Chapter 19
“What is a pilgrimage and why did people go on them?” Ron was pacing. The chalk rolling between his fingers while his students watched him like they were at a tennis match. It was a very warm day for early November and the windows were cranked wide open. The students seemed fidgety because of the change in temperature and the excess of clothing. He had them trained to have their notebooks open at the start of each class. He kept a supply of pens and pencils in a canister on his desk and anyone who had forgotten to bring one could just walk up and take one. If you hadn’t brought your book, you had to sit with someone else, but then you knew his eyes were going to be on you and that you were sure to get called on at least a couple of times. Their initial testing period of him was over. He could be flustered by them but it was much more likely that they were gonna wind up blushing on account of the way that he turned things and his class was fun. They wanted to read for it.
Andrea said,” It’s like a journey or a vacation.”
Ron smiled, “You mean like going down the shore?”
Andrea felt herself redden. “No, not like that. They didn’t have boardwalks or anything like that.”
Ron paced and ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, they did in a way. They had this shrine for this guy Tom who was a patron saint of the Saxons, who were kinda like the poor. Everybody felt good about Tom now that he was dead, and people would take trips to the place that was dedicated to him.”
Andrea sat back in her desk and spread her legs wide open under her desk, the short skirt hiking up along her thighs. Ron pacing saw her white patch of panties and turned his head to keep his mind focused.
“But the trip could be dangerous, like going out for a walk by yourself in the middle of the night around here. And so people traveled in groups and as they went, they made up stories to tell to entertain each other.”
Now her legs were opening and shutting like a bird that was flapping its wings, only slower. Ron was hoping that she needed to go to the bathroom or that she would stop because he was finding it more and more difficult not to look. He took off his jacket and noticed that his shirt was wet from the perspiration that had gathered underneath.
“So these stories were things that they made up as part of a contest to see who could tell the best story.”
“You shoulda been there, Mr. Tuck. You woulda kicked butt.”
Ron laughed and the grin spread across his face and showed his dimples and the girls smiled and one with bleached bright blonde hair who had a case of acne that would not quit said, “But they were all religious stories right?”
“Some of them were, Joyce, but some of them were pretty raunchy.”
There was a giggle and then one of his seniors who liked to look confused because she thought that it was attractive said, “What’s raunchy?”
“Off- color stories,” said Ron.
The blonde grinned at him and said, “You mean dirty stories?”
There was that nervous laughter that bounced through the room like a crazy ball that was careening off the walls. The blonde wiggled herself back and forth on her seat and made a show of renewed interest in her book and then said, “Ok let’s read those and skip the others.”
It gave Ron an idea. He was learning that if he threw things out to them and listened to how they reacted that something would be revealed to him, a way into the piece and there it was. “What we are gonna do is divide up the stories and tell them to each other like we are on the journey together. Each of you is gonna pick one and read it and put it into your own words and then we are gonna tell the stories to each other. Now there are some that we have to tell and I will handle those if you don’t pick them first but for the rest of them, you need to look the book over, skim the characters and decide whose story that you want to tell. Some of them are long, some are really short and some are really exciting and some are really boring. I’ll try to keep you away from the boring junk.”
Andrea was flapping faster Ron was wondering if he should ask her if she needed to use the bathroom and then the absurdity of asking a 17 year old girl is she needed to pee struck him and he dismissed that idea.
There was a knock at his door a light tapping, but Ron didn’t hear it. He was at the board and writing down names of the pilgrims for the kids to choose from. He rattled off the first dozen or so from memory and then he was looking in the prologue to find the others. The girls heard the tapping immediately. Their heads all turning towards the door and then their eyes going straight down to their books and their hands making sure that they were copying what he was writing on the board. The was a second set of taps and this time Ron looked up to see the face of Sister Irene Emanuel standing in his doorway with a crooked finger that was beckoning him. He walked quickly to the door as she opened it and backed up and asked him to step into the hallway.
“Yes Sister?”
“Mr. Tuck, you have your jacket off.”
“Yes Sister, it’s really warm today.”
“But Mr. Tuck, your bare arms are dangling out.”
Ron blushed and looked at his arms and then back into her face. She turned him into a child almost instantly but he liked her. He trusted her and above all else he wanted to please her and have her think well of him. “Yes Sister, I’ll put the jacket back on right away.”
