the laughing wolf

(17) Plans for the Dance

2011-07-10T13:16:00.000+02:00

All suffering is caused by being in the wrong place. If you're unhappy where you are, MOVE.

Timothy Leary Evolutionary Agents

George snapped his gum in disgust. "Spring Fever"? You gotta be kidding, man. That sounds stupid."
Nikki glared. "I can still send you to the nurse's station."
Phillip sighed. "Time out, guys." The other committee members looked at Phillip. "From what I hear," he said," these two have been going at it since first grade." There were some chuckles. "Nikki broke her arm fighting with him in second grade, and George broke her thumb tackling her at the roller rink in seventh grade. They were supposed to be learning ballroom dancing."
Nikki looked venomously at Phillip. Then her expression changed. "That's a great idea. We could have a roller dance."
Conflict forgotten, George said, "So we could wear normal clothes? Cool. But how will you slow dance with me on skates, Nik?"
Nikki rolled her eyes.
"What about the people who don't know how to skate?" Jeff was obviously referring to himself.
"Knee pads," said Nikki. "It'll be a blast."
George started to stand up.

"Where are you going?" asked Nikki. "We have to present our proposal to the faculty committee this afternoon."
"You're the chairman."
"Chairperson, you Neanderthal"
"Whatever."

After initially approving the student plan for the dance, the faculty committee in charge of supervising the event met in the gym to talk about the proposed set up. The group had barely made it onto the floor of the gym, when a penetrating voice, soft and whining like a high-speed drill, suddenly cut through the general murmur that had accompanied their entrance. "We should get started."
A youthful looking man in a white shirt, a narrow tie and a pair of khakis too large for his narrow hips answered brusquely in the direction of the voice without looking at its owner. "John's not here yet."
"If we waited for John's cigarette breaks, we'd get nothing done."
Jeff Thompson looked up and sighed. "I'm surprised a history teacher like yourself is asking that Diane. Isn't Freedom of Vice one of the rights protected in the Constitution? Anyway, he's up at the office getting a key to the control panel cabinet, so we can move the bleachers and check out the lighting. What do you think?"
A medium-sized, bristly-headed man pulled a large metal roll-tape our of his pocket. "Jeffrey...all I could get was a twenty-foot tape. Will that do?"
"We're just measuring where the kids want to put the bar and music equipment...to make sure they won't obstruct the fire exits. I think twenty feet should be fine."
"They're not kids," interjected Diane. "They'll be voting in the next election."
"It's a figure of speech, Diane."
"Next you'll be calling the female faculty, girls."
"Gals, Diane, gals."
A platinum blonde woman leaning on a bleacher railing burst out laughing. "You two should be married," said Ann Davis. "Your perfect together." Everyone turned at the sounds of someone coming in. "Ah, here's our truant," said Ann. "You've been missed Johnny.
John McGuire joined the group.

"Did you get the key?" Diane asked.
"Yes, but I had to listen to a lecture from the Admiral about the dangers of roller skating on the gym floor. He said, 'Don't think I'm going to accept any casualties on this one...no loss of men, no loss of equipment.'"
A chuckle ran through the group.

Only Diane remained serious, "I told you he wouldn't let up on that. I hope nothing gets damaged. It'll be our heads."
"What's he going to do to us?" said Jeff. "Make us stay after school? We're doing that already."
As they dispersed to do their measuring and checking, Jeff said to Diane, "Don't worry. The gym will survive the skates, and you'll survive the committee."
She looked at him impatiently. "I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about going to prison for murder."

On the night of the dance, Alan decided to make his entrance into the stoner collective that Dory, Thomas and Sean had started in seventh grade. Everyone was in Dory's back yard, sitting under a eucalyptus tree.
So are you feeling it yet?" she asked, as she ground her feet into the redwood leaves, sending the pungent scent of eucalyptus to mix with the aromatic scent of some excellent Thai sticks.
"Would you quit asking? I don't know."
Dory laughed.
Alan looked at her, scrunching his face in disbelief. "Did you just snort?"
Dory laughed harder.
"Did you just snort?"
The laughter began to spread.
"You sounded like a fucking animal."
The laughter become uncontrolled.
George choked. "I think he's feeling it."

"I'm not feeling it. She's just an animal."
Dory pointed to George. "Are you drooling? Are you seriously drooling?"
"Shhhh," said Beth. The neighbors!" The laughter increased.
"Fuck the neighbors," said Thomas.
"Whoa!" said George. "Are you getting balls or what?"
"Oh God," sputtered Dory. "How are we ever going to get to this friggin' dance? I mean, does anyone really wanna go?"
"I want a milkshake." That was Beth.
"Oh yeah." There was Thomas.
Dory stopped laughing. "Yes! Let's go."
"Oh, so you're going to walk into Baskin Robbins, stoned out of your mind and order a milkshake?" That was Phillip.
"Watch us," replied Dory.
"Quiet Phillip," Beth said, " or I'll tell Carol you smoke weed."
Thomas frowned. "Seriously uncool, Beth. Seriously."
The laughter had stopped, Phillip glaring at Beth.
"Chocolate chip or butter pecan," said Alan.
Dory's laughter reignited. "Alan's first case of munchies."

"I'm telling you, I don't feel anything."
Amidst a renewed outburst and without any discussion, they suddenly all got up and started down the driveway to destinations unknown.
Thirty minutes later, Beth and Dory found themselves in Baskin Robbins, filling orders for themselves and the boys, who were all afraid to go into the store. Girls were allowed to giggle and be silly with impunity, especially when the server was an 18-year-old guy. Cones in hand, Beth fumbled with the money while Dory tried to stifle her laughter.
"We're not stoned," Dory said to the ice cream guy in a completely factual tone of voice, at which she and Beth both broke down laughing and quickly left the store, cones in hand.
Phillip shook his head at their silliness as they exited; however, he didn't turn down the ice cream cone they handed to him. "We're late for the dance."
"I'd rather watch traffic," said Dory as she sat down at the bus stop bench and began perusing passing cars.
Thomas sat down next to her, completely focused on his cone. "Me too."
"I can see your point," said Phillip, sitting on the curb. "Roller skating is lame."
"Yeah. What were you guys thinking when you decided on roller skating?"
Phillip shrugged.
"Not much," replied George.
"Wow," said Alan, "this is the best fucking ice cream I've ever eaten."
"I think he's feeling it," said George, inciting another round of laughter.

(16) History

2011-06-22T14:23:00.000+02:00

The French captain soon perceived that the captain of the ship that sank the other was a Spaniard and that the captain of the ship that sank was a Dutch pirate; he was the very one who had robbed Candide. The immense riches that this scoundrel had stolen were buried with him in the sea, and nothing but one sheep was saved.
"You see," Candide said to Martin, "that crime is sometimes punished; that rascal of a Dutch captain met the fate he deserved."
"Yes," said Marin, "but was it necessary that the passengers on his ship should perish also? God punished that knave, the devil drowned the others."

Voltaire Candide

History wasn't really a bad subject to teach. It didn't arouse the hate that English and Math seemed to evoke. Most students could live with history. Diane smiled at her private joke and continued staring into the cactus-filled terrarium until the sound of rustling pages pierced the haze of her thoughts. Glancing over her shoulder, she surveyed the heads of her students, supposedly examining the Bill of Rights. She'd probably given them too much time. She'd forgotten to check the time they'd started the activity. They probably thought she was senile. She was only thirty-five – probably the same as sixty in their eyes.

Nobody looked up as she moved to the front of the room. Were they finished and faking it? Still looking? She worried about wasting class time. Did they think she was just wasting time so she wouldn't have to lecture? Would they do better with just lecture? She was the most industrious teacher on the faculty. She signed up for everything. Who cared? Not John McGuire. That lazy ass had nothing in his head but weekends and some obvious flirtatious charm with nothing to back it up. He'd probably have a heart attack if she told him she was only interested in a guy who was ready to have children. Men were just too damned insecure to deal with a woman who knew what she wanted. Student murmurs shook her out of her thoughts. Damn, she was distracted today!

"OK. Let's talk about what you've found. What points in the Bill of rights are especially relevant to your lives? Mitchell?"
Mitch sat up a little straighter. This was one of the few classes in which he felt comfortable. Ms. Hanley never embarrassed them. "If we didn't have them we'd be in Russia."
Diane smiled, "There are rights in them that are denied in the Soviet Union, certainly. Can you think of a specific example?"
Mitched slumped down a little. "What we were talking about last week - the persecution of people because of religion. We have religious freedom here."
"Good. What amendment is that?"
Beth Andrews looked up. "The First," she answered and then continued reading something that did not look like the textbook.
Diane frowned. She paid just enough attention to get by. "Right. What other freedoms does the First Amendment guarantee? Tony?"
A tall, lanky boy looked up through a jungle of wild blond hair. Diane noticed Beth looking up from her reading. The little brat wasn't interested in History but certainly interested in Tony Matthis. "What?" he asked.
"No, what is not the answer, but it's close." She said it in a friendly enough fashion that the class laughed.
Tony sighed a good-naturedly, even if his smile had a touch of irony in it.
"I was asking about the rights covered in the First Amendment."
"Freedom of the press, the right to demonstrate and to criticize the government," he rattled off.
"Good. Can anyone give me any examples of controversies regarding first amendment rights?"]

Phillip Meade raised his hand limply. Now she'd hear from the master. Tony, Beth and Phillip - in that order. If she left them alone, she wouldn't hear from them for days. They'd pay minimal attention and occupy themselves with something or other that was totally unrelated to the instruction. Of course, they could afford to. They were all straight-A students in History. She had no leverage with them. She'd stupidly started the ball rolling by calling on Beth, now she'd spend the rest of the class time with Phillip.

"All this stuff sounds great, but what if a Japanese Buddhist as to commit suicide...you know...hara kiri? Suicide's illegal here. Or what if a Muslim wants to cut off the hand of some thief or something? If those things are acceptable in those religions, aren't we refusing those people the right to religious freedom by punishing them for doing them? And what about being gay? If I'm not religious, maybe it's not a sin. Where's my freedom to be...uh...'unreligious'."
Diane sighed. Phillip was extremely bright, but he had a way of bringing questions into the discussion that undermined her instructional goals and were too complex for the level of discussion most of the class needed to learn the required material. Still she had to respond. "No government allows perfect individual freedom. That would result in anarchy. With that thief, for example, you're ignoring a system of justice and his right to trial."
"OK," Phillip countered, obviously not finished, "I'll leave out the thing about cutting off the guy's hand. But what about suicide or being gay? Those don't hurt anyone else."
George Wilkins perked up. "Don’t hurt anyone? What about all of the little kids who might think faggots are normal? Besides, it's a mortal sin!"
It was not a good day to let the students lead a discussion. Now there was a lot of cleaning up to do. If she could only deny them the Bill of Rights in her class, life would be easier. "This is a good discussion but we have a review activity to complete before the end of class, so let's get to that. After all, there's a test the day after tomorrow."
George raised his hand, "Can we take the Fifth on the test?"
Diane's smile revealed a myriad of things she wanted to say but didn't. "No," she said simple, and then began the review. By the time she finished, almost nobody was listening. What a disaster. For the rest of class, she moved from group to group, checking their work and making sure they were staying on topic. When the bell rang the students fled like roaches.

As they left, Diane turned to collect her papers. The green folder containing the master copy of the next test was gone. Perhaps she'd left it in the office that morning when she'd picked up her homeroom folder. Scuttling down the hall and across the quad, she remained oblivious to the scent of new orange blossoms and entered the main office a bit out of breath.

"Is anything wrong Diane?"
"Did I leave a lime green folder here this morning?"
Mrs. Clinton looked around. "I didn't see anything. Let me call Jenny." She dialed the phone, spoke quickly, and looked back up at Diane, shaking her head. "Was it something very important?"
"Oh, nothing I can't replace," she answered, unwilling to admit to misplacing an exam. She'd never hear the end of it, especially from people like John or Jeff. Those lazy slobs would have a field day.

When her American History students walked into class the next day, Diane observed them closely. Nobody looked suspicious. She waited until they formed their groups to address them: "I'm afraid we have a small problem concerning the test tomorrow." The class immediately became alert. "When I cleared my desk after class yesterday, I discovered that the master copy of the test was missing. Obviously someone took it during the group discussions. Since I don't believe that this person will have the nerve to speak out in class, I'm going to have each of you come up to my desk individually this hour. If you took the test or know who did, I'd advise you to use this chance to clear things up.

Nobody flinched. They banded together at times like this. She decided to add a little spice. "Oh…and if nobody gives me any information on this matter, I'm afraid I'll have to penalize the entire class five points on the test. That's half a grade. Now, let's get to work.

Diane knew this wasn't just, but she'd been so damn fair with these kids. The thankless pack. She wouldn't let them undermine her authority.

