Substitute by Nicholson Baker
“No,” said Rodney.
“If it was a real cube of uranium, you wouldn’t be able to bat it around like that, right?”
“Because it’s one of the heaviest metals,” said Bradley.
“Right.” I opened Bradley’s textbook and pointed out the questions they were supposed to answer. Nearby, Eileen, polite and deliberate, had carefully balanced her element cube on a marker set vertically on end inside an empty, dusty aquarium. “It’s drying,” she said. “It’s inside the fish tank so no air will knock it over.”
The tide of noise began to rise. Olivia, the bouncy, tiny girl in short shorts from homeroom, was flirting outrageously with the two uranium-cube tossers. “He’s blushing,” said Olivia. “Look at him, he’s turning red!” I turned to talk to a kid named Winston in a Patriots T-shirt about nitrogen. “They used to have nitrogen tanks in paintball,” he said. “It was so powerful they went to CO2.”
I asked him if he was a paintball man.
“I’m more of a snowboarder,” Winston said. “My last run is tomorrow.”
Next to him, Sam, a quiet kid, was using orange Sharpie to jazz up the Kr on his krypton cube.
“Does krypton make you weaken and fall to the ground?” I asked.
“No, it’s a noble gas,” he said. “It’s highly unreactive.” Math was probably his best subject, he told me.
Olivia came over. “I have a question,” she said. “Can I get a Starburst?”
“No, but thanks for asking. What element are you working on?”
“Chlorine,” she said.
“My best subject is tech,” said Winston. “In tech, you can build stuff. I’m a hands-on person. We built a car out of wood, and we had to send it down a ramp a couple of times. And there was an egg in the car, a raw egg.”
“First it was a hard-boiled egg,” said Olivia. “They were trying to teach us you shouldn’t text and drive.”
“Then it was a raw egg,” Winston continued, “and when the car hits sometimes the egg splatters. If you crash like that, it’s going to be bam, you’re gone. You have to protect the egg. I went down three times, and then I did the hill of death.”
“The hill of death is where you have to stand on a stool,” said Olivia. “I had to stand on my tippy-toes, that’s honest.”
“I had to stand on my tippy-toes,” said Winston. “I lost my bumper, but the egg survived. I got a T-shirt for winning.”
Class over. Twenty-two more students, twenty-two more backpacks, twenty-two more iPads in their black padded cases, sixteen more element cubes. “Top o’ the morning!” I said, clapping my hands together.
“I’m walking on sunshine this morning,” said a boy, Harley, with exaggerated zest.
“I’m Mr. Baker,” I said. I successfully avoided saying I was the substitute—they knew that. While I was taking attendance, Renee stopped chewing gum, opened her large mouth, and yelled, “QUIET!”
“Don’t say quiet, just be quiet,” I said to her.
“Can I take the attendance down?” asked Harley, smirking.
“Don’t trust him,” said Renee, resuming gum-chewing.
They still had work left to do on their element cubes. Christopher, a gamer, wrote that chlorine was a murderous gas. The French had used it first, in World War I, he said: The only problem was when the wind changed. Joy had chosen tin. “It’s very rare,” she said. “Rarer than copper.”
I asked her why it had that strange two-letter symbol, Sn. “Just to make life difficult?”
“It’s because it’s from the Greek,” she said.
Courtney, the girl next to Joy, said, “My dad is a history teacher.”
“Congratulations, Courtney,” said Joy sarcastically.
Courtney had covered her gold cube with sumptuous stripes of golden crayon. “It’s used in medications,” she said, “and it’s used in chips, in iPhones, that sort of thing.”
“And you would never know,” said Joy.
“This tape sucks,” said Felicity, who was next to Courtney.
There was a scuffle across the room. “Ow, Lizzie, stop!” I felt like a waiter in a crowded Greek diner.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“We’re massaging our necks,” said Jessica, who had her hands around Lizzie’s neck.
“These ladies are hurting each other,” said Harley.
“IT’S A CHICK FIGHT! YEAH!” said Todd, who was shrimpy and high-voiced.
Nearby, Victor had drawn a large black spiral on one side of his cube. I asked him if it was a picture of the death spiral of the hafnium electron. “I don’t know,” he said.
Harley grabbed a textbook and slammed it on the table.
“Why would you slam the book?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” said Harley.
“I don’t know either,” I said. “It makes a loud slamming noise if you slam it.” I pointed out the question on page 87, the one about toast, and told him to answer it. “This question sums up the whole problem,” I said.
Courtney, Felicity, and Joy came up. “Mr. Baker, can we work out in the hall?” said Courtney.
“People always ask me that,” I said.
“We’ve got a bad class,” Felicity said.
“You’ll miss the social whirl,” I said.
“I don’t like the social whirl,” Felicity said. “I like my friends.”
“I did oxygen,” said James, in a hockey shirt.
“What happens when oxygen comes into contact with the human brain?” I said. I laughed demonically, startling the boy. “Never mind.” I took a huge breath. “WHEN YOU’VE FINISHED YOUR MAGIC CUBES—”
Harley was making a scene.
