The Heart and Mind of Frances Pauley

by April Stevens

  Of course, she wished he hadn’t sat there, because now she found herself not wanting to talk to Alvin about Gandhi. So she slid back in her seat and watched the snowy town go by.

  * * *

  —

  When they pulled into the school, Figgrotten did her usual scan of the teachers’ lot for Mr. Stanley’s car, and she gave a tiny sigh of relief at the sight of the minuscule thing, pulled at an angle at the farthest corner. It was the smallest car Figgrotten had ever seen. In fact, when she’d first laid eyes on the vehicle a year back, she couldn’t quite figure out if it was even a whole car. It seemed to be half of one.

  “It uses only one gallon of gas for every sixty miles of driving,” Mr. Stanley had told the class when it had come up in conversation. Though, clearly, no one seemed to care about such things. Figgrotten was far more concerned about how tiny the car was. It could barely fit one other passenger, let alone a dog and a kid. What it was, Figgrotten surmised, was a car for one person with no plans to be more than one person. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this, but it made her think Mr. Stanley was different. And she realized this being different was one of the things she liked about him.

  School felt a bit crazy for the first hour that day. All because of the snow and the things kids came to school wearing. The voluminous snowsuits seemed to take up the entire hallway. Snow boots had been flung left and right. No one cared a hoot about classwork; the whole day was focused on heading out the door for recess. Figgrotten was no exception. She normally found the classroom overheated and stuffy, but today it felt twice so. As Mr. Stanley began the morning, talking about the date of the science fair and how no one was allowed to chew gum in the classroom, Figgrotten stared out the window at the blindingly white snow. It shone in the sun, and each bird that flew across it was a splash of color and movement. She longed to dive into its coldness.

  Then Mr. Stanley clapped his hands together, which made Figgrotten sit up. “Today we’re going to talk about one big word,” he said, and walked up to the chalkboard and wrote CIVILIZATION in huge letters across it. Then he stood back and put his hands on his hips and looked around the classroom.

  “Okay, folks, I would bet we all sort of think we know what this word means. But go ahead, give it a crack. Anyone?”

  Figgrotten glanced around the room and saw, as always, a lot of blank faces. But then a hand went up in the front.

  “Yes, James?”

  “It means when a group of people act civilized or, like, not completely…I don’t know, crazy?” James said.

  Figgrotten suddenly felt a jolt of something unpleasant go through her.

  “Aha! Yes. But what does being civilized mean?”

  Her hand went up. But before Mr. Stanley could call on her, James said, “It means people not fighting with each other?” And Mr. Stanley nodded and turned and wrote CIVILIZED = NOT FIGHTING on the chalkboard while Figgrotten’s hand sank down.

  “Can anyone add to this?” Mr. Stanley asked.

  James’s hand went back up, and Figgrotten put her hand up again, but then so did Marshall Wolff. He never put his hand up, so of course Mr. Stanley called on him.

  “Does it have to do with, like, not being cavemen?”

  “Oh, wonderful, that’s right, Marshall,” Mr. Stanley said, and went back to the board and wrote, BEING A CIVILIAN = NOT BEING A CAVEMAN. Then he said, “However, what part about being civilized is not like being a caveman?”

  Figgrotten raised her hand and so did a few other kids, but James just blurted out, “Following rules or laws.”

  Figgrotten felt herself slide down in her seat and at the same time felt her face scrunch up like she smelled something bad. James had answered too many questions. She glanced around and, sure enough, her classmates also were slumping now.

  “That’s right, James. Very good. A civilization is when a society is advanced in a way where people can live together under certain rules. Were the Native Americans a civilization?”

  Clearly Mr. Stanley was so excited by how smart James was that he didn’t notice he wasn’t always following the rule about raising your hand to speak.

  So now Figgrotten didn’t even put up her hand.

  “Definitely,” James said, just blurting out again.

  Mr. Stanley then walked back to Figgrotten’s desk. “Did you have something you’d like to add, Frances?”

  Figgrotten sat up now and shrugged a little. She wanted to say something about Gandhi suddenly. She was pretty sure he might be a good example of someone who acted in a civilized way. “Well, I guess, being civilized is like waiting your turn to be called on. Stuff like that. Following rules.”

  Mr. Stanley smiled at her. “Yes,” he said. “Those are examples.” She wasn’t quite sure if he got her hint about James or not.

  * * *

  —

  When recess finally did come, Figgrotten had to fight her way through the mad chaos to get to her locker and get her snow pants and boots on. There was barely anything civilized about any of it. By the time she got outside, much of the perfect snow had been trampled on, but she found a nice clean patch out by the fence, away from the mounds of screaming kids, and she lay down and made a snow angel and stared up at the sky. She lay there until she could feel the cold coming through her clothes, which took away the hot closed-in feel of the classroom and gave her a tiny bit of a wonderful feeling. Freedom. She closed her eyes and listened as kids raced by and screamed and laughed. She was happy enough being by herself, but she felt aware of it now more than she used to. She’d think, I’m alone, which is fine. Whereas before, she was just alone and didn’t think about it.

