The Very Principled Maggie Mayfield

by Kathy Cooperman

  “Kids with special needs?”

  Danny looked relieved not to spell it out. “Yes.”

  Maggie asked, “Since when am I supposed to make teaching decisions based on your precious investors?”

  Danny frowned. “You say ‘investor’ like it’s a dirty word. Let me guess. You’re one of those holier-than-thou academics who thinks raising money—for its own sake—is morally repulsive, aren’t you?”

  Maggie shot back, “Money ‘for its own sake’? Money doesn’t have a sake.”

  Danny inclined his head slightly, affecting an Irish accent, “Oh, Saint Margaret. I forgot what a noble lass you are. But let me remind you of a wee fact you seem to have forgotten.” He gave up the Irish brogue now. “On top of the cash grant my company gave you oh-so-generously, we also gave you guys stock. If the market likes the MathPal’s test results, the stock price will go through the roof, and that stock I gave you will be worth a lot. You’ll be able to buy all the gym teachers and crappy Halloween decorations you want. So maybe show my investors a little respect.”

  Maggie sidled up as menacingly as she could to Danny. “When I signed on to your little experiment, I was given the impression that the MathPal was going to be sold as a learning tool for all children, not just the problem-free ones.”

  Danny held up his hands defensively, like a tired shopper warding off a petitioner outside Whole Foods. “Look. I don’t know what Arlene told you about the MathPal. But we didn’t engineer it for atypical learners. Those kids have totally different needs. For Chrissake, that’s why we call them ‘special needs’ students—it’s right there in the name.”

  Maggie planted her hands on her hips and glared up at Danny. “Let me tell you something. Our school believes in a little something called ‘mainstreaming.’ Mainstreaming means including disabled kids in regular classroom activities whenever we can. We don’t give up on a kid just because she’s got dyslexia or high-functioning autism. We don’t make them spend all day off in some special ed classroom like . . . like Rudolph’s Island of Screwed-Up Toys.”

  Danny corrected her. “Misfit Toys.”

  “What?”

  “It was Rudolph’s Island of Misfit Toys. Now that was a great Christmas special. Jeez, can you believe that weird elf wanted to be a dentist? That was code for ‘gay,’ wasn’t it?”

  Maggie put her hand to her temple.

  Danny tried again. “Look, I feel for disabled kids. I really do.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Maggie’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  Danny said, “What if I were to tell you that I myself am dyslexic?”

  Maggie pulled back. “You’re dyslexic?”

  “No. But I could tell you I was.”

  “What the . . .”

  Danny grimaced. “Sorry, that’s ridiculous. I just don’t like being the bad guy in a conversation.”

  “Then don’t be a bad guy.”

  “I know this whole mainstreaming thing is fraught territory for you people.”

  “You people?” What a smug bastard. She would fire him from the cast of her more salacious fantasies right away.

  Danny smiled. “Yes, ‘you people’—principals dressed as Lolita.”

  Maggie put her hand to her cloak’s neckline. “I’m not Lolita. I’m Little Red Riding Hood.”

  “Whoa. I don’t remember Little Red Riding Hood looking like that.” He looked her up and down. “Maybe my storybook was drawn wrong.”

  Maggie said flatly, “That would explain a lot.” Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t recast her fantasies just yet. But Christ, it was sick to be turned on by a compliment like that, right?

  Danny studied her for a moment, tapping his fingers against his chin. “What if I had something to trade?”

  “Go on.”

  “What if I were to drop our daily testing time down to ten minutes?” asked Danny.

  “You’d do that?”

  “I might be able to swing it.”

  This sounded too good to be true. Maggie raised her eyebrow at him.

  Danny said, “Don’t look so surprised. This is what you asked for. So I’ve been quietly looking into whether we can whittle the time frame down, now that we already have so much data.”

  Maggie was stunned. “You mean you actually listened to me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. So, tell me, if I dropped it down to ten minutes a day, that would take some of the sting out of exclusion, right?”

