Language Arts

by Stephanie Kallos

  Another lunchroom entertainment was the result of a deal that had likely been brokered in the halls of state government: every public-elementary-school student, whether the child brought his or her own lunch or went through the lunch line, was entitled to a free half-pint carton of milk. This is how the Washington State Dairy Association ended up aiding and abetting the universally beloved lunchtime activity/science experiment Adventures in Milk Aeration.

  For this activity, the boys weren’t really interested in measurable results, just in the sheer joy of creating a lava flow of translucent bubbles and seeing how far they could make the devastation extend on a single, controlled out-breath.

  These lunchroom experiments could be conducted only in the absence of the single other adult whose reputation matched that of Mrs. Braxton’s: Nellie Goodhue’s principal, Miss Vanderkolk.

  Miss V. was probably much younger than she looked, but the severity of her disposition and her anachronistic appearance made her seem ancient—indeed, the oldest adult at the school.

  She wore her dun-colored hair chin-length, parted with precision, its brittle waves smashed against her head and immobilized by a transparent net. A bulky, flesh-colored hearing aid was lodged behind one of her ears. Her eyeglasses were wire-rimmed ovals that magnified her blue, marble-like eyes to a disturbing degree. She dressed in short-sleeved belted shirtwaists that were so bland as to be indistinguishable from one another. Her footwear was practical, geriatric, and ugly—beige, rubber-soled, lace-up flats with bulldog toe boxes—and her opaque support hose gave her legs the artificial look of a storefront mannequin’s.

  These features made Miss Vanderkolk unappealing, but what qualified her as truly terrifying—even more terrifying than Mrs. Braxton—was the fact that she was missing parts of two fingers on her right hand; what remained were two truncated, blunt-ended structures that moved slightly whenever she gestured.

  Charles and Donnie had debated the possible causes of this disfigurement endlessly. One slew of scenarios placed Miss Vanderkolk in wilderness settings:

  She’d lost her fingers in a logging accident—a misaimed ax, a falling Douglas fir. (Miss Vanderkolk bore herself in an unfeminine manner that made her seem well suited to the life of a lumberjack.)

  Her fingers had been crushed by a falling boulder as she scaled Mount Rainier. Undeterred from her goal of being the first solo woman to accomplish this feat, she amputated the fingers herself with a bowie knife and continued on her way after burying them in a secret location. They were still up there, somewhere.

  She’d tussled with a cougar—no, a grizzly—vanquishing the unfortunate animal by breaking its neck with her bare hands, but in its death throes, the poor beast exacted its final revenge.

  The boys went so far as to tape down their middle and ring fingers in order to get a better sense of Miss Vanderkolk’s capabilities. Writing was difficult, but they imagined that she could hold her own in a fistfight; she could definitely operate a small firearm.

  This gave rise to another set of stories that revolved around Miss Vanderkolk’s secret life as a Russian spy, a devious KGB operative—decommissioned after getting her fingers shot off in a gun battle, she was now undercover, an ever-loyal Communist, a double agent infiltrating America via the Seattle school system.

  Ingenious!

  Charles imagined her going home at the end of the day and communicating her latest discoveries via ham radio to her comrades behind the Iron Curtain sounding exactly like Natasha in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.

  Were both of Miss Vanderkolk’s mannequin-looking legs real? Or was one of them hollow, a receptacle for smuggling secret documents?

  Was that thing behind her ear really a hearing aid? Or was it a recording device, a hidden camera, a canister of tear gas—or a vial containing a single cyanide pill? A Russian spy would never let herself get taken alive.

  School lunches post-Donnie were a dreary affair.

  Charles’s police-detective notebook remained at home, gathering dust, its final entry made on one of the last days of third grade, when he and Donnie expanded its use to list all the fun things they planned to do over summer vacation, unaware that Donnie would be moving to the Land of Sky-Blue Waters in a matter of weeks.

  Charles no longer kept his eyes glued to the minute hand of the cafeteria clock while eating lunch; why bother? There was no one to bedazzle with his two-minute-fifty-seven- second record.

