Lost Boys

by Orson Scott Card

  "Are you threatening me?" asked Mrs. Jones.

  Step almost brought out the tape recorder then, to confront her with it. But he knew that the moment she saw it, she would say nothing more-and there was more that he needed her to say.

  "No, Mrs. Jones. I wouldn't dream of it. If my son earned a C, then he earned a C. I'm not trying to get you to change the grade. I just want you to help me understand it."

  "This discussion has gone on long enough. It isn't right for you to be here alone in this room with me anyway, Mr. Fletcher."

  "Perhaps you're right," said Step. "Let's go get Dr. Mariner to join in this conversation with us. I haven't mentioned Stevie's C to her yet, but I'm sure she'll want to know the reason for that grade as much as I do."

  Mrs. Jones glared at him, then sat down at her desk and began rummaging through a file drawer. She came out with Stevie's paper. Sure enough, there was a big red C at the top.

  And not another mark.

  "I guess all the flaws in the paper are on the second page," said Step.

  "What?" she said.

  "There aren't any marks on the first page, so the errors must all be on the second page. I'd like to see them."

  She handed him the paper.

  He opened it. There was only one red mark on the second page. Mrs. Jones had circled the word octopuses and in the margin had written octopi.

  "Oh, but you must be making a little joke here," said Step.

  "A joke?"

  "Look," he said, showing her the paper. "You must be kidding, right?"

  "I'm not kidding when I correct errors on my students' papers."

  "But Mrs. Jones, surely you know that the plural of octopus is either octopus, with nothing added, or octopuses."

  "I think not," said Mrs. Jones.

  "Think again, Mrs. Jones."

  She must have realized that she was not on firm ground here. "Perhaps octopuses is an alternate plural, but I'm sure that octopi is the preferred."

  "No, Mrs. Jones. If you had looked it up, you would have discovered that octopi is not the preferred spelling. It is not a spelling at all. The word does not exist, except in the mouths of those who are pretending to be educated but in fact are not. This is because the us ending of octopus is not a Latin nominative singular ending, which would form its plural by changing to the letter i. Instead, the syllable pus in octopus is the Greek word for 'foot.' And it forms its plural the Greek way. Therefore octopoda, not octopi. Never octopi."

  "Well, then, octopoda. Your son's paper said octopuses."

  "I know," said Step. "When he asked me the correct plural, I told him octopoda. But then he was still uncertain, because my son doesn't think he knows something until he knows it, and so he looked it up. And to my surprise, octopoda is only used when referring to more than one species of octopus, rather than when referring to more tha n one actual octopus. What Stevie put in his paper is in fact the preferred dictionary usage.

  Which you would have known, too, if you had looked it up."

  "So I'm human, Mr. Fletcher. I made a mistake."

  "As did I, Mrs. Jones, as did I. But the fact remains that the only red mark on this C paper is in a place where you have taken a correct plural and replaced it with an incorrect one. Isn't that right?"

  "If you say so," said Mrs. Jones.

  "So I'm still baffled," said Step. "How can I possibly help Stevie do better next time? You haven't really pointed out a single thing wrong with his paper-oh, except that he didn't put a plastic cover on it."

  "There won't be a next time," said Mrs. Jones. "Your son will never have to do another second grade project as long as he lives. So it doesn't matter, and therefore you're wasting my time as well as your own. Good afternoon, Mr. Fletcher!"

  "One more question, Mrs. Jones."

  "No," she said. "I have to go home, right now."

  "It's just one more question," said Step, mildly. If she didn't stop, however, the tape recorder would definitely come out. She would not be going home anytime soon.

  "Very well, what!"

  "Who is going to take that ribbon home?"

  Mrs. Jones looked at the ribbon that Step was pointing to.

  "That is the first place ribbon for Stevie's project, isn't it?"

  "It might be," said Mrs. Jones.

  "Then who will take it home?"

  "If it's the particular ribbon you're referring to, then of course Stevie will take it home at the end of the school year."

