Substitute

by Nicholson Baker

  “Giraffe!” Joe said.

  “Yes, good. Right. Up went the giraffe.”

  “Up went the zebra,” Joe read. “Up went the elephant. Went up the—I mean, Up went the tiger. Went up—I mean, Up went the lion.” Then all the animals fell down from the tree house.

  Joe read me another book, about dogs. “Dogs do things that make me mad.” He had trouble sounding out things and make. On the other hand, he read slobber perfectly. What a great kid.

  “Okay, brilliant,” I said to the class. “And now I’m shaking the purple egg!” I shook it around my head. The class put away their read-aloud books and sat cross-legged on the carpet. Our next task involved a green plastic bucket filled with many bicolored plastic Easter eggs (slightly smaller than the purple noisemaking egg), each half of which had a word written on it with Sharpie. “Each student takes one half of the egg and must find their antonym partner,” the plans directed. I asked someone to pull the eggs apart into halves. Sarah explained what an antonym was: an opposite.

  “Oh my gosh, yes,” I said. “Antonyms are opposite. You can remember it because you think of two ants walking towards each other, and they don’t like each other.”

  “What if they’re fire ants and normal ants?” said Emily.

  I said, “A fire ant and a normal ant. Two ants, and they’re antonyms. They want to go away from each other.”

  We talked about synonyms, and Emily said, “If it was start and begin, they would hop together, and that would be a synonym.”

  “Great!” I handed around the green plastic bucket, and each kid took out half an egg. “Now you want to find your antonym partner,” I said. Immediately there was shouting and confusion. “Who has hard?” “Who has down?” Besides the noise, there was another problem: there were more antonyms than students, and many of the antonymic half eggs remained in the bucket. I decided to proceed one egg at a time. Deena’s half egg said start.

  I said, “We’re going for antonyms. The opposite of start is . . .”

  “Startle!” said Danny.

  Nobody had stop or finish. What ridiculousness. Move on. Sarah’s half egg said begin. Nobody had end, either, and a quick rummage through the bucket didn’t turn it up. I found an egg that said quiet. What was the opposite of quiet?

  Loud!

  “I have loud,” said Krista.

  We got a few antonym eggs put together.

  Anne-Marie raised her hand. “Mr. Baker, I can’t hear you because everyone is talking.”

  I snapped my finger at Jake, who was hopping up and down. “SIT. I’m going to start taking names, and I mean it. I NEED ABSOLUTELY ONE VOICE AT A TIME. I want you to say what your egg says.”

  “Easy,” said Jake. Nobody had half an egg that said hard, but I found it in the bucket. It seemed momentarily important to point out that there can be several different antonyms for a given word—for instance, the opposite of quiet might be loud, or deafening, or even, possibly, straying further afield, rambunctious. They all meant slightly different things. We got a few more eggs paired up, and then I pulled the plug.

  “Okay, hand all the eggs in,” I said. “That was loads of fun. Is it snack time yet?” I looked at the clock: 10:40. “Five minutes till snack time.”

  Calvin started shaking the purple egg. Don’t play with the purple egg, I said.

  “Mr. Baker, can we play Sparkle?” said Sarah.

  I’d never heard of Sparkle.

  “It’s like if you get one of the letters wrong, you need to sit down,” said Sarah. “If you get the word right, then you’re still standing.”

  Emily said, “If someone says ‘Sparkle’ at the end of the word, the other person sits down.”

  It was another public humiliation game, like Around the World. I said, “I’m very glad to know about Sparkle, but since it’s already snack time we might have to do that a different day.”

  Joe said, “We have a snack bucket, can I go get it?”

  “A snack bucket,” I said. “Sounds exciting.”

  “It’s not really exciting at all,” said Joe.

  Darren ate macaroni and cheese; Simon ate Ring Dings; Leyla ate Motts for Tots—little chunks of fruit. I ate a crunchy protein bar and listened to a girl named Tracy sing songs from Frozen. When they got too loud I told them to take it down a peg.

  “We’re not pegs,” said Dwight.

  “A notch, take it down a notch,” I said.

  “Why do you call us pegs?” asked Destiny.

  “Can I read a book with you again?” asked Joe. He handed me the biggest book I’d ever seen. It was three feet wide and four feet high, some kind of crazily oversized picture book. We both laughed.

