"Oh," she said. "Well, then, you're living up to the contract."
"I do my best," he said. "But I still miss most of the hot meals."
"Not because I don't prepare them," said DeAnne.
"Maybe the contract will come from Agamemnon. Maybe tomorrow."
"Even if it doesn't come, Step, even if Mr. Agamemnon or Akabakka or whatever-"
"Arkasian."
"Even if he changed his mind or couldn't do it or whatever. Even if that comes to nothing, things will still work out."
"I hope you're right, Fish Lady."
"I am. You can count on it. Because I get inspiration, don't I?"
"Sometimes you just give it," he said. "To me."
She nestled closer to him in bed and closed her eyes, feeling comforted now, feeling ready for sleep. "You make me feel so good, Junk Man."
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. Then she must have fallen asleep, because she remembered nothing else till morning.
7: Crickets
This is what happened with Stevie's second-grade project: He brought home a one-page ditto that listed the requirements, which were not very specific. The end-of-year project had to show "an environment" and the creatures that lived in it. It was due on April 22nd, and it had to include a written report and a "visual depiction."
"Most of the kids are doing posters," said Stevie, "but I don't want to." He had been reading about octopuses, and he wanted to do his project about the undersea environment. And instead of cutting pictures out of magazines and pasting them to posterboard, he got his mom to buy some colored clay, which he shaped into fishes, clams, coral, and an octopus. He arranged them on a cardboard base that DeAnne cut from the side of one of the boxes they had used in the move. Then he wrote his report, typing it himself on Step's word-processing computer and stapling it in the corner.
It was the first thing Stevie had shown any real interest in dur ing his whole time at this school, and DeAnne showed it off to Step with real pride, the night before Stevie took it to school.
"This is incredible," said Step. "You didn't help him?"
"I did nothing. In fact I advised him against doing something so hard. Who knew he could make fish that looked like fish?"
"Not to mention an octopus that looks like an octopus," said Step. "And look at the clam. There's a starfish prying it open!"
"He still never talks about school," said DeAnne. "Not even when I ask. But he did this, so it can't be all bad."
Then came DeAnne's new calling, and she was so involved with preparing her spiritual living lesson that she didn't think about Stevie's project now that it had been turned in.
On the first Monday in May, however, her lesson was over, and as she drove Stevie to school she remembered his project and asked what the teacher thought of it.
"She gave it a C," said Stevie.
"What?" asked DeAnne.
"And it got mooshed."
"It got mooshed! How! Did somebody drop it?"
"No," said Stevie. "They put them all out on display in the media center, and when the other kids walked past it they mooshed it."
"On purpose?" asked DeAnne.
"Yeah," said Stevie.
"How can you be sure? Did you see them do it?"
"Raymond said, 'Tidal wave!' and then after him they wadded it up even more so finally it was just a big mess of clay."
"Where was your teacher when they were doing this? Where was the librarian?"
"Mrs. Jones was there."
"And she didn't do anything?"
"No," said Stevie.
"She must not have seen what they were doing."
"She saw," said Stevie.
"She saw? And she didn't stop them?"
"No," said Stevie.
DeAnne felt sick. No, she thought. Stevie just misunderstood the situation. The teacher hadn't really been watching. She could ne ver have let such a thing happen.
"I'm going in to talk to your teacher," said DeAnne.
"Please no!" said Stevie, urgently.
"This has to be cleared up. There was no way that your project deserved a C."
"Please don't come in!" he pleaded.
"All right," said DeAnne. "But why not?"
"It'll just make things worse if you do," said Stevie.
"Worse?"
But they had just reached the turnaround in front of the school, and Stevie bounded out the door and raced for schoolthe first time she had ever seen him hurry toward class. Somehow it didn't make her feel any better.
There was something seriously wrong here, and not just his moroseness because of the move. Mrs. Jones could not have given that project a C. No teacher could have stood by and let the other kids destroy a child's project, either. It simply couldn't happen.
Well, if she couldn't talk to Mrs. Jones, she could at least talk to the librarian and find out from her what had happened. "Come on, kids, we're going in," said DeAnne.
DeAnne pulled the car into the teachers' parking lot, where a visitor space was open, and within a few minutes she was leading the kids down the hall to the media center. DeAnne supposed that she ought to check in at the office, but the receptionist there was so snotty, and DeAnne was already so upset, that she decided that if she wasn't going to get really furious today she'd better pretend that she didn't realize she needed to stop in at the main desk.
The librarian was a sweet-voiced older lady, and when she smiled DeAnne thought for some reason of the time she had an eye injury and when the bandages were on and she couldn't see, someone laid a cool damp cloth on her forehead. "I'm so glad when parents come by the library," said the librarian.
"Oh, I thought it was a media center now," said DeAnne.
"Well, so it is. We have two video carts and an Apple II computer, so we are a media center, but look at all these books. Wouldn't you call this a library?"
"Yes I would," said DeAnne. "And I like it all the more, knowing that you call it a library, too."
The librarian smiled and patted DeAnne's hand. "Aren't you the sweet one." Then she bent over- not far, because she wasn't very tall- and soberly greeted Robbie and Elizabeth with a hand shake each. "When will you be a student here, young man?"
"I start kindergarten next fall," said Robbie.
"Oh, and I see you have been well taught," she said. "You said kindergarten and not kindy-garden."
Robbie beamed.
The librarian turned back to DeAnne. "Did you just stop by to visit? Or is there something I can help you with?"
"I understand that the second-grade projects were displayed here."
The librarian looked mournful. "We just barely took down the display over the weekend. I'm so sorry you missed it. We're so proud of our second graders."
"It is rather remarkable, to have second- grade projects," said DeAnne. "I've actually never heard of such a thing before. I don't think we even had senior projects in high school when I was there."
"I think it's because our school is only K through 2," said the librarian. "Dr. Mariner wanted our students to mark the children's departure from our school in a special way-something they would remember, perhaps, in time to come."
"That's certainly the way my oldest boy responded to the assignment," said DeAnne. "Perhaps you noticed his project when it was on display."
"Oh, I don't think I'd remember any one in particular, Mrs . ... um ... "
"I'm DeAnne Fletcher."
Suddenly the librarian's eyes grew wide, and she flashed her wonderful smile again. "Oh, you must be Stevie Fletcher's mother!"
"I am," said DeAnne.
"What a very special boy," said the librarian. "I do remember his project, in fact. It was a sculpture garden-an undersea environment, I believe. With an octopus and that clam with the starfish opening it-and I noticed that the shark had a tiny little fish that the shark was swallowing. A little gruesome, perhaps, but very creative. You must have been proud for your son to be given the first-place ribbon."
"First place? Stevie told me the project got a C."
"But how could that be possible? Dr. Mariner came here and judged them all herself, and before she had even seen the rest of the children's posters, she laid the blue ribbon down beside Stevie's project and said, `This will stay here until I find something that makes me take it away again.' And of course she never did, because he ended up receiving it. Isn't it just awful what those other children did? They were so jealous, I suppose, but still, I think it was churlish of them to moosh it up that way."