Flying Solo

by Ralph Fletcher

  Inside, Mrs. Ickeringill, the music teacher, was waiting for them at the piano. She was a stocky red-faced woman wearing glasses and a button that read: MUSIC IS MY LIFE.

  “Welcome,” she said. “Please take your places, boys and girls. Chop chop. Come now, we don’t have much time.”

  Class 6-238 assembled on the riser, sopranos to the left, altos to the right. Rachel had no intention of singing but she took her place with the altos as she always did. Wedging herself between Missy and Jasmine, Rachel got a mental image of Tommy Feathers, face bright and eager, singing in last year’s winter concert. He sure loved to sing. It didn’t seem to matter to him in the least that he “couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,” as they say.

  Mrs. Ickeringill played a few piano notes to the song, a stirring melody with lyrics taken from the poem on the Statue of Liberty. Rachel stood quietly as the kids began to sing around her. Today their voices combined to make a clear strong sound:

  Give me your tired your poooooor

  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe freeeee

  The wretched refuse of your teeming shoooore

  Sennnnd theeese

  The homeless, tempest-tossed to meeee

  I lift my lamp beside the gooooolden doooor

  “Wonderful!” Mrs. Ickeringill cried. She sat up and looked at them, surprised. “You’ve got spirit today! You’ve got juice! Again! Let’s take it from the top!”

  They sang it again and the song sounded even more beautiful than before, so much so that Rachel could feel the beginnings of a sound rising from some deep buried place at the bottom of her chest, itching to join in, and it was everything she could do to keep that sound down.

  11:13 A.M.

  Snack

  Back in Room 238 kids took out their snacks along with their math books. In her backpack Rachel found carrots and-yes!-a bag of vinegar-and-salt-flavored potato chips. She knew the chips were bad for her, full of fat, laced with chemicals and dye, almost green-colored, but she didn’t care. And today Mom had given her an extra-large bag. She opened it, took out a bunch, and offered it to Missy.

  “Oh, I can’t,” Missy sighed. “My mom’s got me on another diet.”

  Rachel glanced beyond Missy’s desk to where Sean was sitting. She noticed that today there was no snack on his desk. While the kids around him chatted and ate, Sean busied himself with rummaging through his desk. Rachel looked at Missy, offered the bag of chips, and motioned with her eyes at Sean.

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Missy said, taking the bag from Rachel. “Hey, Sean, you want some of these? From Rachel.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled. He took a bunch of chips from the bag and passed it back to Rachel.

  A month ago Rachel had had to meet with the school psychologist during snack time. She’d bring a small bag of carrots or celery and sit outside Mr. Snickenberger’s office until he called her to come in. He was a tall bearded man who wore bright ugly ties, but he always had a fresh bowl of salt-and-vinegar potato chips on his desk. She’d munch those chips while he asked questions. How would you describe your relationship with your mother? How long have your parents been divorced? Did you become interested in flying around the time when your father moved out? How did you feel about Tommy Feathers and how do you think he felt about you? Did he ever touch you, or try to kiss you? Sometimes she’d answer his questions with written notes, but mostly she just listened, nodded or shook her head, and savored those chips, the delicious chemical tang they left on her tongue.

  I don’t like him, she wrote to her mother one night while sitting at the kitchen table.

  Why not? Can’t stand those gaudy ties?

  He gives me the creeps. He acts like he knows stuff about me I don’t know.

  Mr. Snickenberger was pleasant with her for the first few weeks. But as time passed he began losing patience with her silence. One day he asked her a series of questions, and when she didn’t reply the man suddenly exploded.

  I’ll tell you what I think, he said with an angry face. I think your obsession with flying is your attempt to fly away from your problems. Well, it won’t work, young lady! One thing you need to learn is, you can’t run away from your life! That’s a lesson you’d better learn sooner than later!

  That marked her last session with Mr. Snickenberger. But even though she stopped seeing him, she had no intention of giving up those salt-and-vinegar potato chips. Now she took one last handful of chips and passed the bag to Missy with a gesture that said: “Finished.”

