Dewey Fairchild, Teacher Problem Solver

by Lorri Horn

  “Good!” nodded Dewey.

  Pooh Bear agreed. Stephanie didn’t look up from her book.

  “Okay then.” She handed Dewey the pen. “You want to write now?”

  “No, you print nicer. You do it.”

  So, they began again, and then it just began to, well, roll out of them.

  Somewhere between “flushing with joy,” and “ultra-strong-mega man” Stephanie couldn’t help herself and began to contribute to the project. By the time they completed it, they were all laughing so hard that they were crying.

  “Dewey, hand me one of those other rolls,” his mom pleaded so she could wipe the tears of laughter that now streamed down her cheeks—so much you’d think she’d been cutting onions.

  When Dewey’s dad came in and read it, he laughed at almost every line.

  Dear Colin,

  Your t-issue is a call to duty! We hope this gift will make you flush with joy!

  You are the ultra-strong-mega man who, number one, is going to wipe the administration’s t-issue clean and, number two, get the kid who runs back to class there on time! A clip isn’t going to make you the butt of anyone’s joke! You’re on fire! Stop, drop, and roll! Well, we really gotta go now.

  Love,

  The Fairchilds

  “Boy, you guys really were on a roll!”

  “Har, har!” replied Dewey, feeling proud that they’d impressed his dad with their humor. This was usually the kind of thing they’d do with his help.

  “I helped roll it back up,” said Dewey’s little sister.

  “Good work, Tiger.” Dewey’s dad pat her head. “I think you’d better go get ready for bed now.”

  Stephanie, who never had to be told to wash up and get ready for bed because she loved to get into bed and read, had already disappeared for the night. She had been the one to contribute the last line, “we really gotta go.”

  It felt quietly delightful to Dewey to have Stephanie contribute and be a part of it. He loved when she joined in with them.

  “You too, Dews,” directed his mom. Dewey gathered up the rolls and put them on top of his backpack so he’d be sure to remember them in the morning. He headed upstairs to bed for the night.

  “I’ll be up in a few minutes to tuck you in,” she said.

  When she entered his room, she turned off his light and sat at the edge of his bed. The decals of the planets and stars on his ceiling glowed in the dark overhead.

  Dewey told his mom how funny it had been that his dad’s student, that Gabe kid, got so nervous in the produce aisle of the grocery store. “He acted like dad was some sort of rock star or something. I’m not even exaggerating.”

  Mom laughed. “Well, that’s sort of sweet,” she smiled.

  “I guess so. Rock star! Ha! He’s just a guy who sings annoyingly loud in the morning and wears bad socks!”

  “You don’t like his socks?” she laughed. “I had no idea you even noticed.”

  “They’re hard to miss with Big Bird, Darth Vader, and Minecraft Steve on them,” he groaned.

  Mom laughed again.

  “I’ll bet his student—what was his name again?”

  “Gabe.”

  “I’ll bet Gabe doesn’t picture him as a dad with bad socks singing loudly in your kitchen. Can you picture your teachers at home being regular people brushing their teeth and tucking their kids into bed?” she said as she pulled the covers around him. “Probably not,” she added and punctuated it with a kiss on his cheek.

  “Night, Dews,” she walked out and closed his door.

  Dewey never even thought about his teachers outside of school. Why would he? But he didn’t think he’d be as goofy and nervous as Gabe if he ran into one squeezing avocados, either. Dewey stared up at the ceiling and wondered what his teachers were really like. Did Mr. Jordan go to the beach? Did Mrs. Harrington eat cereal for breakfast? Did Mr. Nisano wear Captain America boxers and sing in the shower? Dewey chuckled at the thought.

  Then, as if one of those stars on his ceiling shot across the sky, Dewey felt a thought shoot right across his belly. He sat straight up in his bed. Was it possible that Mr. Nisano bored the daylight out of his students, but wasn’t a boring person? Let’s face it, thought Dewey, if William ran into Mr. Nisano squeezing produce, he wouldn’t really know any more about Mr. Nisano than that kid Gabe knew about Dad.

