by EJ Valson
“Hey Charlie,” I smiled, poking the scrap paper back into my pocket. “Um, sorry to interrupt.”
“Solitaire,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I never win! Let me show you around.”
We strolled through corridor after corridor of adorable classrooms that were all decorated for the big day next week. Every hallway corkboard awaited a “first day of school art project” and it looked like there was already some contest in play to see which second grade class would be able to memorize the Preamble first.
The maze of hallways was intimidating for someone who gets easily turned around in a department store, but I vowed to study a map of the school when I got home so I wouldn’t embarrass myself on the first day. Otherwise I would be asking the students where to go. Very professional.
Charlotte showed me the lunchroom, clean and inviting. (“I’ve never seen tables fold that way before. Cool!”) Then we made our way around to the teachers’ lounge, Violet’s soon-to-be classroom, the nurse’s office, and the janitorial closet.
I took it all in as Charlotte prattled on about my new duties as building assistant. Apparently my new position was “gopher” . . . to get anyone what they needed. If a teacher was sick, or away for some other reason, I would take on all of their duties for that day except teaching the class. I would take her place for recess or cafeteria duty, stand in the bus line and monitor boarding children, make copies, and so on. I would even have my own walkie-talkie, which I thought was pretty exciting.
Charlotte was in the middle of explaining just how valuable I would be – “Everyone’s lifesaver,” she was saying – when we came across my favorite room in the school. The resource room.
Everywhere I looked in the large room, there was shelf after shelf of colored paper, paints, stencils, and several crafty mechanisms that I didn’t know how to use.
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing to a good-sized machine that looked like some sort of torture device.
“That’s the die-cut tool,” she answered, as if that should explain everything. When she saw my look of interest, coupled with the I have to know how to use that? face I was making, she demonstrated.
She spun around and opened up the smallish double-doored cabinet behind her, pulled out a wooden block with a star on it, and poked it into the machine. Then she grabbed a piece of construction paper, folded it in quarters, and scooted it in. She pressed down twice on the long lever and pulled the paper out. Four identical stars fell onto the table.
“Much faster this way,” she chimed, chunking the scraps into the trash.
“Fancy,” I mumbled, making use of Kate’s favorite word.
“You’ll love this little guy come Valentine’s Day, when every teacher has you cutting out enough hearts to cover every square inch of the school!”
She took a quick look around, probably wondering what else I wouldn’t know how to use, and continued on.
“ . . . and here’s the copy machine, you’ll be spending a lot of time here . . .”
We ended our tour back in the kindergarten hallway and Charlotte allowed me to mull around in Violet’s classroom for a while. Mrs. Autry’s classroom, actually, as it stated on the ladybug sign outside her door.
I quickly took in all the sweetness of the little classroom – with its cozy miniature reading nook and large work-station tables – and then followed Charlotte back toward her office.
“So what do I do on the first day?” I asked, still nervous to be out in the real world where things were expected of me. “What should I be prepared for?”
“The first day will be kind of crazy,” she laughed. “Just show up ready to be told what to do.”
“Got it.”
As we sauntered toward the front of the school, I noticed the intoxicating smell of mulled cider wafting through the halls. I knew it well because it was one of my favorite fall scents. It always put me in the mood to clean or decorate. There was also a faint thumping from a radio down the hall that was growing louder as we strolled.
As we came up on the delicious smelling room, I peeked around the door, ready to smile at whoever was working in it. My enthusiastic smile quickly turned into a look of shock, then to disbelief, as we kept walking.
Charlotte had been rambling on about the crazy “first days” they’d had in the past and didn’t seem to notice that I had stopped and back-tracked a little. Trying to figure out what I had just seen.
The teacher inside, a tiny thing as far as I could tell in a glance, was rearranging the tables in her room. She’d had a giant, half moon work table – easily seating eight or ten children – over her head. It had to have weighed sixty pounds, at least, and was horribly awkward. It should have taken two people and several minutes to move it anywhere. Yet she had it lofted over her head and was walking carelessly to the other side of the room with it—whistling. Charlotte continued babbling as she walked.
“ . . . and then little Missy Newart’s dog walked to school with her one day and every kid in school was chasing it up and down the hall! Erin?”
Finally noticing that I had stopped, she turned around, looking confused.
Clearly, I had frozen with a look of horror on my face because Charlotte suddenly looked worried.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, walking back to where I’d halted and putting her hand on my shoulder.
I immediately snapped out of my initial surprise and tried to think about what I had witnessed.