  “We can’t read those books anymore,” said Emily. “Some kids make a mess of them and they rip them.”

  “Okay, wrap up your snackers!” I said.

  I asked what time in the morning people woke up. Dwight said six. Calvin said five. Randall said, “I be awake all night.” Finally snack was done and cleaned up, more or less.

  To get their attention, I did the quintuple-clap thing. “Special flash report,” I said. “What’s happening next is finishing up the MOTHER’S DAY GIFTS AND CARDS. This is very important, because your mothers work hard, and they love you, and you’ve got to give them something. If you’d like to finish your card, you can. If you’d like to decorate the birdhouses, you can. And Ms. Wisman will be giving you a white bag to decorate, to hold the birdhouse.” The birdhouses sat in a row on one of the art tables.

  I sent Destiny next door to Ms. Wisman to find out when we were getting the white paper bags to decorate for Mother’s Day. Destiny returned saying that Ms. Wisman had told her that we already had the white bags somewhere in the classroom. After some intensive searching we found the bags on a file cabinet behind Mrs. Ferrato’s desk. I handed them around. “Decorate these bags for your ma. There’s birdseed that’s going in here, and the birdhouse, and the card. Decorate the front, make it beautiful, do something nice. It’s your mom! You’re taking them home today. That’s very important. And then you save them up and you give them to your mom on Sunday.”

  What followed was the best forty-five minutes of the day. The kids colored the peaked roofs of the Popsicle-stick birdhouses with six different colors of colored pencil, and they thought about what kinds of birds might live inside them, and whether the birdhouses should have doorbells, and they put plastic baggies full of birdseed inside them (we found the bags near a window, behind some cups full of crayons), and they sang the melting song from Frozen and debated the dangers of hornets, and they decorated the white bags with stripes and circles and rainbows and MOMs, and they took care when putting the birdhouses into the white bags so that none of the Popsicle sticks were accidentally torn off—and then we arranged the big pink cards that they’d made earlier and the white birdhouse bags on the semicircular table, where they looked resplendent. Ms. Boissiere, the ed tech, went around giving praise. I read some of the letters glued inside the cards: “Dear Mom, I love you because you halp me win I fol daown. I like wan you gev me privig. I like going to Funtown Splahtan wsh with you. tHank you!” “Dear Mom, I love you mommy because. You care me like when I am sick or hurt. And like when it is bed time you read stories like the little mrmade.” “Dear Mom, I love you MoM because you bring Me places. To the go kerts. You take cane of Me. You Feed Me. And Give Me love.” My phone rang: it was my daughter planning a Mother’s Day present. I went out to the hall to talk to her for a minute. When I came back in, Ms. Boissiere was saying: “Boys and girls, it needs to be a little bit quieter. If you guys can’t handle it, we’ll put it down, and you guys will be staying in for recess. Danny. You guys need to lower your voice a little bit. This is a fun activity, but you guys should not be hollering and shouting at people right in front of you, please. Thank you.” Emily told Darren that he needed to color his whole bag. Darren ca
me over to me. “Mr. Baker,” he said, “do we need to color the sides of our bag?”

  I told him he needed to follow his heart. “You don’t have to do anything. What you’re doing is making a beautiful bag that you think your ma would like.”

  The next fifteen minutes were supposed to be “Writing share/clean for lunch.” There was serial bathroom-using and hand-washing. While several students played chirpy games on their iPads I made the mistake of trying to read some of the class a picture book I’d found on the shelf called The Flying Dragon Room, about a boy who leads his parents to a subterranean realm with a zig-zaggity ladder and an ubble bubble blower. I stopped after a few pages, because they were happier noodling with their iPads. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’re being very quiet, and I don’t think I’ll read any more.” I sat and listened to the sounds of many tiny video games being played. Ms. Boissiere told me her story. She’d worked at the middle school for a while as an ed tech and then she moved to Wallingford Elementary. “I think I lucked out with my position here,” she said. “Joan, who’s in this room, is really good. I enjoy watching her with the kids. They’re used to their routine. Joan was out on Monday, and the sub said, ‘I try and follow the plans, but everybody does things differently.’ It happens. But the structure and the consistency—it’s big.” She made an announcement to the class. “We’re going to set the timer for two minutes, and then we’re going to clean up and get ready for lunch, okay?” Randall hastily glued a crayon on his birdhouse to serve as a chimney.

