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

“Time to go,” said Lyle. “I don’t want to go. Can I just stay here?”

A general zippage of backpacks. The girls fixed their hair. I asked Todd what his next class was.

“Reading, with Mrs. Simmons.”

“Whooo!” said a girl.

Class over; new class. Twenty-one children, each with a future life, each with a name to be called out. I signed and dated the attendance sheet.

Katylynn’s hand shot up. She had a ring on her thumb. “Can we bring that down?”

“Yes, you can.” Time to take control. “So I’m Mr. Baker, and WE ARE DOING SOME SCIENCE. And you’ve got some cubes, right? I have been really impressed by these cubes. Everybody picks an element and just goes wild with the art. And if you haven’t gone wild with it, don’t worry, you’ve just gone slightly wild.” I turned to Katylynn and Roslyn, the two girls who were taking the attendance sheet to the office. “And gals? We need some Scotch tape that actually works. This Scotch tape is terrible. So if you could ask them if they could tell me where in the class the Scotch tape is, or if they maybe have some Scotch tape? Here we are talking about the scientific properties of matter. Scotch tape is actually supposed to be sticky. So we’re going to get some better tape.”

The noise was moving and growing.

“GUYS! If you’ve finished your cubes, that’s tremendous, and if you haven’t finished them, just pour your soul out into that cube. Everything about selenium or uranium or whatever it is you’re doing. And then, when you’re done, there are some pages to read in the textbook, and some questions, all about physical and chemical properties. Like when you take a bite of an apple is that a physical change or a chemical change?”

“Physical,” said Anthony, a plaid-shirted polite kid.

“Right, and if you take a bite of the apple, put the apple on the counter, walk away, watch a TV show, and come back and the apple is brown, is that a physical or a chemical change?”

“Chemical,” said Rita, with long straight hair.

“Okay! And let’s say you’re a miner and you carve out a bunch of stuff from a hillside and you melt it down and you end up with iron.”

“Chemical?” said Anthony.

“Ah, but you’re melting it,” I said. “The difference between ice and water is physical, right? If you melt iron ore to make iron, that’s sort of like melting ice to make water. Now, if you build a bridge with the iron and the rain comes and it reacts and turns to rust, what’s rust?”

“Physical,” said Anthony.

“Rust is a tricky one,” I said. “You should know rust. Rust is a chemical change because the oxygen in the air is reacting with the metal. If you know rust, you’ve got the right answer to a question. Rust is a chemical change. So you’re already there, practically. Just read that part of the textbook, firm up your knowledge, and answer the questions. Okay?”

Frederick, a charismatic boy in a baseball T-shirt, raised his hand. “Mr. Baker, I have a completely off-topic question. How tall are you?”

“I’m six four.”

“Whoa, six four!” said Frederick.

“It was just the hormones in the meat,” I said.

“Are you a basketball player?”

I said I’d played basketball, but not in school.

“Our team won the championships,” Frederick said.

Frederick’s friend Payson said, “Were you a science teacher at one point?”

“No, I never was a science teacher,” I said, “and I never will be a science teacher.”

“Except for right now,” said Payson. “Right now you’re a science teacher.”

“You’re right, my god, I’m a science teacher!”

Another hand went up, from a malicious cherub with spiky blond hair. “Misterbater?” he said. His name was Shane. His voice was just beginning to change.

“Mr. Baker,” I said.

Immediate uproar. “That’s Shane! Don’t pay any attention to him!”

I didn’t. I circulated, handing out compliments. “Iridium!” I said, admiring Aaron’s cube. “What is iridium?”

“It’s just a rock,” said Natasha, willowy and impatient, sitting next to him.

“It’s in meteors,” said Aaron.

“It’s in meat?” said Shane.

John was sniffing a quarter to figure out how silver smelled. He handed it to me. “Would you say that smell is ‘musty’?”

I smelled the quarter. “It smells like old finger oil and dirt. I’m not sure if silver has much of a smell. But sure, why not? Musty.” John wrote, Smell: Musty , on his cube.

“How do you like my K ?” said Payson.

“Potassium! Beautiful K ! Nice stripes!”

They went away for lunch and returned. Shane, having bellowed for half an hour in the cafeteria, had become a demon child. He drew on the floor with a Sharpie and then squirted a big plop of dish detergent on the black marks and began scrubbing the spot while trying to make an iPad movie of himself cleaning the floor, laughing.

“Whoa, stop, stop, stop,” I said. “You’re on the floor, Shane. That is a physical change in your altitude, and it will result in a chemical change to your grade. So please don’t do that. Sit in your chair. Just do some work, okay? I have my eye on you.”

As I walked away, I heard Shane say, “I hate that guy.”

Class ended, and then, mercifully, it was STAR time. Some familiar faces were back, including Shane. They all, even Shane, “read” silently — meaning that they mostly poked at their iPads and listened to music — for twenty minutes. Then Shane raised his hand.

“Mr. Bakersfield,” he said, innocently. “Can I call you Mr. Bakersfield? Like the Hell’s Satans of Bakersfield?”

“No.”

“Mr. Bakersfield,” said Shane, “are you trying to grow your hair out on top?”

“My hair’s pretty much gone on top,” I said. “What about you? Are you trying to grow your hair out?” A girl laughed. That made Shane mad.

He began covertly jabbing a plastic ruler under his neighbor’s backpack, trying to make it fall off the desk. “Stop with the ruler!” I said. Moments later he was silently pretending to whonk someone on the head with a textbook. I went over and pulled up a chair and lowered my voice. “What is the problem, Shane?”

“I’m ADHD,” he said. “My pills begin to wear off around now.”

“Oh, come on,” I said.

“I swear to god!” said Shane. “Ask anybody.”

I said, “Do you want not to be ADHD?”

“I don’t want to be, but I am.”

“Look, you’re obviously smart,” I said. “Just pull it together, okay? Just dial it back a notch. Can you do that? Thank you.”

He calmed down a bit after that.

The secretary’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Please excuse the interruption for the afternoon announcements,” she said. “There was a bracelet found today in the gym locker room area. Please come to the main office and claim it if it is yours. Students who are part of the cast of Oklahoma! will have a mandatory practice Monday through Thursday next week. Today’s jazz rehearsal has been canceled.” She read a long list of students who had messages in the office — parents were forbidden to text their children in middle school. I sat for ten minutes and watched the class chat and joke and raise minor hell. Let them. I wanted the day to be over.

But there was still forty minutes to go — end-of-day homeroom. “Hi, Santa Claus,” said Olivia, the bouncy girl in short shorts. She began flirting with a serious, proto-gay boy named Michael. “You’re so abusive, Michael!” she said.

“I am not,” said Michael.

Olivia grabbed Michael’s water bottle.

“Let my water go!” Michael said.

“Are you having a baby?” Olivia said. She turned to me. “There’s ice cream in the freezer if you get hungry. I’m trying to lose weight.”