“Erin, honey?” The question mark on her face seemed to match the one in my brain.
I glanced up at the name plate on the wall next to me.
“Um . . . Mrs. Thayer . . .” I was once again stopped in alarm, my wide eyes taking in her new expression.
Charlotte shot a fierce look into the classroom, which we were standing nearly in front of.
“Danna.”
It was not a greeting, or even a question. It was an accusation.
The tiny young woman, no more than five feet tall, froze at the calling of her name. Her expression went seamlessly from panic . . . to that of a child being caught red-handed . . . to being reprimanded. All in the moment it had taken Charlie to breathe her name.
I looked up to meet Charlotte’s glare. She now bore an arrogant guise that seemed to say What now? as she looked at Danna, then at me.
“I . . . I- didn’t know she was coming this morning.” Danna’s crystal blue eyes were flitting back and forth between our boss and myself.
“Maybe if you turned your stereo down, you could pay more attention to your surroundings,” Charlotte accused. It looked as though she was drilling through the woman’s skull with her eyes.
Clearly, there was much more conversation going on between them than I was getting. Charlotte turned back to me, her hand still on my shoulder, and beamed her perfectly soothing smile. I was pretty sure my face still looked like I’d been jammed in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Charlotte tightened her grasp on my shoulder and threw her free arm around my waist. Glaring once over her shoulder, she pulled me down the hall. I walked effortlessly next to her – very curious of the exchange I’d just witnessed, but also a little miffed that they had talked about me like I wasn’t there.
First Elizabeth, now these two. How many things this week was I going to come across that were none of my business? Maybe I was just too curious. A little over zealous in assuming that their confrontation actually had anything to do with me.
Charlotte chuckled forcefully and dropped right back into the story she was mumbling moments ago. “...so we finally offered it some beef surprise from the cafeteria and shut the poor, over-excited mutt in the janitor’s closet. It was so wound up by the time Missy’s dad came to pick it up that it had peed all over the floor!”
All I could muster was a blank stare as she snickered to herself.
Noticing my blatant bewilderment, she grinned again and hugged me tightly when we reached the end of the hallway. “I’ve missed you. Rest up and I’ll see you on
Thursday.” A fleeting burst of air passed through my lips – she’d been squeezing me pretty intensely.
I blinked twice.
“Did, uh, I miss something back there?”
“Pshh,” she said with an absentminded wave of her hand.
I waited, but apparently that was all the answer I was going to get.
“I’ll see you Thursday,” she repeated. And with one final clap on the back, she sauntered down to her office and shut the door.
What . . . is . . . going . . . ON?!
Was I was losing my mind? Clearly. I had seen it clearly. Mrs. What’s Her Name had heaved a gigantic table clean over head and walked around with it. I couldn’t even pick Violet up over my head, and she didn’t weigh half of what that table must have.
And even if I could look past Superwoman’s sheer strength, what was that little tiff in the hall about? “I didn’t know she was coming today . . . ?” What was that supposed to mean? I know I consider myself invisible sometimes, but that’s really just a sarcastic figure of speech when I’m feeling sorry for myself. Why were they talking like I actually didn’t exist? And why did it bother me so much that I had no idea what was going on?
Just then, it dawned on me that I was still standing in the middle of the hallway, thinking about how offended and confused I was. Also, in that moment, I realized that my ears had begun to turn red. I could feel it. I was quite put out at the way my first impression here had become the opposite of what I had expected. And I certainly wasn’t too thrilled to be going into a working atmosphere – somewhere I hadn’t been for years, a place that was definitely out of my comfort zone – with so much apprehension.
Some odd, un-placeable surge flowed through my red-hot veins and I rocked back on my heel to turn around and leave. When I did, I heard the squawky peel of the P.A. system and the tiny woman called Danna came bustling out of her classroom.
She had the look of a kid that was being sent to the principal’s office on her face as she stared at the floor. Muttering incoherently under her breath, she didn’t seem to notice me.
A cursing scoff escaped her tightly pursed lips as she flipped her hair back and rolled her eyes. As she lifted her head, she jolted to a halt, catching a glimpse of me out of the corner of her eye. She jerked to a stop as if I had jumped in front of her and said “Boo!” Her cheeks flushed a rich shade of embarrassment and she hurried down the short hallway . . . disappearing into Charlotte’s office.
Huh!
I sucked in a gasp of air to express the disgust I was feeling, but I was expressing it to no one – I was alone again. I flipped my business-like hair over my shoulder, stomped out the front door, and headed home.
