Substitute by Nicholson Baker
Tyler brought out his request letter. “I want to sit next,” he read. He wrote to, and Curtis, and and. Then he said, “Perse’s real name is Percy.”
I told him how to spell Percy and we worked slowly through the spelling of sincerely. He didn’t want to put his name after sincerely.
“How else will she know who wrote it?” I said.
He saw the point of that and wrote Tyler.
A line had formed of people waiting to hand in their tests. “Standing quietly in the line,” said Mrs. Thurston. Tyler joined the line to hand in his letter. “Tyler, no! Go finish your biography, buddy.” Tyler pulled out a piece of paper and began drawing a portrait of Percy, while Percy did more subtraction. Unfortunately, Tyler talked to Percy while he was drawing him. “Tyler, no talking to Percy!” Mrs. Thurston said. “You are not to be interrupting.”
When he’d finished his Percy portrait, Tyler said, “I’m doing my word search.” He pulled the unfinished crossword puzzle from his folder. “I want to do number seven,” he said, which was still. We are ______ learning our spelling words.
“I want to do sixty-five!” said Adrian.
Tyler read, “We are—blank.” He couldn’t read learning. “Like,” he guessed. “Love.”
“Learning,” I prompted.
“Learning our sp—”
“Sp, sp, spelling words,” I said.
He looked at the list of not-crossed-off words. “Still!” he said.
“Bingo,” I said. “Good, so just copy out still into those boxes.”
“Now I want to do number nine,” he said. He couldn’t read it. “Crazy,” he said, shaking his head.
I started him off. “A primary—”
“A primary color—looks.”
“Like,” I corrected. “A primary color like—”
“A primary color like yellow and red,” Tyler read. “Blue!” He began filling out the boxes.
Curtis’s desk was clean and he was sitting quietly. “What’s happening now?” I asked.
“Cleanup.”
“Is it almost lunchtime?” I asked.
“It is lunchtime,” he said.
I made a stifled sigh of deliverance and turned back to Tyler. He’d written BULE in the crossword squares. We got that straightened out.
“WHO WANTS THE WIGGLE SEAT?” somebody called out.
“Put that right in my writing folder,” said Mrs. Thurston, “so it doesn’t get lost in my pile, please.”
“Can somebody give me a video game?” said Adrian. Percy laughed.
Tyler checked the remaining words. “I haven’t did pink,” he said. He copied it in the puzzle.
“I’M HEARING TALKING, BRITNEY AND GRACE! I should not be hearing any voices whatsoever.”
“You are flying now, dude,” I murmured to Tyler. He finished the K. “You’re done,” I said.
“The word search are easy easy peasy, easy peasy,” he said happily. “I’m hot lunch.” He went to wash his hands.
I went over the checklist with Percy. “You got everything?”
He nodded.
Mrs. Thurston took a position by the door. “I should have most everyone standing quietly in line. You should not be talking in the quiet zone unless you have something to ask me before we go to lunch!”
“Are you on duty today?” asked Dale.
“That’s not something you need to ask me.”
Mrs. Thurston stood straight and put her hands at her sides. The class began the hall chant. “WHEN MY HANDS ARE AT MY SIDES, AND I’M LINED UP STRAIGHT AND TALL, MOUTH IS SHUT, EYES LOOK AHEAD, I’M READY FOR THE HALL.”
“Jayson, go ahead,” she said. “Voices are off for the hallway.”
We walked silently around the library, except for Tyler, who was quietly singing.
The cafeteria was a cavern of sound that got louder and louder as we got to the entrance.
“Marnie, walking please,” said Mrs. Thurston. “Percy needs help opening his containers. He’s raising his hand.” She left.
I went over to Percy. “I got them open,” he said. I took a position against the wall and watched two hundred children eat and shout.
Tyler came by with his food on a tray. I asked him where Mrs. Spahn usually stood.
“She just walks around and looks at people and sees if they’re doing something wrong.”
“Does she have a stern look?”
“She says, ‘Don’t do it again.’ And if you do she takes away recess. Just walk around.”
A teacher clapped the five-clap attention-getter and shouted something I couldn’t make out about how it was already too loud.
Curtis came up to let me know that somebody had been bitten by a tick in recess.
“I love sausages,” said Tyler, dipping his in a little container of syrup.
“I can’t stand sausages,” said another boy.
A four-foot-high yellow banner was taped to the back wall. The headline said, “When You Close Your Eyes and Think of Peace, What Do You See?” The rest of the banner was covered with hundreds of individual hand-printed messages, written by Lasswell Elementary students. Unicorns. Florida and Disney. Buffalo. Nothing. I see people smile and laugh and play together. Freedom and candy. Lucky penny. The Nutcracker. Snow boding. Not fighting with sibs, no war, and to be nice to everyone. Video games. Darkness. Soccer.
A teacher clapped her hands again. “HANDS UP. HANDS UP.” Everyone put their hands up. “You have five minutes left—actually four minutes—to finish eating your lunch. Open up your milks! Open up your juices!”
The roar resumed. I walked around the tables saying, “Open up your milks, open up your juices!”