  Maggie thought for a moment. If the testing dropped to ten minutes, that would be a godsend. Jeannie Pacer would get back her poetry slam. Mrs. Brandl could cover the spice trade again. All would be happy in the land. And Maggie could cover up the special ed pothole by having the younger special ed kids spend extra time in special ed with guru Mrs. Jensen. Maggie eyed Danny speculatively. “You would drop testing down to ten minutes—for the entire year?”

  Danny nodded. “Yep, so long as the testing excludes all kids with learning disabilities.” He extended his hand. “Do we have a deal?”

  For a millisecond, Maggie almost asked why Danny didn’t just toss out the disabled kids’ results himself. Then she knew—he couldn’t do that. It was better for him, cleaner, if she culled the outliers herself. She would be the one responsible for their exclusion. She would be on the hook. But still, she wanted that ten minutes back for her kids. She could taste it. Maggie took Danny’s hand. “Deal.”

  Later on, when Maggie replayed this scene for Diane, she berated herself for caving so quickly. Would the special needs kids be upset? Could she have gotten them a better deal?

  Diane responded, “Wait a sec. Don’t forget, the MathPal’s a dud. I don’t care how much Homeland brags about all its bells and whistles. A pebble doesn’t turn into a diamond just because you put it in a Tiffany box.”

  Maggie said, “True. But even if the MathPal doesn’t work, think of the stigma. I don’t want the special ed kids to feel like they’re different or . . .”

  “The horse has left the barn on that one. Those kids know they’re different. That’s why they go to Mrs. Jensen in the first place. And you’ve done great work training everybody—kids and all—to accept them. None of them’s been bullied. Hell, the rest of the kids go out of their way to look after them. Extra time with Mrs. Jensen isn’t going to change that.”

  Maggie nodded. And she managed to eat just five, okay six, chocolates that evening.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that she thought of the one kid she couldn’t discreetly off-load onto Mrs. Jensen: Rachel Klemper. Rachel was too advanced, too “typical,” for Mrs. Jensen’s class. But thanks to Rachel’s official dyslexia diagnosis, she was too “atypical” for the MathPal. Maggie needed to find this Goldilocks a spot that was just right.

  18

  THE ART TEACHER’S BLUE PERIOD

  Teaching was not a steady job, not for twenty-seven-year-old Sadie Pearl. As the ink was still drying on her teacher credential, states began gutting their education budgets. The profession became a terrifying game of musical chairs. There were only two ways to avoid having your chair yanked away: seniority credentials, and a role in one of the “essential” fields. As a newly minted art teacher, Sadie had neither. Professionally speaking, she was whipped cream.

  So she roamed from one school to the next—fired every spring when the budgets came out, and hired again in late August, whenever some school suddenly found itself with a few extra bucks. Everywhere Sadie went, students and parents gushed about her. But it never mattered.

  For sustenance, Sadie turned to the thin gruel of self-help books. She was desperate for someone—anyone!—to point the way. But only one book resonated for her, a book called Flow. It was written by some eastern European guy with one of those consonant-heavy names that looked like a bad hand at Scrabble. The book argued that the key to happiness, to a meaningful life, was to spend big chunks of time doing something that completely absorbs you, something that makes you lose all sense of space and time. You’d become one with the univ
erse or whatever. Sadie had experienced snatches of “flow” at her easel, riding horses, even doing yoga—but those moments had been as effervescent as soap bubbles.

  Her only reliable, lasting experiences of “flow” came when she was teaching. She never grew bored, because each student was a new puzzle, a new collection of talents and stories for her to tease out. It was like finding buried treasure, but a treasure that she herself helped to create.

  Teaching was her vocation, but she was tired of being a refugee, tired of moving every year to whichever town hired her, tired of her endlessly changing gaggle of unsuitable roommates, and, most of all, tired of the constant hum of anxiety and its growing list of symptoms (stomachaches, nail biting, picking bits of imaginary lint off her clothes).

  She wanted Carmel Knolls Elementary to become her home. So when Principal Mayfield asked—pretty please—if Sadie could give up fifteen minutes of her free period each day to “work with” Rachel Klemper while Rachel’s class fiddled with the MathPal, Sadie tripped over herself to oblige. Fifteen minutes was an awkwardly short time slot, but Sadie was determined to do something meaningful with it.

