Joan Hess - Dear Miss Demeanor

The thermos ran dry. The flask went the same way. My feet forsook me and my hands turned blue. My nose ran a marathon. I was kicked from behind and elbowed from both sides. A coke dribbled down my neck during a particularly exciting play.

The majority of the plays were incomprehensible, although I did my best to follow both the ball and the seesaw score. The home team took the lead, then lost it via a fumble. Thud snatched the ball from a Bantam and scampered all the way to the goal line, sending the cheerleaders into paroxysms of glee. The Bantams doggedly scored once again. Everyone in the bleachers, with one exception, rose and fell with pistonish precision.

The final quarter arrived, along with a couple of Falcon fumbles and Bantam triumphs, causing the scoreboard to tilt dangerously to the enemy side. Just as I neared a frostbite-induced coma, the referees called it a night. The cheerleaders burst into tears on each other’s shoulders, while the band played a version of the fight song that seemed more of a dirge. Cheryl Anne stalked down from the bleachers, paused to hiss at the forlorn Falcons, then led her cortege into the metaphorical sunset. Thud threw his helmet on the ground, having displayed enough foresight to remove his head from it first. The coaches shook hands and trudged across the field, their troops in straggly formation behind them.

“Shall we go?” I said, trying not to sound too heartened by the thought of a car heater and even a gymnasium.

Evelyn sighed. “It’s such a shame to lose the Homecoming game. The kids really care about this sort of thing.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Shall I carry the blanket? Where’s the nearest exit?”

Sherwood glanced at me, but offered no editorial. We followed the stream out of the stadium. The students punched each other on the shoulder and verbally rehashed the final plays of the game; their liberal use of profanity was more than mildly disturbing to someone who would be obliged to restrain them in the immediate future:

I tugged at Evelyn’s arm. “What precisely is my assignment at the dance?”

“You have floor duty. Emily always volunteered for it, swearing she enjoyed it, and no one ever argued with her for the privilege.” Her voice dropped until it was almost inaudible. “You’ll survive, probably.”

“Floor duty?” I said.

Sherwood patted me on the shoulder. “You are the ultimate in loco parentis , dear sleuth. All you must do is keep the rabble from dancing too closely together-school policy is three inches and not a whit closer-and the ones sitting down to keep their paws off each other.”

“And the band from singing obscenities,” Evelyn added. “The lyrics can get pretty raunchy if you don’t keep an eye on them.”

“Don’t let anyone drink anything that comes from a back pocket,” said Sherwood. “No smoking, snuff, or chewing tobacco. No vodka in the punchbowl. No fistfights. Don’t let the girls roll up their skirts or the boys unzip their jeans.”

“That’s all?” I laughed gaily. “And I’m going to do this all by myself, right? I won’t have a squadron of marines to help me out, or even an automatic weapon. I’ll just shake my finger at perpetrators, and they’ll back off from whatever felonious activity they’ve chosen.”

“Oh, you’ll have help.” Evelyn gave me a wry look. “I believe you’re assigned with Mr. Chippendale and Mr. Eugenia.”

“Wonderful,” I sighed. And I had alienated Peter, whose presence might have saved me from what threatened to be slightly worse than root-canal surgery done by a drunken dentist-in a bouncing jeep. Just when I needed a whiff of nitrous oxide.

Evelyn drove us to the faculty lot. We went to the gym, which was dripping with red-and-gold crepe paper, and glumly surveyed the battlefield. I presumed it would be strewn with bodies by midnight; all I could hope was that mine would not be included in the count.

Speakers the size of refrigerators were arranged in front of a low platform cluttered with beglittered guitars and an intricate formation of drums. The acned boys in the band huddled on one side, their eyes darting as if they anticipated attack or arrest. They had long, stringy hair and feral expressions. A droopy banner taped on the wall above them proclaimed them to be “Pout,” an ominously appropriate name. Evelyn and Sherwood wished me luck, then drifted away to their assigned posts elsewhere in the building, where they might not even be able to hear Pout’s best efforts to deafen us.

Mr. Chippendale came through the door, metal chairs under his arms. “Ah, yes, Mrs. Malloy, are you prepared for the dance?”

“Certainly. Mr. Chippendale. I’ve made a new will, consulted a neurologist about potential auditory nerve damage, and booked a private room at Happy Meadows.”

He gave me a startled look, then busied himself unfolding chairs along the wall. A grayish man with bifocals introduced himself as Erwin “Gene” Eugenia, Algebra and Trig, and took a stack of chairs to the opposite side of the vast room. Students drifted in to set up the refreshment table, all sober from the defeat at the hands (talons?) of the Starley City Bantams. I watched them carry in the punch bowl, reminding myself that I was assigned the formidable task of assuring their continued sobriety until the dance was done.

A short while later the gym began to swell with students. After a few false starts, Pout found its stride and broke into what was presumably their opening set. Mr. Chippendale took a post next to the stage, although I doubted he could isolate stray obscenities in the ululation that passed as lyrics. Mr. Eugenia stayed beside the punch bowl, leaving me to monitor the dancers for distance and the nondancers for discretion.

Once my ears grew accustomed to the volume, I realized I might survive. Some of the students from the journalism classes poke to me, or at least moved their mouths in what I interpreted as amiable discourse. I smiled politely, though blankly. No one asked me to dance, which was for the best since I had had no training in that particular mode of stylized warfare.

During a lull, I spotted Caron and Inez near the door. For the first time since the onslaught of puberty, my daughter looked timid and vulnerable; Inez appeared to be in the early stages of a seizure. After a beady look at a leather-clad hoodlum with an earring and fast hands, I joined them. “I didn’t see you two at the game.”

Caron regained some of her usual superciliousness. “You went to the football game, Mother? Whatever for?”

“I was coerced,” I admitted. “I sat with Mrs. West and Mr. Timmons in what I fear was the most vocal section of the bleachers. I suppose it was good practice for the decibel level in here.”

“Caron and I sold programs at the south gate,” Inez volunteered. “We turned in our money, then sat with Rhonda and some of the girls. Wasn’t the game just dreadful?”

“I thought so,” I said, suspecting our criteria were different. Pout roared into song once again; conversation was impossible. Caron grabbed Inez’s shoulder, and they hobbled away to find seats amidst the wallflowers.

Despite the lack of a victory, the kids seemed to be enjoying themselves. I was beginning to feel somewhat confident when Cheryl Anne swept through the door and stopped to survey the scene, her mouth a tight red rosebud and her hands clenched at her sides. Thud hovered behind her, clearly uncomfortable in her wake.

The dancers nearest the door halted in mid-gyration and backed off the floor to make a path that would have led straight to the throne, had there been one. I was mildly surprised no one had thought to bring a red carpet.

Cheryl Anne snapped her fingers over her shoulder. “Don’t just stand there, for God’s sake. I want to dance.”