Mr. Jones was turning over my paper. There’s nothing on here, he said.
I needed to knock again. But he had the paper now, and the desk, although grainy and brown, was definitely not wood. I zipped open my backpack and stuck my hand in there, near my notebook, near the stacks of paper, the dead leaflets from trees all stuffed inside to save me.
I couldn’t do it, I said.
He peered at me over his glasses. You? he said. You couldn’t do it? You?
I I felt like I might start to cry. No, I said, small.
Why not? he said. And my hand was rummaging around now in 8 the backpack for a loose piece of paper, and finally I spotted my pencil in the elongated pencil dish on the desk and pulled out my hand and knocked that, the slim curved wood back, number two lead, gentle and subtle, so slight a knock he couldn’t possibly notice.
But he did. He was Mr. Jones. He watched my hand knock the pencil.
Knocking on wood, he said, pointing.
My throat was closing, and my eyes were getting glassy. I finished up and moved my hand away.
That’s right, I said. That’s right.
He smiled a short smile, trying to be encouraging. I looked down at my hand, right hand, knocking hand, and for one shattering second felt known. I loved him right then, a love fiercer in balance against the hate I still felt since he’d never commented on my father. He was the only one who’d ever noticed the knocking. Or maybe more likely: the only one who was brave enough to ask.
Vvly didn’t you do the test? he asked again. I have a problem with running, I said.
He continued to stare at me for a minute. I blinked back the glass from my eyes as best as I could. Like riverbanks just under flood level, the water rose to the surface, voluptuous at the edge, and then, blessedly, receded.
I’ve seen you run, he said then. You’re good.
I concentrated on clearing my eyes without using my hands. I had nothing to say to that.
Mr. Jones put the webbing between his thumb and forefinger at his lips and held it there for a minute. We were both quiet and four locker doors slammed outside. Some girl let out a big laugh, off the top of her head, that had no joy in it at all. The boy she was with made some more jokes.
Did you know, said Mr. Jones, speaking into his hand, that some woman in Texas typed out all the numbers from one to a million? He rubbed the webbing over his lips.
That would fill a lot of paper, I said.
Took her a few years, he said. He pressed his cheeks down with his fingers. Knocking on wood, he repeated.
I listened politely. I had, at that point, been knocking since my dad got sick, so that was six years of knocking. Maybe a million knocks on a million papers by now.
Finally, Mr. Jones removed his hand from his mouth. I wondered if he was going to give me some advice but he just said, You may go now Mona Gray. We bent heads gently at each other. I stood, and exited his classroom. The afternoon was still light and bright, and I followed the footprints of the world of teenagers back to my parents’ house, into the ashen living room, turned on the lead TV, slept a sleep about stones and storm clouds and rats and forks.
A few days later, Mr. Jones gave me a retake, where all the running words had been fully crossed out with black marker and replaced by swimming words. The girl at the bottom, Janet, now had a pool built around her fast muscled body, a cap over her hair, and a towel drawn by her feet. I did it in about ten minutes and got anA.
Lo years later he quit the school and opened the hardware store.
Opening day was a mob scene, flooded with townspeople, shoving each other aside to pick the choicest hammers and pliers off the walls. The school tried to woo him back, but Jones told everyone he was tired of correcting tests and explaining exponents and now wanted more than anything to sell every kind of nail. Tools, he announced, are the wave of the future. I hadn’t seen him in a while, and wandered the aisles, anonymous; I did not say hello or reintroduce myself, but instead checked the size of the shape under his shirt: double digits, fat enough across to be in the 2o’s or even 3o’s. He seemed happy. I watched as the bins emptied of supplies.
I didn’t buy anything myself, and when the people started to clear out, bags full, brimming with the particular happiness that comes from purchasing tools, I left the store and walked home.
Usually Jones’s good moods uplifted me, but that afternoon I was subdued and slow, and our numbers were different.
visited my father the morning after Back-to- School Night. I forgot to bring the plant food and said I would soon; he thanked me anyway, folding the wax paper that held the cereal into an envelope. I said, Do you feel all right? He said sure, didn’t he look all right? He was awaiting the results from his Shape of Health. I put a hand on his forehead. He felt regular temperature. I asked him how his heart was. He lay his fingers on his beating neck and listened. I asked him if he felt weaker than usual. I could see his eyes fade off, measuring.
The thing about 51 is it’s the first number in all the numbers that has nothing going on. It’s not a prime, or a special serniperfect number, or a sum of any factors; 51 is the smallest digit with no magic inside of it. This in itself makes it interesting, but interesting in the way a cement block in the middle of a field of poppies is interesting. I have a book called Your Favorite Numbers and on 51 it just says: If this is your favorite number you are the type of person who is drawn to the most bland, banal dog at the pound simply be cause no one is paying any attention to it at all.
This was the number it looked like my father might not turn.
On the way out, I made my mother promise to call if anything ever happened. Mona, she said, worrying doesn’t do anything.
So then don’t worry about me worrying, I said back.
At school, I avoided the science teacher the best I could. I ate lunch in my classroom and exited school through the side door. On Friday, listening to the now-familiar sound of retching in his room, I taught more subtraction to the second grade using word problems about the kids in the class: Ann DiLanno grew five heads in September and by October had only two heads. How many heads did she lose?
I have one head, Ann interrupted. I am not losing a single head.
I was fidgety because it was Friday, which meant tomorrow was Saturday, and after Saturday was Sunday, and that was two days of no work and all worry.
In fact, no one seemed to be in a very good mood.
Every morning now, Danny walked in and thanked the flag; he made sure to do this when Lisa was in the room. Today, Lisa went to the bathroom and returned to the front of the class with the IV.
on her head again.
Oh look, said Ann, Intra.
Sitting with a finger up inside each curl, Mimi said: Lisa. it’s me today for Numbers and Materials, you’re not up again.
I know, said Lisa.
I dusted chalk off my shirt. Mimi kept her fingers inside her curls the way some kids eat olives. I told Lisa to sit down. She walked by, and let out a lung-splitting cough right in my face.
Spit sprinkled zny cheeks and nose.
Cover your mouth, said Mimi, disgusted.
I thought you didn’t get colds, I said, wiping my eyes.
Lisa fell to the floor and had a coughing fit, dark clouds caught in her ribs. I crouched down, about to hit her on the back, when Ann called from her chair: Ms. Gray, can’t you tell by now? She’s just doing science class again.
Lisa’s cough stopped, cleanly. I held my hand in midair. I never get colds, Lisa said, then sat back in her chair.