Janice Johnson - Mummy Said Goodbye

Boys punched each other, rocked their desks, guffawed and shouted at friends passing in the hall. Most were shorter than the girls, just beginning a growth spurt that would have them looking like men in only a few years.

Unless he had changed extraordinarily, Brett Lofgren hadn’t yet made an appearance. Robin scanned faces yet again. The second bell rang, making a few kids clap hands over their ears. She started toward the door with the intention of shutting it.

A tall, handsome boy with his father’s dark hair and gray eyes ambled in. She’d have been fooled by Brett’s air of nonchalance, by his sneer, if she hadn’t seen how fixed his gaze was. He walked right by her and sat down without meeting anybody’s eyes or speaking to a soul.

It might have been her imagination, but there seemed to be a brief hitch in the noise level, a moment when others snatched a surreptitious look, then ostentatiously turned back to their friends and began chattering again. Brett slumped in his chair and began tapping his fingers on the desk.

Robin closed the door and cleared her throat. Quiet spread slowly.

“Good morning. Welcome to sixth grade, and your last year at Roosevelt Elementary School.” She smiled in acknowledgment of the cheers. “I’m Robin McKinnon, and I look forward to getting to know all of you.”

She called roll. Most said, “Hey!” or “That’s me.” Brett flicked a hand in the air and didn’t look up. They talked about seating and agreed to start the year wherever they liked.

“After the first few weeks, once I get to know you, I’m going to start assigning seats.”

Groans.

She smiled. “It’s important for you to learn to work with people who aren’t your best friends. There are rewards, too, in getting to know kids who aren’t in your circle, who maybe have different interests. And finally, I know you’ll concentrate better when you can’t whisper with your best friend.”

Brett, it appeared as the day went on, had no best friend, at least not in this classroom. He spoke to no one. Some of the girls made tentative efforts to flirt with him, not at all to Robin’s surprise; Brett was not only good-looking, but his sulky expression gave him a James Dean air. The other boys were downright wholesome in comparison.

She handed out paperwork for them to go over with their parents concerning her expectations, both for behavior and quality of work. They reviewed math, so she got a sense of where they were, she distributed texts and talked about her requirement for reading: a report a month, each written after reading a book from a different category on a list she gave them. She wanted them to read widely; one sports book was okay, for example, but not nine. The kids always grumbled early on, but her experience was that they found their interests broadening when they dipped into a biography or a play or science fiction or a classic.

At morning recess and lunch, Brett waited until last to slouch out of the classroom door. Robin peeked to see what he did on the playground and saw him shooting baskets by himself. He moved as if he did this often. He’d feint, dribble, shoot and rebound like a pro. As good as he was, no other boy went to join him.

Oh, dear, she thought. Usually she arranged desks in clusters of four once she started assigning seats. Brett was going to be a dark cloud over every group stuck with him if his attitude didn’t improve.

It didn’t.

Although there were no incidents, he stayed sullen through that first three-day week.

On the following Monday, Robin saw another boy poke him as they waited in line to go to P.E., and heard Brett snarl a startling—and forbidden—obscenity.

“Brett!” she snapped. “You will not use that word at school again. Is that clear?”

Eyes filled with dark, churning emotion, he stared at her for a long moment. Then he gave a curt nod.

“Please apologize to Trevor.”

This pause was even longer. Finally he mumbled something that she suspected was as unintelligible to Trevor as it was to her, but she decided not to make an issue of it.

Oh, dear, she thought again.

Tuesday, Amanda Whitney, she of the baby tees and tight jeans, sat down beside him and began tossing her hair and giggling as she tried to coax him to talk.

Brett leveled a cold stare at her and said, “Will you just leave me alone?”

From the other side of the classroom came a boy’s voice. “Jeez, Mandy! Stay away from him. He’s probably a killer like his dad.”

Brett erupted from his desk, sending the chair flying. Shoving aside other desks and kids, he lunged toward a cluster of boys. He crashed into Ryan Durney and the two went down.

Robin yelled, “Stop, now!” and grabbed Brett’s arm before he could punch Ryan.

Ryan scrambled away, his eyes wild. The rest of the kids had gathered in a semicircle, looking scared.

“Back to your seats!”

They went.

Gentling her voice, Robin asked, “Ryan, are you all right?”

He gave a jerky nod.

“Please take your seat, too. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”

She marched an unresisting Brett out onto the small, railed porch of the portable building. Mercifully, the porch of the next portable and the covered breezeway into the main building were deserted. When she released him, he put his back to the railing and waited, head bowed and lank hair hanging over his eyes.

“What were you thinking?” Robin asked.

After a minute, he shrugged.

Her heartbeat was slowing at last, but she still felt shaken by the violence of his reaction. Sixth-grade fights were usually…clumsier. She had never seen an attack so purposeful. Given another ten seconds, he would have hurt Ryan.

“I should send you to the principal’s office,” she said. “I won’t hesitate to do so if you ever, ever, start a fight again. Is that clear?”

He nodded.

“What Ryan said was unkind. It was also spoken out of ignorance.”

Brett’s head shot up. He said hotly, “My dad would never—”

Robin held up a hand. “But that isn’t the point. You cannot go through life attacking every single person who thinks something you don’t like.”

“I should just let people call my dad a murderer.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t correct them, or even argue. When,” she added sternly, “the setting is appropriate to do so.”

His face set in stubborn lines.

“Have you ever said to Ryan, ‘My mom left my dad. Just because the cops can’t find her doesn’t mean she’s dead’?”

“Nobody will believe me. The cops don’t.”

He had a point. She gave up on reason and said, “If another kid taunts you, I want you to come to me. I’ll talk to him or her, just as I’m going to talk to Ryan. But violence will only convince them that they’re right.”

Anger simmered in his eyes. “Dad didn’t—”

Interrupting, Robin said, “Right now, I neither know nor care. He’s not in my classroom. You are. He isn’t the issue here, any more than are the parents that I know don’t encourage their children to do their homework or who don’t care enough to come to parent conferences. You are responsible for your own behavior, for how you handle your problems. Parents might be part of the problem, but your response is yours alone.” She waited a moment. “Do you understand?”

Jaw still clenched, he jerked his head once.

“Fine.” She touched his rigid arm. “You may return to your desk.”

Stepping into the classroom, she gestured to Ryan, who took a circuitous route to avoid going anywhere near Brett. Robin steered the other boy outside the classroom door.

“I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”

“Jeez! He was like an animal!”

“You said something deeply hurtful.”