(15) First time

2011-06-15T10:43:00.000+02:00

[A] common assumption about dispositions is that they must be intrinsic properties of the objects that have them….Consider the property vulnerability. It seems dispositional in character, something which is vulnerable is susceptible to harm, but is not necessarily being harmed right now. However, it seems as if something could lose the property of being vulnerable without underling any intrinsic change. Build a fortress around the vulnerable object and it ceases to be vulnerable.

The Metaphysics of Dispositions Jennifer McKitrick

Dory stood at the bathroom sink and looked at herself in the mirror. However, minutely she studied her features, the whole of the image always escaped in the parts. A sharp, straight nose, dark eyebrows, unruly auburn hair with deep coppery tones, green eyes - what picture did these make? She frowned, her attention drifting on to another, more acute problem. Her girlfriends had lost or were on the verge of losing their virginity, heading toward it like some collision, and she was going to have to make some kind of decision.

While Hollywood romance had aroused her childish curiosity, the inane conversations of her friends and behavior of real-life boys just irritated her. The girls primped and giggled; the boys were either grabby would-be Lotharios, helpless puppies or, much worse, a mixture of both. Her parents had tried to instill middle-class morality in her; however, looking at the adult couples around her, she believed this to be based on an unnaturally sexless consciousness rather than the result of self-denial or moral discipline. Beneath all of these thoughts, however, was a feeling that she'd bungle the whole thing and be humiliated.

This whole, new, free love crap was even more alienating. Was she obligated to feel natural animal magnetism? To achieve some kind of earth-mother abandon that would drive her toward sex? Dory felt anything but earthy in her soul.

She'd been with her cat when it had given birth one Halloween. She spent a few weekends at Beth's grandparents' farm and had helped in the stall. She hadn't been repelled by the pungent smells or the sight of mating animals, yet she'd felt no spiritual connection with a primal urge because of these experiences. Furthermore, she suspected that human mating was more complicated. And yet her friends had all made great strides in the adventurous world of sex and most of them kept bugging Dory about her hesitation. Thus she stood before the mirror, trying to figure out how to become part of this new, sexually well-adjusted generation when she'd rather smoke a joint and play poker with the guys.

Just then, her 13-year-old cousin, who was staying at their house for a few months, knocked on the door and started yelling about how long girls took in the bathroom. Since her older siblings had gone off to college, their warring had increased.
"Grow up, Chris, and when you've done that, go home."
"You think you're such a big deal. You were in seventh grade too, you know."
She opened the door. "Do you mind?" she said, jarring him with an elbow as she squeezed past him.
The conversation upset neither of them; they'd always been like brothers.

Dory walked to school at an unusually slow pace and was late getting to homeroom. Diane Hanley, who had Dory for the Junior course in U.S. History, appreciated her generally engaged mind and so turned the other way when Dory entered the room, thus avoiding having to give her a tardy slip.
Piqued that Dory should get off so easily when she finally committed an infraction in school rules, Nikki and Carol cornered her after class to tease her a little.

Nikki started. "Where were you before class? Making out with Thomas?"
"Give me a break." Dory replied. "Thomas is my friend."
Nikki poked her lightly in the side. "He's a music geek. You're a drama geek. It's a match." She raised an eyebrow. "You can't keep on playing virgin queen," she added.
"You guys are such jerks."
"Keep me out of this, " Carol said, still laughing. "I didn't say anything."
"Yeah," replied Dory, "but you thought it."
Nikki put an arm around Dory's shoulder. "We just want help you find your way into the adult world."
All three burst out laughing.

After catching up on the day's gossip, they set off for first period in good spirits. They'd been teasing each other about this or that since first grade and therefore took their mutual jabs with a grain of salt. Underneath, however, Dory was more than a little envious of the ease with which Nikki viewed sex, if one could believe what she said. She'd been the first to take the plunge and with her usual determination, she had maintained complete control over the experience and her social image afterward. With Carol, it was different - she and Phillip had been going together for a year before they did it and since they were both otherwise examples of perfect behavior and achievement, everyone treated them as a married couple. The rest had bumbled through it in the course of one relationship or another, all more or less seeming to have survived. Thus Dory was one of the last of her friends beset with the mandatory task of sexual coming-of-age.

At lunch, she met up with Thomas, Alan, and George at their spot on the east end of campus. The grass was sparse there and so not a lot of students ventured out that way, staying on the main lawn areas or in the quad, the open square at the center of the school complex. The guys were already sitting in the middle of a group of Eucalyptus, hoping that the smell of their smoke would be hidden by the strong scent of the dried leaves roasting in the sun. George passed Dory the joint as was checking the ground for carpenter ants and brushing away some woody gum nuts before taking a seat.

"Still worried about ants?" George asked, laughing.
"Go ahead, laugh," Dory answered. "When one bites your ass, you won't be laughing."
Alan and Thomas laughed. Dory was not like the other girls.
She took a toke. "So, what's up for this weekend?"
"No idea," Alan replied. The other two shrugged.
They smoked.
"What about going up to Russian River?" Alan suggested. "Carol and Phillip said something about going up there. We could do a caravan."
Alan, George and Phillip had old sports cars that they kept in shape at the school auto workshop. They often took trips to some beach or other, into the coastal hills, or up north to Russian River. No girlfriends except Carol were allowed. Carol and Phillip were a package deal. Other than she and Dory, no girls ever came.
Because these trips were never mixed with anyone's dates, the group had proved stable through the first three years of high school.
"OK, so Saturday?" asked George.
Everyone nodded.
"What're you guys doing tonight?" Dory asked,
George's smile was self-satisfied. "Date," he said. "With Donna."
"Wow, cool," said Thomas. "Danny's place" he added, in response to Dory's inquiring look. "Band practice. Wanna come?"
"Maybe," said Dory.
"I'm goin'," said Alan, "We can go over together."
Dory nodded.
"Owa!" George jumped up and looked at the ground, then put his hand down the back of his pants."
Everyone laughed. "Told you those ants bite," said Dory.
"Screw you," he said, but he was laughing.
The bell for fifth period rang and they all went back to class, cheerful and loaded to the gills.

Her attention in fifth period Spanish instruction understandably weakened, Dory let her thoughts drift back to the problem of her virginity. She really had to get this thing done, and while she was in a kinda-sorta dating thing with Brad, one of the guys in her class who sometimes jammed with Thomas and his band, she really didn't want him to be the one. Band practice, however, had given her an idea. Danny had an older brother who often hung out at his brother's band practices, looking for girls. Larry was funny, good-looking, and had a reputation as a love 'em and leave 'em kind of guy. He was a jerk, but not a mean one. For Dory, the relevant attributes were his experience, his animal attraction, and the fact that he was nobody she would ever fall for. As she didn't want this whole thing mixed up with the problem of love or not love, he seemed be the perfect person to get this thing over with…with. She was not going to talk to her friends about this. They wouldn't understand.

That night at band practice, Dory systematically flirted with Larry. When he left to meet up with some of his friends, she asked for a ride home. When they got to her house, she gave him a friendly kiss that successfully tempted fate. They ended up doing it in their basement family room.

After it was over, Dory told Larry it had been her first time.
"It didn't seem like it," he said.
Dory laughed. "You weren't supposed to know."
He looked at her quizzically.
Her expression became serious. "Just don't say anything, OK?"
He shrugged. "Well yeah. I'm not an ass."
Then she said, "And don't worry, I'm not expecting to date you."
He shook his head. "You're a strange one," he said.
"Maybe," she answered, "but what the hell."
They both laughed.

It turned out not to be Larry who let the story get around. In fact, he had wanted to date Dory afterward. It was Nikki who couldn't keep her mouth shut and so made the incident temporarily famous. Dory didn't care too much. She knew her friends wouldn't give her a hard time about it, and she didn't care about the rest. The only one upset about the whole thing was her kinda-sorta boyfriend, Brad.

"Why in the hell did you do that with him? Why not me?"
"I didn't want it mixed up with, you know, relationship."
"You're fucking crazy. You know that?"
Dory shrugged.

(14) Math

2011-06-09T08:50:00.000+02:00

People in positions of authority seems to have friends who fall into distinct classes; some people are useful to them and others are pleasant, but the same people are rarely both; for they seek neither those whose pleasantness is accompanied by virtue nor those whose utility is with a view to noble objects, but in their desire for pleasure they seek for ready-witted people, and their other friends they choose as being clever at doing what they are told, and these characteristics are rarely combined.

Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics VIII

The gray-enameled walls glimmered softly; the oblique angle of the sun creeping over the hill allowed just enough light into the empty classroom to make the shadows pulse with the contrast of shadow and golden light. The door opened; a figure ambled in; a hand reached out casually for a switch. The shadows and gleaming surfaces disappeared in vibrating fluorescent light. A man walked over to a bulky gray metal desk, set down a bundle of papers, and moved to the radiators. Turning the valve on, he looked out into a sparsely populated parking lot and exhaled with vehemence.

In his early thirties, he was of medium height, slender and mobile. His straight blond hair had been skillfully cut not to look freshly cut - only the thin tan line at the back of his neck betrayed a recent trip to the barber. He wore a loose linen blazer and jeans. Stifling a yawn, he threw a glazed look at the clock, shuffled back to the door, opened it, and entered the hall.

A pot of freshly brewed coffee and a young woman reading a book greeted the man in the faculty lounge. He headed straight for the pot. "Hey Diane," he mumbled, pouring a cup of coffee. "When do you get here anyway?"
The woman answered without looking up. "I leave at six to beat traffic."
"But you're reading."
"Yes." She looked at him briefly, then returned to her book.
The man shuddered. "I'd never make it out of bed. I didn't get back from Heavenly till midnight last night." He leaned over slightly to look at what she was reading. "You don't ski, do you?"
"I ski."
"Well, you should come up to Tahoe one weekend. A few of us have a timeshare up there."
"Thanks, but I've got bilingual training the next three weekends."
"Well, keep it in mind. All work and no play…you know what it did to Ray Milland."
Showing some signs of exasperation, she stopped reading again. "What?"
"Ray Milland? The Man with the X-Ray Eyes?"
Diane Hanley stared somewhat blankly into her colleague's face. "What's your point?"
"If Ray Milland hadn't overdone it at the office, he wouldn't have been seeing the ceiling through his eyelids when he should have been sleeping."
"Huh."
The man shrugged. "The classics have a lot to teach, Diane."
"I get picked to go to these seminars because everyone else is skiing."
John McGuire winced. "Ouch! But you're too harsh - I was on the state curriculum committee for Math just three years ago. The entire year."
"Really? Then, I take it all back." Turning her back, she got up and went to the coffee pot.
"Yipes! Look at the time. Have to go teach," he said with campy cheeriness.
The woman watched expressionlessly as the man left the lounge. The man mumbled to himself as he returned to his classroom.

* * * *

Three students scurried through the door and into their seats, just as the third period bell rang. By now, John McGuire was awake and looked several years younger. "Glad to see you could all make class today, but then it's not a test day and the weather's not good enough for the beach." Some students chuckled; some stared; some smirked. He observed that one of his favorite students was stifling a yawn. "Hard weekend, Carol?"
The girl looked up and immediately blushed. "Excuse me, Mr. McGuire?"
"Well, I must either conclude that my class makes you sleepy or…more optimistically…assume that you're still recovering from the Saturday night festivities after our big win on Saturday." Seemingly tongue-tied, the girl laughed and shrugged a little. "Well, enjoy it," the teacher said. "You're only young once." Expanding his gaze to the entire class, he added, "Don't tell my colleagues I ascribe to the idea of fun. I'll get fired." The students laughed, the girls more than the boys.
McGuire focused on a another face, "And you Meade? You look a little under the weather. Are you up to a little Algebra?"
A slightly pained grin left Phillip Meade's face and was replaced by a belligerently neutral stare. McGuire seemed to begin to say something, then stopped, and jumped up from where he'd been leaning on the desk, "OK, kiddies, let's get to work."
A half hour later, the board was full of algebraic equations. John McGuire turned from the blackboard, clapped to shake the chalk off his hands, and looked around the classroom. "OK. Next word problem..." There was an audible sigh. "Why so glum, kiddies? Isn't this what you all dreamed of doing this morning before lunch? Maybe I should have brought the Margarita mix? There were a few smiles or chuckles. "That's more like it. Pretend we're in a bad sci-fi film. There are giant red termites outside, gathering for an attack. Inside the classroom, you're all waiting for the bee to ring and release you from this awful intellectual bondage, and outside the termites are approaching. The camera cuts between the classroom and the termites. Equation here, the buzzing of wings there, squeaking chalk, the sound of marching, the glazed eyes of high school students, and the twitch of hostile antennae."
Smiles, smirks or blasé expressions, the students were all listening.
The audience sees the irony of course. They're smugly asking themselves, 'How can they do that stupid math problem at a time like this. Look out the window, you idiots!' Now, as I was saying, this last word problem has to do with determining interest. Not your interest of course, as that would take us into negative integers, but let's go on, shall we? Before the termites arrive?"
By the time he had finished reading the word problem, many eyes had gone back back to a glazed look. He noted Nikki Park's smile. "Nikki?" Her smile broadened. She was a flirtatious, pretty girl and so John couldn't help smiling back.
"Well, 7% interest on 3011$ is 210.77$, I guess, but I don't understand the compound stuff and that stuff in the third year."
"OK…a first step. What's the equation?"
"Oh, I didn't use an equation. I just counted."
Teacher and student continued smiling at each other. He turned to Carol Ritter. "Carol?"
She stared at her paper, her face reddening. She was not doing well this term."
Phillip's voice interrupted the continuing silence. "The interest for the first year is 3011 times .07. = Y. The interest for the second year is (3011+ Y) times .07. The next year falls away because by withdrawing the 350$ in mid-year…" Noticing that the teacher was not writing his response on the board, the student stopped. "Is that wrong, Mr. McGuire?"
"It's not necessarily wrong, Meade; it's just irrelevant. I didn't ask you."
Now composed, Carol smiled. "But Phillip just said everything I was going to say, Mr. McGuire."
The bell rang.

