The Best Man

by Richard Peck

  I pictured Mrs. Stanley leading the workout on her own. We probably better get back to class before she tried teaching geography. You couldn’t read the word on Russell now. He had some tears on his face, so Raymond handed him a dry towel without particularly looking at him.

  Mr. McLeod squatted down on his heels till they were eye to eye. “Russell, will you do something for me?”

  “Sure,” Russell said. “Maybe.”

  “Will you come down to the sixth-grade class with me?”

  “Whoa,” said Russell.

  “I’m not asking you to point out the ones who did that. I’m not going to put you on the spot. We’ll bring Raymond and Archer for backup.”

  “Whoa,” Raymond and I said.

  “This is the sixth graders’ last day in this school,” Mr. McLeod said in a real tight voice. “Their last day. Let’s not let them just walk away from this without learning anything.”

  Russell stood there, looking down. “You don’t have to, and I’m not your real teacher,” Mr. McLeod said. “But I’m going to the sixth graders anyway, and I’d like to have you with me, to see if I handle it okay. You’d be doing me a favor.”

  Mr. McLeod was wearing his big-toed army boots with his gray flannel pants. It wasn’t his National Guard weekend as it turned out. But he only had a couple pairs of shoes: his wingtips and his army boots. He’d have had sneakers, but he was never going to be the kind of teacher who wears sneakers to school.

  Something was on the floor by the toe of his boot. He picked it up. It was a pink Day-Glo Magic Marker.

  “Let’s do it,” Russell said.

  13

  Then the four of us were barreling through school. Past our fifth-grade door, where the troops were clapping for jumping jacks. It was kind of a long-ago sound for some reason. We stopped outside the sixth-grade door.

  I thought we might bust in. I planned to go last. But Mr. McLeod said, “Archer, go get Mrs. Dempsey. Raymond, go tell Mrs. Stanley where we are. I shouldn’t be keeping you guys out of class, but this will be short and sweet.”

  I wasn’t sure how to get Mrs. Dempsey. But in her outer office the secretary was playing video poker on her phone, so I just strolled past her. I opened a door, and Mrs. Dempsey was looking up at me from her desk.

  “What is it, Archer Magill?”

  “Mr. McLeod would like you to come down to the sixth grade. He can’t go in there because he’s not a real teacher yet. But a bunch of them tied Russell Beale to a faucet and wrote a word on his forehead.”

  I thought that covered it. I added “ma’am” because Mr. McLeod would. Mrs. Dempsey stared. Then she sort of erupted out of her chair and charged out the door and down the hall. I could just about keep even with her.

  • • •

  Leaving me and Raymond and Russell by the door, Mrs. Dempsey and Mr. McLeod walked down the hall for a little conference. He may have told her the word on Russell’s forehead. When they came back, Mrs. Dempsey barged into the sixth-grade room.

  The sixth graders were all over the place. The girls were in clumps of desks. The guys were up on the window ledges. Their party was to be in the afternoon. They were hanging out, waiting for that. They weren’t doing anything, but you couldn’t hear yourself think.

  The sight of Mrs. Dempsey silenced them, but it didn’t last. When Mr. McLeod walked in behind her, every girl in the room screamed. My ears rang all day. This was as close to him as they’d been. Out came the phones they weren’t supposed to have. Selfie sticks—everything. The room was a zoo, a mosh pit probably.

  Raymond and Russell and I came in last. They couldn’t have told one fifth grader from another, except the ones who’d recognize Russell.

  “Into your seats at once!” Mrs. Dempsey barked.

  The guys took their time, cool and barely moving. The girls were dressed for junior high already. They were showing some skin, and you wondered about tattoos.

  Their teacher, Mrs. Bickle, was older than the school. She was at her desk. A sudoku book was open in front of her.

  In a doomish voice Mrs. Dempsey said, “Mrs. Bickle, kindly step next door and ask Mrs. Stanley to join us. Then will you stay with her class in her absence?”

  Mrs. Bickle looked up. “I’ll get right on that, Velma.” She was so old, she called Mrs. Dempsey Velma. She shuffled out the door.