  When Rachel arrived for her first “independent learning” session, Sadie would pull out all the stops. She would unlock Rachel’s artistic potential, however meager that might be. As big, ungainly Rachel settled at a desk, Sadie told her how “over-the-moon happy” she was to have some “one-on-one time with a student,” to “really delve” into the arts.

  Rachel sat impassively—a great Easter Island statue of a girl—and said nothing. She did not seem excited to delve.

  But Sadie wasn’t worried. She would put on a show no nine-year-old could resist. The first day, a Tuesday, they tried clay. What kid doesn’t love clay? Survey says: this kid. On Wednesday, it was painting, another flop. Sadie figured maybe Rachel was lousy at art; maybe she was self-conscious. So, on Thursday, Sadie tried something idiot-proof—collages. No drawing, no skill—just cutting and pasting stuff that interests you. That was strike three. Rachel wasn’t rude. She did as she was instructed. But she did it in a joyless, workmanlike fashion. Sadie was tempted to ask Rachel if her dog had died, but she was afraid of the answer.

  On Friday, Sadie tried papier-mâché—a giant gluey mess that no kid could resist. As Sadie bustled about quickly gathering her materials, Rachel sat doodling on the newspaper that Sadie’d put out as a tarp to catch the mess. Sadie said over her shoulder, “So, any big plans for your weekend?”

  “No.”

  Sadie tried again. “Not SeaWorld or the zoo?”

  “No.”

  Working hard to sound perky, Sadie said, “Well, you gotta be doing something. You’re not going to sit perfectly still in your room, are you?”

  “No.”

  “How about TV? Do you like TV?” Sadie was annoyed now. Talking to this kid was like trying to take the pulse of a rock.

  “Yes.”

  Sadie brightened. “What shows do you like?”

  Rachel shrugged. “I dunno.”

  Sadie smiled as she put the glue pan down on the table and came alongside Rachel, saying, “So, I’ve already cut the paper into strips. Now, we’ll just have to . . .”

  Sadie trailed off. She stared in shock at what Rachel had doodled on the newspaper covering the table. As Sadie studied the drawing, she felt Rachel’s eyes on her. It was like turning to find some long-sought-after woodland creature staring right at you. Sadie somehow sensed that Rachel would be able to talk more freely if she didn’t have to bear the weight of Sadie’s gaze. So, still looking at the drawing, Sadie asked, “Who taught you to draw this?”

  “Uh, nobody,” said Rachel.

  “Is it from TV or the movies?”

  Rachel said nervously, “No, nothing like that.”

  “You didn’t see it in a comic, did you?”

  “No, I made it up myself,” said Rachel.

  Sadie tilted her head as she studied the drawing. “How long have you been drawing this character?”

  “A few months. I started drawing her over the summer. What do you think of her, Miss Pearl?”

  “Do you want my real opinion?” asked Sadie.

  Rachel nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  Sadie looked Rachel straight in the eye. “It’s brilliant.” She was careful not to smile, not to do anything that might come across as treacly. Rachel’s eyes widened, and she broke into a big, toothy grin. Pointing to the drawing, Sadie asked, “What’s her name?”

  “Cora Breaker. She’s a superspy. That book she’s carrying has keys to all the codes in the universe, but only she can understand it. It looks like gibberish to everyone else.”

  Sadie nodded. She knew Rachel was dyslexic—so it made sense she’d dream up a hero who could decipher things no one else could. But Sadie knew enough to leave that little insight on the cutting room floor. Instead, she asked, “Can I teach you a few tricks—you know, to make her even better?”

  Rachel nodded eagerly.

  The next fifteen minutes did not just fly by—they flowed.

  19

  CUPID’S PENNIES

  Maggie heard Danny before she saw him. As she walked past the door to the stairwell, an adult male voice cried out, “Ow, dammit.”

  Maggie swung the door open to find Danny standing there, clutching the right side of his scalp. Maggie asked, “What happened?”

  Through clenched teeth, he said, “I dunno. Something fell on me.” Then he took his palm off his scalp, looked at it for a moment, and turned it so Maggie could see. His palm had blood on it, not much, but still . . . blood.