Slamming books shut and packing them away, the students began leaving.

"He's so dreamy," Nikki said to Carol as they headed toward the door.

"He's an ass," Phillip replied, overhearing her.

(13) Chem Lab

2011-06-02T12:42:00.000+02:00

In ev'ry job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job's a game 

And ev'ry task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake 
A lark! A spree!
It's very clear to see that

  A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down 
The medicine go down-wown 
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way

Robert B. Sherman: Lyrics to A Spoonful of Sugar

The first sign of her arrival was the clack-clack-clack of her high heels in the cavernous hallway and the aggressive jangle of her massive key ring. As she stalked into the room – her arms like stiff little paper clips pinning folders to her body, her platinum and silver streaked coiffure like an impenetrable helmet protecting her thoughts – she stretched out her tight pink-frosted lips slightly at the corners in an expression only the horror movie Dr. Sardonicus would categorize as a smile. When they saw the freshly sun-tanned parchment skin and the pale goggle outline, they knew they were in for a hellish class. Never was she more vicious than after a weekend of fun on the slopes; never did she show more dislike for her students.

With disgust, Angela observed James and George gazing a little adoringly in Mrs. Davis' direction. She nudged Nikki. "Can you believe those guys? They actually like her!"
"They don't like her, Angie. They want her."
"Whatever. She's such a bitch."
"Haven't you ever noticed that she's not quite so bitchy to the boys?"
Angela saw Mrs. Davis show signs of listening for the source of the whispering and lowered her voice even more. "She's bitchy to Thomas...and Alan."
"But not James and George," Nikki smiled. "She's got a thing for the All-American types like James or randy little muscle-men like George."
"I heard she had a thing with Mr. Thompson."
Nikki clicked her tongue. "Are you kidding? Where did you get that?"
"Didn't you see 'em hanging out together at the party Saturday night?"
"That was a school thing...and besides, the only other teacher there was Mrs. Langton, and she's at least fifty. She probably never danced in her life."
Angela pursed her lips. "You're probably right. She's more McGuire's type."
"Pffft! No way! McGuire's got personality."
"Ha ha ha. You like him 'cause he passed you in Math. They went skiing together."
"All of our teachers go skiing together. Did you ever see her ex?"
"I heard he's a stock broker. They just got divorced last year. Maybe she's still in mourning." They stifled laughs.

Ann Davis couldn't hear the exchange, yet she felt an uneasy prickling at the neck. She knew she was being observed and probably discussed as she sat there, filling out the attendance roster. In the end, however, she was also the boss in this classroom – a hard-working woman who deserved to get through her workday without getting shit from a bunch of punky high school kids. Thus, when she stood up to start instruction, she looked the enemy in the eye and took a firm hand with them before they dissipated into good spirits and, from there, into anarchy.

"Today we'll work on Chapter 10, Experiment 3. Get out your lab kits and note paper, and don't forget to take down your data carefully. I want decent looking lab reports this week. Last week's were pitiful.

Alan glowered noticeably during the last part of this speech. The lab reports were a tack in everyone's ass. Not only did they count for 50% of the grade, but the format was long and repetitious, demanding a great deal of copying text word-for-word from the book. Ann Davis considered this a necessary exercise in precision and scientific discipline; the class thought of it as unnecessary punishment. Alan had been the only one to openly rebel. Having decided which parts of the reports were redundant and which copying unnecessary, he had left out this material and replaced it with footnotes. As a result, even though his calculations and conclusions had been correct, he had received F's on the last two reports.

As everyone got out their materials, he turned to James. "Piss on these reports."
Ann Davis swept to the back of the class. "Is there a problem here?"
James tried to intervene and keep his lab partner out of trouble. "No, Mrs. Davis. I was just asking Alan what page the experiment was on."
Ann Davis looked down at Alan's still empty work space. "And what did you tell him, Alan?"
"I was actually telling him what I'd like to do with these lab reports."
"Excuse me?"
Alan's cheeked burned. "I really don't see why we have to do these reports like this. We're all doing the same experiment. We all have the same conditions. The purpose, the list of materials, the procedure – all of it's already written in the textbook. All we're doing is copying stuff word-for-word onto a sheet of paper. Why?
The class was still. Ann Davis' face darkened. "Every chemist must make complete reports. Science is a discipline of order and method."
James tried nudging Alan, but Alan was beyond thinking about the consequences of his actions. "We aren't supposed to be learning to be scientists. We're supposed to be learning the principles of chemistry. Shouldn't we be spending more time trying to do that than copying a bunch of crap out of the textbook?"

"Maybe that's a topic you'd like to discuss with the Dean of Boys. I'll tell Mr. Turner you'll be making an appointment to see him. She turned back to the class. "Open your books and get to work." Hearing disgruntled murmuring, she added, "By the way, we'll be having a quiz tomorrow, not that we'll have any time to review at the end of class. We've wasted too much time on this. You can thank your classmate for that."

Nikki poked Angela in the ribs. "So much for freedom of speech."
Angela giggled but was silenced by Mrs. Davis.
"I hope you're discussing the experiment, Angela?" she said.
The girls both nodded, and the class started their work. Some grumbled in Alan's direction. Nobody liked Mrs. Davis, but they liked her to be irritated even less. It would all come back to them on the quiz.

Nikki waited until things had settled down. "Alan's going to have a shitload of trouble around report card time if he doesn't stop screwing with A.D.'s head. What does he think? That school's supposed to be a meaningful experience?" She chuckled at her own joke.
"Alan's just honest, Nikki," said Angela. "We all bitch about the reports."
"So?"
"So where's your whatchamacallit...your civil courage?"
Nikki laughed louder, "Look Angie, just because you've got a crush on Jamison, doesn't mean you have to go around quoting our Ethics class."

Mrs. Davis stood up at her desk. "QUIET!"

(12) First Kiss

2011-05-26T08:35:00.000+02:00

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

 This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To sooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet

Angela looked at her reflection the way she might have looked at a photo-booth snapshot of herself. She saw the pale winter sheen of her skin, the gloss of her thick black hair, and the delicate lines and wisps of color that had been carefully applied to her eyes. The soft down on her cheek, the analytic glint of her metallic blue eyes, and the tense lines of her mouth remained unperceived.

She walked over to the window, moved the curtain a bit, and peered down at the street. James was late. She wondered why she had ever consented to go to the freshman Christmas party with him. She should have known that someone else would ask her, but it had been only a week before the party and she had not yet been asked. James did have the advantage of familiarity. They'd known each other since first grade. Of course, the familiarity that made it easy to go with him also made the whole thing boring. There would not be any surprises on this date. James would joke around with the guys; Angela would have to drag him away from the other members of the freshman football team so that she could get out on the dance floor. He'd probably also eat vodka-injected fruit or do something equally jerky. She would have never admitted to anyone that, despite all of these shortcomings, she'd been sporadically attracted to James over the years. He was like a big puppy.

Lost in these thoughts, she started when the doorbell rang. Giggling a little at her nervousness, she opened the door and inspected her date. She even examined his fingernails - after all, tonight was her first high school dance - but he looked presentable enough. "You wanna come in or should we just leave?"
"Hello to you, too," James said, shaking his head but smiling all the same. "I say, let's go," he suggested. "It's 8:30. The other guys should be there by now." Angela turned to get her jacket. "Besides," he went on, "Paul's picking up at 11:30 sharp. He wants to get over to his girlfriend's house before midnight. Her parents are gone and they're pulling an all-nighter."
Angela frowned. "He's not going to drive us anywhere after? Everyone's meeting at the Red Lion."
"Nope." Noticing her disappointed look, he added, "Maybe we can get a ride with someone else. Look, we're lucky that my parents aren't driving! And anyway, I thought your mom said you had to come home right after."
"Yeah, but I lied about when it was over."
Just then, they heard a car horn honk several times. "Come on. Paul may be an ass-face, but he's the only driver we got."

They arrived at the dance at a good time. Almost everyone was there, but the usual enclaves had not yet formed. Angela praised herself for her foresight in coming with James. Dates weren't mandatory, but unless you were a real star, going alone was a liability. Especially now, at the beginning of freshman year, she had to establish herself socially. Angela had few girlfriends and those she had were not unconditionally guaranteed. Besides she'd already experienced what it was like to go somewhere with a girlfriend, only to be deserted the minute some guy offered his attentions. The mutual promises the girls had made before going on the picnic had instantly dissolved into nothing, and Angela had been forced to bum a ride home with friends of her parents. She had been particularly humiliated by her mother's harping voice when she arrived home: "Aren't you glad the Randall's were there? I told you that girl wasn't reliable. Her parents…" And blah, blah, blah, Angela thought. Her mother loved nothing more than being right. At least this time, there hadn't been any discussions. James had had her mother snowed for years. He was such a kiss-up. As the evening went on, she realized he was also one of her few real friends.

As a freshman cheerleader, Angela was acquainted with the members of the football and swimming teams; however, it was coming to the party with James that got her the dances and the conversations and her spot in the middle of all those guys. She therefore started for home at the end of the party with a feeling of satisfaction and an appreciation for her childhood friend. She overlooked the fact that they'd found no ride for afterwards and had to go straight home. She even suspected that James was going to meet some of the guys later at McDonalds but forgave him that too - he'd been sweet and attentive all evening.

Paul had just dropped them off in front of her house and James was walking her to the door. "Sorry about the ride, Angie."
"Ahhh…no big."
"I gotta get some sleep for the game tomorrow anyway. What time you guys getting there?" "At twelve. There's no cheerleader practice before."
"James looked toward his brother's car. "I better get going…"
"Yeah. You don't want to miss the guys at McDonalds."
James looked guilty.
"Come on, Mitch, we're friends. It wasn't that kind of date."

Grabbing her rambunctiously but affectionately around the waist, he applied his mouth firmly to hers. To her surprise, Angela felt his tongue edge into her mouth. Unbeknownst to James, this was her first serious kiss, and she didn't know whether to laugh, gag, or swoon. This tongue business was strange, definitely less erotic than it had been cracked up to be.

And indeed, James kissed the way he dove into the pool at the start of a race: he expended a great amount of energy; he used his whole body; and he disregarded anyone or anything that night get in his way, including the comfort or desires of his partner in the kiss. The simile of the swimming pool also came to Angela's mind for she felt slightly in danger of drowning in what she was sure was the wettest kiss in history.

(11) English

2011-05-24T11:21:00.001+02:00

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Dory squinted at the glaring page and looked up into the light. The sun shone harshly through the streaked, grimy surface of the classroom windows, which hadn't yet received their monthly cleaning. Walking to school, she'd tread on eucalyptus leaves, pine cones and oak leaves downed by the storm. The air had been filled with the spicy scents of these leaves in the fog-laden air, the smell of the ocean, winter jasmine, and wet, barky earth. Drops had formed on her nose as she breathed. On the meadow between the park and the school grounds, the sun had transformed these scents into a warm, sweet brew that now streamed through neglected cracks in the moldings of the windows. Dory sniffed at the scent and, ignoring captivity, took out her notebook.

"I'm going to hand back the reading checks now." Mr. Arnold announced as he began passing the tests back through the rows, allowing the students at the front of the room the pleasure of sneaking glances at the grades of those behind them. "On the whole," he said, "they were rather disappointing. I realize that the language of Shakespeare is difficult for you, but only careful reading and the use of your glossaries will change that. The reading checks are there to address precisely this difficulty. Most of you would never get past the Cliff's Notes version if there were no reading checks, and it is my responsibility to see that you become at least acquainted with the words of English Literature, if not the meaning." Dory sighed. How righteous he was. Most of her classmates ignored Mr. Arnold's remarks altogether, silently sharing the experience of grades with nudges, winks, grimaces and whispered wisecracks.

