"Not yet," said Step. "Though I may be, after today."
"Because you left at five?" asked DeAnne.
"The lawn is really overgrown," said Step. "I never noticed that before."
"Well, that's because it wasn't as overgrown yesterday as it is today. Why might they fire you after today?"
"Because I finally worked up the guts to go in and make Cowboy Bob give me a copy of that agreement I signed with him."
"You mean you only just got it today? I assumed you had that weeks ago."
"I asked for it right after San Francisco. Well, not right after, or somebody would think that I was doing exactly what I'm doing. But the Friday after."
"And they didn't send it to you till today?"
"They didn't even send it to me today. I had to go get it. And not from Cowboy Bob, in fact, because he wasn't in and his secretary was on lunch and so it was somebody else's secretary who got it for me out of my personnel file and made a copy for me."
"So you only have a copy?"
"They weren't going to give me the original!" said Step. "Anyway, I have it, and it's possible that Cowboy Bob doesn't know that I have it even now."
"Well, then you won't get fired."
"Except what if he finds out that I came and got it behind his back? Then he'll be really suspicious."
"Well, I've got to admit, it wouldn't break my heart to have you home every day," said DeAnne. "This is such a treat, Step."
"Treat!" scoffed Step. "Hardly. It's where I ought to be, and it makes me sick that you actually had to call me and practically make an appointment to get me home to talk to my own son. I'm living like one of those high-powered stockbroker types, like a Madison-Avenue live-for-the-job hyper-ambitious robot, except that I'm not getting the money they make. Where is Stevie, anyway?"
"He's either outside in back, playing with-Jack and Scotty-or he's in his room."
Step nodded grimly at her mention of Stevie's imaginary friends. And now lying to her ... I've just been too cut off from the family. I'm practically a stranger here.
Stevie was in his room, lying on the top bunk, reading a book.
The conversation did not go well at all. Step leaned on the safety bar and said, "Your Mom tells me that your undersea project did really well."
"No it didn't," said Stevie.
"She said it got the blue ribbon."
"J.J. got the blue ribbon," said Stevie.
"Well, the first-place ribbon, anyway, she didn't actually say what color it was."
"First place was blue," said Stevie.
"Stevedore, I've got to tell you-your mom went to the school and checked. Dr. Mariner gave your underwater garden the firstplace ribbon."
"My project go t mooshed," said Stevie. "So it couldn't get first place."
"Son, Dr. Mariner judged the projects over that first weekend, before your project got ruined by the other kids. And she gave first place to you."
"No she didn't!" said Stevie, and now his voice was full of emo tion. "She said that my project was nothing but a lump of clay and it didn't deserve to be shown to anybody at all! And I got a C on it."
"Dr. Mariner actually said that?" Step could not, did not believe it.
"Yes," said Stevie.
"She actually stood there and told you that to your face?"
"No," said Stevie. "She told Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Jones told us."
"Us? What do you mean us?"
"Us," said Stevie. "Me and the other kids."
"The whole class?"
"Yeah."
Step tried to imagine it-a teacher repeating such a remark in front of all the other students. It would be too cruel to say it even in private, but in front of everybody-unthinkable.
"Stevie, are you sure that you aren't just-pretending this story?"
Stevie looked up into his fathe r's eyes. "No, Daddy" he said. "I don't tell lies."
"I know that you never have before we moved to Steuben, Stevie. But you've got to realize that this story is a little hard to believe. I mean, isn't it possible you exaggerated it a little? Or maybe pretended?"
"I'm not pretending."
"I mean, you pretend to have two friends, Jack and Scotty."
Stevie looked at him silently. "I never said that," he said.
"Not to me," he said. "But you told your mom about things that you and Jack and Scotty did."
Stevie said nothing.
"I don't mind you pretending. Maybe that's what you need to do in order to get through a hard time at school. But you can't tell Mom and me pretend things as if they were true."
"I don't," said Stevie.
"You mean you won't from now on," said Step.
"I mean I never do!" shouted Stevie.
His vehemence made Step pause. Was it possible that Stevie wasn't lying about this? That in fact it happened the way he said? Then how to account for what the librarian told DeAnne? Impossible, it couldn't have happened the way Stevie described. And yet he insisted on being believed, and it made Step remember the times when he was a kid and adults didn't believe him because they were so sure they knew how things were.
He remembered very clearly saying to his mother, "Well you weren't there so how do you know?" And now here he was, contradicting Stevie's account when in fact Step wasn't there, so how did he know?
"Stevedore," said Step, "have I been making a mistake here?"
"Yes," said Stevie.
"I've got to tell you that if Mrs. Jones stood up in front of class and said such a terrible thing, even if it was true, then she should be fired from her job as a teacher."
"Yes," said Stevie. "I wish she was dead."
Step was horrified. "Do you really mean that?"
"Yes," said Stevie. "I think about it all the time. I look at her talking and I think of blood coming out of her forehead from a bullet. I think of her falling over dead in class and then I'd laugh and I'd sing a song. I'd sing `In the Leafy Treetops' because it's the happiest song I know."