  And although it remained a popular illicit activity for everyone else, milk aeration had lost its appeal.

  Lacking a partner in anarchy, Charles completely lost his antic nature.

  One day—lingering so long over lunch that even the Lonelies and the Fatties had left for midday recess and the cafeteria ladies had started to close up the kitchen—Charles found himself alone with Dana McGucken.

  Dana was in his regular place, in the corner nearest the boys’ bathroom. From a distance—and because Dana wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary at that particular moment, just sitting quietly before his lunch tray—Charles received a quite new and different impression of him.

  Dana’s white suit gave him a posh, dignified appearance. He might have been a solo diner at an upscale establishment, a gentleman who, having just finished a fine meal, was patiently waiting for the check. Remembering a place where he’d once dined with his parents, Charles conjured a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth, a red rose in a vase, a lit candle stuck into a wine bottle.

  Everybody knew what Dana was—a ree-tard.

  And yet, Charles wondered, what if they hadn’t known that?

  What if this instant, right now, was the first time Charles saw him?

  What if, instead of meeting Dana as everyone had on that first day of school—a kid marked as bad by his front-row placement (no wonder Mitchell and Bradley hated him so much; in Mrs. Braxton’s seating chart, Bullies and Ree-Tards sat together)—Charles had met him differently?

  What if there had been no adult present through whom to interpret Dana’s identity, no Mrs. Braxton (a biased judge who should have recused herself from the proceedings)?

  Dana looked up and locked eyes with Charles. Instantly, his face turned impish; he hunched down theatrically in his turtlelike way and started blowing bubbles into his carton of milk.

  Feeling a twinge of fear, knowing that Comrade Vanderkolk might be lurking in the janitor’s closet, Charles shook his head violently and mouthed No!

  Dana laughed. “Hi, Char-Lee!” he called across the lunchroom. “Look! Look at this!” He went back to blowing bubbles; soon, the lava flow of his lactating volcano filled his entire tray.

  Realizing that Dana wouldn’t stop as long as he had an audience, Charles looked down and started to finish off his lunch quickly, as in the old days.

  Dana called again, “Char-Lee! Char-Lee Mar-Low! Look!”

  When Charles didn’t respond, Dana left his table and crossed the room.

  “Loo!” he announced, arriving at Charles’s table. He held out a package of Hostess Cupcakes. “Loo.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll open it for you.” Charles fumbled with the wrapping and then handed the cupcakes back.

  “No, Char-Lee,” Dana said, shaking his head. “See? It’s loo!” He pointed.

  “Yeah, I know. Hostess Cupcakes. They’re good. I had one today too.”

  “No! Loo!” Dana repeated. Slowly, delicately, he extended his index finger (Charles noticed with relief that his nails were clean) and started tracing the row of white icing.

  Charles finally understood what Dana was trying to say. It was so obvious, he felt like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner.

  “See?” Dana asked. “Loo!”

  “Yeah, I see. Loops.”

  “Here, Char-Lee.” Dana forced one of the cupcakes into Charles’s hand. “You have this one. You like loo.”

  “Loops,” Charles repeated, giving a special emphasis to the p and the s. “You say it.”

  “Looooooooo-puh-zzzzz!”

&
nbsp; “Yeah, loops. I like peeling them off sometimes. You ever do that?”

  “No.” Dana sat down. “Show.”

  “You have to go real slow or they break. See?”

  Dana gave it a try; it was the most concentrated, dexterous, purposeful movement Charles had ever seen him execute. He removed his loops in one piece and then carefully set them on the table.

  “Hey, you did it!” Charles said. “Attaboy!”

  “Yeah! Attaboy! I did!”

  They spent the last few minutes of midday recess eating their loops, then the chocolate icing. When Charles got down to the cake—his least favorite part—he offered it to Dana.

  “No, thank you, Char-Lee,” he said. “Show me those other loops. Pah-mer loops.”