  Then here came Mrs. Stanley, a little beaded up along the hairline from working out. She looked for Russell. When she saw him, she reached out. “Here’s my lost sheep,” she said.

  “I wasn’t lost,” Russell said. “They came up behind me.”

  Mrs. Dempsey drew herself up. The sixth graders were waiting to find out what this was about.

  “Children,” she began, “as this is your last day at Westside School and Mr. McLeod’s too, I’m sure you’ll be glad to meet him. After all, he’s put our school on the map.” She looked around. No maps here.

  “I know you envied the fifth graders their opportunity to learn from Mr. McLeod in Mrs. Stanley’s class. Now this is an opportunity of your own to ask him anything you’d like to know.”

  She was setting them up for something, but they didn’t suspect. We’re all Gifted, of course, but they were borderline.

  Mr. McLeod stepped forward. You never saw posture like that. He waited. Whimpering came from some of the girls. Finally a guy raised a casual hand. “Dude, you ever shoot anybody?”

  Mrs. Dempsey sighed. Mr. McLeod said, “No, and I hope not to. I joined the National Guard because they’ll pay your tuition for graduate school. I want to be a teacher. It’s my goal.”

  The class thought that over, more or less. Phones flashed. Mrs. Dempsey said, “Speak to us of goals, Mr. McLeod. Are these children going to need goals when they get to junior high?”

  “We all need goals,” he said. “Here’s one: Stay away from people who don’t know who they are but want you to be just like them. People who’ll want to label you. People who’ll try to write their fears on your face.”

  He let them think about that; then he reached in his pants pocket and pulled out the yellow clothesline. He held it up. They watched it coil in the air. Then he pulled out the Magic Marker.

  “Does anybody know who these belong to?” I don’t know how he knew it, but he figured somebody was going to want to tell. And he didn’t have long to wait. A gawky, hollow-chested kid at the back unfolded out of a desk. He had a flop of blond hair and was working on sideburns. He raised a big hand. All the girls dragged their eyes off Mr. McLeod. The kid pointed and said, “Jeff Spinks brought the clothesline.” He pointed again. “Aidan Cooper did the lettering.”

  “Thanks, Perry,” they muttered. “Thanks for dropping us in it.” They were way down in their desks.

  “And who would you be?” Mr. McLeod said.

  The kid raised his eyebrows. I guess he wasn’t used to people who didn’t know who he was. Two girls giggled. “Perry Highsmith,” he said. “Leave me out of this. I was just the lookout at the door in case anybody interrupted us. Them.”

  Mrs. Dempsey was turning a dangerous color. Next to me Mrs. Stanley was none too happy. Russell was on my other side, not moving.

  “It was no biggie.” Perry looked away through his flop of hair. “It was just like some fun on the last day. It was our goal to have some fun.”

  Mr. McLeod laid the clothesline and the marker on Mrs. Bickle’s desk, like Exhibits A and B.

  The girls’ eyes were back and forth between Perry and Mr. McLeod. They didn’t know where to look. Even scraggly sideburns are a pretty big draw in sixth grade.

  “Hey, it’s the last day,” Perry said. “What can anybody do about it?”

  In her voice of doom Mrs. Dempsey spoke. “Here’s what I can do for the three of you: you Perry, you Jeff, you Aidan. You can have your graduation party in my office while we wait for your parents t
o get here.”

  The girls murmured. Would it be a party without Perry?

  Perry shrugged. Parents didn’t seem to be a problem for him. He started to drop back into his seat.

  “Get up,” Mr. McLeod said, and waited till Perry did. “What about the word?”

  “I didn’t write it,” Perry said. “Ask Aidan.”

  “What was it?” Mr. McLeod waited. Everybody did.

  “It was just a word,” Perry said. “It was . . . random. Ask Aidan.”

  Mr. McLeod waited some more.

  “Gay,” Perry muttered.

  A whispery sound made the rounds of the room. It started out a giggle and ended with rumbling at the back.

  “Gay’s not a random word,” Mr. McLeod said. “It’s an identity.”

  “Whatever,” Perry mumbled.

  “It’s my identity,” Mr. McLeod said.

  Silence fell. You could have heard breathing, but there wasn’t any.