“Mr. Baker, Tyler thinks that there are no ticks in limes,” said a troubled girl, Diana.
I shouted that the ticks came from Lyme, Connecticut, and carry a disease.
“It’s a disease that makes your bones not work!” shouted Diana. “There are no such things as deer ticks!”
“There are deer ticks,” I said. “They’re very small.”
“They’re so small that you can’t see them! I went to the zoo and I saw a python.” She told me a long story I couldn’t quite hear about a python eating a rat and about how her friend fell down in the bathroom.
“Wow,” I said.
The sound of children rose to a full riot-gear fluffernutter death-metal maelstrom. How could human people endure this every weekday? I got a paper towel from a wall-mounted roll to clean up some milk that had spouted from someone’s straw.
Another teacher came in to relieve me. “You’re on break,” she said. I had a half hour. I staggered to my car, famished. “I’m hurtin’ real bad,” I said aloud, slathering my hands with sanitizer in the hope that I could avoid Marnie’s cold. There was just enough time to drive to the nearest restaurant, Dunkin’ Donuts, to get another Turbo iced coffee for the afternoon. “What would be a good hot sandwich?” I asked the intercom.
“We have a new one. It’s called Chicken Apple Sausage—it’s really good.”
“Okay, let’s do that.”
The sandwich, served by a small blond woman in a brown hat who’d probably gone to Lasswell High School, was very sweet and full of odd flavors, but I ate it anyway, and sucked down the coffee.
“What a nice day,” said a teacher, back in the parking lot.
“I love it,” I said.
“Me, too. I’ll take all of this we can get.”
The secretary buzzed me in and I went back to room 5. I was late. Mrs. Thurston’s class was already on the floor, seated around Mrs. Kris, a learning enrichment social-workery woman who was dispensing advice on how to keep focused, listen, and not cause trouble for others. “Think about that this week, those skills, and work on that,” she said. She was an extremely short older person, bejeweled, with a bee
While Mrs. Kris read, Tyler got in trouble. He’d been fidgeting and pulling his arms into his shirt so that his sleeves dangled. Mrs. Thurston tapped him on the shoulder and they left the classroom together.
“So what I want you to do,” said Mrs. Kris, “is I want everyone to think about something that you can do for someone to show that you care about them. Either here at school or at home. I want you to look down and think. Think of something that you will do for someone to show you care. When you have it, you can look up.”
Marnie coughed.
“Cover your mouth,” said Mrs. Kris.
The class on the other side of the divider was so loud that I could barely hear what most kids said they were going to do. Grace said she would help someone if they fell on the swingset. Marnie was going to help a friend who was being bullied, she said. Curtis said, “If it’s a sunny day out, tell them, Isn’t it a nice day out, and ask them if they want to come over to your house and play.”
“Very nice, yes,” said Mrs. Kris. “What about when you come in to school in the morning? Do you say hello to Mrs. Thurston with a big smile? That would show that you care.”
Coral told a story about a time her little dog was bullied by a much bigger dog and she went to the big dog’s owner to tell him. The owner put the big dog in the car and brought out a puppy from the car and got mad and said, “I have a little dog, too, I care about my dog!”
Stuart reminded Mrs. Kris that reading period was over.
“I know, I was waiting for Mrs. Thurston, who’s out of the room. I don’t want to leave until she comes back.”
“I have something to share about my dog,” Adrian said loudly. “I was at the ball game with my biological father. It was in the dog park—it was really funny—”
Mrs. Thurston arrived and whispered something to Mrs. Kris about Tyler’s office detention. Adrian stopped telling his story.
“All right, I’ll see you next week!” Mrs. Kris said to the class.
“That was so exciting,” said Ariel.
Mrs. Kris put her finger on her nose and disappeared.
“REED, GO PUT THAT AWAY,” said Mrs. Thurston. “This is why you’re not finished with the things you’re supposed to be finished with. In your desk or in your backpack. This is not playtime.”
Percy came back to his desk. He was downcast. He took off his vest. Tyler was in hot water again. “He has to owe recess and go to Mr. Peterson’s office,” he whispered to me.
The class lined up. It was time for me to take them to gym class. “OH! I’m hearing voices!” Mrs. Thurston said. Then they chanted, “WHEN MY HANDS ARE AT MY SIDES, AND I’M LINED UP STRAIGHT AND TALL, MOUTH IS SHUT, EYES LOOK AHEAD, I’M READY FOR THE HALL.”
I led them around the library to the gym, where they instantly began playing scream-and-chase, running themselves ragged. I said hello to the substitute gym teacher, Ms. Bithell, a tired, amused-looking woman in her thirties with a whistle and a clipboard. She was doing the job I’d refused. I asked her if I could help in any way.
“We’re going to play dodgeball,” she said. “So if you want to stay and get hit by the ball, you can.”
At the far end of the gym, in the midst of the running and screaming, Marnie had a coughing fit and bent over, her hands on her knees. She should definitely take a break, I thought, walking in her direction. Ariel sprinted over. “Marnie threw up,” she said.