“Shut up, Harley,” said Todd.
“No,” said Harley.
“WHEN YOU’VE FINISHED YOUR MAGIC ELEMENT BOXES, THEY GO UP—”
“They’re magical?” said Harley.
“Yes,” I said, “because when they’re done, you get a mark.”
Todd had discovered the cube from an earlier class balanced inside the dry fish tank. “It’s drying,” I said. “It’s got sparkles on it.”
“I want to touch it,” said Todd.
“No,” I said.
“Stop it!” said Elizabeth.
More kids crowded around.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” I said. “Perfectly balanced in its own little aquarium.”
“That’s Eileen for you,” said Elizabeth.
“Did you see how he threw my pencil on the floor?” said Todd, pointing to Harley. “I should get him arrested.”
Lyle, in baggy sweats, imitated a fussy teacher. “That is none of your concern, Harley. Turn around in your chair and return to your work.”
Harley said, “I’m sharpening my pencil.”
“He’s sharpening his mechanical pencil,” said Todd.
“So, what is a physical property?” I asked Lyle.
Lyle’s eyes strayed to an open textbook. “A physical change is one in which the form or appearance of matter changes, but not its composition,” he read.
“You’re artfully reading the textbook,” I said.
“I have it memorized,” he said.
“So if you have a rock,” I said, “and you take a hammer to it—”
“That rock’s going down,” said Lyle.
We laughed and talked about blowtorches and states of matter.
“I’m so tired of winter,” said Marielle, looking out the window. She had a long braid and a gentle, unformed face.
“I saw crocuses the other day,” I said. “That means spring.”
“It should be like ninety degrees outside by now,” said Marielle. “We should be wearing shorts.”
There was an odd momentary hush, one of those coincidental clearings in the verbal jungle
Todd promptly spoke up. “Get to work, children.”
Harley said, “Todd’s doing nothing but causing trouble.”
“Is he disturbing the intellectual content of the class?” I said.
“I don’t think there is any intellectual content,” said Marielle. “You forgot, you’re teaching eighth grade.”
“Inner-lectual,” said Harley.
“I like that,” I said. “Innerlectual and outerlectual.”
“Yummy,” said Todd, rubbing his stomach.
“Inter-what? What’s inter-lectual?” Jessica asked.
“Look it up,” said Lizzie.
Todd was taking pictures of me with his iPad. I told him to stop.
Harley said, “iPads are stupid. I don’t like them.”
“Time to go,” said Lyle. “I don’t want to go. Can I just stay here?”
A general zippage of backpacks. The girls fixed their hair. I asked Todd what his next class was.
“Reading, with Mrs. Simmons.”
“Whooo!” said a girl.
Class over; new class. Twenty-one children, each with a future life, each with a name to be called out. I signed and dated the attendance sheet.
Katylynn’s hand shot up. She had a ring on her thumb. “Can we bring that down?”
“Yes, you can.” Time to take control. “So I’m Mr. Baker, and WE ARE DOING SOME SCIENCE. And you’ve got some cubes, right? I have been really impressed by these cubes. Everybody picks an element and just goes wild with the art. And if you haven’t gone wild with it, don’t worry, you’ve just gone slightly wild.” I turned to Katylynn and Roslyn, the two girls who were taking the attendance sheet to the office. “And gals? We need some Scotch tape that actually works. This Scotch tape is terrible. So if you could ask them if they could tell me where in the class the Scotch tape is, or if they maybe have some Scotch tape? Here we are talking about the scientific properties of matter. Scotch tape is actually supposed to be sticky. So we’re going to get some better tape.”
The noise was moving and growing.
“GUYS! If you’ve finished your cubes, that’s tremendous, and if you haven’t finished them, just pour your soul out into that cube. Everything about selenium or uranium or whatever it is you’re doing. And then, when you’re done, there are some pages to read in the textbook, and some questions, all about physical and chemical properties. Like when you take a bite of an apple is that a physical change or a chemical change?”
“Physical,” said Anthony, a plaid-shirted polite kid.
“Right, and if you take a bite of the apple, put the apple on the counter, walk away, watch a TV show, and come back and the apple is brown, is that a physical or a chemical change?”
“Chemical,” said Rita, with long straight hair.
“Okay! And let’s say you’re a miner and you carve out a bunch of stuff from a hillside and you melt it down and you end up with iron.”
“Chemical?” said Anthony.
“Ah, but you’re melting it,” I said. “The difference between ice and water is physical, right? If you melt iron ore to make iron, that’s sort of like melting ice to make water. Now, if you build a bridge with the iron and the rain comes and it reacts and turns to rust, what’s rust?”
“Physical,” said Anthony.
“Rust is a tricky one,” I said. “You should know rust. Rust is a chemical change because the oxygen in the air is reacting with the metal. If you know rust, you’ve got the right answer to a question. Rust is a chemical change. So you’re already there, practically. Just read that part of the textbook, firm up your knowledge, and answer the questions. Okay?”