  Then one more time the girls screamed. It was ear-splitting.

  • • •

  With all this going on, the morning was half over before I got back to my desk. Still, Mr. McLeod was there first, holding a pointer against a map already rolled down. We were going to have an actual lesson on the last day of school. The sixth graders had already had theirs.

  Lynette leaned across the aisle. “You missed Mrs. Bickle. So where were you?”

  “Around,” I said. “We had to get Russell out of the boys’ room. Then we had to go to the sixth graders. It took a while.”

  “That’s it?” Lynette said.

  “Basically,” I muttered. “Also, Mr. McLeod’s gay.”

  Lynette’s eyes practically rolled out of her head. “You really take your sweet time, don’t you, Archer?”

  “Time to what?”

  “Mr. McLeod must really have put it out there if you picked up on it. He must have spelled it out.”

  It got spelled out all right, on Russell’s forehead.

  “Lynette, you don’t know everything,” I said.

  But, privately, I thought she might. Anyway, it was time for map study.

  • • •

  By the end of the day—by noon, even—everybody knew everything. They definitely knew Mr. McLeod was gay. People in Kazakhstan knew. Bulbs flashed in the schoolyard trees.

  Natalie Schuster was steamed. “Honestly, he has the scoop of the semester,” she said, “and he gives it away to the sixth graders. That is so gratuitous. Men!”

  A sound truck for the ABC affiliate turned into the parking lot as I headed for home that afternoon. The weekend section of the Trib pictured Mr. McLeod under the headline:

  SORRY, LADIES

  I was dragging before home was in sight. My backpack outweighed me. My ears were clanging like Big Ben.

  Mom was leaning over the upstairs banister when I came in. She’d have heard all about our last day of school in real time from Mrs. Stanley. They text. I’m sure of it. But she wanted to hear the whole day from my viewpoint. She’s like that.

  And she was going to have to creep up on the subject because I don’t tell my school day without a fight. We play this game. She’d ease in with some quirky humor. She’s done it before. She’ll do it again.

  “Care to join me in my office?” she said. Then I was on her sofa, and she was back behind her desk. “Just a routine day?”

  “Mom, you took the words right out of my mouth. We did some map study.”

  “Ah,” said Mom. “Any place in particular?”

  “Crimea? Crimea, I think.”

  Mom was sitting back in her chair, scanning the ceiling. Here comes the quirky humor: “Archer, honey, I think it’s time we had The Talk.”

  “If it’s about sex, Mom, Mrs. Forsyth covered it in first semester.”

  Mom looked sad. “Did Mrs. Forsyth tell you about the cabbage leaves?”

  “Mom—”

  “That’s where babies come from, you know. That’s where I found you, Archer, honey—under a cabbage leaf. When I brought you home, it took your dad a week to notice you. Of course when he did, he was delighted.”

  “Where was this cabbage leaf?” I asked.

  She looked all over the ceiling, racking her brain to remember. “Washington Park,” she said, “on the other side of the bandstand. That’s where you came from.”

  “I came from the Washington Park bandstand?”

  “No, honey, from under a cabbage leaf.”

  “Mom, Mrs. Forsyth walked us through the whole deal last fall. We have sonograms. Your water broke, and there I was. That ship has sailed.”

  Mom looked sad again. “Mrs. Forsyth has taken all the poetry out of the experience.”

  “Did you find Holly under a cabbage leaf?”

  “Heavens no,” Mom said. “I was in labor with her for thirty-six hours. I thought I’d die.”

  By the way, where was Holly? She was due to storm in any minute now. Mom’s last chance to pry the school day out of me was slipping away because footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  Only moments were left, which I decided to fill. “Well, thanks for sharing about the cabbage leaf. And it’s not like I don’t believe you. But you said one time that Grandma Magill and Mrs. Ridgley were best buds at the Salem witch trials. And, Mom, if that’s true, they’d be like two hundred years old.”

  “I’m standing by that,” Mom said.

  The footsteps seemed heavier than Holly’s. Mom watched the door to the hall. I watched over the back of the sofa.

  Heavy treads. Muttered voices. Baritones.