  Dewey could always feel it when he finally began to unravel a knot in a case, and he knew at last he had loosened this one.

  He’d go research Mr. Nisano, the home man, not the teacher. Dewey felt certain that once there, he’d somehow find the solution to the problem.

  With that, he let out a big breath of air he hadn’t even realized he was holding in, settled back down into his pillows, and closed his eyes.

  I gotta get rid of these glow in the dark decals one of these days, he thought as he began to drift off to sleep. They keep me up at night.

  Indispensables

  “Look what Dewey gave me!” grinned Colin, and he held up the messaged toilet paper roll.

  Seraphina looked right at the roll but hardly noticed it. “I know what’s going on. I’m telling you two, but you can’t let this leak.”

  Dewey thought her word choice pretty funny given that they were holding a roll of toilet paper, but he figured this was not a great moment to say so.

  “Haha! ‘Can’t let this leak.’ Get it?” Evidently, his mouth worked faster than the filter in his brain.

  “Dewey! I’m serious. This is big, and we need to figure out what to do—immediately.”

  “What?” Colin pressed.

  “They’re getting rid of the vending machines,” Seraphina announced in a whisper.

  “What?!” cried Dewey.

  “No, they’re not!” exclaimed Colin. “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know,” shrugged Seraphina. “But I heard Shawn talking to his guys about moving them out.”

  “Well,” replied Dewey, already imagining what a bleak and tragic world middle school would be without vending machines. “Now we know what ‘the kids will be upset’ means. This is beyond catastrophic.”

  “I know. I knew you’d be devastated. We have to figure out how to put a stop to this—and fast.”

  “Hey, let’s not forget about the t-issue,” reminded Colin.

  “For crying out loud, Colin!” wailed Dewey. “How can you even begin to compare a piece of toilet paper to a pack of pretzels?! We’re talking about indispensables! You’re on the level of luxury items.”

  “Luxury? Since when did having enough toilet paper become a perk?”

  “Since they’re taking away my Funyuns!”

  “Okay, you two! We want both, don’t we? Stop it. What’s the matter with you? Let’s figure out how to talk to Shawn, and we can keep working on the t-issue. Don’t be so foolish.”

  “Take away a man’s vending machines, and he gets prehistoric, I’ll tell you that much,” grumbled Dewey.

  “Take away a man’s royal paper and he gets pretty cave man too!” chuckled Colin.

  “Royal paper?!” laughed Dewey.

  “You know you’re both nuts!” but she still laughed as well. “Well, what’s next?”

  The first bell rang.

  “UUGH!” they all cried.

  “Okay, we’ll meet after school to discuss?” asked Seraphina, walking backward toward class.

  “I gotta work on a case,” Dewey called back. “Tomorrow?” This delay would cause Dewey some anxiety, but he could see no way around it.

  Colin just stood there not moving.

  “Colin? Class?” called Seraphina. But as the quad emptied out, Colin just stood there.

  Wooden Trains

  Dewey didn’t have time to think about vending machines right now. He stood knee-deep in the logistics of
the Mr. Nisano case, figuring out the plans to observe him in his non-school environment. This observation required some undercover work. Mr. Nisano and his home wouldn’t be as easily accessible to Dewey as problem parents were during a case. With parents, he always had someone on the inside to let him into the house and show him the best places to hide and observe.

  Teachers like Mrs. Décorder might be dull at times, but at least their eccentricities helped distract the students. This case, it seemed, presented an entirely different kind of challenge, and solving it proved more difficult.

  “Honest, Dewey. If you gave me a two-by-four, I’d smack myself in the head with it over and over just to break up the time in there,” Will had moaned during their interview.

  The first step of Dewey’s plan was for Clara to fetch him after school so they could follow Mr. Nisano and gather as much intel as possible. Dewey had never been a student of Mr. Nisano, which would make spying easier. If this case had come from the elementary school, where all the teachers knew every kid by sight, Dewey didn’t know what he’d have done.

  One case at a time, breathed Dewey.

