Holding Wonder

"Good-bye, teacher."
"I'm glad you came to me," I said humbly. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," said Loo Ree.
She was suddenly a tall pillar of light in the dusky room. As natural as breathing, I slid to my knees and bowed my head above my clasped hands. I felt Loo Ree's hand briefly and warmly on my head and when I looked up, there was nothing in the room but the long, long shadows and me.
The next morning, I sat at my desk, feeling so empty and finished inside that it seemed impossible to go on. Loo Ree had been more of my life than I had
known. All this time she had been giving more to me than I to her. Now I felt as lost and weak as a convalescent trying to walk alone after months in bed.
The children felt my abstraction and, stimulated by the nearness of the holidays, got away with murder all morning. Just before recess the whole situation erupted. Marsha suddenly threw herself across the aisle at Stacy and Bob who had been teasing her. She hit Stacy over the head with a jigsaw puzzle, then she dumped her brand-new box of thirty-six Crayolas over Bob's astonished head and jumped up and down on the resultant mess, screaming at the top of her voice.
Awed by the size and scope of the demonstration, the rest of the class sat rigid in their seats. A red Crayola projected from the back of the neck of Bob's T-shirt and Stacy, too astonished to cry, sat looking down at a lap full of jigsaw pieces.
I gathered up the shrieking, board-stiff Marsha and dismissed the class, apprehensive row by apprehensive row, then I sat down on the little green bench and doubled Marsha forcibly to a sitting position on my lap. I rocked her rebellious head against my sweatered shoulder until her screams became sobs and her flailing feet drooped laxly against my skirt. I pressed her head closer and bent my cheek to her hair.
"'There, there, Marsha. There, there." I rocked back and forth. "What's the matter, honey-one, what's the matter?" Her sobs were hiccoughy gasps now. "Nobody likes me. Everybody's mean. I hate everybody." Her voice rose to a wail.
"No, you don't, Marsha. You don't hate anybody. Is it about Loo Ree?" Her sobs cut off abruptly. Then she was writhing in my arms again, her voice rising hysterically.
"Marsha!" I shook her, with no effect, so I turned her over briskly and spatted her good and hard a couple of times across her thighs just below her brief skirts, then turned her back into my arms.
She burrowed into my shoulder, her two arms hugging one of mine tight.
"Loo Ree's gone away," she sobbed.
"I know," I said, and one of my tears feel on her tumbled hair. "She was my friend, too. I feel bad, too." Marsha knuckled her eyes with one hand.
"She was my most special friend, and she went away:"
"She had to go," I soothed. "She was so special she couldn't stay."
"But I didn't want her to go," cried Marsha.
"Neither did I," I patted her back.
"She told me lotsa stories." Marsha struggled to a sitting position. "She showed me pretty things. She loved me."
"Yes, she loved us. And just think, we can remember her all our lives. When you grow up, you can tell your children all about her."
"I'll tell them all about her," sighed Marsha, leaning against me and shutting her eyes. "When I grow up."
"When you grow up," I whispered, looking past her head and through the schoolroom wall out into the troubled world. "When you grow up."
I hugged her head to me tight and listened and listened for the creak of a changing balance wondering, with a catch in my heart for all the Marshas and Bobs and their growing up-Which way is it tipping? THE CLOSEST SCHOOL
WELL, WE were the closest school.
The rolling grasslands stretched all dry and tawny from the front of the school up into the hills until the slopes got too steep for the grass to cling. Behind the school was my store and in front of it was the thin white-stitched black tape of the main highway and beyond that the rolling grasslands stretched all dry and tawny up into the hills until the slopes-
At right angles to both the school and store and facing another way was the church and in front of the church the rolling grasslands stretched all– The last direction was faced by the Community Center and the rolling grasslands-
Isolation, yeah, and plenty of it-it takes plenty of acres like ours to raise a few head of cattle-but Saturdays and Sundays we're pretty busy. Dusty rivers pour themselves out of canyons and arroyos and out of the folds of the hills and solidify into dustcovered pickups and station wagons and cars in front of the store or Community Center. And, during the week, the station wagon school buses rattle out and in and out again and the fourteen kids spread themselves pretty good and fill the whole place with their clatter.
But sometimes in the evening, when the sun is spinning every blade of grass to gold or-along the black slope kindling it to a fine spun-glass snowiness, I listen to the wind, thin and minor, keening through the gold and glass and wonder why anyone would want to live in such a dot under such wideness of sky with such a tawny tide of grass lapping up to such hills.
But things do happen out here-things to talk about, things to remember, things to wonder about. Like the time when we were the closest school-so naturally they came here to register their child. Mrs. Quinlan, the teacher, came fluttering over to the store early that morning before school. Mrs. Quinlan fluttering is a sight in itself. She's usually so self-contained and sort of unflutterable.
"Bent," she said, "you're on the school board. What shall I do about this new student?"
"New student?" I squinted out the window of the store. "I didn't hear anyone drive up."
"They didn't come by road," she said uncomfortably. "They cut across."
"From where?" I asked.
"From the Nuevas," she said.
"Cut across from the Nuevas!" The two of us silently reviewed the terrain between us and the Nuevas. "Maybe I'd better come see them." I flipped the card on the front door so it said, "Come In. Back Soon." and followed her across the hollow square that separates the four buildings.
Well! When I caught sight of them, I nearly fluttered, myself. Then I got tickled and started my subterranean laughter that plagues me at the worst
possible times and that is almost inextinguishable.
"Bent!" Mrs. Quinlan flashed at me out of the corner of her eyes.
"I'm not laughing at them," I choked in a whisper. "It's Stringler! Wait'll he sees them!" I ironed out my face-hers began to crinkle-as best I could and gravely acknowledged her introduction.
"Mr. and Mrs. Powdang and Vannie. This is Mr. Brentwood, one of our school board members." I wondered a little about how appropriate it was, but I held out my hand anyway and felt warmth and friendliness in their firm clasps though they did tickle my palm.
"Pleased to meet you," I said. "This is an unexpected pleasure."
"Thank you."
I don't know why I should have been so startled at the English. We get a fair number of transients through here and most of them are bilingual to the point of no accent. Why shouldn't the Powdangs be so also?
"What's the problem?" I asked. "Haven't you any registration blanks?"
"Of course," said Mrs. Quinlan. "It's a matter of what to put in the blanks. Equivalents, sort of." But we both knew it wasn't that. She'd needed someone to be with her-someone-well, just someone.
"Well," I picked up the registration card. "Name, Vannie Powdang. Parent's name. Mr.-?" I lifted my eyebrows at Mr. Powdang-I think. "Your first name?" Mr. and Mrs. Powdang exchanged glances and I almost dropped my pen. No valid reason why I should have been startled. Two eyes aren't necessarily standard equipment just because I count that many on myself. But coming that way, unexpectedly like that from the fluff– "First name?" asked a deep voice.