Old Miss Gracing by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 10
Even though Zeke returned to school the next year as an accomplished baseball player, at least by six year old standards, when it settled in that he wouldn’t be in Miss Gracing’s class all day, he got a crying fit for a few days.
The difference between this year and last, was that this time his crying was done in private. He didn’t want anyone to know about it, except his sleeping companion, a furry rabbit he never named.
While he managed to confidently stride to the school yard, he was glad that at least this year it wasn’t on his birthday.
He saw the new kindergarteners looking around with big eyes, some not particularly dry. He saw his old friend Jeremiah who had a way of standing out in the crowd, at times seeming like a singer surrounded by fans, some approving, some disapproving, but all having interest. It was an unseasonably warm morning with one lone small white cloud giving some shelter from the fierce sun, as it did its best to follow the stationary heat source. Then he saw her for the first time in three months.
Her tall thin form emerged from the first floor door and descended the ten fireplace steps to ground level, her long gray hair, parted in the middle, hanging motionless in the still morning. She wore a simple light blue button up one piece
dress. She stood still, surveying her domain and easily picked out her new novices.
Zeke ran to her and said; “Hi, Miss Gracing. I missed you.”
She said; “Hi, I missed you, too. Tell me, what did you do with your summer vacation?”
“I became a baseball player. How about you?”
“I learned how to fly.”
“Have you been watching ‘Mighty Mouse?’”
She smiled; “No. I had the television on some other channel.”
The lineup bell came much too early and just as Zeke raised his head to find the noisy culprit somewhere above the brick school wall, the little cloud was outmaneuvered by the bright day orb and its light behind Miss Gracing gave her the fleeting look of having a glow around her head. She waved “Bye”, wiggling four fingers of her right hand, as she walked away to greet her new line of rookies.
Zeke again quickly located Jeremiah and proceeded to get on the line he already occupied. A short thin black haired woman appeared at the front of the line. Her face looked like it was the victim of severe childhood acne as she moved her pursed thin lips to say; “I’m Mrs. Pavlick and I will not tolerate any talking on line.” As his eyes tried, unsuccessfully to find
sight of Miss Gracing in the crowd, he felt like crying again, but being a big boy now, he controlled himself. “Let’s hope first impressions sometimes lie,” he thought.
As the year progressed, things were generally tolerable, but no longer a bit interesting. As Zeke’s mother had already taught him most of everything one learns in the first grade, he often passed the class daydreaming. Despite spending the day compacted behind and reading to the class from large books which she set up in front of her face, one day she must have looked at the class enough to detect that Zeke was gazing at the ceiling.
She stopped her reading and loudly said; “Zeke, are you paying any attention?”
Zeke was startled out of his reverie, but luckily heard the question. He got nervous and didn’t know what to say back and didn’t want his parents to be informed of his transgression, so he decided to simply tell the truth and he mumbled, “Yes.” It was true that he was paying some attention.
Mrs. Pavlick wasn’t satisfied yet, so added; “What did I just read?”
“I didn’t hear the last few lines,” but then he made the mistake of adding; “But, I’m well aware of the general direction.
It’s a little like what you were reading to us yesterday.”
He noticed some of the other kids snickering, as they all knew that the last thing any of them wanted to do was have an
extended discussion with her. The conversation didn’t go terribly. Zeke nodded a lot, promising to pay better attention and he pointed out that his physical condition was “out of sorts” today. She concluded that he sounded like a wise guy and told him; “I’ll have my eye on you.” Zeke spent the day dreaming, though he learned to keep his eyes fixed in the general direction of the new teacher or reader, he wasn’t sure which.
When Zeke left school he was more annoyed than afraid. It was bad enough he had to pass her stupid tests, now he was going to be required to focus his eyes and mind in her boring direction all day! He had already found an out. He thought that no one had yet invented a device to detect one’s thoughts. Though his mother had told him of the mind police, he didn’t see any around.
Realizing that his solution may not be the best one, he knew Miss Gracing’s route home and after school ran after her and caught up just before she got to her alley.
“Hey, Miss Gracing,” he called breathlessly.
She turned and smiled at him, recognizing the voice, though it sounded a bit different from the voice she was accustomed to;
“Zeke! What kind of problem did you find today?”
He had to smile back, not fully happy at the inference that he only brings her problems. The smile was caused by the partial, unintentional, joking, truth of it. Trying to catch
his breath as quickly as possible, he blurted out; “I don’t even know if I can explain this one.”