  As planned, Clara met Dewey at the pick-up circle. Even though Dewey had outgrown needing a babysitter, Dewey’s parents still listed Clara on school paperwork as an approved adult to pick up and care for the Fairchild children. This setup often came in helpful during his cases.

  “Clara! Hi,” Dewey greeted as he climbed in the back and tossed his bag over the front seat. “We need to go park off-campus and wait for him to leave. I have no idea how long that’s going to take. I hope it’s not too long.”

  Wolfie, who had been sleeping in the back, woke up and excitedly licked Dewey.

  “Hey, boy!”

  Clara pulled around the corner where they waited under a shady tree, eating Butterfinger cookies and talking about what they should do next.

  “Well, Boss,” noted Clara, “this is new territory for us. Perhaps we just let it unfold and see where it takes us.”

  That strategy made Dewey a little anxious. He liked to know what he was doing before it happened. But he really didn’t have much choice in this case.

  Then, it finally happened. After about two pages of begrudgingly completed math homework, one tree pee for Wolfie, and ten cookies, Mr. Nisano exited the school carrying a thermos in one hand, a stack of papers in another, and a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. Clara and Dewey watched him as he got into his car and drove past them.

  “Thar he goes.” Clara started the engine.

  “Oh. Oh! Go, Clara, Go! Follow him!” exclaimed Dewey, totally unnecessarily as Clara, who already had the gas pedal to the floor, hotly pursued their subject like a hound chasing a mechanical hare on a track.

  None of this haste proved necessary, and they easily caught up to Mr. Nisano, who wasn’t exactly a speedster.

  He pulled into the supermarket. With his arms now free of all his teacher gear, he swung them by his sides. His pace picked up a bit while he walked toward the market. The tips of his long fingers reached past the halfway mark of his upper thighs, and each stride, though not rushed, would be about five for Pooh Bear to take to keep up, Dewey estimated.

  “What is it about teachers and supermarkets?” marveled Dewey. “Okay, stay here. I’m going in.”

  Dewey waited for sufficient distance to grow between him and his target before he entered the market to find Mr. Nisano shopping which, given Mr. Nisano’s long strides, didn’t take long.

  Well, thought Dewey sarcastically, this is going to be an epic adventure.

  Tomatoes. Bananas. Crackers. Cheddar cheese. Half and half. Dewey used his phone to take notes on the items Mr. Nisano put into his cart.

  He shops. He eats.

  Dewey recorded it all but slowly felt more and more confident that this information was getting him nowhere. He waited, again, while Mr. Nisano paid. He returned to Clara, and they followed the subject to the next stop, which all leading indicators suggested was the teacher’s home.

  Mr. Nisano entered the house, leaving Dewey and Clara in their car contemplating what to do next. It felt risky to just go peek in his window. What if someone saw him? They decided to approach it more as a stakeout than a spy mission and hope for the best.

  Parking for another hour revealed a wife and kids—a whole world that Dewey never even thought about when it came to teachers. He had this vague notion that teachers. He had this vague notion that teachers stayed in the classrooms where you last left them until you got back.

  “Wow!” wondered Dewey. “Do you think he’s as boring with his kids? His wife? He can’t be . . . Why would anyone marry such a boring guy? She must see something in him.”

  They sat for a while more, and Dewey’s stomach started to talk to him about pizza being a lag-free topic. They ordered a medium pepperoni and had it delivered using a nearby home address and intercepting the delivery man. Clara pulled out some kibble for Wolfie, though he sniffed hopefully at the box of pizza.

  As they chomped and chewed away, Mr. Nisano eventually came out front with one of the kids they’d seen him with earlier. The little boy was surprisingly cute. He held two fistfuls of toy wooden trains pressed up against his small chest.

  “Hold Conductor Tom and make him say something!” implored Mr. Nisano’s son.

  “Okay,” replied Mr. Nisano.

  Their play went on for a bit this way, but Mr. Nisano had a newspaper in his hands, and, when he could, he snuck a peek at it to read. The young boy, who couldn’t have been much more than three or four years old spoke loudly and clearly.