Frederick, a charismatic boy in a baseball T-shirt, raised his hand. “Mr. Baker, I have a completely off-topic question. How tall are you?”
“I’m six four.”
“Whoa, six four!” said Frederick.
“It was just the hormones in the meat,” I said.
“Are you a basketball player?”
I said I’d played basketball, but not in school.
“Our team won the championships,” Frederick said.
Frederick’s friend Payson said, “Were you a science teacher at one point?”
“No, I never was a science teacher,” I said, “and I never will be a science teacher.”
“Except for right now,” said Payson. “Right now you’re a science teacher.”
“You’re right, my god, I’m a science teacher!”
Another hand went up, from a malicious cherub with spiky blond hair. “Misterbater?” he said. His name was Shane. His voice was just beginning to change.
“Mr. Baker,” I said.
Immediate uproar. “That’s Shane! Don’t pay any attention to him!”
I didn’t. I circulated, handing out compliments. “Iridium!” I said, admiring Aaron’s cube. “What is iridium?”
“It’s just a rock,” said Natasha, willowy and impatient, sitting next to him.
“It’s in meteors,” said Aaron.
“It’s in meat?” said Shane.
John was sniffing a quarter to figure out how silver smelled. He handed it to me. “Would you say that smell is ‘musty’?”
I smelled the quarter. “It smells like old finger oil and dirt. I’m not sure if silver has much of a smell. But sure, why not? Musty.” John wrote, Smell: Musty, on his cube.
“How do you like my K?” said Payson.
“Potassium! Beautiful K! Nice stripes!”
They went away for lunch and returned. Shane, having bellowed for half an hour in the cafeteria, had become a demon child. He drew on the floor with a Sharpie and then squirted a big plop of dish detergent on the black marks and began scrubbing the spot while trying to make an iPad movie of himself cleaning the floor, laughing.
“Whoa, stop, stop, stop,” I said. “You’re on the floor, Shane. That is a physical change in your altitude, and it will result in a chemical change to your grade. So please don’t do that. Sit in your chair. Just do some work, okay? I have my eye on you.”
As I walked away, I heard Shane say, “I hate that guy.”
Class ended, and then, mercifully, it was STAR time. Some familiar faces were back, including Shane. They all, even Shane, “read” silently—meaning that they mostly poked at their iPads and listened to music—for twenty minutes. Then Shane raised his hand.
“Mr. Bakersfield,” he said, innocently. “Can I call you Mr. Bakersfield? Like the Hell’s Satans of Bakersfield?”
“No.”
“Mr. Bakersfield,” said Shane, “are you trying to grow your hair out on top?”
“My hair’s pretty much gone on top,” I said. “What about you? Are you trying to grow your hair out?” A girl laughed. That made Shane mad.
He began covertly jabbing a plastic ruler under his neighbor’s backpack, trying to make it fall off the desk. “Stop with the ruler!” I said. Moments later he was silently pretending to whonk someone on the head with a textbook. I went over and pulled up a chair and lowered my voice. “What is the problem, Shane?”
“I’m ADHD,” he said. “My pills begin to wear off around now.”
“Oh, come on,” I said.
“I swear to god!” said Shane. “Ask anybody.”
I said, “Do you want not to be ADHD?”
“I don’t want to be, but I am.”
“Look, you’re obviously smart,” I said. “Just pull it together, okay? Just dial it back a notch. Can you do that? Thank you.”
He calmed down a bit after that.
The secretary’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Please excuse the interruption for the afternoon announcements,” she said. “There was a bracelet found today in the gym locker room area. Please come to the main office and claim it if it is yours. Students who are part of the
But there was still forty minutes to go—end-of-day homeroom. “Hi, Santa Claus,” said Olivia, the bouncy girl in short shorts. She began flirting with a serious, proto-gay boy named Michael. “You’re so abusive, Michael!” she said.
“I am not,” said Michael.
Olivia grabbed Michael’s water bottle.
“Let my water go!” Michael said.
“Are you having a baby?” Olivia said. She turned to me. “There’s ice cream in the freezer if you get hungry. I’m trying to lose weight.”
“You can’t lose weight,” said Michael. “If you try to lose weight your body will compensate. Your body will just hold on to the fat.”
“You’re so abusive,” she said to Michael. “Why did you tell Rodney to give James a lap dance?”
“I didn’t tell him to do that!” said Michael. “He said he’d give me five bucks if I gave a lap dance to Melissa.”
“How tall are you?” Bruce asked me.
“Six four.”
“Wow, six four!”
“It means nothing to be tall,” I said.
“WAVE ONE, YOU ARE DISMISSED,” said the secretary. Six kids left the room. It was quieter now.
“You know how short I am?” Olivia said. “I’m just shy of five feet.” She turned back to Michael. “Do you really want to be a teacher?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Michael. “Like from kindergarten to fifth grade.”
“I like kids a lot,” Olivia said. “I like little kids, one-year-olds. One through like five.”
They stacked some chairs on tables and picked up some stray pencils and I thanked them. “It’s been a pleasure having you in class,” I said.