  "Ah," said Step. "Then what in the world are you going to tell J.J.?"

  She blanched.

  Stevie's story was completely vindicated now.

  "What do you mean?" she said.

  "Why, I mean that Stevie's whole class is under the impression that J.J. received that award."

  "That's impossible," said Mrs. Jones.

  "Is it? Let's call J.J.'s parents and see," said Step.

  "I certainly will not bother my children's parents over such a thing."

  "Then I'll go to Dr. Mariner's office right now and she and I will place that phone call together," said Step.

  "You won't mind, will you?"

  Mrs. Jones was barely holding herself together now, Step could see that. She was wringing her hands and he could see that she was trembling. "It's possible that someone might have gotten a false impression. That perhaps someone made a mistake and ..."

  No, thought Step. You aren't going to weasel out of this. You're going to say it outright. "You stood in front of the class and announced that J.J. won the prize, didn't you?" he asked.

  "Oh, now, don't be silly," she said.

  "What if lawyers representing the school board came to your students and asked them how they got the idea that J.J. won the ribbon? What would they say?" Step knew that of course such a thing would never happen, but he figured that Mrs. Jones was not going to be confident of that, not in the state she was in right now.

  "I may have said something that gave that impression," said Mrs. Jones.

  "May have, or did?"

  She looked toward the window, weaving and unweaving her fingers. "I thought that Dr. Mariner had judged very hastily, and so she missed the superior merits of J.J.'s project."

  "Ah," said Step.

  "If you want," said Mrs. Jones, "I will change Stevie's grade. And of course I will correct the mistake about the ribbon."

  Yes, I'm sure you will, thought Step. And then you'll torment and ridicule Stevie even more mercilessly every day until school ends. "No," said Step. "I don't want you to change Stevie's grade. In fact, I insist that you not change it. I want it there on the books, just as it is now."

  Mrs. Jones looked at him narrowly. "Then what is all this about? Just the ribbon? Very well."

  "The ribbon- yes, that would be nice. You can tell the students that there was a mistake and in fact the ribbon belongs to Stevie."

  "Very well, I will do that tomorrow."

  "But that's not all," said Step.

  "I think it is," said Mrs. Jones. "Unless you changed your mind about the grade."

  Step pulled the tape recorder from his pocket, pressed rewind for a few moments, and played it back. It was fuzzy, but it was clear. "... the superior merits of J.J.'s project." Then Step pushed stop.

  Her face turned white, and it occurred to Step that perhaps he had overplayed this moment- it wouldn't be very good for anybody if the woman fainted right now.

  But she didn't faint. And when she did speak, her voice was stronger than he expected. "That's illegal," she said. "To bug a conversation like that."

  "On the contrary," said Step. "It's only inadmissible when it was obtained by a government employee without a warrant. I'm not a cop. I'm just a man who carries around a tape recorder. Besides, I don't intend to use this in court. I only intend to play it for Dr. Mariner and every member of the school board as I put an end to your career."

  "Why are you doing this to me?"

  "The real question is, why have you been doing all the things you've been
doing to Stevie?"

  "I haven't been doing anything to him," she said defiantly. "Go ahead and use that tape."

  "All right," said Step. He put it back in his pocket and walked around her, through the door, and down the corridor toward Dr. Mariner's office. With each step he became more uncertain. Maybe she really could talk her way out of this. Maybe she understood the system here better than he did, and even this tape recording would end up being worthless. Maybe he had broken his promise to Stevie, that he wouldn't make things worse.

  "Mr. Fletcher!" she said. Her voice echoed down the empty corridor.

  "Yes?" he said, not turning around.

  "There was one more thing that I forgot to show you about Stevie's work."

  He turned around and headed back down the hall.

  When they were alone again in the room, she looked tired, defeated. "I didn't mean anything by it," she said. "Is that thing off now?"

  He pulled out the recorder, took out the tape, and put them back in different pockets.