  Then filling the doorway was Uncle Paul, since it was getting on for Friday evening. Uncle Paul large as life: hundred-dollar haircut, manscaped stubble, a whiff of Tom Ford aftershave. And in his hand a Whole Foods sack, full of large purple growths. Eggplant. What Dad calls aubergine.

  “Can you believe it?” Uncle Paul said. “Ed McLeod outs himself with no escape plan? I knew by ten o’clock, and North America knew by noon. I had to smuggle him out through the furnace room again.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “You were at school, Uncle Paul? We had to clean out our cubbies today. I had to carry all my stuff home. You could have given me a lift.”

  I mean, why not? And I didn’t see any pizza box either. Just aubergine.

  “And how did you make these arrangements, Paul?” Mom inquired from the desk. She gave him her innocent look. You know how she is. “Do you have Ed McLeod’s number?”

  “The whole world has his number now,” Uncle Paul said. “I’ve brought him for dinner.”

  “I thought you might,” Mom said. “And what have you two done all afternoon? You and Ed?”

  “Hung out,” Uncle Paul said. “I don’t know. Starbucks?”

  “Starbucks,” Mr. McLeod said, walking in around Uncle Paul. “Hey, Archer,” he said, though we’d spent most of the day together, except for me having to walk home with ringing ears and all my stuff.

  “Hey, Mr. McLeod,” I said. “Crimea, right?”

  “Turn left at the Black Sea,” he said.

  The front door banged below us. Holly. Home from high school and wherever she goes.

  She’d hit the porch at her top speed and wasn’t slowing for the stairs. “Mom,” she screamed, getting closer and closer. “Are you sitting down? Mr. McLeod’s gay!”

  14

  If this was a story and not real life, that Friday evening would be a good way to wind up the fifth-grade chapter. But then came three days of standardized testing to kick a hole in the next week.

  We should have been out in the sun, healing from the school year. Instead, monitors worked the aisles, watching us fill in the ovals with the special pencils.

  On the last day Lynette and I ate lunch together up on an all-purpose-room riser. They wouldn’t let us
outdoors even over lunch. Maybe they thought we’d make a run for it.

  I had a Tupperware tub of what Dad calls “vichyssoise,” which is cold potato soup. Don’t ask. I forgot what Lynette was eating, but she didn’t want any of mine.

  “The school’s hired Mrs. Stanley to teach fifth grade again this fall. She figures she’s too famous to fire. It’d get in the papers if they didn’t have her back,” she said. “I’d call them.”

  “So that’s great, right?”

  Lynette shrugged. “At least we don’t have to move.”

  I hadn’t thought about them having to move.

  “And it means Mrs. Stanley can afford to send me to camp. She and my dad are splitting the cost.”

  Can you picture Lynette Stanley at camp? I couldn’t. Lynette around the campfire, singing along? Lynette weaving a lanyard? “What kind of camp?”

  “Just a camp.”

  “Where is this camp?”

  “Michigan.” She looked away.

  “The Upper Peninsula?” I said. “Because they have one, you know.”

  “Wherever,” she said.

  Now we were back at our desks. “There’s no such thing as a regular camp anymore. They all have themes,” said I, the big expert. I hadn’t even been to day camp. Dad and I had always been too busy. We didn’t do Little League either, not after T-ball. Dad said he didn’t need it if I didn’t.

  “I bet I know what kind of camp it is,” I said. “Vocabulary camp, am I right? Camp for people with over-developed vocabularies.”

  “Something like that,” she said, very vague.

  “Now that Mrs. Stanley isn’t going to be your teacher anymore, are you going back to calling her Mom?”

  “I think I’ll stick with ‘Mrs. Stanley,’” Lynette said. “I’ve got puberty coming up, so I need to keep my distance.”

  • • •

  The day finally wound down. Natalie was on her feet and her phone.

  “It’s been a good semester for Natalie,” Lynette said, handing in her last test. “She was taking pictures with her phone the whole time. Constantly. Mr. McLeod—in the classroom, at the arboretum, everywhere. She posted them, and the media picked them up. She figured out how to charge them. She made good money. She takes PayPal.”