Justine Davis - Errant Angel

Twenty fifteen-year-olds gaped at their new teacher, then turned heads to stare at each other in astonishment.

“So,” Evangeline went on, “we’re going to do this a little differently. History from a book is fine, but it’s dead. History was made by living, breathing people, like you, and that’s how it should be taught. So this—” she held up the heavy, ponderous text and grinned “—is history.”

She dropped the book into the cavernous bottom drawer of the desk at the front of the room and slammed the drawer shut. A cheer went up from the room.

“Ms. Law?”

Evangeline nodded at the wide-eyed, concerned-looking girl who sat in the front row. “Yes, Karen?”

“What will we study, then?”

“Who cares?” came a voice from the back of the room.

Jimmy, she thought. Jimmy Sawyer. Her mission.

His slouched, careless posture trumpeted his disinterest, not only in school but in life in general. Thin and gangly, he wore ragged, baggy jeans rolled up above heavy, black combat boots, a T-shirt with the logo of one of the more rancorous rock bands, and a denim jacket with the sleeves cut out. His sandy brown hair hung long over his right ear, but was cut short on the left side, no doubt purposely, to draw attention to the dangling silver skull earring that pierced his left ear.

And anger radiated from him, until Evangeline was amazed that one so young could contain it all. His foster parents must be at their wit’s end with him. But he had every right to be angry at life, she thought. His entire family—parents and a brother and sister—had been wiped out six years before, in the crash of a plane en route to the funeral of his grandfather, a plane he hadn’t been on because he’d been sick and had to stay at home with a neighbor. The report from the bosses had been strictly factual, but the starkness of it only added to the poignancy; because he’d missed one funeral, he’d been the only one left to go to all the others.

Knowing the battle for the boy’s future had begun, she echoed his question. “Who cares?”

“Yeah,” chimed in another student. “At least we don’t have to read that boring stuff anymore.”

The cheering erupted again, this time threatening to get out of hand. Evangeline lifted her eyes and scanned the room, giving each of the rowdy students a full second’s look. They settled down, even as they looked around suspiciously, as if not sure themselves why they were being so cooperative. Even Jimmy straightened a little, although he didn’t look happy about it.

“True, you won’t have to read ‘that boring stuff,’” she explained. “But you will learn. You’ll learn not only what people did, but why. You’ll learn what they felt, what drove them to do what they did.”

Their cheer started to fade a little. She paused, looking out over the class again, stretching her senses, processing the information they brought her.

“How would you feel,” she said casually, “if I told you the government has decided to put a tax on, say, music, but only for kids? Adults won’t have to pay it when they buy a CD or a tape. Just kids. And not because they want the money—but just to show you who’s in charge, who has the authority, just to remind you that you’re only children, and they’re the boss.”

There was an instant of silence, then an outburst of outraged discussion.

“That wouldn’t be fair,” Karen protested from the front row.

“What would you do about it?”

“Fight it!” the girl exclaimed.

“Quit buying tapes,” a boy beside her put in.

“Jimmy?” Evangeline lifted a brow at the boy. “What would you do?”

He seemed surprised to be called on. The bosses had told her that the previous teacher had been glad the boy was usually content to be sullenly silent. The older man had been intimidated by Jimmy’s appearance and his attitude. But surprised or not, the boy had a seditious answer ready on the tip of his tongue.

“Screw ‘em,” he said. “I’d smash their stuff and send it back to them in pieces.”

Cheers and shock seemed to be about evenly spread throughout the room.

“Well, Jimmy,” she said, grinning, “ that is exactly what the men of Boston thought the night they dumped the East India Company’s tea into Boston Harbor.”

The boy looked startled, then embarrassedly pleased as cheers rose from his classmates. Evangeline felt a spurt of relief; if the boy could still be pleased at the approval of his peers, then he wasn’t beyond redemption. Maybe, just maybe, this job would go right.

* * *

“She’s kinda cool, really. Nobody’s cut class for a week now.”

Dalton MacKay glanced at the boy, hiding his surprise. Cool was not a word Jimmy often used in reference to school. He straightened up from under the hood of the old truck and looked at the boy, who was fiddling with the chain on his rather distinctive bicycle, a conglomeration of brightly colored parts that Dalton wasn’t sure he wanted to know the origin of.

“Hand me that spark plug socket, will you?” he said. Jimmy hesitated, then reached into the open drawer of the big toolbox. When he handed him the right socket, Dalton gave the boy a smile as he fastened it on the ratchet. “Good. You remembered. So, why is this new teacher cool?”

Jimmy smiled almost shyly at the acknowledgment that he had remembered what Dalton had taught him last weekend. Then he shrugged. “She just is. I mean, instead of makin’ us read that junk, and then just memorize a bunch of dates and stuff that don’t mean anything, she...she makes it seem real. Like it was real people, who were pissed off and did something about it.”

Dalton reached down to yank the next spark plug. “It was real people.”

“I know, but it never seemed like that before. She makes you think about how they felt, you know? Like we talk about something that’s a big deal today, and she gets us all going, and then shows us how what we feel is exactly what they felt, back then.” The boy grimaced. “It’s hard to explain.”

“I’d say you explained it just fine,” Dalton said. “Hand me that box of new plugs, will you?”

Jimmy scooped up the small carton from the neatly organized workbench and handed it to him.

“You’d like her, too,” Jimmy said.

Not likely, Dalton thought. It had been a long time since he’d liked anybody. He only tolerated Jimmy hanging around all the time because he reminded him so much of himself at that age, full of anger and putting up a tough front to hide hurt feelings he wouldn’t ever admit to having. He knew the boy had been orphaned young, had lived in foster home after foster home since, and he couldn’t help the stirring of empathy he felt, despite his vow never to feel anything resembling closeness to anyone again.

Jimmy was looking at him expectantly and, trying to hide the weariness of another near-sleepless night, Dalton asked the question Jimmy was expecting.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well,” Jimmy drawled, not disguising the bantering note in his voice very successfully, “it could be because she’s really awesome-looking. And she’s not married.”

Dalton winced inwardly at the unsubtle words. But he didn’t react outwardly; he remembered enough about being fifteen to know that any reaction would just egg the boy on.

Then, as if puzzled at himself, Jimmy added, “It’s weird, though. I always thought blondes were the best looking, but she’s got this hair that’s like...like those trees up in the mountains, that change color this time of year, you know? Kind of red, brown and gold all mixed up together. And big brown eyes, all soft and gentle, like that fawn that came out of the hills last year.”

Dalton blinked; for Jimmy, the description was tantamount to poetry. As if he realized that, the boy instantly lapsed back into insouciance. “She’s kind of little, but she’s built, too—long legs, nice little butt, great ti—”