alan w greenwood
originally published in Grit magazine
Miss
Mildred Perkins had taught third grade twenty five years at Herbert Hoover
Grade School in Phil Mont, Texas. She had reached the grand old age of 50
years—half a century. 350 if you counted in dog years! And Miss Mildred Perkins
marked her final week from retirement on her GARFIELD DIETS calendar in red ink
(a teacher’s favorite color): May 25th was “D” day. She had circled
the day several times with permanent marker. Four days until then, thirty
hours, fourteen lunch duties, two fights, one bloody nose, and countless more
recesses. Teaching had tired Miss Mildred Perkins. She had taught her children
despite principals and superintendents, searching for parents who cared or had
time to help as chaperones on trips to the zoo, or buying glue. She had trouble
finding children who learned despite all their problems: bad home lives, ADD
and poverty. She had lined up desk every afternoon and picked up papers and
gum. And now her new Crayola felt tips…were gone. Stolen.
Where
was honesty with these modern children nowadays? This kids just didn’t have any.
Kids in the 90’s…oh my gosh the 00’s; you could not trust them farther than you
could toss them. She had to watch everything in her room or it would walk off
and never surface again.
Miss Mildred
Perkins stared up at the face of her large clock. “Children, five minutes!” She
said this to the five little scoundrels serving her afternoon d-hall. She
frowned and they sulked and fidgeted. One played with his belt loop. Another
tapped a number 2 pencil on her desk like a metronome. A commotion buzzed in
the hallway today too. Why didn’t the others GO HOME? What were they doing out
there? Playing basketball? “Five minutes and you children can leave.” Mildred
arched her eyebrows, displaying the look she had found could curl children’s
socks. “Consuelo, did you get your arithmetic turned in? You don’t want your
grade to go down.”
Consuelo nodded.
“Yes, Ma’am.” Her ponytail flipped.
“Margaret,
do—not—forget your jacket. It may be chilly tomorrow morning and you will catch
your death of cold. You never know what this weather will do. You children
never think ahead.” Also, she could not find her good scissors—the blue handled
ones Mrs. Stone had given her for Christmas two years ago. Mildred started to
chastise Manuel for his squirming, but did not. He squirmed some more and
picked his nose.
Miss Mildred
Perkin’s sister, Beth, lived near San Antonio in Texas hill country. They had
prepared her a room complete with an easel and a view of the hills and nearby
oaks. Perfect, she thought, no kids! Just Beth’s husband Elmer to deal
with. She could handle him. Beth had made Mildred promise to call tonight and
update them on her schedule. They knew she rented here, and it would not take
her long to uproot from Phil Mont.
Miss
Mildred Perkins studied Manuel and Bobby sitting beside her. Was it one of
them—took her pens and scissors? Probably, marking up the boy’s rest room
with them, she thought. They were always doing something. She kept these
particular children close, not from her fondness for them, but to manage their
outbursts during class. Manuel had untied shoelaces as usual, his feet not
touching the wooden floor. Work had been so different when she had first
started teaching. Kids seemed nicer, more tolerable. Or had she just been
younger, more enthusiastic and more naive. Was that marker ink on Consuelo’s
fingertips? It looked like marker ink. Stealing! She spent enough of her own
money buying supplies, lending lunch money, providing tissues for their snotty
little noses. If the thief had asked, she would have given the supplies.
All they had to do was ask!
“Miss.
Perkins, what you do when you don’t…teach?” Margaret asked.
“What do I
do?” Mildred Perkins answered. “It’s what do I do, Margaret.”
Children couldn’t
imagine teachers outside school. When she was little, Mildred thought her
teacher, Mrs. Craibel, slept at her school. She had lingered once after the
other children left. Peeked through the first floor window to see what teachers
did when they were alone. Mildred Perkins smiled.
“Dear, I’ll paint.
That’s what I’ll do when I retire next week. But with difficultly…seems someone
made off with my NEW drawing pens. But I imagine no one here would know
anything about that, would they.”
Several sets of
brown eyes stared guiltily at their scarred desktops. Mildred Perkins grew
bolder. These five were usually responsible for much of the mischief in room
17: her room for all those years of teaching. Except for the one year she
taught high school, but she rushed hurriedly back to her eight-year-olds at
Adams Elementary the next year. She had declined the principal’s job
twice—remaining with her children.