  She closed her eyes and lay still, feeling the winter sun on her face. She wished the eighth graders had recess at the same time as her, because then maybe she could quietly observe and figure out what was going on with her sister. She knew of only one other Ben in the school, and he was in fourth grade and was about three feet tall. So he couldn’t be the Ben Christinia liked. Which left only the bad one from the bus. Ben Ekhart.

  * * *

  —

  Alvin, as always, was sitting behind the wheel reading his book when Figgrotten climbed back onto the bus that afternoon. He read with the page up close to his eyes, but he still greeted each person who came onto the bus. “Miss Pauley,” he said as Figgrotten climbed on. She sat in her seat, but then stood halfway up and looked over Alvin’s shoulder and read the title of the book, Black Elk Speaks, out loud.

  Alvin nodded. “I read it a long time ago and it never left me. So here I am, reading it again.”

  “Is that him? That’s Black Elk?” Figgrotten pointed at the picture of the Native American on the cover. He was wearing a fur hat and earrings and a really big necklace.

  “Indeed it is,” Alvin said, nodding. “I think everyone should read it at some point in their lives. It’s not easy, though. It’s quite a sad book.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Figgrotten sat back in her seat. She’d try to remember the title and write it in her journal later, though she wasn’t crazy about the idea of reading something that was sad.

  Alvin nodded again slowly. Then he sighed and put the book down in his lap. “Now, Miss Pauley, on another subject, after talking with you this morning about Gandhi, I went to the library and wrote down a couple of famous things that Gandhi said that I thought you might like to have on hand.” He closed the book and then reopened it to the first page and pulled out a little piece of paper with his raggedy handwriting on it, and when he handed it back to her she noticed the paper was shaking. It was the first time she’d ever noticed Alvin’s hand shaking like that. She took the paper and looked down and read under her breath.

  “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

  “An eye for an eye only ends up
making the whole world blind.”

  “Now, those are just a couple of notions for you to ponder when you’re up in your rock world.”

  Figgrotten sat looking down at the paper. The handwriting was so jaggedy that it suddenly made her feel sad. It was too jaggedy. “Thanks, I’ll try to figure out what they mean.”

  “Yes, you do that.” Alvin leaned forward and started the bus. “Ah, the world is a wild and exciting place, but sometimes, so it doesn’t get too wild and exciting, people need to be reminded how to behave. Gandhi was quite good at that.”

  As the bus pulled out onto the road, Figgrotten very much wanted to lean forward and tell Alvin about Mr. Stanley’s discussion about the word civilization, but once again James had sat down behind her and she didn’t want him interjecting.

  But Alvin started talking anyway, so all she had to do was scooch forward in her seat and listen.

  “Now, Miss Pauley, I read in the science section of the paper today that they may have discovered a whole other planet out there in our solar system. And when I read this, I just about lifted off my chair in the library. I mean, here we all are toodling along thinking we’ve figured it all out, and poof!…wrong…there’s a discovery like this.”

  Alvin shook his head and let out his high cackling laugh. This laugh was music to Figgrotten’s ears, as it had never stopped being startling and funny.

  “I always forget about stuff that’s not on Earth,” Figgrotten said to Alvin. “And then I look up at the sky and I—”

  “Wait, let me tell you—your mind can’t fathom it!” Alvin said, lifting his two skinny hands off the steering wheel for a fraction of a second, then plunking them back down again. Then he let out another crazy laugh and Figgrotten sat back in her seat smiling.

  “Yes, exactly,” she said, and looked out the window.

  Just then she heard something in the back of the bus that made her turn around in her seat just in time to see Becky Moss get out of her seat and walk slowly, comically swinging her hips, to the back seat, where she plopped down right next to Ben Ekhart. The look on Becky’s face was the kind of look you’d get if you’d just won the prize for most popular kid on the planet. Or had managed to get the biggest slice of cake at a party. She looked that pleased with herself. Everyone was clapping and hooting and laughing. Figgrotten turned slowly back around in her seat, letting her eyes slide over the other kids until she caught sight of Christinia, who had now slipped so low in her seat it was hard to see her at first. But once Figgrotten caught sight of her, she recognized immediately the look on her sister’s face. Christinia was holding back from crying. Figgrotten froze, staring, which was the worst thing she could have done, because Christinia glanced up suddenly and their eyes met.

  Oh boy, Figgrotten thought as she spun around, now I’m in for it.

  Figgrotten was now officially doing an experiment with crows. She decided that each day when she went up to her rocks to do homework, she’d bring a little snack for them, which she’d put in the same place at the same time each day. And each time she’d do it, she’d whistle, and eventually, if her experiment worked, the crows would hear the whistle and come when she called. She was a terrific whistler. Her dad had taught her how to whistle for a taxi if she ever went to New York City. He used to live there and told her how you stand on the corner, stick two fingers of one hand in your mouth, and blow while waving the other hand up in the air. She’d loved watching him do this so much that she spent an entire week learning to whistle, and now she was a pro.

  So today, when she got up on her rocks, she scattered a few pieces of bread out below her on a lower rock ledge, looked up into the trees for the crows, saw hide nor hair of them, and stuck her fingers in her mouth and let loose a loud whistle. Then she sat down and got to work.