  “Daddy! You’re the conductor. Okay? Okay, Daddy? Make him talk now!”

  “Oh, the train should not travel that way,” narrated Mr. Nisano in the deep make-believe voice of a conductor as he bounced the small wooden man up and down with each word. “There is going to be a storm, I hear.” Then, still holding the wooden conductor upright in one hand as if paying attention, he went back to his newspaper.

  The boy got distracted for a while in his own play and then looked up to again see his father’s eyes on the paper not on him. He tapped him on the shoulder and, when that failed, drove the train across his father’s balding head. Dewey and Clara both laughed, and Dewey notated all quickly into his phone.

  With the conductor having made his exit from atop his bare head, Mr. Nisano turned the pages of his paper back over themselves and settled nicely into a fresh page. This time, the kid stopped his train play to stand on the lawn. A small arc of water squirting from him like a little hose.

  Dewey and Clara burst out laughing. That kid was peeing on his front lawn.

  The boy’s mother came running out. “What’s going on out here?” she asked Mr. Nisano. “Alexander, Sweetie. That’s enough.”

  “Just playing some trains,” he muttered, still looking at the paper.

  Little Alexander shot a smile over his shoulder as he finished up his pee.

  “I can see that,” remarked Mrs. Nisano. “That’s enough trains, Alexander. We come inside when we have to make pee pee, okay?” she added as she rested a hand on the top of her son’s small head.

  Mr. Nisano looked up from his paper, dropping open his mouth but no words came out, and Mrs. Nisano shot her husband a disapproving look. He looked sheepish and flashed her a smile in return, and they all went in the house.

  The front door closed, and the stakeout came to an end.

  Grh uer fhan

  Dewey reviewed his notes in silence as Clara drove him home in time for dinner. She could see from the way his eyebrows worked together, making those three lines of skin between them that looked like a rooster’s footprint, that he was busy figuring it all out.

  Despite all the pizza, Dewey easily sat with his family for a second dinner and had two servings of grilled chicken, a plate full of broccoli, and a couple of roasted potatoes.

 
So. Mr. Nisano also has a family. Dewey sat looking at his notes upstairs after dinner. Mr. Nisano has a life, kids, and is sort of a regular guy.

  Dewey tossed and flipped his phone around in his hand. His dad hated when he did that. “Your phone is not a toy,” he’d say. “It’s a small computer.”

  Dewey sat there tossing it a few more times, chuckling as he thought about Mr. Nisano’s kid peeing on the front lawn. He tossed his phone and missed catching it, and it dropped to the ground. Carpet. No problem, but he instinctively looked over his shoulder for his dad anyway.

  He resumed his rhythmic tossing of his phone trying to sum up his observations. Mr. Nisano likes his kid. He likes the newspaper.

  “I gather he doesn’t like trains!” Dewey said aloud and laughed. “He doesn’t like trains,” he repeated slowly and suspended his phone’s acrobatics. “He doesn’t like trains! That’s it!”

  He texted William: Grh uer fhan.

  Huh? thought Dewey. That’s weird. He tried again. The letters still came out all jumbled. Something was wrong with his phone. He tried a hard restart but no good. The letters still came out all jumbled.

  He went to his computer and texted William from there instead.

  got our plan

  meet in the office tomorrow at noon

  Then he started a search on the computer to find out if it was possible that dropping his phone could have damaged it.

  The screen looked fine. No cracks. He dropped it on carpet. What he read did not encourage him though.

  His face started to feel hot as he read more about the delicate nature of smartphones. Words like “fragile components” began to stress him out completely. Dropping your smartphone, it seemed, had a handful of possible outcomes, but very few of those outcomes were ever good.

  “Oh, man! Oh, man, oh man, oh man!” Dewey couldn’t even imagine telling his dad that he had dropped his phone, let alone confessing that he had been flipping it around.

  He restarted it again and tried texting Colin to test it: Testing

  It had worked! His face grew hot again as relief replaced his sinking sense of queasy despair. His tummy settled when Colin’s text back was equally free of error.