  “Oh, okay, sure.” Charles didn’t have any paper, so he mimed the action along the length of the table’s edge. Dana watched and then mimicked the movements perfectly.

  From then on, they sat together every day and began having informal Palmer penmanship tutoring sessions. At home, Charles requested Hostess Cupcakes as a lunchtime staple. He and Dana competed to see who could successfully peel off his loops in one piece; the winner got to eat both sets.

  Charles retrieved his flip-top detective’s notebook from home and used it to demonstrate. He brought in a drawing pad for Dana, thinking he might have an easier time working on unlined paper; Dana gleefully filled page after page in a way that would not have earned a Brax the Ax seal of approval.

  Charles came to love Dana’s joyfully chaotic loops, tumbling and stumbling in all directions, intersecting and overlapping randomly so many times that they were impossible to separate. In places, dense confluences of lines created the feeling of shadows and depth. Sometimes, if he stared long and hard enough, squinted a little and tilted his head this way and that, he saw images within this seeming randomness: fat ladies wheeling madly past on roller skates; battalions of soldiers in profile; balding superheroes wearing boxing gloves.

  In class, Charles continued to endure the undisguised hatred of Astrida Pukis and the sotto voce taunts of Bradley and Mitchell, but he found himself caring less and less about what anyone thought; at last, he had a friend.

  And that was how he became a member of another two-boy club at the Nellie Goodhue School.

  The Ree-Tards.

  First, Middle, Last

  Saturday. Cold and rainy.

  Charles was home, grading one of the last batches of student work before winter break. It was already three o’clock, late enough so that it seemed permissible to uncork another highbrow selection from the wine rack—something German and white this time.

  After rinsing and refilling his coffee mug, he took a sip; high minerality, fine notes of apricot, surprisingly dry. He’d recently tucked a delightful new word into his vocabulary: oenology; its variations and argot would come in handy whenever he and Emmy felt bold enough to tackle the Sunday New York Times crossword.

  Alison would be coming by soon to pick him up; they were going to the group home to have a transition-planning session with Cody’s caregivers, caseworkers, et al.—and to visit Cody, of course.

  Following that, they’d be looking at a classic midcentury brick rambler (Perfect Pinehurst!) that was up for short sale: four bedrooms; two baths; lower-level mother-in-law apartment; 3,220 square feet; fireplace, yes; forced air; built in 1962.

  Gil Bjornson and his son had, as usual, been hard at work all day on their restoration project, hunkered down in the shelter of the garage, welding sparks flying, radio blaring. The Best Hits of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s were muted today, overlaid with the scratch and warp of a steady downpour.

  When Charles was growing up, Seattle residents could accurately refer to most precipitation events as mist. Now, Charles mused, we get rain like everybody else.

  He’d just encountered the word flense for the third time that day. If he hadn’t known otherwise, he would have assumed that flense was a recent arrival on the shores of the English language and was getting a good workout, as new words do.

  He set the student papers aside and took up a sheet of stationery.

  Dear Emmy,

  Listen, honey, I just wanted to follow up. If I sounded disappointed, I apologize. I’m happy you’ve met a boy you like, really I am, and I think it’s terrific he’s invited you home to meet his family over Christmas break.

  I know you’re holding off on accepting the invitation because you’re worried about me, but please, sweetheart, don’t be. You’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing: growing away from me, establishing a new circle of friends and your own holiday rituals. I promise: I’ll be just fine.

  How could you possibly turn down an invitation to go skiing in Vermont? The setting for one of our favorite holiday movies! “The Christianas and the stemming and the plotzing and the shushing,” as Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby say right before breaking into time steps and joyous yodels. “Hot buttered rum, light on the butter …”

  I mean, really, sweetheart: Why shouldn’t you absent yourself from your family’s odd holiday gatherings, which are dominated by your mother’s need to include Cody in everything even though he hasn’t the slightest idea why one day is different from any other, and all the seasonal hoopla can be downright upsetting. And as far as that goes, Hanukkah will be even worse—instead of one out-of-the-ordinary day, there will be eight! Has your mother even considered this? Dreidel spinning, hora dancing … It will be a disaster.

