You were a true hero, not just in ’Nam but for Mama, Duane, Paul, David, and me every day you walked this earth. Love, your dearest little Go Go.”
Go Go?
I went to bed thinking about all the parts of Gloria that I had never known.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Feeling Faint at Fiona’s Fashions
The following morning, I observed that Miss Mathews’ ruffled lavender blouse was missing a button. I did my best
not
to focus on the mole on her collarbone and took my assigned seat next to Sarah Kervick. She appeared to be getting a few extra winks, her head on her desk, her eyes closed.
Miss Mathews cleared her throat to gain the attention of the class. As she began to speak, I noticed one of Mr. Herman’s dollies—loaded with a stack of cardboard boxes—up against the whiteboard.
“Due to an unfortunate infestation of miller moths in the kitchen, I was asked this morning to rearrange our health units.” At this point, Miss Mathews paged furiously through her class notebook, raising it up until her face was hidden from view. “Adolescent attraction and sexual reproduction will now follow teen pregnancy.”
“Hey, isn’t that backward?” Tommy Williams asked.
Miss Mathews lowered her notebook to reveal a face that was, well, slightly flushed. Could it be that even college graduates fell victim to undesired social attention? Ignoring Tommy’s comment, our teacher produced a dagger-shaped letter opener and sliced through the tape on the topmost box. With admirable speed, Miss Mathews piled its contents on the top of her desk.
Marvin Howerton was the only member of our health class willing to give voice to what we saw in front of us.
“Flour?”
They did indeed appear to be five-pound sacks of Gold Medal flour.
“I’m afraid I…I haven’t had time to review this lesson,” Miss Mathews told us. “So I will have to read from Mr. Teegarten’s notes.”
Mr. Teegarten, we learned at the beginning of the year, had taken an unexpected early retirement last fall after breaking his nose in a tumble down the bleachers at the big football game between Pelican View and our archrivals, Wing Rock Middle.
“You will work in pairs. I’ve got the list right here….” As Miss Mathews sifted through the papers on her desk, I wondered if her embarrassment had more to do with being unprepared than with the subject matter we were discussing. Clearly, these arrangements had just been made this morning. She probably had a whole lesson plan carefully prepared on “first crushes,” a subject that definitely held my interest, and then arrived at school only to find many kilos of flour stacked in her room, and a sticky note from Mr. London, our assistant principal in charge of curriculum.
“To make it easy, I just used the seating chart, so Joseph-Howerton, Frost-Mirandette, Grandolt-Sprool, Powell-Williams…” Unable to locate her list of partners, Miss Mathews was simply pointing pronged fingers at the students as she went up and down the rows. It was gratifying to see that Marvin Howerton had been paired with Brenda Joseph, the only girl to make the Pelican View Middle Boys’ Hockey Team. Ha!
I knew long before she got to us that Sarah Kervick would be my partner. Glancing at the sack of flour that now lay between us, I determined that, for the sake of the child, it would probably be best if I was granted full physical custody.
I swiveled in my seat to see how Glynnis would react to being paired with Tommy Williams. She sat upright, looking modestly at the floor, as he reached forward and grabbed his sack of flour, swinging it the way an orangutan might carry a bunch of bananas.
“Look here,” he said. “It’s the Gingerbread Boy.”
“Franklin!” Sarah tugged on my arm. “I don’t get it.”
“You and I will share this sack of flour and treat it like a baby,” I replied, waving the form that was being passed around. “We have to keep track of when we feed it, when we put it down for a nap…. Basically,” I
Go Go?
I went to bed thinking about all the parts of Gloria that I had never known.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Feeling Faint at Fiona’s Fashions
The following morning, I observed that Miss Mathews’ ruffled lavender blouse was missing a button. I did my best
not
to focus on the mole on her collarbone and took my assigned seat next to Sarah Kervick. She appeared to be getting a few extra winks, her head on her desk, her eyes closed.
Miss Mathews cleared her throat to gain the attention of the class. As she began to speak, I noticed one of Mr. Herman’s dollies—loaded with a stack of cardboard boxes—up against the whiteboard.
“Due to an unfortunate infestation of miller moths in the kitchen, I was asked this morning to rearrange our health units.” At this point, Miss Mathews paged furiously through her class notebook, raising it up until her face was hidden from view. “Adolescent attraction and sexual reproduction will now follow teen pregnancy.”
“Hey, isn’t that backward?” Tommy Williams asked.
Miss Mathews lowered her notebook to reveal a face that was, well, slightly flushed. Could it be that even college graduates fell victim to undesired social attention? Ignoring Tommy’s comment, our teacher produced a dagger-shaped letter opener and sliced through the tape on the topmost box. With admirable speed, Miss Mathews piled its contents on the top of her desk.
Marvin Howerton was the only member of our health class willing to give voice to what we saw in front of us.
“Flour?”
They did indeed appear to be five-pound sacks of Gold Medal flour.
“I’m afraid I…I haven’t had time to review this lesson,” Miss Mathews told us. “So I will have to read from Mr. Teegarten’s notes.”
Mr. Teegarten, we learned at the beginning of the year, had taken an unexpected early retirement last fall after breaking his nose in a tumble down the bleachers at the big football game between Pelican View and our archrivals, Wing Rock Middle.
“You will work in pairs. I’ve got the list right here….” As Miss Mathews sifted through the papers on her desk, I wondered if her embarrassment had more to do with being unprepared than with the subject matter we were discussing. Clearly, these arrangements had just been made this morning. She probably had a whole lesson plan carefully prepared on “first crushes,” a subject that definitely held my interest, and then arrived at school only to find many kilos of flour stacked in her room, and a sticky note from Mr. London, our assistant principal in charge of curriculum.
“To make it easy, I just used the seating chart, so Joseph-Howerton, Frost-Mirandette, Grandolt-Sprool, Powell-Williams…” Unable to locate her list of partners, Miss Mathews was simply pointing pronged fingers at the students as she went up and down the rows. It was gratifying to see that Marvin Howerton had been paired with Brenda Joseph, the only girl to make the Pelican View Middle Boys’ Hockey Team. Ha!
I knew long before she got to us that Sarah Kervick would be my partner. Glancing at the sack of flour that now lay between us, I determined that, for the sake of the child, it would probably be best if I was granted full physical custody.
I swiveled in my seat to see how Glynnis would react to being paired with Tommy Williams. She sat upright, looking modestly at the floor, as he reached forward and grabbed his sack of flour, swinging it the way an orangutan might carry a bunch of bananas.
“Look here,” he said. “It’s the Gingerbread Boy.”
“Franklin!” Sarah tugged on my arm. “I don’t get it.”
“You and I will share this sack of flour and treat it like a baby,” I replied, waving the form that was being passed around. “We have to keep track of when we feed it, when we put it down for a nap…. Basically,” I
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