Chapter 21
Ron was waiting as they walked into the room. He was amazed at how he could forget and did forget anything else that was on his mind as soon as he saw them. They stood, said their customary prayer before the start of class and then opened their books.
“Ok, so last night you read a story and then rewrote it into your words, correct?”
Some faces nodded and others looked down. Ron knew that meant that some had found the assignment too difficult to finish or had not done it for one reason or another, so he decided to go with volunteers. “Joyce, why don’t you go first.”
Joyce looked nervous. Her “OK” was timid.
Ron said, “Come right up here in front of the room and stand behind my lectern.”
“Do I have to do it from up there? Can’t I just sit here?”
Ron thought. Yes, he could understand how being in front of the class could be intimidating. But Joyce sat near the back of the room and he wanted everyone to see her face while she was telling the story. Then an idea. “Ok, what we are gonna do is make a big circle with the desks.”
Joyce smiled. Some of the girls groaned their teenaged “Do we have to move” complaint. But they did it. Ron waited as the desks scraped and pulled across the floor and then there was not what you could call a circle but a perimeter around the outside of the room. Ron moved into the center of it. “Pens out, notebooks open, you are responsible to take notes on what Joyce says.”
Ron looked over at Joyce. Her head was bent over her notes and she was moving it back and forth, her lips moving. Then she looked up at him and smiled and then giggled at the other faces that were staring at her.
“Which story did you pick Joyce?”
“The Miller.”
“Do you know why you picked that one?”
“Yeah, my sister, who graduated last year, said it was a dirty one.”
Nervous giggles spread across the room. Joyce began. “This old guy John marries a young girl named Allison. Now why a young girl would marry this old guy,” She elongated the old. “We don’t know but she did. I mean maybe the guy had money, or maybe she was just stupid. She seems kinda dumb, but anyway she married him.” Joyce put her hand down to her hip behind the desk. “And of course she was bored.” Joyce paused. “And frustrated.” The girls laughed. Ron smiled. “But she was stuck with him. Until this other guy whose name I can’t pronounce and so I decided to call him Abe,”
“Absalom,” said Ron.
“Yeah that’s it. Abe starts coming around and telling her that he can’t live without her. But he’s such a dork even if he is young, he’s just too dorky. Even her husband laughs at him.” Ron smiled as she continued with the story. It was working. They were listening to every word. He walked around the back of the outside of the perimeter as Joyce continued and told about Absalom and Allison and John. “So now this guy Nicky comes along and Nicky was hot!” Joyce smiled again and paused. Then she said, “I mean slick and handsome a good dresser and knows how to talk.” Ron noticed three heads turn in the direction of a girl named Marion a pretty girl who was very quiet and really not buying into what Ron had been doing so far. Her responses had been terse and clearly designed to make him leave her alone whenever he questioned her. Joyce was looking at her and smiling as she described Nicky but Marion was not smiling back and there was immediate tension in the room. Ron felt it and saw and knew, he instinctively knew. He decided to interrupt.
“Ok wait a second Joyce. I’m seeing a lot of Nicky’s in people’s notebooks, his name was Nicholas right?”
“Yeah Mr. Tuck, but you said in our words right?”
Ron shrugged, “You’re right Joyce, I’m sorry.”
But he had relieved the tension and Marion no longer had a real excuse to think Joyce was talking about her boyfriend he thought, feeling proud of his instincts. “So Nicky, cause he’s a dog, wants to sleep with Alison and cause she’s bored and frustrated and a slut wants to be with him too.”
Now it was Ron’s turn to feel uncomfortable. Was it alright for them to say that the character was a slut? But then he looked at the faces and saw that each one of them including Marion was hanging on every word and said to himself, “Screw it.”
Joyce went on and she did a good job. She even got through the farting in face business and made it seem so natural that all Ron heard was a couple of “Ewws” from different parts of the room.
When Joyce finished Ron said, “You did a really good job with that, excellent in fact. So what is the moral?”
Marion raised her hand. Ron called on her. “They had no morals, like some of the people in here.”
During lunch, Joyce and Marion fought. It was a face slap that led to a hair pull and a ripped uniform top and scratches down the sides of the necks of both girls. Sister Irene Emanuel called Ron down to her office. He saw both girls sitting outside of her closed doors staring daggers across the room at each other, while the old nun who served as a secretary sat at her desk in between them. Ron was shocked when he saw them.