  Maggie walked over and peered up the stairwell, but saw no one. Then she looked down and spotted what had bonked Danny on the head: a roll of pennies. Maggie picked the roll off the floor and showed it to him. Wincing, he said, “Someone dropped pennies on me? What the hell, Maggie? This school can afford drone strikes? I thought you people were broke.”

  “We are broke,” said Maggie. Looking up the stairwell again, she called out, “Is anybody there?” She heard a faint whimper. In her best “come-out-with-your-hands-up” voice, she said, “This is Principal Mayfield. I know you’re up there. So come out now and explain yourself.” No answer. Maggie added, “If you do, I’ll go easier on you.”

  Suddenly, Lucy Wong’s little pigtailed face peered over the railing. “It was an accident, Mrs. Mayfield. He wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  Danny grumbled, “I’ll be more careful next time.”

  “Lucy Wong, come down here this instant,” commanded Maggie.

  Her face full of worry, Lucy asked, “What are you going to do with me?”

  Maggie pointed at the ground beside her. “Now!” Lucy ran quickly down to them, the squeaks of her sneakers telegraphing her imminent arrival. When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she stopped dead. She stood at rigid attention, eyes fixed on Maggie and hands behind her back. Maggie demanded, “Do you realize that you hurt Mr. Zelinsky when you threw those pennies?”

  Lucy’s eyes flickered to Danny, then back to Maggie. She repeated, more meekly this time, “He wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure Lucy understood the magnitude of what she’d done. She said, more sternly, “He’s bleeding, Lucy.”

  Lucy’s mouth began to tremble with the threat of tears. “Please don’t dispel me, Mrs. Mayfield. My mom will kill me.”

  “It’s expel, Lucy—not dispel. And your mom won’t kill you.”

  Lucy answered, “No, she will! She says it all the time. When they show stories about criminals on the news, she says if I make a crime, she’ll kill me . . . then she’ll. Kill. Herself.”

  Maggie repressed a smile. She had no trouble imagining Mrs. Wong saying this. She’d witnessed Mrs. Wong’s formidable temper.

  Danny said gallantly, “Oh, I’m all right.” Then, with the self-gratified look of a tourist to Kidworld suddenly recalling a tidbit from his phrase book, he added, “It’s just a ‘boo-boo.’ Nothing serious.” Maggie purse
d her lips in disgust. She didn’t plan to crucify Lucy, but let the kid squirm for a millisecond.

  Lucy’s eyes filled with tears, and she furiously blinked them back as remorse and fear square-danced across her face. Having seen countless children sob or holler in unrighteous indignation at moments like these, Maggie recognized that—for a third grader—Lucy was carrying herself with stoic dignity. Softening, Maggie kneeled down before Lucy so they were at eye level. “Why’d you throw the pennies, Lucy?”

  Sniffling, Lucy said, “I didn’t throw them. I dropped them. It was an experiment.”

  “An experiment?” Maggie had never heard that one before.

  Lucy nodded. “I dropped the pennies and a feather to see which would hit the floor first.”

  Maggie scanned the floor of the stairwell and saw a long gray feather in the corner. “What were you—”

  Lucy said eagerly, “I wanted to see if Mr. Carlsen was right, if a light thing would fall as fast as a heavy thing. I thought the pennies would hit the floor first, ’cause they’re so heavy. Only Mr. Carlsen says some old Fig Newton guy says no. Fig Newton thinks heavy and light things fall the same in a vacuum.”

  Maggie nodded dully. “A vacuum?” She needed a chocolate for this one.

  Danny said, a bit too cheerfully for Maggie’s taste, “Isaac Newton’s first law of motion. Objects of different masses will fall at the same rate. But it only works in a vacuum, thanks to friction.” Maggie raised an eyebrow at Danny, and he straightened his collar, smirking, “I’m not just a pretty face.”

  Maggie turned back to Lucy. Gesturing at the stairwell, Maggie said, “This isn’t a vacuum. It’s . . .”

  Emboldened by Danny’s approving gaze, Lucy countered, “Yeah. I know. It’s not like a real sciency vacuum, like in a lab. But it’s close. It’s a long skinny place without air blowing. I mean, there’s air, but none of those indoor, um, drafts.”