Nicholson Baker: Substitute: Going to School With a Thousand Kids

The median’s the middle;

You add and divide for the mean.

The mode is the one that appears the most,

And the range is the difference between.

The word average , one of the few math words employed in everyday speech, had apparently been scrubbed from the arithmetical lexicon.

Near the windows and the large, loud turbo-fan — which I kept turning off, because it was loud, and Ms. Lamarche kept turning back on, because the room was hot — there was another wall chart for common problems. “I have to go to the bathroom.” “I have to go to the bathroom, but somebody is already out and it’s an emergency.” “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.” “I don’t know what this word is.” “I don’t know what the directions are or mean.” “I finished my Math Menu and already signed up to take the assessment, now what?” “I finished my Literacy Menu and already signed up to take the assessment — now what?” No answers or solutions were given: instead, there were square barcodes that children could scan with their iPads using a scanner app in order to summon an official, digitally delivered response.

Marshall, in a red T-shirt and black basketball shorts, was the difficult kid, and Ms. Lamarche bossed him around and shouted at the class to focus; I tried to be Zen-like about her fussing because she knew the class well and wanted to be in charge. After fifteen minutes of cursive iPad practice and arithmetic and miscellaneous Showbie Morning Business — Showbie is a “paperless classroom” iPad app — we went to Care Time in the cafeteria to recite the school rules and pledge the pledge. When we had all reassembled in class, I talked about why cursive had been invented, and then I timed them, to see if they wrote five letter P s in a row faster when they printed or when they wrote in script. I told them to have a close look at the beautiful cursive General Mills G on the Cheerios box.

We lined up to go to the library to hear the librarian, a gravel-voiced gent named Mr. Merlier, read from Whistle in the Graveyard , a book of ghost stories. “This is a free time for you,” said the sub plans. I spent it buying an ebook of Lulu and the Brontosaurus —the class was in the middle of reading it on their Kindles — and chanting, “‘Out of the night that covers me, / Black as the pit from pole to pole.’”

In the library at 10:20 a.m., Mr. Merlier was finishing a story about a pirate who swore an oath to guard some buried treasure in Bonavista Bay, on the coast of Newfoundland. “You know pirates,” Mr. Merlier said. “An oath like that is a blood oath.”

“Can you show us the picture?” said Philip.

“You’re looking at the only picture there is,” he said.

“There is another picture!” said Philip.

“Where are you talking about?”

Philip paged through and found a picture of a pirate’s head.

“Please have a seat,” said Mr. Merlier. “You watch too much television and too much video, obviously. You need a picture for everything. Try your imaginations. Had you been born in the time when there was just radio, maybe your imaginations would be stronger. You need to work on that. Be quiet.” He read, “THEY LEFT ONE MAN — they left one man on the beach who had taken a solemn oath never to leave the treasure unguarded.”

The pirate band never returned, Mr. Merlier continued. Years went by, and the treasure-guarding pirate grew old and died and became a ghost, who still haunts Bonavista Bay. Once some men tried to dig for the treasure, but they were so terrified they went mad. Nowadays, though, Mr. Merlier said, the ghost is tired of his guard duty. One night, not so long ago, the ghost stopped a fisherman and told him to return alone at midnight and drip some blood on the ground; if he did, he would possess the treasure. The blood could be from a chicken, the ghost said, or perhaps from a cut in the fisherman’s wrist. The fisherman was terrified and ran away. “Everybody knows that the ghost is honor-bound,” Mr. Merlier read. “ He took an oath to scare off people, even though he really wants somebody brave enough to come along and dig up the treasure. OKAY, GUYS, I want to wish you a good summer.”

“That book is awesome,” said Rianna.

Cormac wanted to know where, exactly, the treasure was.

“We don’t know the specifics,” said Mr. Merlier, “but it’s on Bonavista Bay. You need to find out where Newfoundland is first. And then you’ll need to find the bay. And then you’ll need to do a little digging, to find out where from the locals, maybe send a letter or two, or an email.”

We chuffed back to class. Because of the lockdown drill, snack had to happen quickly.

“SHHHHH!” said Demi.

“Whoa, that was a power shush,” I said.

Ms. Lamarche said, “All right, everyone, listen! WE HAVE A FIVE-MINUTE SNACK. SO EAT UP QUICKLY, PLEASE.”

“Why do we only have five minutes?” asked Sabrina. She’d brought out a bag of Keebler Bug Bites — graham cracker cookies in the shape of dragonflies, caterpillars, and ladybugs.

I told them we had to practice a lockdown soon. “CHOW DOWN,” I said. “Snack it up.”

In a back corner of the room, Marshall, Devin, and Jonas were crouched over their juice boxes.

“This is the man cave,” said Jonas. Colleen walked over.

“Get out of the man cave,” said Marshall to Colleen.

“No, I didn’t hear that,” I said. “You say, Welcome to the man cave. Come on in.”

“Hah hah hah, you can’t come in,” said Marshall.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“It’s called a man cave,” said Devin.

“It can be a man cave that has guests,” I said.

“We are the guests,” said Jonas.

I asked if there was a woman cave. Evidently there was. I took a bite of a sandwich.

“LET’S FINISH UP OUR SNACKS!” called Ms. Lamarche.

“Stop chewing,” I said. “Just keep it in your mouth. No, finish chewing. We’re going to get ready for the lockdown procedure.”

“What lockdown procedure?” said Imogen, eating a Fruit Roll-Up.

Mrs. Hulbert came to the door. “MRS. COMPTON’S CLASS. We should be lining up, putting our snacks away. We’re going to be practicing in the cafeteria, and then outside at recess.”

I said, “You’ve got to be focused, thoughtful—”

Ms. Lamarche blasted over me: “YOU GUYS, I WANT TO SEE A LINE, PLEASE.”

“Mr. Baker,” said Porter. “Devin and Marshall are sharing their food.”

“I think your name is funny,” said Jonas.

“I’M GOING TO START MY TIMER,” said Ms. Lamarche. “WHATEVER IT TAKES YOU GUYS TO LINE UP AND BE QUIET IS WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO DURING RECESS. Caroline! I WANT A STRAIGHT, QUIET LINE, PLEASE. YOU GUYS KNOW THE RULES.” She roared so loudly this time she made herself cough.

The cafeteria was three-quarters full and even louder than during lunch. Mrs. Shorter, one of the teachers, shouted the crowd down. “BOYS AND GIRLS. IF WE HAVE A LOCKDOWN IN THE CAFETERIA, WE ALL NEED TO GO INTO THE KITCHEN. In the kitchen there are places that we go. We have the office, which is the first room. We have the storage closet, which has food in it, the second room. We have the back room. And we have the chemical room. Also, we have the refrigerator, the walk-in cooler. Your hands cannot touch anything in any of those rooms!” The day before, Mrs. Shorter said, when they’d done a similar drill, there were a couple of issues. It got crowded in some of the rooms, especially in the chemical room, and it was impossible to close the door. Also, there might not be an adult in the room with you. “You need to be responsible for NO TALKING in that room. YOU ARE NOT LOOKING FOR YOUR FRIENDS. YOU ARE NOT CHOOSING THE ROOM YOU GO INTO. You’re going to a space as a space! IF YOU WALK INTO THE REFRIGERATOR, yes, it’s going to be cold, but you will not freeze. In the refrigerator, there’s a second door. That’s the freezer. We’re not going into the freezer.”