“What happened?” he said to Joyce. She looked down and was silent.
He walked over to Marion. “Was this about the story in class?”
Marion just stared at him.
“Sister is waiting for you, Mr. Tuck”
Ron opened the door of the office. Irene Emanuel was seated in back of her desk reading and looked up at him over the top of her bifocals. “Well, it seems that we have had a problem and although the faculty council hasn’t met yet, I thought that it would be a good chance for you to see how things work, Mr. Tuck.”
“I think I may have had something to do with it, Sister.”
“You?”
“Yes Sister, it started in class. I was having them retell Canterbury Tales in their own words and I think Marion was offended by Joyce using the name Nicky. I think Nicky may be Marion’s boyfriend.”
“Mr. Nick Bontieri is Marion’s father, Mr. Tuck. And it seems as if Marion’s father has,” she paused pursing her lips and thinking about how she wanted to say it. “not been behaving himself. But that is no excuse for this. These girls have to learn that if they break the rules, they get punished.”
Now Ron was even more shocked than he had been before. “Joyce knew about it?”
“Joyce and Marion were friends and of course the one girl shared things about her home life which was better not shared and so when they stopped being friends, of course, there were hurt feelings. As far as I can tell, this was revenge.”
“I’m sorry, Sister.”
“What are you sorry for? You did nothing wrong. Perhaps you got used a little bit, but you would be awfully foolish of you thought that you could teach these girls and not have them try to manipulate you.”
“I don’t know,” Ron said. “I saw the tension in the room and I thought I had dissipated it. I thought it was a boyfriend issue. I was wrong.”
“And is this the first time in your life that you have had the unpleasant realization that you were incorrect in your judgment, Mr. Tuck?”
“No, Sister.”
“Then it is hardly worth mentioning, is it?”
Ron broke into his dimpled grin. “I guess not.”
“Well, sit over here on my left while we conduct our own little version of justice, Mr. Tuck”
Ron moved his chair over in back of her desk and to her left. She turned to him and said, “Half of the time I wish this was a boarding school so that we could minimize the influence of their parents. But we work with what we have.” Then she buzzed for the girls.
They walked in one after the other, looking guilty, wearing the marks on their necks, and their puffy red eyes as both signs of their crime and also, Ron thought, with a certain amount of pride. These were tough kids who had grown up in a tough neighborhood. They may have been frightened of this very proper nun, but they knew that they could take whatever it was that she had in store for them. And besides, it had been worth it. Joyce had gotten completely under Marion’s skin and shattered that “I’m better cause I’m prettier” façade of hers. Marion had loved the hot sting on her hand when she had slapped Joyce right on her pimply face. Marion was thinking that when she told the story later she would say that when she had slapped her that she had popped one of her zits and had to wash her hands forever just to make sure the puss was gone.
Ron was about to learn that out and out declarations of war between girls was never over. They would carry a hatred of each other for the rest of their lives unless of course something radical happened.
“Well ladies, have we anything else to add?”
The girls were silent. Irene Emanuel waited and then said, “Did I mumble? Are your ears too clogged with wax to have heard me?”
Both girls mumbled, “No Sister,” in unison.
Irene Emanuel turned to Ron. “Are you allowing these girls to speak in class Mr. Tuck? Have you been keeping them so quiet that they have lost any power of elocution?”
“Not at all, Sister,” said Ron careful to enunciate distinctly.
“Good, although sometimes it is best to hold one’s tongue, isn’t it Joyce?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“And to learn to retain your dignity as well. Isn’t that true, Marion?”
“Yes, Sister”
“Since we have not given you the proper demeanor that your parents have sent you here to achieve, since we as a school have failed you, and are shortly sending you out into the world in an obvious state of ill-preparedness, we shall have to try harder in these few months that we have left. Therefore for the next month, each of you will spend Saturday morning working and praying with us in the convent. I will be speaking to your parents this evening. It would be best for both of you to come clean, as they say, before my call.”
“But Sister, I have a job on Saturdays, Joyce whined.
“Yes, you do and it is to be here promptly at 7 am. That’s all ladies. You may leave.”