  The timer beeped. “Boys and girls, we’re going to call the quietest table!” said Ms. Boissiere. The class went still. “Let’s have Destiny’s table.” They lined up. “Tracy, Jake, you guys can line up. Sarah’s table.” When it got too noisy, she said, “Boys and girls, we can sit back down, and you’ll be late for your lunch. Danny, go sit back down.”

  “I’m the line leader!” said Simon.

  We walked to the cafeteria. Leyla took me aside and told me she’d gotten an eyelash in her eye. We got it out.

  I walked back to the classroom. Mrs. Whitman was standing in the doorway, waiting for her class to line up. She asked me how it was going so far.

  “They’re really nice kids,” I said, “but this is a hard job. You really have to admire teachers’ ability to hang in there all day long, because it gets tiring.”

  “It does,” said Mrs. Whitman. “It sure does.” She turned to the line. “Okay, THREE, TWO, ONE, ZERO!”

  I had twenty-five minutes for lunch. The sub plans said that after recess, which was between twelve-thirty and one, I was supposed to read aloud to the class: “Continue reading A-Z Mysteries. This book is on the easel.” The book wasn’t on the easel. I spent five minutes hunting around for any A to Z Mystery book with no luck, then hurried to the tumultuous cafeteria. Ms. Boissiere held her hand up and called for silence. “I AM HEARING LOTS OF SHOUTING,” she said. “I am hearing people complaining about friends saying not-nice things to them! Let’s all put our heads down and take a last minute at lunch to sit quietly, not talk to your neighbor, and think about what you’re going to do this weekend! Think about how you can have a great Mother’s Day on Sunday! Your voices are off, your heads are down!”

  A minute passed, and another ed tech called, “MRS. CASTELLO’S CLASS.”

  When our class was called, we walked back to our room, readied ourselves for recess, and lined up again. As soon as the students were outside they fanned out and commenced screaming—all except for Randall and Simon, who fought over a pair of nesting orange traffic cones. Randall wanted to sit on one cone and hold the other cone to his chest, while Simon wanted to run around with his arm in a cone as if it was a lightsaber. While I chatted with a kindergarten teacher, an elegant girl in black pants and a black shirt with very short hair walked up and said furiously that the boys were not letting her play kickball. Her name was Renata. The kindergarten teacher, Ms. Carlough, took the boy kickballer aside. “We’ve been out here for two minutes and I’ve already had two problems with you. One more time and you’re all done. Three strikes and you’re . . . ? Out. What do you say to Renata?”

  The boy said he was sorry, barely audibly.

  “Good,” said Ms. Carlough. “Anybody can play kickball.”

  I said to Renata, “I bet you’re a heck of a kickball player. Are you good?”

  “Pretty,” said Renata.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “Thanks.” She ran off to the kickball diamond, but meanwhile the game had dissolved. Renata stood on home plate, waiting, kicking the dirt. I chewed an apple. Simon and Randall ran back and forth over the field brandishing their traffic cones. Eventually a new kickball game started, and Renata walloped the ball toward second base and ran. One of the cone brothers, Simon, ran up to me and said, “Can you time me on your phone?”

  I said I could, but first I needed to know what the A to Z Mystery was about.

  “It’s The School Skeleton,” said Simon.

  I started the timer and Simon dashed off, holding the traffic cone. He ran to the trees and back in forty seconds.

  “Woo,” I said. “You were a flash of lightning.”

  Using my phone, I bought an e-book version of The School Skeleton so that I’d be able to read it aloud even if I couldn’t find the paperback in the classroom after recess.

  A girl ran back with a huge bouquet of dandelions to show me. “I got them from all over,” she said. “We’re giving them to our teachers.”

  At one o’clock, the kindergarten teacher blew several blasts on a whistle. Renata, the kickballer, ran up. “I got no outs, one strike, and three home runs,” she said. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Mr. Baker, someone called Darren a bad word,” said Sarah.

  “Oh, well, just let it go,” I said.

  Ms. Carlough said, “FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE! MADISON! GET IN LINE AND PUT A BUBBLE IN YOUR MOUTH!”