“Oh, god.” I held my arms out near Marnie so that kids wouldn’t track through the mess. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” I said to her. “Do you need to go to the nurse?”
Marnie wiped her mouth on some bunched-up fabric from her sleeve. “No,” she said. “When I cough hard, I puke,” she explained.
“Wow, okay.” I told her to stay put while I got something to clean up with. Ms. Bithell came over. “I’ll get some towels,” I said. Jayson and Adrian charged toward us. “Watch out, watch out!” I said.
“Did you puke?” said Adrian. Two girls stood guard with Marnie near the wall, while Ms. Bithell went back to the middle of the gym. I asked Marnie if she was still okay. She nodded. Just next to the gym was the cafeteria, now empty and quiet. I saw the tail end of the roll of paper towels on the wooden dispenser on the wall, and I took it back to the gym and cleaned up the worst of the throwup.
Meanwhile, Ms. Bithell was trying to get the class to sit in a cross-legged crescent in the middle of the gym, so that she could teach them how to play dodgeball. “The longer it takes for you to learn to follow the rules, the longer we’ll sit,” she said. “It’s difficult for me to be a substitute teacher if you don’t listen.”
I went back to the cafeteria and asked a woman in the kitchen if by chance there were more paper towels. She brought me a fresh roll. “Thanks a million,” I said.
“Not a problem.”
When I got back, Ms. Bithell was standing next to Marnie near the door.
“I’m going to take her to the office,” she said.
“I’ll do that,” I said.
“Is it all cleaned up?” she said.
“It just needs another go-round.”
Marnie and I went to the nurse’s office.
“What’s the matter, honey?” said the nurse.
“This happens a lot at home,” said Marnie.
“What?” said the nurse.
“When I cough really, really hard—I start to feel bad,” said Marnie.
The nurse looked at me.
“She’s congested, so she kind of threw up,” I said.
“Oh,” said the nurse. “Where did you throw up?”
“I, um, my teacher wants me to take a break,” said Marnie.
“In the gym,” I said.
“Just have a seat and relax, honey,” said the nurse. She told me the custodian would take care of cleanup.
“It’s almost all done, I just didn’t have any spritzy stuff,” I said.
“I’ll get that,” said the nurse. She gave me a blue squirt bottle of disinfectant from under the sink. “You’re too good. You’re too nice.”
Marnie asked if she could go to the bathroom.
“Yes, you can, honey,” said the nurse.
In the gym, Ms. Bithell was beginning to take attendance. I spritzed and wiped until the floor was clean, happy to have something helpful to do. Far better to be cleaning up a puddle of child puke than teaching gym all day, I thought. I washed my hands in the bathroom and went back to observe the rest of gym class. “What does the word dodge mean?” Ms. Bithell said to the class.
“To throw the ball at someone?” said a girl.
“Throw the ball? No.”
Another hand. “If someone throws the ball at you you move away?”
“Yes, moving away. So how would you dodge something? IF SHE’S DISTRACTING YOU, IGNORE HER AND MOVE RIGHT OVER THERE. YOU NEED TO GO RIGHT OVER THERE. And if I see you talking to someone, I want that person to say to you, Please stop. So. Why are you dodging? Why?”
“Because you don’t know how to play the game?”
&n
“To be safe?”
“To be safe, yes. Why else are you dodging? What are you dodging from?”
The ball.
“All right, so the goal of the game is to throw the ball gently, from the waist down, and get as many people out as possible on the opposite team.” She demonstrated the right way to throw, with the help of a kid from class. “I don’t want anyone to get hit in the face. If I throw it toward you and you catch it, that means I am—?”
Out!
“I am out. So do I want throws like this?” She made an extremely gentle throw and her chosen helper caught it.
No!
“I know you’re strong. But if I see anyone that’s not safe, I will ask you to sit. If you get hit on the foot, are you out?”
Yes!
“If you get hit on the knee, are you out?”
Yes!
“If you get hit on the head, are you out?”
No!
“I don’t want to hear people saying, ‘He’s out!’ Just play the game. You need to be honest. If you hit someone, and they don’t go out, just continue playing the game. Do you know what honest means?”
“Do not lie.”
“Do not lie! If someone hits you and you don’t go out, and you continue playing, is that being honest?”
No!
“No. I’m teaching you honesty, and fun, and good arm strength, and dodging.”
She divided the class into two teams. Curtis ran up to where I was standing by the wall. “They called their team Thunderpussies,” he said. He ran away.
“Go, go, go!” said Ms. Bithell.
A girl got hit right away and was hurt and affronted. “Are you all right?” Ms. Bithell said. She was. Another girl fell. “Do you want an ice pack? Do you want to go to the bathroom?”
Two of the boys began debating an out. “Don’t argue!” said Ms. Bithell.
Marnie came back and began sprinting after the ball and flailing her arms and coughing. Finally I said to her, “Just sit it out, okay? Don’t keep running around. You’re sick.” She rested for a while and then ran back in.
The class dodged and yelled for some minutes, and then Mrs. Thurston arrived. I told her that the sub had done a good job of cluing the class in about dodgeball—and that Marnie had thrown up. “She’s not well.”