  “Here,” Missy said, handing the bag to Sean. “You can have the rest.”

  Rachel saw the pleasure in Sean’s eyes, and was glad she’d left him a lot.

  11:18 A.M.

  Visitors

  “Let’s put some music on!” Christopher said.

  “Yeah! Rock ’n’ roll!”

  “Better rock quietly,” Karen told him, “unless you want a bunch of teachers crawling all over us.”

  “This is stupid!” Bastian said. “We’ve got no teacher, but we’re sitting here doing geometry! We’re acting like we’re on detention! Let’s do something! Who’s stopping us?”

  “You—”

  Knock! Knock!

  Rachel stared at the door. When it opened, Katie Bretz sailed into the room. Katie was in Mrs. Reilly’s class. She was dressed in a blue jumper with matching blue socks and a tiny blue ribbon in her blond hair. Katie seemed a little bit preppy—perfect posture, every hair in place—but everyone agreed she was a talented actress. She had already appeared in two commercials. They were dumb commercials for laundry detergent, but still, she had been on TV.

  “Mrs. Reilly needs the book club orders,” she said.

  “Okay,” Karen said, taking a large envelope off Mr. Fabiano’s desk. “Here you go.”

  “Where’s Mr. Fab?”

  “He’s . . . out at the moment,” Karen explained.

  “Out?” Katie glanced around the classroom.

  “Yeah, we’re supposed to have a sub,” Tim explained, “but the sub didn’t show up, either. We’re just sort of winging it today.”

  Bastian elbowed Tim, hard.

  “Yeah, right!” Katie said. With a toss of her blond hair she breezed out of the room.

  “That was stupid,” Jasmine told Tim. “Extremely stupid. I mean, why not just announce it to the whole school?”

  “She didn’t believe me,” Tim said, giggling. “Did you see that? She didn’t believe me! It’s just too unbelievable!”

  Another knock on the door, louder this time. This time Morgan Hasshagen strolled in. He had a crewcut and an Orlando Magic T-shirt. Morgan’s father ran the local funeral home. Morgan was so small he looked more like a fourth grader than a sixth grader.

  “Mr. Fab?” he asked, glancing around.

  “He’s not here,” Karen said smoothly.

  “You got a sub . . . ?” Morgan asked, still looking.

  “What do you need?” Karen asked him.

  “Hey, where is everybody?” Morgan asked. His eyes darted from one side of the room to another, and he looked so funny Rachel had to work hard to squelch a smile. Karen giggled, and a few other kids joined in.

  “We’re all here,” Jasmine said. “Alone.”

  “Fact,” Christopher said.

  “Yeah, right.” Morgan smiled. “You lie.”

  “You’re right, it’s a lie,” Karen said. “So what do you need?”

  “Are you guys really . . . alone?” Morgan asked.

  “The sub never showed up,” Karen explained, nodding calmly. “Guess they figured we didn’t need any teacher today. And it turns out they’re right.”

  Morgan stared at her. He knew Karen was not the kind of girl who went around making up stories. His expression slowly changed from skepticism to wide-eyed disbelief.

  “Really?” He looked out at the class. “You guys got nobody here? You didn’t tell anybody?”

  “You tell anybody and you die!” Rhonda told him.

  “This is so cool
!” Morgan leaped up onto Mr. Fab’s desk and started doing a fast boogie-woogie.

  “How mature,” Rhonda said. “Get off there, you jerk!”

  Morgan jumped off and pulled open one of the drawers in Mr. Fabiano’s desk.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Candy,” Morgan said. “Mr. Fab keeps a stash down here.”

  “Hey!” Bastian jumped up out of his seat. “You take any of Mr. Fab’s candy, I’ll break your arm!”

  “Okay, okay,” Morgan said, holding up both hands, palms out. He picked up a shiny rock on Mr. Fabiano’s desk, a cubic piece of pyrite, and tossed it into the air. Rachel drew a quick sharp breath. That had been Tommy Feathers’s favorite rock.