  I walked my children in, with Simon at the head of the line. “Do you have anything I can put water in?” he asked. “I’m dying.”

  “Meow,” said Tracy.

  I found a cup for Simon. He drank greedily.

  “Can we read the book now?” said Emily.

  “Yes,” I said. “Mrs. Ferrato said the book was on the easel, but the book isn’t on the easel.”

  Emily found the book in somebody’s book bucket. “We got to chapter three,” she said.

  “You are brilliant,” I said.

  The class was on the carpet and I was in my chair, with the book in hand. I said, “The last sentence she should have read you is, Mrs. Eagle smiled slyly. ‘About a vanishing school skeleton,’ she said. Does that ring a bell?”

  Yes.

  I read on. “‘What did you call your story?’ Josh asked Dink at their lockers. It was three o’clock and everybody was going home. Dink grinned as he put on his jacket. ‘It’s called “Josh Stole the School Skeleton and Should Go to Jail Forever,”’ Dink said. ‘Hah hah,’ Josh said.” Near where Mr. Bones, the stolen skeleton, usually hangs, Ruth Rose discovers an adult-sized footprint in the dust. Mrs. Schottsky and Dink go over to inspect a footprint of a sneaker, with a zigzag tread. Dink wonders whether the thief made the footprint when he lifted Mr. Bones off the hook.

  A girl raised her hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?” Of course. I read more pages. The principal, Mr. Dillon, isn’t the skeleton thief, because he wears shiny tassel loafers with smooth soles. Mrs. Schottsky can’t have stolen the skeleton, because she wears white nurse’s shoes with special treads. We got to the end of the chapter.

  “Can you keep reading?” said two kids in unison. I checked the clock. Music was at 1:25. We had time to read chapter four, which had more talk about shoe sizes. They go back to Dink’s house and eat some cookies. They measure a paternal sneaker, and Dink feeds his guinea pig with a chunk of cookie. I asked if anyone had guinea p
igs.

  “My cousin has two,” Dwight said. “But his first guinea pig died.”

  More discussion in the book about the possibility of measuring teachers’ sneakers. They redouble their resolve to find the skeleton. End of chapter four.

  “Guys, I want to say that was excellent listening,” I said. “I enjoyed that.”

  “Do you know where the skeleton is?” asked Darren.

  “I do not know where the skeleton is.” Dwight showed me how to mark where I’d stopped reading, using a paperclip. I asked what kinds of books they liked to read—scary stuff, or maybe nonfiction about volcanoes or insects?

  “I don’t like to read scary things, because it gives me nightmares,” said Sarah.

  “Anything but Goosebumps,” said Dwight.

  “What happens when you have goosebumps?” asked Deena.

  If you go out on a cold day, I said, and the wind comes up, you get little things on your arm that are called goosebumps. “And when you’re really frightened, also, you can get a clammy feeling, and you get goosebumps.”

  Lee stroked his arm. “You know how I know when I have goosebumps? Sometimes when I’m cold, my hair starts sticking up.”

  “I have a horrible dream, it’s a nightmare about dying,” said Leyla.

  “It ain’t going to happen,” I said. “You’re going to have a happy life.”

  Leyla wanted to tell me a long version of her dream but I said we had to go to specials, so I’d have to hear it later.

  Joe asked me what a mosquito bite was, and I told him. We walked down the hall to music class. I had a half an hour to file papers. “Fill their SMILE Notebooks with homework in the Right Back To School side. Any reading logs that were turned in need to be put back into their homework folders for homework.” So that was what the SMILE notebooks were all about: homework and reading logs. What a mistake, I thought. Reading logs interfere with the seamless fickle joy of reading: they turn you into a page-by-page bean-counter of the waking dream. And homework, in first grade? Between first and seventh grade, I had a total of about ten pieces of homework. “Workers Who Keep Us Well” in second grade, plus a report on gorillas. A report on Rhode Island and a report on France in third grade. A report on Thomas Edison in fourth grade. Nothing in fifth grade. A study guide on Lord of the Flies in sixth grade. Practically nothing in seventh. My homework-free generation has done just fine. The first real homework I did was for Mr. Toole, in eighth grade, when he asked my friend Nick and me to write epic poems. There was, I thought, no need for homework, ever, in grade school or middle school. And there was way too much of it in high school.