Although Beth sat in the back and thus could not view the passing papers, she could see by the expressions on her classmates' faces how they had fared. George, who sat across from her in the next row, looked particularly downcast. His grades were not great anyway, so he must have really bombed this one. Angela looked calmly resigned – she probably got the C she expected. Mitch probably had his first B from Arnold, judging from the smile on his face. He was smarter than he liked to pretend. She craned a little to catch Dory's face, but she was busily writing in that ever-present journal, her reading check probably already crammed into some pocket or dark corner of her bag. Dory had suddenly began getting good marks in sixth grade – out of nowhere, she'd become the best in the class. And now she was one of the best in their year at Buena Vista, although it was admittedly only the first half of their first year. She and Beth had become less close in junior high, not that they weren't still friends. Dory just wasn't as much of a good time as Nikki and Carol. She came and went as she pleased, and she hung out with the dopers a little too much. Mr. Arnold treated her carefully, but who could figure him out. Who'd want to?

"At the end of class yesterday, we had just started talking about character development." He began writing on the board, announcing words as he wrote them. "Exposition, development, round and flat characters, static and dynamic characters." He turned back to the class. "With these concepts in mind, let's look at the main characters in the play. With what characteristics does Shakespeare want us to identify his main characters." Henry Arnold searched for a face. "Angela?"

Angela had evidently made the mistake of looking up at the wrong time. She cringed slightly at the sound of her name. "Uh, maybe they were all prejudiced? I mean, especially the Christians? Prejudiced against the Jewish people?"

The teacher nodded, "Anti-Semitism is certainly touched upon in the play, although it's not necessarily a thematic focus. The play was written during a time in which these feelings were unfortunately common. Although Shakespeare was quite enlightened in his treatment of Shylock, he..."

"Enlightened?" Angela interrupted. "I mean, I know Shylock is the villain, but he's been persecuted, right? Look how people treated him. And you know how you told us to think about mercy when we read this? Well, Portia seems to want mercy from Shylock, but she sure doesn't show him much."
The class suddenly woke up. This was the most Angela had talked in class...ever…and it was the first time it seemed as if she'd done the homework.

Henry Arnold addressed this commentary as tactfully as he knew how. "Yes, but you must remember that Shylock wanted to take his pound of flesh from Antonio, who was, after all, risking a great deal for unselfish reasons."

Angela's face wrinkled in disapproval. "Unselfish? Sure, he wanted to help what's-his-name -
Bassanio - but to do what? To get a rich wife by pretending to be rich himself! My mom calls that honor among thieves." Nonplussed at the sheer volume of this commentary, Henry Arnold missed the critical moment to jump in, and encouraged by the silence, Angela rolled on, "And Antonio borrowed money from a guy he hated, then told Shylock he'd spit on him afterwards. What's that about? Pretty stupid to sign an IOU like that, if you ask me. Seriously! Who can care about people that dumb?"

Brow-beaten but aware of his duty, Henry Arnold countered this attack on Shakespeare's genius. "I'm afraid you are failing to see the play in relation to the sensibilities of its time. Let's get back to character development and sort it out. Antonio is a good, generous man, perhaps naive, but willing, after all, to pay the consequences when the time comes. His greatest quality is perhaps his friendship for Bassanio..."

And that's that, Beth thought. God…what a class! Once a week or so, they had to go through a guessing game entitled, "What am I thinking?" Why didn't he just give a lecture and call it a day? If there were ever a teacher more uninterested in students' thoughts than Mr. Arnold, she had never heard about him. He wasn't mean; he just lived in some strange world of books about books, theories, literary movements and periods. What a bore. Why couldn't they talk about the relationship between Christian and Jews and how that affected the play? She'd read the play and she knew what Arnold was getting at – Antonio's generosity toward his friend, regardless of his friend's weaknesses. His wish for Bassanio's happiness. Still, she could see Angela's point – it was hard to care about people with such bogus values. What did all of this have to do with them? She'd like to see Arnold lecture on that. She knew what he wanted but she was not about to help him out. Let him fish for his perfect answers elsewhere.

Mitch's thoughts were less analytical. Don't call on me, you asshole, was the thought running through his mind as Mr. Arnold looked around the classroom for his next victim.

Henry Matthew Arnold's father had been a distinguished and moderately successful professor of 19th century literature at a Midwestern university. Like many of his breed, he had not only lived for the glories of a past literary epoch he felt to be infinitely more aesthetic, innovative and profound that the self-indulgent and undisciplined poetry of his time, but he had emulated his idols and dabbled in poetry himself. Fortunately, he'd also had the good taste to keep this dabbling to himself. Nevertheless, when he and his wife had a son, he named him after his favorite poet and secretly hoped that his son would live up to the name.

None of Henry Matthew's students would have guessed that their teacher's father could have been so romantic or wistful. Few of them could have really pictured him with a father at all, for his presence stirred nothing human in their minds. He shuffled audibly when he walked from his desk to the blackboard, his pear-shaped bristly head held in a contemplative tilt. During these times, his students whispered to each other, passed notes or gazed out the windows, something which, had Henry Matthew known it, would have been a relief. He'd never really gotten over feeling embarrassed in front of a class full of eyes. He looked out the window, took a deep, inward breath, and plunged into his lecture. Some time later, he became aware of the class' restlessness. It was time to ask a question.

"So. Bassanio and Antonio carry the theme of friendship, loyalty, and trust. We also see in the ring scene, the importance of this friendship in the face of romantic love. Bassanio must give up the ring, even though he promised Portia he wouldn't; and because Portia is wise, she forgives him for it. She places her love for Bassanio after Bassanio and Antonio's friendship in this moment because she sees that were Bassanio untrue to his friend, he might also prove a faithless lover."

"Let's now turn to Jessica. What does her relationship with Lorenzo show us?"

Henry Matthew glanced around the room. He could call on Beth Nielson. She'd probably have something relevant to say. However, she did not look willing and she was often quite thick-headed. Perhaps James Mitchell? He was smart enough, but usually wouldn't read a line until his football coach told him to. That he'd made a "B" on this reading check had been a surprise. But he was looking positively hostile – so not him. What about the Linnaker girl? Dory. She was always writing something; he could only hope it was class notes. He finally stumbled upon George Wilkins, a friend of that Mitchell boy's but much more amenable.

"George?"
"Yes, Mr. Arnold?"
"Can you tell us what Shakespeare wants to show us with Jessica's relationship?"
"The relationship to what?" George was gazing good-naturedly at his teacher. There were a few giggles.
"Not to what, but to whom." Like his students, Henry Matthew Arnold suddenly felt as if this hour would never end. He tried again. "Jessica's relationship to Lorenzo."
The Wilkins boy's face turned more thoughtful. "That a person's parents don't determine a person's future? That anyone can be saved?"
Henry Arnold was visibly relieved. "You've some of the point there."
Angela raised her hand, already speaking as it stretched up into the air. "Do you mean that Shakespeare's saying that all Jews are damned and need Christians to save them?"
Henry Arnold looked truly abashed. "Certainly not. We're not talking about saved that that sense, but in a general sense...saved from her fate as Shylock's daughter."
Angela smiled. "I'm sure that's not what George meant. He's a good Catholic. He's always talking about the Savior." Several students laughed.
George was quick to respond. "Shut up, Angela. I didn't say that."

The class laughed openly now and Henry Matthew knew he'd lost another battle. He had just started telling them what the relationship symbolized when the bell rang.

(10) Catholic Boys

2011-05-20T08:12:00.000+02:00

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up.....

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.

Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

James hated the drizzle; it seemed as if the clouds were slowly disintegrating, their substance filtering down through the atmosphere onto the shingle roofs, the wooden fences, the pavement, and into the collar of his shirt. His neck felt damp and clammy. That the small shelter at the school bus stop was already crammed full of students didn't cheer him up. Paul was a jerk. Turning on his own brother, just to impress a girl. He could still have taken James to school – after all, his car had a back seat.

The time dragged on even more when none of his buddies showed up. John and George must have gotten rides from their parents. He looked around. Nikki Park was talking to two third year guys he'd seen around but didn't know. He thought about saying hi but knew if he went over there, he'd probably get the bad end of some joke. Although she'd come through for him once when he'd been in real trouble, Nikki would be a real viper if it suited her purpose. She smiled triumphantly at him from the other side of the bus stop. She'd probably love him to go over there right now so she could give him a hard time and make herself look good in front of the older guys. Not with me, James thought as he smiled back.

Thomas walked quickly, the way he always walked, regardless of whether he was in a hurry or not. He felt calmer than usual, soothed by the drizzle. The air was so heavy with rain that everything seemed slowed down. Sounds were muffled. Cars and people moved slowly. If he hadn't been going to school, it would have been a good morning. He could walk for hours in this air.

The bus stop was full of people. He knew who most of them were, but he was convinced that none of them knew him. Even people with whom he had exchanged hello's or had some superficial conversation at lunch – he always felt that were he to greet them, they would merely look perplexed, give him an embarrassed greeting, and walk off wondering where they should know him from.

"Don't say hello, Thomas Marley."
Thomas froze, then slowly turned his head. He didn't want to make a mistake. Nikki Park was smiling at him. He cleared his throat nervously. "Hi."
Nikki wouldn't stop looking him in the eye. "Where's your cello?" she said. "I think my brother sleeps with his." Her casual laugh made him feel even more anxious, but his nervousness came out in banter. "Oh, I know he does. He uses your little plastic cap when he takes it into the shower. You should talk to him about that."

Nikki laughed in a friendly way and turned back to her friends. Why was she talking to him? Maybe she'd seen him talking to her brother Sean after band rehearsal. Sean was a good guy. He had a reputation for being a little weird, but nobody seemed to mind. He wasn't like Nikki at all. She was always in the middle of everything and she knew everyone. Thomas was glad she hadn't kept on talking to him. He was shocked that he'd managed to answer at all. Walking over to the other side of the bus stop to avoid giving the appearance of hanging around her, he looked at his feet and tried to appear lost in thought.

"Hey Marley. I didn't know you lived around here."
Startled, he looked up, relieved when he saw James Mitchell. "Hey Mitch. What's up?"
"So what are you doing at this bus stop?"
"We moved over here in July..."
"So you're going to public now, too?"
"Yeah. My parents finally caved. Gotta be better than St. Bart's. Right?" While Thomas had been glad to get out the authoritarian, restrictive atmosphere of an all-boys school run by a bunch of nuns, he was apprehensive about what public school would really be like.
"Yeah, I was so glad to get out of that place. No more penguins."
"You went to public school till third grade, right? You got friends from back then at Buena Vista?
"Pretty much. I got into a lot of trouble back then. That's why I had to leave. My father thought the nuns would make a gentleman out of me."

The ensuing laughter was genuine but trailed off awkwardly. Thomas and James had never exchanged any more than a "hi" outside the classroom in all the years of catholic school, and it felt odd now to have so much in common. It had taken bribery, begging, and penitence, but they had both been saved.

James was the first to break the silence. "No more drawing bunny ears on Sister Mary Martha's class photo."
Thomas smiled. "No more hanging Father Joseph's favorite plant out the window by a noose."
Laughter returned.
"No more rulers slapped across our hands from Sister Mary Inez."
"No more short chops to the neck from Sister Mary Agnes."
"No more polishing the toilets with toothbrushes."
"No more rubbing out scuff marks with erasers."
"No more being hung out the window by my feet."
James stopped laughing. He hadn't been one of the guys that hung Thomas out a second story window by his feet, but it had been his friends.
He bobbed his head in thought. "Yeah, that probably sucked, didn't it?"
Thomas nodded, "Pretty much."
The looked at each other.

James hadn't thought much about his actions at St. Bart's. He'd struggled as little with his own motivations as with belief. He could take or leave virtue or religion, that is, his fervent attachment to both arose mostly out of superstition and prudence. Any guilt thrown at him by the nuns had bounced off. He'd banned their influence with jokes, mostly filled with explicit references to sex. The moral pressure exerted by the priests and the threat of damnation hadn't fazed him either - he believed in the benefits of confession. A Hail Mary or two and he'd been right as rain, ready to plan his next attack on Sister Theresa or Father Mike. More important to James' central being had been sports.