  “Put that down!” Missy said.

  “Jeez!” Morgan said. “You guys sure are jumpy today!”

  “We don’t like other people messing with our stuff,” Bastian said.

  Now Morgan started slinking around the classroom, grinning, looking carefully at everything.

  “Don’t you have to get back to your class?” Jessica asked.

  “Not really,” Morgan said. When he spotted all the opened math books on the desks his face went all bug-eyed. “Don’t tell me you guys are actually working! With no teacher? What a bunch of wusses!”

  “Getting our work done now so we can party all afternoon,” Christopher told him. He leaned back and loudly cracked his knuckles.

  “And you’re not invited!” Tim said.

  “You’re starting to get a little annoying,” Karen told Morgan. “What exactly do you want?”

  “Mrs. Kiefer needs the American history book. Teacher’s edition.”

  “I’m not sure where that is,” Karen said. “I’ll look for it and bring it down. Just promise you won’t tell any teachers till after school. Promise!”

  “Oh sure, I’m gonna go squeal to my teacher,” Morgan said, giving her a sour look. He leaped up onto Mr. Fabiano’s desk again and did another quick boogie-woogie. “This is soooo cooool.”

  “Goodbye,” Karen said. She pulled him off the desk and pushed him out the door.

  Jasmine had to search all through the supply closet before she finally dug out the history book.

  “Here it is,” she said. Without a word, Sean O’Day got up and took it from her.

  “I’ll bring it,” he said softly.

  “Okay,” Jasmine said.

  Sean’s stomach felt queasy, with those vinegary potato chips on top of the soda on top of the candy bar. Maybe a walk would help settle it down before he could get a hot meal at lunch.

  Usually Sean got a special feeling, a peculiar kind of airiness, whenever he left a classroom to walk in the halls. Sean loved those few minutes when you could go on your own to the bathroom. Those were the only moments in the whole school day when he felt really free. Unseen. He always made a point of walking slowly, trying to make those few moments of school freedom last as long as possible.

  But today leaving the class was different. He left a classroom where no teacher was watching and went out into the halls where a teacher might see him. It felt strange and he walked faster than usual to Mrs. Kiefer’s classroom.

  He knocked. Mrs. Kiefer was standing at the blackboard.

  “Here,” he said, handing her the history book.

  “Tell Mr. Fabiano thank you,” Mrs. Kiefer said. She was a thin woman with a pasty complexion, and she didn’t look particularly happy. He was glad he had Mr. Fab for a teacher.

  Sean nodded.

  “Oh, that’s right, he’s out today, isn’t he? Well, thank your sub.”

  “Okay,” Sean mumbled as he edged to the door. On the way out he spotted Morgan Hasshagen waving like a maniac from the back of the room.

  ***

  Music was playing when Sean returned to Room 238. A song by the Counting Crows, turned down low. Sean looked at the schedule on the board: 11:30, Connections. Writing again. Sean took his seat and glanced over at Rachel. He tried to catch her eye, but she was deep into her writing. Everyone was.

  11:30 A.M.

  Connections

  Bastian couldn’t write. He sat staring out the window at a huge billowing cloud rushing against the blue sky. He was trying hard not to worry about Barkley, about the Quarantine, but he couldn’t help it. More than anything he wanted to be home with his puppy.

  Barkley will be okay, Mom had said before he left for school. Every day thousands of dogs fly in airplanes all over the world. He’ll be all right.

  It wasn’t the flight that worried Bastian. True, the puppy would be alone, flying by himself in the cargo hold of some jet, but he would probably sleep through most of the flight. It was the next part that Bastian hated to think about. In Honolulu the puppy would be taken to a special place for quarantined animals. Bastian pictured some kind of animal jail: cages, iron bars.

  Bastian got up, walked to the bookcase, pulled out the fat dictionary, and turned to the Qs. He found it on page 1474.