She looked down the street and said; “Is your mother following you?”
“Oh no, she only took me to and from school for a while.
No more.”
Her right hand clasped his left and she led him through the door and alley, up the stairs and into her apartment, saying;
“Let’s have a leisurely talk over some tea.”
He sat at the kitchen table, while she puttered around the enormous black stove she used to heat up the water. The first item that got his attention was the back of her stockinged, high heeled legs exposed tastefully below the knee. The one window had a view unusual to him. It was just the sky over the storage building in the alleyway but this time he noted a pink tone, nowhere in his memory. It looked as if someone had painted the canvas entirely pink and then covered most of it over with a rather deep blue, allowing only touches of the first coat to make its presence known.
Zeke didn’t know what to think about the art deco and art nouveau furniture and decorations, never having seen the like before. The item that caught his attention was a statuette of a reclining, nude, alabaster skinned woman, holding her dog’s collar with her left hand.
She brought over two cups and saucers, sat at the table and said; “So tell me all about it.”
“Well, let me think of a good place to start.”
“Try the beginning.”
“Okay. Mrs. Pavlick doesn’t like me.”
“How do you know that?”
“She singled me out in class today to see if I was paying attention.”
She smiled; “Were you?”
He smiled back; “No.” He thought a bit and added; “But, I don’t think anyone else was either.
She chose to ignore the intended justification and said;
“You have to pay attention.”
“Why? I know all this stuff already and all she does is read from some book.”
Miss Gracing was far from a devotee of Mrs. Pavlick’s teaching skills, but answered; “I don’t know why. It just sort of goes that way with everything. You can misunderstand. You can argue. But, it really upsets people when you don’t pay attention at all.”
They sat in silence for a while, each sipping their tea.
She continued; “They take it personally. When you don’t pay attention it’s like you don’t recognize their existence.”
“I’d be glad to pay attention if they said something interesting.”
“I’m flattered. You must find me interesting.”
“I never thought of it that way, but, yeah, I guess so.”
“All right. Now, I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear. My advice is that you should pay attention to Mrs. Pavlick at all times; or at least look as though you are.”
Zeke was tempted to repeat what he had previously said, but thought better of it, glad that she added the “Look as though you are.” commentary, which he was already practicing and cheerfully said; “I’ll try.”
“Now that that is settled, what do you think of my apartment?” Up until now Simon was hiding from the unusual visitor and must have finally felt comfortable, as he walked into the kitchen howling for his food.
“Thank you, Simon,” thought Zeke as he got down on the floor to pet the loud furry thing. He didn’t know what to answer Miss Gracing with and Simon bought him time to make sure what he said was not unintentionally insulting. He got one little grab rather than anything that could be called a pet as Simon whisked past him, heading for his food source.
“He doesn’t like me,” said Zeke.
“Of course he does. He’s just hungry.”
As she got up to satisfy Simon’s demands, Zeke had collected his thoughts enough to venture a reply; “It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before. I like all the colors and the long haired girls. There are things I’m curious about. Why are some things full of angles and others full of curves?”
She laughed with surprise at the response. “They’re just different styles, that’s all. The ones with sharp lines are called art deco and the curvy ones art nouveau.”
He had no further questions, so he again tried to pet Simon as he was eating his fish dinner. Success. He stayed with Simon a few minutes gently rubbing his soft fur with the grain.
He was a bit afraid that Simon might scratch him as he had not yet had any experience with a pet, but expected that a cat couldn’t do much damage.
Miss Gracing said; “I hate to ask you to leave so early, but I’m feeling awfully tired. I usually nap now.”
“Sorry,” he said as he got up, “Thanks for the advice.”
As he walked to the door, she said; “You’ll remember to pay attention to Mrs. Pavlick now, won’t you?” and made a wry smile.
“Yes,” he answered, doing his best imitation of her facial expression.
There weren’t many people on the street as he walked the three blocks home, so he used this opportunity to gaze at the sky. He could still see the pink trying to protrude from the
deep blue, but this wider view showed two large cotton-like white clouds with ominous dark borders.
Her nap with Simon produced a new dream. She had no reaction to it at all, because all she remembered when she woke up were the amorphous, moving deep green and deep blue colored shapes constantly changing patterns. Sometimes it looked ominous. Sometimes it looked friendly.