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

“I actually lived in Alaska, so I’m okay with it,” said Steve, who looked like a football player.

Anabelle, in a Hollister shirt, turned. “Steve, you were in Alaska? When was that?”

“I was like five.”

“Five! You couldn’t have been that acclimated to the Alaskan tundra yet,” said Mrs. Kennett.

“He ran around naked,” said Jared.

“Yeah, and I slept with the dogs outside,” said Steve. “No, actually, we had a husky. Beautiful dog.”

“I’m sure,” said Mrs. Kennett. “I’m a big-dog fan. I like big dogs.”

“I forgot my book,” said Keith cheerfully.

“That’s okay, we had somebody else forget their book. Who read the three pages you had to read?”

“I didn’t!” called out a kid from the back.

“You should have!” Mrs. Kennett laughed. The book was a movie tie-in edition of Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption .

“I read it,” said Anabelle.

“I really think that the only way that you’re going to get the most from this book is if I read it,” said Mrs. Kennett. “And I’m willing to do that. It’s okay with me.”

“Woo-hoo!” said the kid in the back.

Mrs. Kennett said that over the weekend, she’d been to a place where they made maple sugar. “So, yeah, that was kind of cool. Anybody else do anything interesting over the weekend?”

“I worked at Market Basket,” said Brandon.

“I took a shower,” said Harmony.

“That’s interesting,” said Mrs. Kennett. “I have a feeling that’s pretty normal, though.”

“Nope,” said Brad, a joker.

Noah, an upbeat kid with motor-control difficulties, said that he watched the Johnny Carson show all weekend.

The class was not under control. Everyone was talking.

“I found out,” said Mrs. Kennett, “that I’m getting another niece or nephew this weekend!”

“We didn’t even know you were pregnant,” said Brad.

“No, so my sister-in-law is pregnant with her second. She’s due in November. ALL RIGHTY! SO! SHHH. QUIET DOWN PLEASE! Before I read to you guys today, I’m going to hand out — please hold the moans and groans — I’m going to hand out—”

“UH!”

“AGH!”

“—your first assessment.”

“MOAN!”

“GROAN!”

“This is an assessment that has to do with the narration standard that we talked about. The unreliable narrator. Knowing what it is, and using the book to talk about that.” She moved around the class handing out the assignment.

Sebastian, one of the students I was responsible for, was drinking a bottle of mango juice. He was long-limbed, and made quick, decisive turns of his head, taking in what was happening and simultaneously ignoring it.

“I don’t understand what the deal is with that,” said Mrs. Kennett, pointing at Sebastian’s mango juice. “It’s a tiny bottle, and it’s very expensive.”

Sebastian shrugged, fished out a pair of earbuds from his backpack, and began untangling their cords.

Mrs. Kennett explained the project. It was going to be due in three weeks. “This is something that you’re going to be doing as we read the book. This is a narration video journal. I was going to be really mean and have you guys actually present these things, but I know that there’s a lot of anxiety around presenting in front of the class. So you can choose to present, which I’m pretty sure not many of you will do — otherwise you’re going to be emailing them to me. It does kind of require you to use a little bit of technology as well. You’re going to be videotaping yourselves. But I’ll be the only one who has to see it.”

“Steve, you have to wear a shirt,” said Artie.

“Do the video in the shower,” said Brad.

“OKAY! PLEASE LISTEN. Using your iPad, and iMovie, record four video journal entries, one for every twenty-five pages, that explains whether the narrator is reliable or unreliable, citing specific lines of text to support your argument. That’s called evidence, and we’re trying to create an argument that the narrator is either reliable or unreliable.” Each video journal entry should be between one and two minutes, she said, and it should include a slide of each quote the student used.

Sebastian finished his mango juice, tipping his head way back and making a sucking sound to get the last of it into his mouth.

“I have a question,” said Keith. “What if we don’t have an iPad?”

“We’re going to have to work around that,” said Mrs. Kennett. “I realize that you’re not the only one who’s in that pickle. You might have to hand-write it, or type it if you have access to a computer.” She went over the assignment again: analyze four quotations from four different parts of the book, preferably on video, in order to show whether the narrator is reliable or unreliable.

Sebastian began jamming the empty mango juice bottle against his tightly closed eye.

That was the plan, Mrs. Kennett said, and on Wednesday, they would start watching the movie version of The Shawshank Redemption , assuming it wasn’t a snow day. There followed an interchange on extreme facial piercings, including one that exposed your lower teeth and made you look like a bulldog. “I have six tattoos,” said Mrs. Kennett. “But some things I don’t really get the point of, that’s all. OKAY! Let’s listen and follow along! Shhh.”

Doing my job as an ed tech, I leaned forward and whispered to Sebastian to remove his earbuds from his ears so he could hear the story.

And then Mrs. Kennett began reading from The Shawshank Redemption , taking up at the moment when the narrator and his convict friends are on the freshly tarred roof drinking Black Label beer. “That beer was piss-warm,” Mrs. Kennett read, “but it was still the best I ever had in my life.” Instantly a concentrated, listening silence descended. The class, which had murmured and joked and made mildly rude comments without stop for ten minutes, was now still and perfectly attentive. Only two things, it seemed, really got the attention of students in RSU66: the Pledge of Allegiance, and fiction read aloud.

Mrs. Kennett was a good, uninhibited reader. Some words, like coterie, Rotarians , and Nembutal , stumped her, but she didn’t hesitate over a sentence like: If there were a few weevils in the bread, wasn’t that just too fucking bad? Using his teeth, Sebastian managed, after several tries, to pry off the red plastic ring from the mouth of the mango juice bottle. Mrs. Kennett came to a passage about Shawshank’s prison leadership: “The people who run this place are stupid brutal monsters, for the most part,” she read. “The people who run the straight world are brutal and monstrous but they happen to be not quite as stupid because the standard of competence out there is a little higher.” When she got to the part about Andy setting up the prison library, she stopped reading to say how important it was for the prisoners to get their high school diplomas. “He helped thirteen inmates get their high school equivalency,” she said. “Think about that. You guys are in high school now. Can you imagine being in your thirties, or forties, and not even having a high school diploma? Or fifties or sixties?”

Brad said that his sister was twenty-six and didn’t have her high school diploma.

“Not yet, but she’s still pretty young,” Mrs. Kennett said. “You always have time to go back. You just have to go to school, it’s just part of life, you just have to do it. So let’s move on.”

There was a brief interchange about how Red was Irish in the book, whereas Morgan Freeman, who played Red in the movie, wasn’t Irish, obviously.

“He could get a hair dye,” said Dale.