  "I didn't mean anything. I just- it's very hard being a teacher and having parents come down on you all the time. And so when Dr. Mariner called me that night-at home-because Stevie was upset and you were upset, when all I did was make a foolish little joke-I mean, everything I said, he made me say it over and over and over, and it was disrupting the class. So I made a joke-'

  "Calling him stupid."

  "A joke," she insisted. "And then he tells his parents and you call Dr. Mariner-well I was just sick of it, and when he came back to class I was just so angry the moment I saw him, and so I said things that I shouldn't have said and I'm sorry."

  "But you've kept on doing it," said Step.

  She started to cry. "I know it," she said. "And I felt bad about it, but I just couldn't seem to stop, I just ...

  couldn't seem to stop. And then he stopped raising his hand, and so ... I thought it was over."

  "If you thought it was over, why didn't you let him have the blue ribbon?" said Step. "Why didn't you let him have the A on his project?"

  "I don't know," she said. Her voice was so small and high, like a little girl's voice. It made Step feel like a bully, like a tyrant, coming in here and pushing this woman around until she cried.

  Then he remembered how Stevie had cried. And how this woman had tormented him, and even if she talked now about how she felt bad about it and tried to stop, the fact was that she could have stopped at any time and she did not. She even lied about something as utterly stupid as the ribbon awarded by the principal. Surely she must have realized, in some rational part of her mind, that this could not possibly go undiscovered. That this was far too public, too open for he r ever to get away with it.

  She wanted to be caught, Step realized. The most obvious psychological insight of them all. Maybe because she hates teaching. Or she hates the children. She doesn't want to teach anymore, and yet she can't stop because that's how she makes her living. So she gathered up all her hatred and poured it out on my son, again and again and yet he continued to take it; nothing happened, so she pushed harder and harder, and still Stevie took it, absorbed it all; and then finally she pushed so hard that she succeeded. Stevie broke. Stevie wept out the truth to his father, and now I have finally come to give her what she wanted all along.

  "There's a month left in school," said Step. "From now on if Stevie raises his hand, I want you to call on him. Not every time, but as often as you'd call on any other bright kid. Do you understand me? I want you to treat him normally. If he gives the right answer, you don't say anything snide to him, and if he gives the wrong answer, you correct him kindly. Do you understand?"

  She nodded, dabbing at her eyes.

  "If a kid talks to him, then you let the friendship develop. You do nothing to interfere. I don't mean you're to order kids to be friends with him, because then they'd hate him even more. I want you treat my son fairly and normally. Can you do that?"

  Again she nodded.

  "Yes, I think you can," said Step. "It's whether you will. Just keep this in mind. If you get the urge to say something spiteful or cruel to Stevie, or for that matter to any of your students, just remember that this tape exists. Along with however many copies I feel like making. For the rest of your life, if another child suffers anything like what Stevie has been through, you can expect to hear this tape again. I'll be watching."

  "You aren't a Christian, then!" she said. "Christians believe in forgiveness!"

  "I'm a Christian who believes in repentance before forgiveness. If you never again mistreat a child, then you have nothing to fear from me. This tape will never surface. All you have to do is control your hate. If you can't do that, Mrs. Jones, then you shouldn't be a teacher."

  "It's my life!" she said.

  "No," said Step. "The woman on this tape is not a teacher, Mrs. Jones. The woman on this tape is a Nazi."

  She buried her face in her hands. Step remembered Stevie weeping the night before. More than ever before in his life, he found himself longing to hurt someone, to tear at her. It frightened him to feel such a hunger for violence. Nor had he felt it so strongly until she was helpless and weeping. It was a terrible thing to know about himself, that he could feel such a lust to punish a submissive enemy.

  He turned and fled from the man he had found in that room.

  In moments the rage was gone, replaced by satisfaction. He had fulfilled his promise to Stevie. As he walked down the corridor toward the front door, it occurred to him that he had confronted evil and subdued it.

  The mythic theme of half the movies and TV shows and novels and of a good deal of history as well. Of course, it had been too clean and simple for the movies. She should have had a gun in her purse, the one that Mr. Jones had bought for her to defend herself. She should have taken that gun out of her purse and followed him and shot him and taken the tape, right now, before he could make copies of it.