“They
making you quit?” Bobby asked. He scratched a freckle on nose with his pencil eraser. Miss Mildred
Perkins, whimsically, imagined how he would appear with his scores of freckles
joined—like connecting dots. A puzzle from Scholastic Magazine: Color Bobby’s
face.
“No,
dear, they’re not making me. It’s called retirement. You do what you really
want and don’t have to work anymore when you retire.”
“So,
you don’t like teaching us anymore?” He seemed perplexed.
“Of
course I like teaching. Except when people steal things from me,” she
said. Mildred Perkins raised her thin eyebrows for emphasis. Bobby shrunk down
in his chair. Squirmed right and left.
Talking and scuffling issued from the hallway. Miss Mildred Perkins had
finally had enough. She marched to the door to see what was brewing outside
room 17. What was all the noise?
“Surprise!”
Miss Mildred
Perkins’s mouth dropped when she looked out. Her entire third grade class
crowded the hall, with several parents, and some smiling colleagues, including
Mrs. Stone. One of Mildred’s students, a girl, pushed to the front with a
small, carefully wrapped gift. They had tied it in a yellow bow—looked tied by
a youngster. One side of the bow larger than the other. Another student carried
a German chocolate cake: Mildred’ favorite desert. How had they known that
was her favorite?
She heard laughter
from behind and turned. Her five little prisoners held a banner they had unrolled
secretly behind her. The students had scrawled WE WELL MISS YOU MISS
PIRKINS! on the long white paper held stretched between Bobby and Margaret.
Miss Mildred Perkins noted with humility that students had scribbled the banner
with what she guessed were her Crayola markers. So that’s where those
darn markers went. They had probably used her scissors also, to wrap the
present.
“Open
your present!” The eight-year-olds whined. “Open—it, Miss Perkins!”
Miss Mildred Perkins’s eyes misted.
She studied each of her little criminals from d-hall. Not exactly the James
Gang at that. Bobby peeked around shyly from behind the banner. The hall
air-conditioning popped on and set the banner to waving.
“We
borrowed your stuff, Miss. Perkins. Sorry. We wanted to make this banner for
your surprise. And we wanted to wrap your present.” His figure blurred. A smile
crinkled the corners of Mildred Perkin’s mouth as she took the offered gift,
clutching it to her ample bosom. Her eyes misted and she held her breath for a
moment.
“You
have fun in Uvalde…not being a teacher,” Manuel added, squirming. “Open it!”
The students, parents and other teachers crowded her.
“Happy retirement, Mildred,” Mrs. Stone said. Her
friend smiled, clutching Mildred’s wrist warmly.
Poppycock!
Kids were still the same deep down inside. What had she been thinking? What
were a few pens, if they had been “borrowed”? Heck, even if a student had
stolen them. She had received so much more from her teaching in the last 25
years. Much, much more. More than she could imagine giving up when she retired.
Mildred unwrapped the paper ever so carefully from the gift.
“I’ll
get your stuff…your pens, Miss. Perkins,” Margaret said.
“You
just do that, Margaret. Because I will need them soon. Right here!” Everyone
stared at her questioningly. Mrs. Stone grinned. She already knew what Mildred
was thinking. Mildred opened her gift, the most precious one stood before
her now, she reasoned. She would get a bigger retirement check for teaching
five more years. She WAS only 50.
She had some
talking to do—with the principal. John would see her side of it and keep her
on. Heck, she had taught him when he wasn’t much bigger than a folding
chair. He better! And her sister and the Texas hill country could wait…the
painters could breathe a sigh of relief they would have no competition from
her. She could teach five more years, and send more Bobbies and Manuels to
d-hall. And make more memories.
“Hand
me those scissors kids, my blue-handled ones, young lady, so I can cut this
darn ribbon. But you may want your present back—”
Everyone stared. Mrs. Stone raised
her shoulders and grinned. Grabbed Mildred and hugged her. After Stone released
her, Mildred grinned, snipping the present’s red ribbon. Below her, Bobby still
stood holding the stolen pens, eyebrows raised in question. She’d tell them the
good news later.