  I hardly need remind you that your brother values routine above all, and any variation from the external norms—visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, whatever—can send him wildly out of orbit, and we all know I’m not speaking metaphorically.

  At best, holidays chez Marlow are characterized by an overarching trepidation.

  There certainly isn’t any yodeling.

  Charles took another swig of wine, swiveled around in his desk chair, and surveyed the rampart of low-stacked cardboard boxes that were arrayed around him in a semicircle; it struck him that he’d essentially marooned himself in his office.

  When Alison had asked about the boxes a while back and he’d improvised about having a yard sale, there were only four or five of them up here; now there were probably … what? Twenty? Thirty?

  He had yet to locate Emmy’s artifacts.

  But there was still a lot more down there to bring up and examine.

  So here he was, stranded on the desert isle of his office. There were worse places to be shipwrecked, he supposed.

  Flense was an old word, ancient. The notes on its origin were lengthier than the definition itself, which was “to strip an animal of blubber or skin.”

  Charles was always loath to suspect his students of wrongdoing; however, this in-triplicate appearance of flense was not, he believed, the kind of coincidence that arose when nimble, receptive minds dove into the vast pool of human subconsciousness and emerged waving a common banner emblazoned with the expression of a potent, shared eureka.

  Charles’s guess was that the authors involved met over Red Bulls and breakfast burritos at the 7-Eleven, realized they hadn’t done their homework, and convened in the library for a last-minute collaboration. These weren’t stupid boys, just lazy, although Charles had to wonder: Did they think he wouldn’t notice? Or that he wouldn’t care? Either assumption saddened him.

  “Eek!” screamed the girl when she saw the cat flensing the mouse.

  There is debate about whether Native American tribes have the right to flense whales.

  Downtown at the Lusty Lady, the low-lifes applauded as the strippers flensed.

  The assignment was part of a unit called First, Middle, Last. Students were asked to scour the dictionary for three juicy, unfamiliar words, one for each of their initials, and write them into sentences.

  It was essentially a vocabulary assignment, but Charles always hoped that the kids would take it seriously, make the effort to find words they were genuinely drawn to, whether because of their look or
sound or definition, he really didn’t care; he just wanted the students to find words they were head over heels crazy about and eager to put to use, the way kids did when they were little and graduated from the small box of primary-color Crayolas to the big one containing crayons with names like Cerulean Blue.

  Charles wondered if there were people whose job it was to seek out and follow the progress of emerging words, to study aspects of usage, monitor frequency, track movements, chart evolution—above all, recognize when a word had reached its linguistic tipping point, completed its mission, and infiltrated the general population to become one of them. It was sad in a way, when you thought about it, this acceptance, this legitimacy, because at that moment, a word’s life as a covert, rogue element in the language came to an end.

  There was a kind of death—at least that’s how Charles saw it—when a word permeated the lexicon to a degree that warranted its inclusion in the dictionary; instead of this renegade entity darting around, furtive but unbound, it became just another gray-flannel suit trudging through the book of common usage.

  Charles’s habit was to read student assignments in ascending-grade order. The fact that it was nearly happy hour and he hadn’t yet started on the sophomores said something about the quality of his attention.

  A Norwegian variation on flense, flans, meant “horse’s pizzle,” and the Icelandic riff, flanni, meant “penis”—leading Charles to wonder if these boys had more of a sense of humor than he’d thought.

  He was tempted to let it go this time.

  He loved the way each of the authors—Finn Gregory Evans, Thanh Fenton Kerrigan, and Alexander Terrell Epstein (who’d apparently been so carried away that he’d forgotten his own monogram was F-less)—revealed an authentic voice, a stylistic confidence.

  And flense was a remarkable word, one whose sound belied its meaning: the soft sustaining consonants—f, l, n, and s—standing in sharp contrast to the savagery of the definition.