long ragged breath. “You must have built a fire under that Francher kid. He came back and piled into his math book and did the whole week’s assignments that he hadn’t bothered with before. Did them in less than an hour, too. Makes me mad, though-” She grimaced again and pressed her hand to her chest. “Darn that chalk dust anyway. Thanks a million for your assist. I wish I were optimistic enough to believe it would last.” She leaned and breathed, her eyes closing with the effort. “Awful shortage of air around here.” Her hands fretted with her collar. “Anyway the Francher kid said you’d substitute for me until my pneumonia is over.” She laughed, a little soundless laugh. “He doesn’t know that it’s just chalk dust and that I’m never sick.” She buried her face in her two hands and burst into tears. “I’m not sick, am I? It’s only that darn Francher kid!”
She was still blaming him when Mrs. Somanson came out and led her into her bedroom and when the doctor arrived to shake his head over her chest.
So that’s how it was that the first-floor first grade was hastily moved upstairs and the junior high was hastily moved downstairs and I once more found myself facing the challenge of a class, telling myself that the Francher kid needed no special knowledge to say that I’d substitute. After all I like Anna, I was the only substitute available, and besides, any slight-substitute’s pay!-addition to the exchequer was most welcome.
“You can live on those monthly checks, but it’s pleasant to have a couple of extra coins to clink together.
By midmorning I knew a little of what Anna was sweating over. The Francher kid’s absolutely dead-weight presence in the room was a drag on everything we did. Recitations paused, limped and halted when they came to him. Activities swirled around his inactivity, creating distracting eddies. It wasn’t only a negative sort of nonparticipation on his part but an aggressively positive not-doingness. It wasn’t just a hindrance but an active opposition, without any overt action for any sort of proof of his attitude. This, along with my disappointment in not having the same comfortable rapport with him that I’d had before, and the bone-weariness of having to be vertical all day instead of collapsing horizontally at intervals, and the strain of getting back into harness, cold, with a roomful of teeners and subteeners, had me worn down to a nubbin by early afternoon.
So I fell back on the perennial refuge of harried teachers and opened a discussion of “what I want to be when I grow up.” We had gone through the usual nurses and airplane hostesses and pilots and bridge builders and the usual unexpected ballet dancer and CPA (and he still can’t add six and nine!) until the discussion frothed like a breaking wave against the Francher kid and stilled there.
He was lounging down in his seat, his weight supported by the back of his neck and the remote end of his spine. The class sighed collectively though inaudibly and waited for his contribution.
“And you, Clement?” I prompted, shifting vainly, trying to ease the taut cry of aching muscles.
“An outlaw,” he said huskily, not bothering to straighten up.
“I’m going to keep a list and break every law there is-and get away with it, too.”
“Whatever for?” I asked, trying to reassure the .sick pang inside me. “An outlaw is no use at all to society.”
“Who wants to be of use?” he asked. “I‘11 use society-and I can do it.”
“Perhaps,” I said, knowing full well it was so. “But that’s not the way to happiness.”
“Who’s happy? The bad are unhappy because they are bad. The good are unhappy because they’re afraid to be bad-“
“Clement,” I said gently, “I think you are-“
“I think he’s crazy,” said Rigo, his black eyes flashing. “Don’t pay him no never mind, Miss Carolle. He’s a screwball. He’s all the time saying crazy things.”
I saw the heavy world globe on the top shelf of the bookcase behind Rigo shift and slide toward the edge. I saw it lift clear of the shelf and I cried out, “Clement!” The whole class started at the loud urgency of my voice, the Francher kid included, and Rigo moved just far enough out of line that the falling globe missed him and cracked itself apart at his feet.
Someone screamed and several gasped and a babble of voices broke out. I caught the Francher kid’s eyes, and he flushed hotly and ducked his head. Then he straightened up proudly and defiantly returned my look. He wet his forefinger in his mouth and drew an invisible tally mark in the air before him. I shook my head at him, slowly, regretfully. What could I do with a child like this?
Well, I had to do something, so I told him to stay in after school, though the kids wondered why. He slouched against the door, defiance in every awkward angle of his body and in the hooking of his thumbs into his front pockets. I let the parting noises fade and die, the last hurried clang of lunch pail, the last flurry of feet, the last reverberant slam of the outside door. The Francher kid shifted several times, easing the tension of his shoulders as he waited. Finally I said, “Sit down.”
“No.” His word was flat and uncompromising. I looked at him, the gaunt young planes of his face, the unhappy mouth thinned to stubbornness, the eyes that blinded themselves with dogged defiance. I leaned across the desk, my hands clasped, and wondered what I could say. Argument would do no good. A kid of that age has an answer for everything.
“We all have violences,” I said, tightening my hands, “but we can’t always let them out. Think what a mess things would be if we did.” I smiled wryly into his unresponsive face. “if we gave in to every violent impulse I’d probably have slapped you with an encyclopedia before now.” His eyelids flicked, startled, and he looked straight at me for the first time.
“Sometimes we can just hold our breath until the violence swirls away from us. Other times it’s too big and it swells inside us like a balloon until it chokes our lungs and aches our jaw hinges.” His lids flickered down over his watching eyes. “But it can be put to use. Then’s when we stir up a cake by hand or chop wood or kick cans across the back yard or-” I faltered, “or run until our knees bend both ways from tiredness.”
There was a small silence while I held my breath until my violent rebellion against unresponsive knees swirled away from me.
“There are bigger violences, I guess,” I went on. “From them come assault and murder, vandalism and war, but even those can be used. If you want to smash things there are worthless things that need to be smashed and things that ought to be destroyed, tipped apart and ruined. But you have no way of knowing what those things are, yet. You must keep your violences small until you learn how to tell the difference.”
“I can smash.” His voice was thick.
“Yes,” I said. “But smash to build. “You have no right to hurt other people with your own hurt.”