This was worse than Step could have imagined. No matter what was true about the project, it was certainly true that Stevie hated Mrs. Jones beyond all reason. It was awful to think of his sweet little boy-a child who had always been forgiving and generous-having such hatred in his heart for anyone. And these feelings must have been smoldering for some time now, yet he had said nothing.
"Stevie, why do you hate her so much? Is it because of the blue ribbon?"
"She never calls on me," said Stevie.
"Sometimes it feels like that," said Step. "It's because you're so smart, and she has to give other kids a chance to answer sometimes."
"She always calls on the other kids."
"Yes, that's how it feels."
Stevie looked at him with hot anger burning in his eyes. "I said she always calls on the other kids! That's not how it feels, that's how it is!"
Step again realized that he had just spoken like a typical adult, taking a child's clear, plain language and twisting it to fit the adult's preconceived notion of reality. But what if Stevie meant it? What if it was literally true?
"You mean she really never calls on you? Ever?"
"Never once," said Stevie.
"Are you sure she sees you raising her hand?"
"Yes," said Stevie. "She always sees me."
"How do you know?"
"Because she says so."
"She says that she sees you raising your hand, and yet she doesn't call on you?"
"Yes," said Stevie. And the tears in his eyes forced Step to believe that this must be true, or at least seem true to Stevie, because it was certain that Stevie believed it himself.
"Son, you have to understand, I'm not there so I can't see it for myself. You have to help me. What does she say when she sees that you've raised your hand, but she doesn't call on you?"
Stevie took a deep breath, and then, with his voice trembling, he said, "She says, `Of course Stephen Ball-lover Fletcher knows the answer. He knows everything."'
Step heard the
words with a sickness in the pit of his stomach. It couldn't be true. No one could ever talk to his son in a tone like that. But if they did ... if they did, he'd ... he'd do something. Something. "Son, does she really say your name that way? Ball-lover?"
"Yes."
"Haven't you told her it's Boh-lee-var? That you're named for one of the greatest liberators in history?"
"How can I, Dad, when she never calls on me?"
"No, I guess you couldn't," said Step. "And she really does make fun of you like that when you raise your hand?"
"I don't raise my hand anymore," said Stevie.
"No, I imagine not." Step tried to think, tried to make sense of it all. "When did she start doing this?"
"The first day."
"Your very first day in school?"
Stevie thought for a minute. "The first day she said I was really stupid because she kept saying things and I didn't understand her and so I raised my hand and I asked her what she said, and then she said it again and I still didn't understand her."
Step thought back to what the problem had been that first day. "Because of her accent?"
Stevie nodded. "I got most of what she said, but it was like the first couple of words or a couple of words right in the middle, I wouldn't understand them. And she said I was really stupid. And all the kids made fun of me."
"Gee, why doesn't that surprise me, if the teacher called you stupid," said Step. "But then the next day you stayed in Dr. Mariner's office and took those tests, and then you came back to class the next day. What happened then?"
Stevie started to cry. "She made me stand up and she said, she said ... " He could n't go on. He just lay there on his bed, sobbing.
Step reached over and gathered Stevie up in his arms and slid him off the top bunk, and then sat on the edge of Robbie's bed and held Stevie on his lap, held his son tight against his chest while he cried. "There, there," he said. "I know this is so hard for you. It must be so hard. Why didn't you tell us any of this before?"
"I'm supposed to do my part," said Stevie.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm supposed to do my job at school like you do your job at work," said Stevie.
"Yes, Door Man, that's true," said Step. "But when things go bad at work, I don't keep it a secret, I tell your mom about it. And when she has a hard day, she tells me."
Stevie's crying grew quieter, stopped. "I didn't know that," he said.
"Of course, how could you know?" said Step. "We talk that way to each other late at night, after you kids are asleep."
"I didn't know," said Stevie.
"Can you tell me now what happened the day after you took those tests? You said that she made you stand up in front of the class, and then she did what? She said something?"
"She said that she was wrong to say what she said about me that time before. She said that I wasn't stupid at all, I was very very very smart, I was the smartest boy in the whole world, and when I didn't understand what people said it was because I was too smart to understand them because they were all really stupid compared to me, and so there was no point in anyone talking to me, ever, because I was way too smart to ever understand or care about a word they said."
Unbelievable, and yet now Step believed it. There was too much detail in it-Stevie could not possibly have made it up. And it rang true. Maybe when Dr. Mariner called Mrs. Jones to talk to her about Stevie's first day, Mrs. Jones assumed that Stevie had repeated to his parents what she said in class-though he hadn't, not till now.
And so she assumed that Dr. Mariner knew and was simply too nice to mention it openly. And so she assumed that Stevie had told on her, had gotten her in trouble with her boss, and so she decided to get even with him.
"Son, I think I believe you. I'm sorry I didn't believe you before, but you have to understand, this is such a terrible thing for a teacher to do that it's hard to believe that any teacher would ever do it. I mean, I had some strict teachers in my life, but never one who was downright mean like this. You should have told us this before.
We thought everything was going along all right."
"It is," said Stevie. "Except for that."
"So you have friends at school?"
"No," said Stevie.
