwise, I’d haul ass outside campus tomorrow with a cardboard sign like Fannie Lou Hamer or Norma Rae. Naked. In the rain. We need to debrief over truffle fries and margaritas.”
I’d laughed at my bestie’s foolery despite agreeing with the protest part of Nichelle’s sentiment.
Our district-wide educators’ meeting that evening ended fifteen minutes after it began thanks to flaring attitudes and out-of-order folks vociferously vocalizing discontent over the district’s newest demands.
I’d tailed Nichelle to one of our favorite restaurants and checked in with Mama, letting her know where I was headed and offering to come get Justus, who was in her care. Mama assured me my being out was no inconvenience. They’d see me when I finished.
I’d popped a Tylenol after parking in the restaurant’s parking lot to dull the nagging headache and a souring stomach resulting from tonight’s brouhaha.
Now, seated across from Bestie, I grabbed a truffle fry from our shared plate.
“Bet Texas school districts wouldn’t get away with half their ish if public sector strikes weren’t illegal. ”
“Facts, Sis! Striking would be some real push-back. Instead of this limp di—”
“Nichelle!”
“What?”
I pointed at our surroundings. “Public restaurant.”
She scanned the nearby diners. “All these gray heads? They’re not strangers to limpness.”
“Lord, I cannot. Anyhow…”
“Anyhoo… A teachers’ union that can’t negotiate contracts or do collective bargaining is as good as being in bed, juicy between the legs with—” She found self-restraint when I leaned in with some stank-eye. “A flaccid phallus.”
I snickered and forked my chicken Caesar salad. “Guess us teachers gotta push back to achieve desired change without union representation.”
“Amen. Tell you what I’m not changing. My daily duties. I’m not calling nary a parent or documenting records. That ish is ridiculous.”