She nodded with a serene kind of admonishment and said, “That’s an excellent idea,” and walked back down the hall towards her office, the black habit floating along just above her feet.
Ron walked back into the room and as his students watched put his jacket back on immediately.
Joyce said, “Busted.” And the girls giggled.
Ron smiled and said, “Yes the sight of my arms in apparently an unnecessary distraction.” and went back to writing at the board.
Andrea said to Joyce, “Wasn’t his arms that I was staring it.”
Ron noticed that he lit up in a gleeful way when he taught his younger students. It wasn’t that the lessons were easier to do or that he liked the literature more, it was them. They rushed into the room eager to be there, to be in contact with him and he brightened so visibly at the sight of them that it was almost as if he became someone else. It was their writing that he pondered over. It was their questions that reappeared in his mind on his drives or when he was in the shower, never when he was with Zoe. He wanted to keep them to himself, to mold them. At the end of the day it was they who flew passed his room and stuck their heads in and wished him good night.
That afternoon Ron left his class room early to attend a faculty meeting. Sister Irene Emanuel presided over these meetings with a look that commanded respect. She could use her facial expressions to convey her thoughts, particularly to accent what she wasn’t saying. Looking freshly laundered and finely scrubbed, she smiled at the gathering of her teachers and said. “Well it seems that we have settled in nicely and started the year off well and gotten through the foolishness of Halloween. Our enrollment is up by 30 and so we now have 485 students, which, all things considered, must be thought of as successful. Now, paper is not free and I have been finding too much of it wasted and discarded into the trash. Please remember that the girls do have notebooks and that it isn’t necessary to give them our paper for every little thing that they do. Also, please remember that we are not a provider of pens and pencils. The girls know that they need to come prepared and it would be wrong of us to spoil them.”
Ron felt heat come to his cheeks. He wondered if this was directed at him. Maybe he was being foolish and spoiling them but wasn’t it more important for them to learn. He almost raised a hand to ask this but then thought better of it.
Sister Irene Emanuel continued after a pause and a scan of her eyes and a pursing of her lips that communicated that she was not talking about the sisters who knew better. The nuns smiled and looked down. This had been a topic of discussion at the convent. They knew it was coming and she had delivered the line expertly, although one or two would not have minded if she had singled out the prime offenders. “Now the subject of discipline needs to be discussed. We are instituting a system of demerits.” She passed out a stack of freshly copied pages that were passed up the aisles. “I’m not going to read to you. Take a moment and look over the page.”
Ron read quickly. It was a system of offenses and the number of demerits that each carried with it.
Late: 1 demerit
Uniform violation: 1 demerit (first offense) 3 demerits (second offense and a call home) 5 demerits (for each additional offense and a parent conference) Excessive makeup is a uniform violation.
No homework: I demerit and an academic penalty
Failure to be respectful: 3 demerits
Unprepared for class: 1 demerit (this includes lack of book covers, or coming to class without the necessary tools for that day)
Fighting: 10 demerits (a parent conference in the principal’s office)
Inappropriate Behavior: the number of demerits assigned for this is at the discretion of the teacher. (Whatever she thinks is appropriate.)
Conduct unbecoming a lady: 2 demerits but perhaps more depending on the severity of the offense.
Inwardly, Ron groaned as he read the list. It was all about class control. He had no problems with class control. Why should anyone have a problem with it? Ron knew enough to not say any of these things. He sat and listened.
“Today we are going to form a faculty council that will meet with girls who have exceeded the ten demerit limit. I know that any of you that are chosen will take this responsibility seriously. There will be five members of the council, two lay teachers, two sisters and myself.”
Ron nodded and looked around wondering who he would think was best. Sister Juliana Marie was quickly nominated as was Sister Bernadette. Ron knew both. Juliana taught math in the classroom above his and Sister Bernadette taught religion and led the choir. Marsha was nominated and quickly confirmed by the staff as one of the senior lay teachers. Then Irene Emanuel said, “I think the addition of a male presence would help us in our cause and without asking for a vote looked over at Ron and said, “Would you be kind enough to join our effort Mr. Tuck?”
Ron almost gasped. Then he said as obediently as he was able, “Yes Sister”