"Then it's not all right, is it?"
"How can I have friends when Mrs. Jones said for nobody to talk to me?"
How far did this go? "You mean that she actually told the other kids never to speak to you?"
"A couple of them tried to at recess but she yelled at them and said, `Let's not bother Mr. Fletcher, please.
He's thinking higher thoughts and we wouldn't want to disturb him."'
Step held him closer. "Oh, Stevie, I didn't know, I didn't guess. How could I know this?"
"Jaleena talks to me sometimes," said Stevie.
"Is she one of the girls?"
"She's the black girl so Mrs. Jones doesn't really care what she does. But she doesn't talk to me much because it really is hard to understand her. She has to talk slow. And so she doesn't talk to me much."
So that was what Stevie's two months in second grade in Steuben had been like. Isolation. Ridicule. Utter loneliness. And he hadn't breathed a word of it at home. No sign of it except his reluctance to go to school.
"But you're still doing your schoolwork," said Step. "You are learning things."
"We did most of it in my old school," said Stevie.
"At least you had fun doing your project, didn't you?"
Stevie nodded.
"Son, I'm going to have a talk with Mrs. Jones."
He leapt from Step's lap and stood on the floor in the middle of the room, his eyes wide with fear. "No!" he said. "Don't talk to her! Please, Dad! You can't! You can't talk to her! Please!"
"Son, parents talk to teachers. That's how the system is sup posed to work."
"You can't, you just can't do it. It'll get worse if you do, she'll be worse!"
"Stevie," said Step. "I promise you this. I absolutely promise you. Things will get better after I talk to her.
And if they don't, I will keep you home from school."
"Yes!" he cried. "Keep me home!"
"Only if things get worse after I talk to her," said Step.
"No, keep me home now!"
"Stevie, I can't just keep you home now. There's a law that says that you have to go to school, and in North Carolina they're very strict about it. If I keep you out of school, it could mean going to court. Or moving again."
"Let's move back to Indiana!"
"Son, I can't afford to. If we moved, we'd have to move to Utah, to live in Grandma and Grandpa Brown's house. I'd lose my job. I'm just telling you that I'll do all those things if I have to, if talking to Mrs. Jones makes things worse for you. But I think when I talk to her things will get better, do you understand? The last month of school won't be so bad. I promise you."
"A whole month," said Stevie, his voice sounding dead.
"Think of it this way" said Step. "Think of it as if you had been convicted of a crime you didn't commit.
You aren't guilty, you didn't do anything wrong, but the system worked wrong and you got convicted for it and now there's nothing you can do except hang on and live through the last month of your sentence. And then you'll get out and you'll never have to see Mrs. Jones again. And next year you'll be in the middle school and there'll be a whole bunch of new kids from other schools-everybody will be new, not just you. Next year will be better. You just have to live through this year."
"Don't talk to Mrs. Jones," said Stevie. "Please."
"Trust me, Stevie," said Step. "When I talk to Mrs. Jones, I will make things better."
Clearly Stevie did not believe him. It frustrated Step, made him almost angry, that his son didn't believe that he could do it. But Step had taken a good little while before he believed in Stevie, too. Turnabout is fair play.
When he left Stevie's room a few minutes later, he found DeAnne leaning against the door of the room they shared, right
across the hall. She looked grim as she opened the door and led him inside. She closed the door.
"You heard?" asked Step.
"I couldn't stand not to listen," she said. "I've been so worried."
"Well, then, you know everything." He laughed bitterly. "At least now we know why he was so desperate to believe Sister LeSueur's flattery. If the kid's been hammered at school, he's got to be starved for praise."
"Do you really believe his story?" asked DeAnne.
"I think so," said Step. "Partly at least. I've got to."
"But what about the librarian? Step, I know the librarian wasn't lying. She's the sweetest woman, she sounded like she really loved Stevie. She talked about how he comes in during recess every day and reads, and she talked about his project with such pride." Then DeAnne stopped herself. "Listen to me. I'm standing here telling you that I would rather believe a woman I only met this morning than my own son."
"We don't believe something out of loyalty" said Step. "We believe it because it sounds plausible to us.
And Stevie's story didn't sound plausible until he told so much more of it that it began to fall into place. For instance, why should the librarian have been lying? Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe Stevie's project did win first place, and maybe Mrs. Jones simply lied to her class about it."
"Oh, Step, she couldn't possibly imagine that she could get away with it, could she?"
"Who knows?" said Step. "There are a lot of crazy people in the world."
"But not teaching school."
"Why not? I mean, all those crazy people in mental institutions, they weren't born there. The day before they were in the asylum, they were outside the asylum, and a lot of them probably had jobs, and some of them were probably teachers. You don't think teachers could go crazy? Heck, they probably have a higher percentage than most, when you think of what they go through. So maybe she's just three months away from getting committed because she has come to hate children so deeply. Like a disease inside her. And this year she found a scapegoat, somebody she could pour out all that bile and venom onto, and it was Stevie."
DeAnne shook her head.
"It's possible," said Step. "I've at least got to find out."
"You made a promise to Stevie that you can't keep," said DeAnne.
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