  What if she did have a gun? What if she was going to follow him?

  It was an absurd thought, a childish sort of thought, and yet he walked faster. She won't shoot me in the corridor here, he thought, because there are still other teachers in the building, and the custodial staff- witnesses.

  No, she'll do it in the parking lot, around the corner, where no one can see and she can drive away. He hurried, almost ran out the door and around the corner to his car. He fumbled with his keys, dropped them. Picked them up, looked around, and yes, there she was, coming out the door of the school. He unlocked the door of his car and opened the door and then looked up and saw that she was heading past him, that in fact she didn't even see him, or at least didn't give any sign that she saw him. She got into her car, a sad- looking little Pinto, and backed out of her parking place.

  A Pinto. She drives a Pinto. She's a teacher, for heaven's sake, making a pathetic salary and getting no respect from anyone, putting up with people's miserable children all these years and all the flak from stupid angry parents yelling at her over nothing, when she was trying to do her best, and here he was, the ultimate angry parent, the parent from hell, destroying her, when all she ever wanted to do was teach. What am I, he thought, to set myself up as an angry god, deciding who needs to be punished, who deserves to have a career and who doesn't.

  Then he remembered Stevie crying, and he thought, some things, some people, simply have to be stopped.

  It doesn't mean that the person who stops them is noble or great or some kind of hero. I'm no hero. But maybe I've stopped her. Maybe now she won't end up doing something even worse to some other kid, driving him to suicide maybe. And who's to say she hasn't done this before? Maybe she's always had a goat in all her classes, some poor kid who becomes the target of her vicious abuse, only this time she just happened to pick the wrong kid. This time she picked the kid who would put an end to it.

  I shouldn't feel proud of this, thought Step. But I also shouldn't feel ashamed. I should just feel glad that it's over. If it's over.

  She drove away.

  He got
into his car, started it, pulled out, and headed home.

  The song on the radio was the one by Hall and Oates that had been a big hit back in January when Step came to Steuben for interviews. "Maneater." That's what I saved Stevie from, a maneater. Mrs. Jaws. Doing all she could to chew up this child and spit him out. So why don't I feel better?

  Because I'm not better. I just chewed her up and spit her out, and I don't like how it feels. I don't like being cruel. I don't have the stomach for it.

  And yet I do, don't I, because I did it. Maybe that's a good thing and maybe it's not.

  When he pulled into the driveway, he noticed that something was different about the lawn. Then he turned the engine off, and the radio stopped, and he heard the lawnmower. DeAnne was mowing the lawn.

  But it wasn't DeAnne. When he got out of the car and went around to the back yard, there was an old man mowing the grass. One of the neighbors?

  Suddenly DeAnne was beside him, slipping her arm around his waist. "How did it go?" she asked.

  "Who's he?" he asked.

  "Oh, he's Bappy. You know, I told you about him, the land lord's father. I called him to ask if he knew any neighbor kids who mowed lawns, and he said he'd do it."

  "I can mow our lawn," said Step. "We can't afford to pay a grown man."

  "When are you going to mow it, Step?" she asked. "You don't have time. And if you did have time the kids and I would much rather have you spend that time with us than mowing the stupid lawn. And besides, he's doing it for free. He says that living at the condo he never gets an excuse to get outside and have some exercise."

  Step looked at Bappy. He waved. DeAnne waved back, and so did Step, halfheartedly.

  "So come inside and tell me how it went."

  As they headed for the house, he said, "She agreed to everything I said. The harassment stops. The last month at school should be better."

  "But will she actually do it?" asked DeAnne.

  "Oh, yes," said Step. "I think she will."

  "Well tell me what you said, and what did she say? Was it as bad as Stevie said?"

  "Every word that Stevie said to us was true," said Step.

  "How could she? How could anyone?"

  "I'll tell you what," said Step. "Tonight, I'll make sure you hear every word. Word for word."