He cracked a smile at Thomas. "You still going to be the geek in the band?"
"You still going to be a dumb jock," Thomas replied, repeating the litany of high school students everywhere.
"But no more nuns," said James.
They laughed.
James became serious again. "Why don't you ever go out for sports any more, Marley? You played Little League one summer, didn't you? Third base?"
"You remember that? That was in fourth grade!"
"I never forget teammates or people I play against. So why did you stop?"
"I didn't want to play in the first place. My dad made me. Said I needed the fresh air. All I got was hay fever. The guys on the team wanted to kill me. Every time I had to look into the sun for a fly ball, I'd get a sneezing attack."
Their chuckling was easier now, tensions from the past unwinding.
"James' expression darkened. "My dad made me play too."
You're kidding? You?"
"Totally. He started training me every free minute he had as soon I learned to walk. He coached Little League after college, so he had big plans for me."
Thomas studied his friend's face. "But you liked it, right?"
"I learned to like it. I like it now. But I hated it for years. I like swimming a lot better. You should see my dad swim. Strictly dog paddle."
Before they could decide if this was a laughing matter or not, the bus rolled in. Thomas was suddenly unsure whether he should stick close to James so they could sit together or drift back into the crowd.

Unlike James, Thomas had suffered under the guidance of the ruler-wielding, ear-pinching nuns and the constant surveillance of the priests. With a thin face and a habit of squinting into the light, he constantly pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his thin nose with his index finger. He paced and talked simultaneously, his face and eyes always animated. St. Bart's had only cultivated this nervous introversion. He felt uncomfortable with guys he didn't know, and girls petrified him. Boys and girls hadn't played together in his childhood. Any pupil attending a "mixed" party after school had been reported to Monsignor. And now, right in the middle of adolescence, he'd been thrown into public school - girls in the classroom, girls in the courtyards, girls in the cafeteria and girls in the bus. He decided he'd rather get brushed off by James than end up in a seat next to some girl.

There was an awkward moment when James seemed to inwardly shy away from his newfound companion, but then he clapped an arm on his shoulder and pushed him up the steps of the bus. They drifted to the back of the bus, both undecided whether they should actually sit down next to each other, but then the grumpy cries of the bus driver solved the dilemma and they sat down on a double seat.

Catching a glimpse of the back of Nikki's head at the front of the bus. "Hey, Mitchell, what's Nikki Park like? You must know her from before you came to St. Bart's."
James looked appalled. "You don't have a thing for her, do you Marley?"
"No! I was just wondering what she was like - she said hello to me this morning. I know Sean from band, but I never really talked to her, and she seemed kind of friendly."
"Nikki's friendly, dude, but she's a major black widow. Don't get me wrong, I've known her all my life and we're tight, but she takes care of herself first, you know? Don't get sucked into being one of her slaves. She can wheedle anything out of anybody."
"Hey, how come Nikki went to public school and Sean had to go to St. Bart's?"
"Well, Sean said it was 'cause her parents wanted her to be able to go to school with her girlfriends, but the truth is…Nikki just always gets her way!" For a moment they both stared at Nikki's head.

"OK. I've told you all about Nikki Park, now you tell me something. How come you threw that desk in science class?"
Thomas pushed his glasses back up on his nose. "You heard about that?"
James exploded in a short burst of laughter. "Everybody heard about that, Marley! Come on, man, what happened?"
Thomas shrugged. "It was the nuns, man. You know how they used to pinch our necks and hit us with the rulers and all that shit! I mean, who can fucking deal with that crap? Anyway, Sister Mary Inez kept doing that stuff to me. And one day she slaps the back of my neck with a ruler and just keeps walking down the row. I don't remember anything except feeling like I couldn't breathe. The next thing I know, my desk is at her feet in the front of the room."
"You really threw the desk? I thought it was a legend."
Thomas shrugged again. "I mean, I only sat in the third row. It wasn't that far. And I didn't hit her. I just threw it in her general direction."
Once again, James broke into unrestrained laughter.

The bus driver wasn't long in responding. "If you don't stop clowning around back there, I'm going to pull over and you'll all be needing those tardy slips."
Students looked around, but James just bent his right arm at the elbow and thrust it an upward motion, slapping his biceps with his left hand. There was general tumult.
"That better not be you, Mitchell. I threw your brother off this bus and I'll throw you off it, too."
The bus exploded with laughter. By the time the they arrived at school, the bus driver had lost his last nerve and the students had lost all sense of civility.

Another school day began. As they left the bus, James said, "See ya, Marley. If you need any more advice about women, let me know."

The bell rang.

(9) Homeroom

2011-05-17T13:12:00.000+02:00

I have no doubt...," K. said very softly, for the attentiveness with which the entire assembly was listening pleased him, and in the stillness, a buzz more exciting than the most enthusiastic applause had arisen, "...I have no doubt that a large organization is behind all of the expressions of this court, that is, in my case, behind my arrest and the hearing today...And the purpose of this organization, gentlemen? Its purpose is the arrest of innocent persons who then become the defendants in a senseless and, as in my case, usually inconclusive trial...

Franz Kafka The Trial

Nikki and Carol wandered into homeroom. Although their pace picked up noticeably when the bell rang, they slid into their seats without giving the impression that they were hurrying, having long perfected the knack of defiant obedience. Beth watched her friends with envy. In her entire school life she'd never been late without legitimate cause. She'd been afraid of the repercussions: first those of parental displeasure, then, after a good middle-class, guilt-based upbringing, the repercussions of the soul. Now, in a moral space comparable to Sartre's hotel room in No Exit – a comparison she would come upon only later, during her university studies - she just didn't want to stand out. She hated her own reticence, damned herself for it daily, but this envy at the way they could walk into a room full of people – calm, collected, and unconcerned about repercussions or opinions of those in authority - this envy was new. Carol knew her fellow students would approve of whatever she did, and Nikki didn't care about approval as long as she had attention. Beth wanted that lack of concern. Remembering to feel guilty about these ungenerous thoughts for two or three seconds, she greeted her friends with a smile.

In another homeroom, Dory was scribbling in a notebook, not paying attention to anyone at all, her thoughts only interrupted when Ms. Hanley's monotone voice seeped into the air, winding its way into the ears of the attentive, intimidated uninterested or sleeping freshmen students. "Will everyone please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance."

Everyone sighed, gazed listlessly around the room, and waited for the already routine chain of events that would now take place. Whether students should have to say the Pledge had been an issue in schools all across the nation for a couple of weeks, and clearly defined fronts had already developed. Approximately half of the students got to their feet, the other half remaining in their seats. A few did whatever they did vehemently - with conviction – either sitting solemnly and silently or standing to mouth the well-known litany, hand over hearts. The less politically inspired murmured the syllables mindlessly, unwilling to let something that trivial upset their lives; sat timidly, unsure if, as minors, they were allowed to rebel; or sulked in their seats, annoyed that their personal rebellion might be chalked off to some jerky liberal cause.

After these various personal and political rituals had taken place, Diane Hanley obediently noted the civilly or uncivilly disobedient, took roll call, put her findings in an envelope that would be taken to the office where inmate files were kept, and then read the daily announcements.

"There has been a problem with students smoking behind the gym: the Dean of Boys reminds all students that any infractions will result in immediate suspension. All Seniors must turn in their suggestions for the Homecoming Dance by Friday. Students wishing to work on Yearbook should report to the Journalism Office in L-125 at 3:30. There will be a pep rally for Friday's game against Seaview High at 2:15 this afternoon. Finally, all students leaving campus at lunch should remember that notes from home are required. Failure to follow this procedure will result in suspension, regardless of any parental approval given after the fact. Questions?

As there were no signs of life from the class, Ms. Hanley spent the remaining four minutes of homeroom, listlessly leafing through a stack of papers on her desk.

(8) Golden Years

2011-05-16T18:10:00.000+02:00

Which generation was it that started calling high school the golden years? After graduation, Dory would never step foot on her high school campus, hoping only that its buildings had fallen under the ball and chain, the bulldozers, and the power shovels of a wrecking crew, flattened into something more socially beneficial like a parking lot or realty company.

Borrowing a movie nickname given to nearby Alcatraz island, students called Buena Vista High School the rock because although it had been placed to rest majestically on a eucalyptus-covered hill, in the end it had been designed to resemble a Leggo version of a hollowed out cube. Students and faculty received their sunlight in a center courtyard, also a cube, and instruction occurred in smaller cubes, tucked away in a labyrinth of beige, olive-green, and rust-proof concrete walls and metal beams. Relentless functionalist, fifties-bomb-shelter aesthetic, permanent prefab, call it what one would - it was sterile and aggressively uninspiring.

The student alienation precluded any constructive social interaction, that is, interaction which would make the students feel a sense of group consciousness or purpose. However, perhaps this was fitting, as it communicated perfectly the piranha infested waters that they'd meet in adult life and also the life preservers of success they might want to grab onto upon graduation.

But they didn't think about later. Most of the time, they just stared off into an uncertain future and a life they couldn't imagine, experiencing acute moments of hysterical laughter, tearful despair, bitter cynicism., or every once in awhile, emotional contentment. On the whole, they felt only their differences, their inadequacies, and a vague sense of guilt about not really wanting to grow up to be anything at all.

Of course, some pretended great command over the entire situation, showed signs of great ambition, and feigned good humor. Nevertheless, they were disturbed youth, and why not? They were surrounded by the suburbs.

(7) Job

2011-05-14T09:32:00.000+02:00

One day the sons of God came to visit the Lord and Satan was with them. When God asked Satan where he'd been recently, he answered, "On Earth."

The Lord smiled. "And did you see my servant Job? Did you notice how upright and pure he is…and how he loves me?"

Satan's eyes glistened slyly, "He loves you because you protect him and allow him to succeed in everything he does. Take away that which is dear to him and he'll hate you just as quickly."

The Lord was displeased. "All right, I'll tell you what - you take all of his possessions - all that is dear to him - and see what happens. Just don't touch his person."

So Satan laid his hand on Job and took his wealth and his family from him. But Job remained faithful, saying, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh."

And the Lord said to Satan, "Now what do you have to say for yourself? Do you admit I was right?"

Satan shook his head. "Take away his health and he'll hate you."

So God said, "Go ahead and try it. Do what you want with him. Just don't kill him."

Satan smiled and stretched out his hand.

They sat on the heaters, letting their pant legs and socks dry in the only way they could without taking them off. Most of them liked traffic patrol because they got to show off their authority as sixth graders by guiding the other kids across streets, and they got to come late to class and leave early on the days they had duty. Rainy days were even better because they needed extra time to get on the hip boots and yellow slickers and because even with all that protective clothing, they managed to get wet enough to have to spend the entire first hour on the radiators, dangling their feet rather than trapped in their desks.

It was a rainy Wednesday and there they sat, socks steaming - Alan, Beth, Carol, George and Dory - listening to another boring math lesson. Their position gave them an excellent view of the class and simultaneously took them out of Mr. Johnson's direct line of sight. What could be better?

Dory looked over at Brad, who sat slumped over his desk, looking up at Mr. Johnson with a sullen, blasé expression. Brad wasn't particularly handsome, not in a way that would make children flock to him or adults indulge him in annoying habits. Everyone hated going over to his house because his mother made kids nervous. She never yelled at them, although she nagged Brad in a distracted sort of way, so it wasn't any explicit dislike of her that kept them away. What made them nervous was that she never seemed to doing anything. They knew from their parents that she never came to the parents' meetings; she never baked for the bake sales; she never came to parent conferences. Someone in the class said that she was a drunk. However, although many students had parents who drank, these suburban kids really weren't sure what the difference between drinking and being a drunk were. Dory's mother and father drank gin fizzes and screwdrivers. Dory knew how to make them and enjoyed acting as bartender when they had dinner guests. Were they drunks? For Dory, the jury would be out on Brad's mother until she figured out this category more completely. His father was a different story. She knew why nobody wanted to be around him. He bitched at the kids if they were noisy, bitched at them if they were quiet, bitched at them if they were outside playing. He always found a way to disrupt their hanging-out time with some kind of chore. As a result of this indifference on one side and violence of temper on the other, most of the kids had learned to stay away from his house long before sixth grade.

Brad didn't like the kids on traffic patrol, the kids who ran for school office, or the kids who did really well in school. He was a tough guy and didn't seem to want anyone's sympathy or understanding. He been friends with George until third grade and had played baseball and football with all the kids, but after he and James Mitchell had almost single-handedly driven Miss Larson into retirement with their pranks and antics, James had been sent to Catholic school and Brad had drifted farther to the social fringes of school life. He'd been friendly with Beth when she was new and alone, but as soon as she'd found her niche in the class, they'd drifted apart. He shunned sports and any kind of achievement; he belonged to no clique.

Dory understood why everyone got bored with his problems, but she still felt empathy for him. It had been with him that she'd smoked her first cigarette in the park in third grade. It had been him she hung out with when Beth and Alan starting going together at the end of fifth grade and she'd felt a little betrayed by both. She'd been doing his homework for the last two years and was the only one to brave the unfriendliness of his house. She was the only one he did not begrudge Dory her good grades.