FOUR
I was greeted, as expected, by Violet’s musical voice bouncing from room to room when I got home. It was as if she were a tiny little angel. I could hear her sing-song peal on my left, and then it sounded like she was on my right. I had no idea where she and Kate were playing in the house when I entered.
I piled my purse, keys, sunglasses, and bad attitude on the counter by the kitchen door and set off to find them. I had decided that I was being ridiculous – worrying about things that had nothing to do with me – and that my being nosy was going to stop right now. This week had not started easily, and I was determined to simply ignore everyone that irked me. Easy to do with Violet around.
“Whe-e-e-e-e--r-r-r-e is Violet?” I sang as I prowled the house for inhabitants. Vy loved to hide from anyone that came over, always jumping out and yelling Here I am! after they had searched long enough for her.
I heard my favorite giggle melody wafting from the living room, followed by “Mommy’s here—I have to HIDE!” She gets so excited when people play along.
“Kate!” I yelled. “Have you seen Violet?”
My sister-in-law shuffled around the corner, looking like she had been sitting in one place for too long. She stretched her long legs attached to her perfect toenails and replied loudly, “No! I haven’t seen her anywhere! Wasn’t she with you?”
“I’ll go look for her!” I was practically shouting. I heard another snicker coming from behind the couch, then from under the coffee table. She always had trouble figuring out where to hide, and staying quiet. I wandered off in the opposite direction of the living room, searching loudly. “Well she’s not in the dishwasher!” Clank. “Or the trashcan!” Clunk. “I’ll go look in the living room!”
Uncontrollable guffaws were now rolling out from under the coffee table, which had a glass top. She had both hands clapped over her mouth, and kept bumping her head on the bottom of the table. I watched her out of the corner of my eye and hunted behind the television, then rummaged through some magazines.
“Where IS she?”
“Mommy! I’m right here!” She exclaimed, nearly knocking herself out with the coffee table trying to make her way from underneath it.
I spun around and dropped my magazines, “Oh!” She jumped on me and we both toppled over, laughing. Just what I needed.
Kate came into the living room just then, massaging her legs lightly. “I guess she was here all along,” she smiled. “We’ve been playing fairies in the forest for forty five minutes. I was the wise Grandmother Fairy in the Sacred Tree, and she was Lady Fair Fairy . . .”
“I was on a mission to find the rare Secret Orchid,” Violet interrupted. “I had to fly all over the forest for forty years, then my wings got tired and I had to go to the store to buy new ones.”
Kate stretched, “All I had to do was sit ‘criss-cross-applesauce’ in the living room floor while she yelled to me from every room of the house, letting me know that she still hadn’t found her orchid. My legs are numb. Where does she learn words like ‘Ancient’ and ‘Orchid’ from anyway?”
“Television,” I mused.
“Right. Well, we had a marvelous time together, and I’m pooped, so I’ll head off if you don’t need anything else.” She looked like she hoped I didn’t need anything else.
“No, no. You go ahead. And thank you infinitely for watching her. Hey, did you and Nick want to come over for dinner tonight?”
“I was just thinking along the same lines. How about we go out somewhere? You guys haven’t really been out of the house much since you moved here, you should treat yourselves before school starts.” The look on her face also said If you say no, I’ll pester you until you change your mind.
“Uh— well . . .” I hated being put on the spot, but couldn’t really think of one good reason not to go.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Alright. Your choice, somewhere semi-fancy that can handle Violet’s enthusiasm.” I didn’t have the energy to argue with her, and since Vy had heard the invitation, she was now jumping up and down at my feet squeaking Please Mommy? Puhleeze Mommy???
“Somewhere with crayons . . .” I laughed. “You go home and get some rest for now, and call me when you figure out where you want to go.” She was glowing with anticipation already.
“Perfect! See you.” And with that, she was out the door.
Kate loved going out to eat. Going out to eat is fancy, and a good excuse to get dressed up. For me, it seemed like an opportunity to get half-dressed up, run out the door at the last minute, and then spend the whole evening trying to convince Violet to sit in her chair.
I needed this, though. Kate was right, we really hadn’t been anywhere since we moved here, and at least it would just be the five of us and not the whole clan. The tiniest grin escaped when I realized I was actually looking forward to the evening.
I glanced over at the clock on the mantel, it was nearing eleven. I peeled Vy off my leg and hoisted her up to my hip. I immediately regretted it, she’s quite heavy.