  Quarantine: a place where persons, animals, or plants having contagious diseases are kept in isolation to prevent the diseases from spreading. . . .

  He slammed the book shut. Contagious diseases! It was stupid and cruel to quarantine a perfectly healthy puppy for four months for absolutely no reason! He opened the thesaurus and thumbed through it until he found it. Quarantine, verb. Synonyms:

  Separate.

  Hospitalize.

  Keep apart.

  Isolate.

  ***

  Sean’s stomach felt a little better now. He loved this time of day, late morning, when the room began to warm up. Today it was cloudy, the skies threatening rain, but on some days just before lunch a shaft of sunlight reached into the back of the class and put him in its spotlight. It was so peaceful to sit quietly wrapped in that bright warm cocoon.

  Sean closed his eyes. The image of Darlene entered his mind. She was much younger than his mother, with blond hair and a pretty smile. Dad worked the three-to-eleven shift as a security guard at a computer factory. Most nights he stopped at the bar on the way home, so he rarely got home until way after midnight. Darlene was usually in the apartment, reading magazines or watching TV, when Sean came home from school. Some days she ignored him; some days she tried to boss him around. Other days she made him feel kind of funny, the way she followed him through the house, asking: You got any girls at school that are sweet on you? Hmmm?

  Sean glanced over at Rachel. She was still writing. Sean picked up his pen and started to write. He wrote fast, his face close to the paper.

  She never talks. But I wonder if maybe sometimes she closes her door tight and hums a little. Or whistles a little tune. Or maybe late at night when everybody’s sleeping she lets out a couple words real soft just to see if she can still do it. I wonder if it’s all scratchy and creaky. I bought an old fishing reel for two dollars off Dad’s friend Roger and it was so rusty me and Dad had to oil it up with about a gallon of WD-40 until the crank turned nice and smooth.

  Last month me and Dad found three baby kittens that were trapped in a trash can. Dad said he didn’t know how they got in there but somebody sealed the lid real tight and I heard them when I walked by and pulled off the lid. A white one, and two mixed. And no mother around. And crying like the end of the world. We gave them some milk and then I held them in my lap. They kept crying and licking me and their tongues were like sandpaper. It took a long time to get them calmed down. Darlene’s allergic to cats so we had to give the kittens away. We found good homes for all of them. But I wish we could’ve kept one.

  “We better stop if we’re gonna share any of these.”

  The kids blinked and looked up from their desks. The voice had come from Karen.

  “Yes, Mrs. Fabiano,” Bastian said in a high voice.

  “C’mon,” Karen said, ignoring him and leading the way to the back of the room. The other kids got up and found seats in the Share Area.

  Share time in Mr. Fabiano’s class was always the same. Kids took
turns reading their writing, moving clockwise from Mr. Fab, who always sat by the corner of the bookcase. Today that spot was held by Tim.

  “Tim?” Karen asked.

  “No way,” Tim said. “I’m not reading today—I’m on strike.”

  “Robert?”

  “What the heck,” Robert said. “I’ll go.”

  He cleared his throat, pounded on his chest, and read:

  I have been thinking about how we don’t have any teacher today I remember this science fiction movie I saw one time when John slept over and there were these aliens who were using humans in this town for an experiment. The aliens had planted these tiny computers in the humans’ brains, only the humans had no idea they were being controlled from outer space.

  That’s like today. Everybody’s acting like we’re getting away with something by being totally free. Well, I disagree. I would not be surprised if today is like an experiment for how kids would act without any teacher. Mr. Fab left us a note but I don’t totally trust him. I don’t totally trust any grownups.

  Robert stopped.

  “Is that finished?” Missy asked.

  “That’s all I got,” he said, putting down his paper.

  “Why would Mr. Fab do an experiment on us?” Tim wanted to know. “Do you have, like, a theory?”

  “Maybe it’s not Mr. Fab,” Robert said, shrugging. “Maybe it’s Mr. Peacock. Maybe he’s trying to show kids can’t control themselves. You know, so they can make more rules in the school.”