As the worst in the class, Brad had been socially doomed for years. Having suddenly become best in every subject that year, Dory had learned that achievement could be just as bad. Their differences were pounded into them daily because their teachers read grades out after each assignment, each test, each essay. The teachers thought of the practice as a reward for the diligent and a warning for the slothful; they thought it would stimulate competition and therefore improvement. The students knew it was punishment for all: for Dory who now knew the humiliation of being first and Brad who knew the humiliation of being last, and all the others who coveted one fate and feared the other. By sixth grade, they'd learned not only that institutions were indifferent but that fate was fickle.

(6) Jacob and Esau

2011-05-09T19:38:00.001+02:00

Although Rebekah and Isaac had prayed over the course of twenty years for a child, it was only in old age that Rebekah finally conceived twins. After a time, feeling the two babies struggling within her, Rebekah asked the Lord what this meant. The Lord told her that two manner of people were in her womb, that one shall be stronger than the other, and that the older shall serve the younger.

As the boys grew, Rebekah and Isaac saw that their children were indeed very different. Esau was large and hairy, a hunter and wanderer; Jacob was smaller and smoother of skin, a plain man who lived in tents. Isaac favored his oldest son, Esau, the on to whom his blessing would rightly fall, and Rebekah favored her youngest, Jacob. This favoritism from both sides serve only to increase the rivalry between the children.

Beth came down with the flu somewhere between 7:00 and 7:15 on the day of her first report card at the new school. The flu was always good for a two-day absence, its symptoms being so vague and varied that detection of faking was almost impossible, even for a doctor, and in all truth, Beth didn't know if she was faking or not. Although she didn't show it to the other kids, not even Dory or Alan, her first months at the new school had been stressful. Being faced with her first report card in this foreign environment really did make her feel sick, so she stayed in bed, half-heartedly watching soap operas and game shows, waiting for news from Dory, who'd promised to try and find out her grades. When 4:00 came and Dory still hadn't called, Beth began to worry. At 4:10, the phone finally rang.

"Hello?"
"Hey," a voice murmured.
"Dory! What took you so long?"
There was a pause. "Uh, this isn't Dory - it's Angela."
"Oh, hi" said Beth.
Another pause followed.

On the other end, Angela was still considering what she was about to do. For the past month, she had vacillated between courting Beth - because Beth had the best grades in the class and because she had become friends with Dave - and hating her for the same reasons. Until Beth's arrival she had been the best girl student in class and, after Carol and Nikki, the most popular girls in the school. She'd also been Mr. Wells' favorite before kiss-ass always-has-an-answer Beth got there.

"What's up," said Beth with an indifferent tone that made Angela's decision that much easier.
"Dory said you wanted to know your grades, so we sneaked a look."
"Dory told you that?"
"Yeah, but her mom picked her up from school, so she couldn't call. She had a dentist appointment." That part was true enough. "So she asked me to call… she said you'd be waiting." Actually, she'd overheard Dory talking to Alan about that, but…too late now. "You got a B in P.E., a D in Math, a C in English…" Beth stopped registering the news after the "D" in Math.

She had barely got out an "OK" at the end of the conversation before the tears started. She had been crying for half an hour when Dory called.

"Hey," said Dory. "Sorry I’m late. Had to go to the dentist. I can hardly talk. Lip's numb. But I knew you'd be waiting."
"Angela already called," Beth said, clearing her throat and trying not to sniff.
"Angela? What'd she want?"
"To tell me my grades."
"Wells gave me your report card to take home to you, not her, and I didn't show it to anyone, not even Alan."
"What? She told me I got all these C's and even a D."
"I'm sure. Wait I'll get it and open it now."
Beth held her breath; she didn't need bad news twice. This sucked.
Dory was back. "You got all A's, creep. Oh sorry, a B in California History, but that's cuz you're a foreigner."
Beth started crying again, this time from relief.
Dory gasped. "Are you OK?"
"I'll be fine. But we have to make sure that Angela isn't. Are you gonna help me?"

The next day Beth caught Angela in the girls bathroom alone - Dory stood lookout outside the door - and punched her. She then told Angela that she'd get more of the same if she snitched.

(5) Joseph and his Brothers

2011-05-05T21:58:00.001+02:00

Jacob loved all his twelve sons, but Joseph was clearly his favorite. The other children noticed this, of course, and Joseph's brothers became more and more envious.

"Why is Joseph always getting presents, when we get nothing," they would say.

In time, their jealousy grew to such proportions that they decided to get rid of Joseph. "Let's kill him and throw him down the well," one suggested.

Another answered, "No, we can't do that. Our father would surely find out about it somehow."

"Well, then, let's shut him up in the well alive and tell father that he was eaten by wild animals," the first countered.

That didn't seem quite so unforgivable to the rest of the boys, so they threw Joseph down the well and sat down to have a picnic. After they had finished eating, they spied a group of merchants approaching. The sight inspired one of the brothers. "Say," he said, "let's sell Joseph into slavery; then we won't have to kill him, but we'll be rid of him all the same." Happy to have arrived at what seemed the perfect solution to their troubles, the boys sold Joseph to the merchants.

"New girl. New girl."

Dory had listened to her classmates chant these words at Beth Nielson for over a week - in the morning, at recess, during lunch, and after school. Her classmates were not necessarily teasing out of meanness. They merely wanted to make contact with the new girl and knew no graceful way to do it without endangering the delicate balance of their inmate community. Nevertheless, Dory would have shrunk under the stares and teasing and was therefore impressed with Beth's sovereignty.

Five pupils directed the hoards against her, three girls and two boys. The girls - Carol, Nikki, and Angela - all fair-skinned, slender, and frightening in their external perfection - felt threatened by a potential rival. The boys - Jeff and Dave - rugged, athletic, and with just the right touch of tussling charm to win over even the most stubborn teachers - were attracted but didn't dare show it. Everyone wanted to be on the teams of these five class celebrities, to sit near them at assemblies, to be invited over to their houses, or, if one dared to dream, to be their boyfriends or girlfriends. Everyone accepted that these five would probably pair up amongst themselves, leaving the rest of the students to play emotional bumper car with each other. However, those who remained didn't really want each other and so spent much of their time focused on the celebs - their flirtations, their parties, their habits and actions. In short, those in standing-room-only were beginning what would become long careers as voyeurs, observing the behavior of the successful and, in their daydreams, creating montages in which their faces replaced those of the stars. When it came to real life, they created their own rankings by sorting each other into sissies, nerds, whores, players, jocks, and jerks. Alan and Dory held singular positions in this mix. Living on the fringes of all cliques but belonging to none, they experienced neither extreme confidence nor total defeat, but hovered in a kind of social purgatory reserved for the unsorted. Thus Dory and Alan were the first to befriend Beth.

Already on the second day, Dory asked her, "Wanna walk home together?"

"Sure."

Three blocks and some small talk later: "Wanna come over?"

"OK."

A week later, on a Thursday afternoon: "Wanna stay over tomorrow? We can watch a movie."

"Yeah."

Dory's indistinct social position generally protected her from close scrutiny; thus, as long as she was subtle in protégéeing Beth, nothing stood in the way of their becoming friends. With Alan it was more difficult. The complexity of the class pecking order, the instability of social positioning among developing identities, and especially the specter of looming adolescence made easy, natural friendship between boys and girls almost impossible. Thus, Alan and Beth intuitively approached friendship by way of Dory.

On that same Thursday afternoon, Alan asked Dory, "What're you doin' tomorrow, Dor?"

"Nothin' Beth's staying over. Wanna come over and watch a movie with us?"

"Sure."

After this, the acquaintances took their course.

Until Beth came along, Dory's penchant for playing with the boys more than the girls had been overlooked. She had tiptoed between the ranks, maintaining connection to the girls through occasional birthday parties, sleepovers, or trips to the mall - enough to let them overlook the fact that she had slowly gained acceptance from the boys and become one of them. The road to this bond had been arduous and had involved many afternoons in Roosevelt Park, enduring the twisted ankles, scraped knees, and other minor injuries common to flag football played by unsupervised eleven year olds for whom the "touch" in touch football was often confused with the flying tackle. It had involved learning how not to cry and finding comfort in a good slap on the shoulder. For Dory, "hanging with the guys" was one of two things in her life that brought her utter contentment, that and reading. As this was an unlikely combination, when Beth revealed an interest in sports and books both, Dory felt she might have finally found a best friend.

* *

No weather was better than sunny May days in Northern California. In shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers, the girls had all the skin it was permissible to show exposed to air so perfect that it allowed itself to be felt only when a slight breeze came up. The smell of pines, firs, redwoods, freshly cut lawns and warm skin filled their lungs and brought on the will to run the way horses do when turned out on a meadow after longs winter months in the stall or the way a dog does for no reason at all.

Dave, Steven, Rick, Alan and George were already on the southside lawn when Beth and Dory arrived. Steven and Rick were playing catch, while the others were sitting on the grass. Approaching them, Dory threw her glove down on the grass and sat down. Beth sat down next to her. Alan raised his head in a casual "hi" gesture, while Rick and Dave gazed neutrally for a moment.

"What?" Dory commanded with a friendly what's-your-problem tone.

Dave shrugged, looked at Beth's baseball glove, checked out her sneakers, and then said, "Hey." Although he looked at Dory, he gave Beth enough of a flickering glance to show that she was included in the greeting.

"Where are the others?" Dory asked, referring to Jeff, John and the Bayside kids they were supposed to play.

"Who knows?" George replied. "Let's warm up."

Had this been a gaggle of girls, there would have been endless verbal parrying to see how and if Beth would be accepted. It was this silent, physical negotiation of social relationships that Dory liked best about boys.

After half an hour later, the Bayside kids showed up - also a few players short - and they started playing. Dory knew it was important for her not to protect Beth, so she didn't interfere with the decision to send Beth out to right field, the most boring position on the team. Hardly anyone on their team hit to right field, except Dave, who was not only the strongest boy in the class, but also a lefty. Whether the Baysider's had a right-field hitter, she didn't know.

Beth didn't complain when she spent the first two innings standing around with no ball contact, and when the ball went beyond the bounds of their play, she often retrieved it. It was then that the boys began to notice that she had a pretty good arm. In the third inning, however, two things happened that sealed her fate with the boys. The first occurred when of the Baysiders hit a line drive straight toward Beth, one that hopped just before getting to her and so made an unpredictable shift in direction. To everyone's amazement, she not only managed to catch the ball, but to fire off a throw that arrived at first base before the runner. The two or three second silence that then occurred was a decided homage to this play. It was quickly followed with high signs, laughter, and a few yells of approval from the team. The second thing happened when Beth finally got to bat. Although her fly was picked off by Bayside's outfielder, the hit had been a very long one. The boys began to look with more and more interest at Beth, who was not just pretty, blonde, and good-humored but also strong and tough. After five innings, both sides called off play for the afternoon. The Baysiders left while Dory's team headed over to the snack bar for some celebratory junk food.

* *

Thick coppery auburn strands flew around Dory's face in the gust, a few sticking to her ice cream cone, while Beth's thick blond ponytail hardly wavered in the wind. How could anyone look that, well, beautiful in that sweaty, grubby state? Alan, Dave and Jeff had obviously noticed and rooted themselves next to the bench where Dory and Beth were sitting.

"So, you gonna come on Saturday?" Dave asked, nodding to Dory.

"Yeah," she said.

He looked at Beth, "What about you?"

She shrugged, evidently unintimidated by Dave's attention. "What's Saturday?"

"A real game with those kids from Bayside."

"Oh yeah? What about the rest of your team?"

"Foley and Barret'll be there. If you come, we'll have nine."

Dory pulled more of her hair out her ice cream cone. The world seemed in order.

The group was just breaking up when Nikki and Angela showed up.

The greetings were generic, except for Nikki's, whose gaze lingered on Beth and then Dave. "Hey Dave, what's up?"

"Nothin'. You guys?"

"We were at the record store."

Awkward silence welled up in response to the network of tensions in the group. Finally, Nikki and Angela left, but not without several backward glances.

Being found in the park with the boys after school might have brought no further repercussions, but when Beth and Dory both joined the lunchtime game the next day, trouble was inevitable. Maybe Beth wasn't as hot as Nikki or as sophisticated as Carol, but she was pretty, smart and somehow happily self-contained, the latter being perhaps the most annoying characteristic in the eyes of the other girls. At first, their jealousy led only to increased teasing, but this gave them only limited satisfaction, for although they managed to make Beth a little more miserable, they could not influence the behavior of the boys. As the boys were ultimately the issue at stake, a next step followed swiftly.