  It was kind of difficult doing homework up on the rocks with all the snow. It was hard not to get her books and papers wet, and writing with her gloves on was awkward. But she cleared away as much snow as possible and sat down to get to work on her dreaded math.

  Once she had asked Mr. Stanley why on earth anyone had to do math beyond adding and subtracting and multiplying. And Mr. Stanley had said it was simple, that human beings had brains and not learning math was a waste of a brain. “Your brain needs exercise just like your body does. If you don’t use it, it stops working. If you use it, it works better.” Now here again was an example of why Mr. Stanley was so fantastic.

  Figgrotten hated the idea of a brain going to waste. Thinking was such a terrific thing. Though sometimes, when she was thinking about thinking, she would start to wonder what exactly thoughts were. They sure came into her head a lot. Occasionally she would close her eyes and attempt to stop thinking, which was difficult. But this was how she had become such a good listener. The minute she stopped her thinking, she could hear everything. And this made her imagine what it must have been like being a tiny baby. Babies, she figured, didn’t think much, because they didn’t know any words. She imagined herself as a tiny baby just hearing, seeing, smelling, and feeling but not really thinking. Thinking probably began to happen when she put words to things. Mommy. Daddy. Christinia. Bird. Tree. This was the kind of thing she needed to talk to Alvin about at some point. He’d have something interesting to say about this.

  * * *

  —

  That afternoon, when she was almost done with her math, one of the crows flew into a nearby tree. Figgrotten put down her pencil and sat very still. She watched the crow looking down at the bread. He sat tilting his head from one direction to the other. Listening, she figured, and looking. And then he let out four loud, evenly spaced caws: “Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw!” Then he waited and Figgrotten waited and sure enough the other crows soon arrived, one after the other landing quietly in nearby trees. And now all four crows sat looking at the bread until one, then two, then three flew down and had an afternoon snack while the fourth sat looking around frantically.

  * * *

  —

  That evening before bed, in her nice cold room, Figgrotten wrote in her journal.

  Whistled for crows when putting bread out for them. They came but not from the whistle. From the bread smell most likely. But I think they are way smarter than any one of us walking around down here on the ground knows. I think they have things figured out about life.

  I think Christinia wants a boyfriend, which is gross. I don’t like boys, I have decided. Especially James Barren, who thinks he’s so smart. He’s so annoying.

  When she was done writing, she went to the window and looked outside. There was an almost-full moon in the sky, and it lit up the woods behind the house with its bluish light. Figgrotten opened her window as far as it would go and leaned her body out into the cold air, and listened very hard. She wasn’t hoping to hear anything. In fact, it was the opposite. She was listening to the amazing deep quiet that the night often held.

  But her listening session didn’t last long. Someone knocked on her door and she turned just as Christinia stepped inside. She shut the door quietly, then turned to Figgrotten and put her hands on her hips.

  “What?” Figgrotten’s heart started thumping now.

  “You need to mind your own business.” Christinia was talking in a low voice but her tone was forceful and bitter. “You’re constantly spying on me. And I’m going to kill you if you keep doing it.”

  Figgrotten felt her face get red with anger. “What are you talking about? Why would I want to spy on you and your stupid boring life? And you’re going to kill me? That means you’re going to murder me?” She surprised herself that it had come out of her mouth in such a super-snotty know-it-all way. She had never talked to anyone like this before. In fact, she sounded like Christinia did most of the time, and it amazed her that she was capable of pulling off the same thing herself.

  Christinia looked startled at first; then she took another step into Figgrotte
n’s room and narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice even more. “You know what you are? You are a freak. A little ugly freak and you’re ruining my life. You want to know what I did, I told my friends that we aren’t even related. I told them you were adopted. That’s how much I hate having you as a sister.” She brought her hand, which had been behind her back, out in front of her and Figgrotten saw she was holding the card with her name on it that had been tacked to her door. Christinia crumpled it in her hand and threw it as hard as she could across the room. Then she turned and left, slamming the door so hard that two branches that were propped up against the wall came clattering down.

  Figgrotten stood still for a second, unable to breathe; then she gasped and ran to her bed and threw herself across it, planting her face into her pillow and letting out a muffled scream of rage. Then uncontrollable sobs took hold of her entire body, and she lay there convulsing from them. Why did she have such a horrible, evil person as a sister? She hated Christinia more than anyone else on earth. Hated her. Hate, hate, hated her! That she’d called her an ugly freak was terrible, but that she’d lied to her friends and told them she was adopted—this seared her, and burned her like a hot pan. All the unfriendliness Christinia had doled out to her up to this point paled in comparison to those words. They were mean-spirited lies, but worse than anything else, they were unbearably embarrassing. It humiliated Figgrotten to think she’d been talked about in this way among a group of eighth-grade girls. She screamed again into her pillow when she thought of it. She wanted to go into Christinia’s room and make her take it back. Take back what she’d told those girls. Take it back. But Figgrotten didn’t. She just stayed lying facedown on her bed, sobbing and sobbing.