![]() She was taping Lucas’s story back together like a jigsaw puzzle. “A story one of my kids drew,” Julia said. She was in the teacher’s lounge when a third grade teacher named Bret Goucher approached her. She observed through the window as he crouched at the edge of the playground, arms around knees, watching the other kids. He looked at her with a shy, ashamed expression that made her heart go out to him. He ran to the trash can, tearing the pages up, and threw the scraps away. Suddenly he stood, as if embarrassed, and crumpled up the pages. ![]() She saw that he’d almost finished another illustration. “I didn’t know you had a brother,” she said. “Did you ever ask your mom and dad if you could have one?” ![]() “Do you have a dog or a cat at home?” she said. He smelled like damp leaves, like the outdoors, and like…pets. He actually did have a faint odor, but it wasn’t anything revolting, exactly. If you got close to him, he seemed to subtly withdraw, like he was scared he smelled bad. In her two months’ experience, Lucas had been the hardest to make a connection with. He lived down in the Mudders, which was what they called a row of homes out past the train tracks. Did he have enough to eat? Did he get breakfast in the morning? His shoulders were frail, his bones birdlike and distinct. She didn’t want to interrupt- he was so engrossed!-so she watched. The illustrations were detailed and swift. She saw that he wasn’t just writing, he was illustrating. Her desk was covered with unfinished lesson plans and papers she needed to grade, and part of her wanted to tell him to go outside so she could get her work done. Other teachers were already outside to watch them on the playground. “Okay, guys,” she said to the line of rowdy nine- and ten-year-olds, “quiet down. The pair of Wrangler jeans he wore every single day had been patched up so sloppily she wondered if he’d done it himself. He stayed at his desk, feverishly writing.Īll the Rexford kids were poor. When the recess bell rang, they leapt from their seats to line up at the door.Įxcept Lucas Weaver. They weren’t smarter, but they had parents who actually made them do homework. You could tell the Ballard Creek kids from the Rexford kids right away. There’s nothing I hate more than tiny trees.” The mom had pointed up the street at all the saplings in their swollen beds of dirt. She’d talked briefly to the kid’s mom, who was a little drunk. Julia had gone there last month to drive a kid home after he’d missed the bus. commuters who lived out here because taxes were lower. He lived in Ballard Creek, a new-ish suburb outside of Rexford, filled with D.C. Travis was loud and bossy, the kind of kid they always joked would become a teacher. “Miss Grey! I know!” said Travis, his arm shooting up. “But remember, what do all stories have?” “Your story can be a fable, a tall tale, or a fairy tale,” she told the class. They already looked forward to dropping out of high school at sixteen. But most of the Rexford kids didn’t seem to want anything different. What she wanted now was to be that kind of teacher: one who made a difference for her students, or at least for a few of them. She herself had had a few teachers, particularly one in high school, who told her she could be something. She just wasn’t sure she loved being a teacher. But most of all, you had to love the kids-suffer when they struggled or when something bad was going on at home-be happy for them when they succeeded or when they laughed wildly at a dumb joke. A good memory of who you had been at that age. If you couldn’t get them to listen, you were dead. Confident but kind, pleasing to the ear but full of authority. “Settle down and start writing your stories.” “Okay, guys,” Julia told her fourth graders. Another teacher had told her the unofficial town motto was “Hills, Whores, and Liquor Stores.” She hadn’t seen any whores, as far as she knew, but there were definitely hills and liquor stores. She’d expected to end up in a city, but Teach For America had sent her here, to this little town built around a dead railroad station: Rexford, West Virginia. It happened during her second month as a teacher.
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