On the Friday before the Saturday game, Nikki and Angela appeared on the school's gravel baseball diamond about halfway through a lunchtime play. As the only students playing that day belonged to the City Park group, the play was basically a practice. First, second and third base were throwing the ball around the infield between hits. Some of the strong hitters were batting to the outfielders so they would get some action. Dory liked this situation because the frequent inattention of the base players allowed her to practice fielding balls that they'd usually take. Although she was quick, agile, and could throw accurately at short distances, Dory had mainly earned the position of shortstop as a result of the persistent stubbornness with which she was willing to risk getting hit to field a ball. She was therefore happy for any chance to improve her other skills. Because Beth was new and the team thought that Bayside would probably underestimate her ability to hit, Dave had her up at bat quite a few times, coaching her on timing and accuracy. She was at bat when Nikki and Angela walked up. George stopped his pitch when they neared the box, which made Dave turn around right in Angela's face.

"We want to play," she said.

Dave laughed, "Since when?" Some of the infield players walked toward the huddle.

"Since now," said Nikki.

Nikki had the most shapely arms and legs in the class, also those with the least muscle. Dave shook his head in disbelief, but Angela and Nikki stood their ground. "This is not your private schoolyard," Angela said.

Noticing that they were looking for a fight, Alan nudged Dave, shook his head as if negating what Dave were about to do and said to Angela, "OK. You wanna play? You can go out to right field and try to catch a few." Turning to Nikki, he added, "You? Left field."

Angela looked at the outfield with evident displeasure. "No. I want to play first base."

George burst out laughing. Dory's mouth became a thin little line. God! First base? Angela had no shame. Everyone knew that only Alan played first.

George shook his head, "Go out in the field or don't play."

Nikki then made her demand. "I want to bat, " she said, speaking with authoritative enunciation.

The laughter was spontaneous and unanimous. "Forget it," Dave finally said, and they turned back to their game. Dory felt a wave of triumph at those sissy mary's being kept from joining the game.

Her satisfaction was short-lived. Nikki and Angela went straight to their teacher Mr. Wells and complained that although some girls were allowed to play baseball, others were being kept out of the game. Mr. Wells must have had at least a vague idea of the real situation; however, in order to allay dispute, eh agreed that if all girls couldn't play, then no girls should play. Rather than lose a chance for most of the team to practice, the team sacrificed Beth and Dory when it came to practice at school. The two girls didn't feel especially persecuted. Everyone had received his or her share of institutional indifference at one time or another.

(4) Pinocchio

2011-05-02T13:11:00.000+02:00

There once was a piece of wood, not elegant or precious wood, but a simple log, such as those we place on the fire in winter to warm our parlors. I don't quite know how it happened, but one day, this piece of wood landed in the workshop of an old woodworker by the name of Master Antonio…

Many years later, Dory would think back to her childhood. She would try to remember her birth; however, far from knowing whether she had turned from the left to the right or from the right to the left as she fled the womb, she would not even be sure she had been present. Her mother had always insisted that this was the case, but her brother Billy had always told her that she'd been found in an alley, something that had seemed plausible at the time.

Her first years would also remain vague, except for those people or events that because of their joyful, frightening, or mysterious character became memorable. Her brother's pranks, for example, would belong to the earliest of her living memories, although the details of even those would sometimes escape her.

School experiences, on the other hand, would become so deeply etched into her brain that full sensory recall would linger, even where she'd just as soon forget. Such memories would include the sounds of screeching, bellowing, or pleading voices, those that had filled her small world with commands: No Talking! Single File! Heads Down! Overall, she would recall a long, chaotic battle with big people. Although the memories of first skirmishes would be set in her neighborhood or nursery school, Dory's memory of her personal war with authority, with expectations, with her own insecurity, and with society in general would begin on the first day of the first grade.

In school, the battlefield, the conventions of war, and the enemy were all clearly delineated, clearly defined. People reminisced about school, glorified its virtues, and made harmless its crimes, yet Dory would know that the reality of school determined lifetimes, for it was in school that children learned in school to swim the black, cold waters of the social mainstream.

As soon as Master Antonio saw the stick, he rubbed his hands together and murmured, "That piece is perfect for the table leg I've been meaning to make!"

He took up his axe to trim off the bark and give the piece its basic form. But just as he was about the make the first cut, he stopped dead, his arms in the air and his mouth open, for he heard a tiny voice plead, "Oh, don't hit me." Master Antonio began to fear this lively piece of wood, which not only spoke but which soon proved unwilling to hold still under his axe, and so, when old Geppetto came to him and said that he was looking for a piece of wood from which to make a wooden puppet, Master Antonio was only too glad to give him the mischievous log.

Geppetto took his prize home, gathered his tools, and began carving the stick into its proper form...

The room was filled with square wooden desks, which had cavities where the drawers should have been, and with sturdy Lilliputian chair of functional design, the edges worn down from years of squirming young bodies. Like her classmates, Dory felt defined by her seat. Unless they misbehaved, they would remain in the same seats for the entire school year. Who sat next to whom determined daily experiences of heaven or hell, and since seat arrangements were inevitably alphabetical, most sat in the same order over years and thus slowly developed a network of love, hate, or love-hate relationships with their neighbors that created pulsing, rhythmic waves of dysfunctional behavior.

At least subconsciously aware of this, their teachers always seemed to position the pupils to see the front of the room, thus ensuring that any wavering of attention - any thoughts or messages directed toward fellow students, the scenery outside the windows, or daydreams - could be instantly detected by the positions of heads and bodies. Their teachers could therefore drone on and on with impunity, controlling the external appearance of attention without any attempt to actually engage their captive audiences. However, as the little prisoners learned in their first year of incarceration, there were subtle ways of forging attention.

Although Geppetto rapidly succeeded in carving a puppet that could walk and talk, he had difficulty keeping the wooden marionette under control, for Pinocchio was lazy, defiant and had absolutely no inclination for school. Several struggles took place before, one day, after a particularly unpleasant adventure, Pinocchio promised that he would try to become a good pupil, and set off for school with virtuous intent.

Unfortunately, he never made it to class, but landed instead in a theater troupe full of marionettes. He was quite content with this fate until he met the puppet master, who was so terrible that when he entered the room, all of the puppets began to tremble. He had a long, black beard that reached to the floor. His mouth was as wide as an over door; his eyes glowed like red lamps; and in his hand he carried a heavy whip made of snakes and cat-o'-nine-tails.

Dory's first presentation came in the second grade, the presentation of an experiment that was supposed to teach the class about the properties of saline solution, the process of condensation and evaporation. She had to show what happened to water when it boiled away and how dissolved salt reappeared after the water had disappeared, leaving crystals on the side of the pot. The experiment had been fun, but the idea of standing before the class was terrifying. She had asked if she could write a report instead, but the teacher's response had been curt and definitive, and so Dory shut up and prepared for humiliation.

On the day of her presentation, she brought her pot and her jar of salt and then waited at her desk in a state of anxious misery. When it was time, she got up and prepared her materials. The explanation began well enough, until she made the mistake of looking up into the faces of her classmates. Becoming suddenly confused, she look over to her teacher, whose face revealed nothing but grim expectations. It was at this point that Dory's body took over the situation and she wet her pants. After a moment of shock, she ran out of the room and down the hall to the girls' bathroom where she locked herself in a stall. Although her mother brought her a change of clothes, she refused to go back to class. Her teacher never mentioned the incident and evidently forbade the class to do so, something that did not help Dory when at the end of the school day, all such bans were lifted.

One day, after a particularly unhappy series of mishaps, Pinocchio found himself alone on an island in the middle of the ocean His first thought was to swim away and look for his father, but then a porpoise told him about a giant shark, which would certainly eat him, should he dare to enter the water. Deciding to search the island for company and something to eat, Pinocchio soon found a place called Busy Bee Land, where everyone was industriously working. He tried to beg a crust of bread but soon realized that good-for-nothings were not tolerated and that he would starve unless he learned a trade…

The first rounds of the third-grade class spelling bee had been fun. Dory found something comforting in the simplicity of spelling, so much less confusing that the rights or wrongs of answers in other subjects. Also, in the first rounds, they hadn't been forced to stand up during their turns. Only in the final rounds, when it had narrowed down to the last five contestants, had Mr. Anderson sent the finalists to the front of the class and it had become a little nerve-wracking. Perhaps he thought that the added stress would give them a better understanding of phonetics. Nevertheless, the class spelling bee had been tolerable. The annual school spelldown, on the other hand, which took place during one of the weekly school assemblies, represented a level of rivalry and tension comparable to those produced by the area events of ancient Rome.

Dory and the other contestants filed onto the stage of the school auditorium and then stood there like puny gladiators, spurred on to battle by indifferent commanders who were more interested in the spectacle of their own achievement and power than in any moral or aesthetic display. The contestants looked at their feet and glanced feverishly at the sea of faces, afraid to see their friends as much as their enemies, but finally peeking at each other, joined in weak-kneed anticipation and anxiety. Their hearts pounded and their voices wavered as they confronted the adrenalin rush of competition running through their veins. Some responded with excellence and others with failure, those who excelled unconsciously paving the way for the decline of the others; however, they learned, each according to his gifts, inspired by the tentative promise of praise and status - surrogates for the affection and acceptance they really sought - and the fear of ignominy.

Tired of life as a knee-high, wooden puppet, Pinocchio desperately wanted to become a real boy. Unfortunately, the one condition on which the Blue Fairy insisted before she would transform him involved his being well behaved and obedient, qualities which had never interested him greatly. Nevertheless, after returning from Busy Bee Island, Pinocchio behaved for a full year, thus winning the approval of the Blue Fairy and the promise of transformation into a living, breathing mortal, like everyone else. Unfortunately, on the day of the celebration planned to accompany this event, Pinocchio soon noticed that his best friend, Romeo, was not in attendance and so went to seek him out. When Pinocchio finally found his friend, Romeo told him that he could not come to the party because that very day, he would be running away to a place called Toyland, where the calendar had only Saturdays and Sundays, both of which were holidays. Well, while Pinocchio had been industrious and well-behaved for a year, he had been lazy and thick-headed all his life, and so rather than going back to achieve his heart's desire, he set out for Toyland with Romeo, traveling in a wagon drawn by a team of seemingly unwilling, unhappy donkeys.

At first, Toyland was all it was promised to be. Children did nothing all day but play and eat and dawdle. In fact, everything was wonderful, until Pinocchio woke up one day and found that he had grown long fuzzy ears and begun to sprout a tail. That day he noticed that many of the other with whom he had come had also begun to change, each showing different signs of being transformed into donkeys that looked very much like the mules who had pulled their wagon to Toyland. Realizing the trap, Pinocchio tried to warn the others, but they would not listen. It was thus that Pinocchio learned of the terrible traps that lay in wait for the lazy and ill behaved…

Bradley and James took turns coming late to class. On the day in question, it was obviously Bradley's turn, for it was 9:10 and he still had not shown up. At 9:11, however, the doorknob turned, the door flew open, and Bradly trotted casually into class, a smirk already on his face. When Miss Larson looked up from her class book with an I'm-ready-for-you expression in her eyes, thus meeting his gaze, another battle of nerves began and Dory felt her stomach lurch.

She watched Bradley's glistening blue eyes. She knew Miss Larson found evil in them, but Bradley was her friend, and she knew that this expression was less malicious than it was distracted and hysterical, his slightly puffy, tense and almost sneering mouth revealing a tension almost unbearable to watch.

"Good morning, Bradley."
"Good morning."
"Your tardy slip?" Miss Larson held out her hand, looking back down at her book.
Bradley waited for her to look up impatiently before answering. "I don't have one."
"You haven't been to the office?"
"No."
Miss Larson's gnarly face wrinkled up into an especially unpleasant frown. "Well, go now."
Bradley stood by his desk. "Why? I'm only ten minutes late. I missed the bus."
"Late is late."

Miss Larson ruled with an iron yardstick. She told them daily that none of them were smart enough to get A's in anything and that most would be lucky to get a satisfactory grade at all. Even the best in the class, those like Dory, unreasonably feared total failure - so effective was her blanket condemnation. The worst in the class, those like Bradley, were so certain of failure that they felt they had little to lose. All were sure that Miss Larson would rather see them die in their sleep than teach them anything at all. Perhaps that was unfair, but after their angelic third grade teacher, Miss Larson seemed straight out of a bad fairytale.

By the second week of the year, they'd already made up a class song: "Old Miss Larson, shriveled like a raisin, head like a box, nose like a fox."

And so it was that on a bright spring morning, the fox stood in a stare-down with one of the class bad boys, her eyes narrowed in anticipation. Bradley ignored her and took his seat. He'd already had too many tardy slips that year. The class held its breath.

She tried raising her voice. "GO TO THE OFFICE, BRADLEY." Bradley stared at her without moving. "Then I'll take you there," she said, already heading to his desk, ruler in hand. Teachers were not longer allowed to hit pupils - everyone knew that - and yet Miss Larson was old-fashioned and senile, so nobody was sure if she'd remember the new rules or not. As she neared the desk where Bradley sat, he left his seat and slipped down the narrow row toward a set of large tables at the back of the room. When she cornered him there, he ducked under a table and crawled out the other side. Sixty-four and well past her physical prime, Miss Larson made an awkward grab for his shirt and missed. He then began hopping over desks and squeezing behind his classmates' chairs, Miss Larson close behind. The class stifled laughter at first, but as the slapstick scene went on, unrestrained laughter broke out. Miss Larson's face became redder and redder as she chased him around the room. When she finally caught him, she actually pulled him by the ear, then the arm, dragging him out of the classroom the way a ranch hand drags an unwilling calf.

"ALL OF YOU STAY IN YOUR SEATS AND BE QUIET!"

The class went silent at the sound of that distressed croaking, that gasping mix of command and plea. However, the minute teacher and pupil left the room, everyone was chattering like monkeys.

Pinocchio was horrified, and as he fell down into the water, drowning, he said his good-byes to the world. Hearing his cried, the Blue Fairy helped him once more. Nevertheless, she once again sent him back into the belly of the beast, where he would learn the attributes of love, responsibility, and hard work.

Passages in italics adapted from Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. In the public domain.

(3) Thumbling's Travels

2011-05-01T11:29:00.001+02:00

A tailor had a tiny thumb-sized son, who despite his diminutive stature, possessed great courage. One day, Thumbling said, "Father, it is time I tried to make my own way in the world."

Praising his son's good sense, the father applied a small amount of sealing wax in the eye of a needle and gave it to Thumbling, saying, "Her is your sword. Now go bid your mother farewell."

Thumbling crept up on the hearth where his mother was cooking lunch. Wondering if he should postpone his departure until after the family meal, he looked into the large pot. Unfortunately, he stretched his neck out so far that he lost his hold and was carried up the chimney by a fast-moving current of steam…

Dory never walked to nursery school voluntarily, never set out for that destination of her own free will. She was transported to nursery school by an ill wind, swept up the brownish beige enameled stairs, and floated through the church-annex hallways filled with stale Methodist air, until she reached the door to the first activity room to alight before a nondescript pair of legs with a Voice.

The Voice neither boomed, nor screeched, neither drifted soothingly, nor sang; rather it beamed its messages down over her head like some alien satellite, as she sat, bent over one of many obligatory objects of play.

"Now you can turn the bench over and hammer the pegs in from the other side."

Even then, Dory knew a mindless task when she saw it.

"Everybody get out their blankets and lie down."

"I'm not tired," countered one small voice.'

"You will be after you lie down for awhile," beamed the Voice.

Dory wasn't tired either. She had to go to the bathroom, but she hated raising her finger because then the entire class would know where she was going and why. They'd giggle. So there she lay, waiting - unrelaxed, untired and unhappy.

The mindless play and obligatory rest, however, were not the worst aspect of Methodist Nursery school. Snack time proved that even rewards could be a punishment, for every other day, those sweet Christian volunteers forced her to either drink apple juice or go thirsty. Even though she visibly gagged when forced to drink it, those in charge decided that this was mere stubbornness and thus undertook to transform her into a well-balanced, appreciative and humble child who would take what was put before he and be thankful. Even then, Dory suspected that those courting her unbaptized little soul were hiding rocks, stones and hellfire behind their backs.

Thumbling found work and a new home, but the daily fare was less than tasty. To the master's wife he said, "If you don't give us something better to eat, I'm leaving, and before I go, I'll leave a message on your door for all to see: "Too many potatoes, too little meat. Stay away from this potato potentate."

Furious, the master's wife took up her spoon against this slander. "You'll do what you little grasshopper?" She slammed the spoon down on the table, but Thumbling ducked under a thimble, lifting the edge a little to stick out his tongue at his attacker. She picked up the thimble, but Thumbling jumped into a rag; she shook the rag, he jumped into a drawer. In the end, she caught him, booting him back out into the world, where he fell in with robbers, who were impressed with his ability to sneak in, get the goods, and scuttle away without being caught.

Dory watched as the neighbor lady across banged a nail into the front door of her house. After several well-aimed blows, Marilyn leaned over, placed the hammer back in the toolbox, and picked up a large candy wreath that had been lying propped up against the doorstep next to her feet. The plastic wrappers from the peppermint drops and sourballs gleamed in the harsh winter sunlight. A blunt little pair of scissors dangled down from the wreath on a green ribbon. The neighborhood kids knew from experience that each piece of candy had been tied to the wreath with a thin string and that each of them would be allowed to cut off one piece of candy some time before Christmas. The rest, Marilyn said, were reserved for seasonal visitors and strangers. Dory and the other children knew that this was a lie - that these so-called "others" didn't really exist, that some time in January, Marilyn would cut down the stale, grimy, but still candy-laden wreath and throw it away.

Thus, rather than being thankful for their allotted pieces, they were piqued by her miserliness and her consistency, and so there they stood one afternoon, a herd of children between the ages of five and eight, loitering across the street from her house, their eyes surreptitiously following her every move.

They waited until she entered the house; then, responding to mutual prods and dares, they stormed the porch like the soldiers they'd seen in movies, zigzag patterns executed in a half-crouched, slinking run. Their courage and determination paid off: they all came back unscathed and in the possession of the desired booty - pilfered sourballs and peppermint drops. Whether Dory was truly the only child she'd recognized - she had dawdled on the doorstep, looking for her favorite flavor - or whether Marilyn merely possessed a selective faculty of observation, Dory would never know. She suspected the latter because Marilyn was always scolding her for something and, as a devout evangelist-matriarch who held living-room prayer meetings, she disapproved of Dory's heathen state.

For whatever reason, it was Dory's house and only her house that Marilyn called that afternoon, gloatingly telling Dory's mother than her adorable child was nothing more than a common thief and would most likely rot in hell. Dory's mother reprimanded her, probably more because she'd been the occasion for another I-told-you-so phone call from Marilyn rather than because of the bright red sourball that lay beneath Dory's pillow, tempting her to an additional post-teeth-brushing, nighttime sin.

Having tired of taking all the risks and getting little of the booty, Thumbling decided that work with the robber band was not as rewarding as he'd imagined and so set out in search of a new home, finally ending up as a servant in a wayside inn. Although he ate well there, he was soon hated by the housemaids, whose misdeeds he steadily reported to the master - whereupon they would be punished. Deciding that they must rid themselves of this pest, the housemaids hatched a plot…

Dory was sitting on the couch with her big brother, who was already a teenager. She was reading a myth about Jason and the Golden Fleece and trying to figure out how his stealing that prize was brave while her theft of a cherry sourball was somehow worthy of punishment. Her brother Billy was reading a comic book that he had hidden inside a schoolbook. Looking over to him, Dory asked. "What's mom upset about?"

Billy looked over to where their mother was ranting into the thick black receiver of their telephone. "She hasn't paid the bills. We're all going to jail. She's talking to the lawyer now."

Dory's eyes widened in fear, then narrowed in suspicion. She turned to her big sister, who was doing a math problem at the dining room table. "Billy said we're going to jail." Her sister did not look up. "Anna! Billy says mom hasn't paid the bills and we're going to jail."

She glanced up, looked at Billy, then Dory - a desire to annoy both of them in her eyes. "Shut up, Billy," she said. Then to Anna she said, "We'll only be in jail a couple of days."

"That's a lie!" Dory cried with more anxiety than conviction.

Anna sighed, "Would you be quiet? I have to get this homework done before the police get here!"

Dory was so shocked that she obeyed her. The only lawyer she'd ever seen had been Perry Mason, who dealt exclusively with murder. She was sure that they were in plenty of trouble and proceeded to experience spontaneous visions of the fate of their family, once everyone was in jail. When her mother got off the phone, Dory burst out crying. Looking at her daughter with concern but also some exasperation, she said, "What in heaven's name is wrong now?"

"Can I take my baseball glove to jail?"

Dory's mother immediately looked at Billy. "William!" she said, thus turning his name into an admonishment that encompassed not only this misdeed but a hundred others before it. She then snatched the comic book from his schoolbook and brusquely assured Dory that the department store had made a mistake, that everything had been cleared up, that nobody would be taking anyone away and that she should really stop believing everything her brother told her. Drying Dory's tears and cuffing Billy on the ear, she then took Dory to the kitchen and gave her some ice cream. Dory dreamed about jail for at least a week.

The housemaids wrapped Thumbling up in a bundle of straw and threw it to the cows. Luckily, the cow swallowed him whole; and luckily, when the cow was slaughtered the next day, he escaped the butcher's knife; and luckily, when he escaped that situation, only to be snapped up by a fox's sharp teeth, he managed to talk his way out of it. Luckily, in the end, he even found his way back to his family. Nevertheless, he never quite forgot the wolf at the door.

Passages in italics adapted from Däumlings Wanderschaft from Grimm. In the public domain.

(2) The Orphaned Bird

2011-04-30T07:41:00.002+02:00

The huntsman was walking quietly through the forest listening for the rustle of deer, rabbits, or squirrels in the bush when he heard the sound of crying, carried on the breeze. Following the sound, he came to a large tree. He looked up and discovered a child in the topmost branches.

A mother had been resting under the tree with the child in her arms and drifted off to sleep. A passing bird of prey had noticed the slumbering pair. Not wanting to pass up such an easy victim, he'd swooped down, snatched up the child in his beak, and carried it to the top of the tree where it now lay crying piteously.

Upon entering her room, Dory systematically inspected the walls, ceiling, floor, cracks, and crevices for bugs. She lived in a slow and steady fear of uninvited, living things: slick-shelled, long-legged, or buzzing creatures, who would crawl, fly, or hop around in her room while she slept. Still very small, she had to strain and squint in order to penetrate the shadows where ceiling and wall met, attempting to distinguish imperfections in the textured surfaces from sleeping or resting things that were waiting for the lights to go off.

Things that it would never occur to her to kill in the garden or the sunlight - daddy long legs, buckeye moths, mosquito hawks - became instant candidates for execution upon entering her room after dusk. Yet she didn't have the nerve to kill those specters herself and so sent her father. He didn't particularly like the job. He had a soft heart, even where bugs were concerned, and he'd never forgotten having to wring a duck's neck on a hunting trip with his father; nevertheless, he did this for Dory because her fear was greater than his disinclination to kill insects, which, after all, were not nearly as beautiful as ring-necked mallards. They were neither warm, feathered, nor the mothers of soft-downed ducklings; they crept, crawled, and whined through the night and so were condemned to death by fly swatter or rolled up newspaper.

Passage in italics translated from Fundevogel from Grimm. In the public domain.

(1) Laughing Wolf

2011-04-29T13:40:00.002+02:00

Once upon a time there was a young girl, dear to everyone who knew her. Her grandmother, who loved her most of all, showered her with presents. One of these presents was a little red hood that the grandmother had sewn herself. The girl loved the hood so much that she wore it everyday...

Dory's mother left, closing the door, abandoning her to the darkness. The child's eyes followed her mother's movements, lingering on the door until the last crevice of light had disappeared, and then, ever–so–slowly, turned from the vague shadows to the illuminated window at the foot of the bed and the sharply delineated head of the laughing wolf.

The silhouette had accompanied her earliest memories of falling asleep: it was a profile with pointed ears, a long muzzle, open jaws and pronounced fangs, a shadow cast by a woody bush, its outlines eerily glowing in the light of the street lamp in front of our house. When the wind blew and the bush stirred, his head bobbed up and down, nodding slowly as if he were laughing – a deep, growling, crooning laugh.

Dory couldn't talk about him because she thought that her silence was all that kept him from making an end of her. Not being a child who could hide under the covers, nor one who could ask her parents to trim away the beast with the hedge shears or talk herself out of the fantasy, she could only stare at the image, night after night, immobile with fear, until fatigue overcame fright and she slept.

It was odd that this imagined horror could dominate the otherwise cozy nest that her parents had fashioned for her, next to the room where, on the other side of a thin divider, her sister day–dreamed, played and slept. Nevertheless, Dory went to bed miserable and uneasy. She studied the shadows intently, not satisfied until she'd identified everything in the room. Her heart pounded when she saw something that she didn't recognize. She often forgot the phonograph, for example, and lay there frantically analyzing the black lump on the dresser, slowly perceiving the turntable, the metal arm, the round head which held the thick, steel needles, and the large 78's next to it. Satisfied with the discovery, she'd go on to the teddy bear in the desk chair and the Raggedy Ann doll next to her feet.

Everything had to be accounted for.