"I know that you never have before we moved to Steuben, Stevie. But you've got to realize that this story is a little hard to believe. I mean, isn't it possible you exaggerated it a little? Or maybe pretended?"
"I'm not pretending."
"I mean, you pretend to have two friends, Jack and Scotty."
Stevie looked at him silently. "I never said that," he said.
"Not to me," he said. "But you told your mom about things that you and Jack and Scotty did."
Stevie said nothing.
"I don't mind you pretending. Maybe that's what you need to do in order to get through a hard time at school. But you can't tell Mom and me pretend things as if they were true."
"I don't," said Stevie.
"You mean you won't from now on," said Step.
"I mean I never do!" shouted Stevie.
His vehemence made Step pause. Was it possible that Stevie wasn't lying about this? That in fact it happened the way he said? Then how to account for what the librarian told DeAnne? Impossible, it couldn't have happened the way Stevie described. And yet he insisted on being believed, and it made Step remember the times when he was a kid and adults didn't believe him because they were so sure they knew how things were.
He remembered very clearly saying to his mother, "Well you weren't there so how do you know?" And now here he was, contradicting Stevie's account when in fact Step wasn't there, so how did he know?
"Stevedore," said Step, "have I been making a mistake here?"
"Yes," said Stevie.
"I've got to tell you that if Mrs. Jones stood up in front of class and said such a terrible thing, even if it was true, then she should be fired from her job as a teacher."
"Yes," said Stevie. "I wish she was dead."
Step was horrified. "Do you really mean that?"
"Yes," said Stevie. "I think about it all the time. I look at her talking and I think of blood coming out of her forehead from a bullet. I think of her falling over dead in class and then I'd laugh and I'd sing a song. I'd sing `In the Leafy Treetops' because it's the happiest song I know."
This was worse than Step could have imagined. No matter what was true about the project, it was certainly true that Stevie hated Mrs. Jones beyond all reason. It was awful to think of his sweet little boy-a child who had always been forgiving and generous-having such hatred in his heart for anyone. And these feelings must have been smoldering for some time now, yet he had said nothing.
"Stevie, why do you hate her so much? Is it because of the blue ribbon?"
"She never calls on me," said Stevie.
"Sometimes it feels like that," said Step. "It's because you're so smart, and she has to give other kids a chance to answer sometimes."
"She always calls on the other kids."
"Yes, that's how it feels."
Stevie looked at him with hot anger burning in his eyes. "I said she always calls on the other kids! That's not how it feels, that's how it is!"
Step again realized that he had just spoken like a typical adult, taking a child's clear, plain language and twisting it to fit the adult's preconceived notion of reality. But what if Stevie meant it? What if it was literally true?
"You mean she really never calls on you? Ever?"
"Never once," said Stevie.
"Are you sure she sees you raising her hand?"
"Yes," said Stevie. "She always sees me."
"How do you know?"
"Because she says so."
"She says that she sees you raising your hand, and yet she doesn't call on you?"
"Yes," said Stevie. And the tears in his eyes forced Step to believe that this must be true, or at least seem true to Stevie, because it was certain that Stevie believed it himself.
"Son, you have to understand, I'm not there so I can't see it for myself. You have to help me. What does she say when she sees that you've raised your hand, but she doesn't call on you?"
Stevie took a deep breath, and then, with his voice trembling, he said, "She says, `Of course Stephen Ball-lover Fletcher knows the answer. He knows everything."'
Step heard the words with a sickness in the pit of his stomach. It couldn't be true. No one could ever talk to his son in a tone like that. But if they did ... if they did, he'd ... he'd do something. Something. "Son, does she really say your name that way? Ball-lover?"
"Yes."
"Haven't you told her it's Boh-lee-var? That you're named for one of the greatest liberators in history?"
"How can I, Dad, when she never calls on me?"
"No, I guess you couldn't," said Step. "And she really does make fun of you like that when you raise your hand?"
"I don't raise my hand anymore," said Stevie.
"No, I imagine not." Step tried to think, tried to make sense of it all. "When did she start doing this?"
"The first day."
"Your very first day in school?"
Stevie thought for a minute. "The first day she said I was really stupid because she kept saying things and I didn't understand her and so I raised my hand and I asked her what she said, and then she said it again and I still didn't understand her."
Step thought back to what the problem had been that first day. "Because of her accent?"
Stevie nodded. "I got most of what she said, but it was like the first couple of words or a couple of words right in the middle, I wouldn't understand them. And she said I was really stupid. And all the kids made fun of me."
"Gee, why doesn't that surprise me, if the teacher called you stupid," said Step. "But then the next day you stayed in Dr. Mariner's office and took those tests, and then you came back to class the next day. What happened then?"
Stevie started to cry. "She made me stand up and she said, she said ... " He could n't go on. He just lay there on his bed, sobbing.
Step reached over and gathered Stevie up in his arms and slid him off the top bunk, and then sat on the edge of Robbie's bed and held Stevie on his lap, held his son tight against his chest while he cried. "There, there," he said. "I know this is so hard for you. It must be so hard. Why didn't you tell us any of this before?"
"I'm supposed to do my part," said Stevie.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm supposed to do my job at school like you do your job at work," said Stevie.
"Yes, Door Man, that's true," said Step. "But when things go bad at work, I don't keep it a secret, I tell your mom about it. And when she has a hard day, she tells me."
Stevie's crying grew quieter, stopped. "I didn't know that," he said.
"Of course, how could you know?" said Step. "We talk that way to each other late at night, after you kids are asleep."
"I didn't know," said Stevie.
"Can you tell me now what happened the day after you took those tests? You said that she made you stand up in front of the class, and then she did what? She said something?"
"She said that she was wrong to say what she said about me that time before. She said that I wasn't stupid at all, I was very very very smart, I was the smartest boy in the whole world, and when I didn't understand what people said it was because I was too smart to understand them because they were all really stupid compared to me, and so there was no point in anyone talking to me, ever, because I was way too smart to ever understand or care about a word they said."
Unbelievable, and yet now Step believed it. There was too much detail in it-Stevie could not possibly have made it up. And it rang true. Maybe when Dr. Mariner called Mrs. Jones to talk to her about Stevie's first day, Mrs. Jones assumed that Stevie had repeated to his parents what she said in class-though he hadn't, not till now.
And so she assumed that Dr. Mariner knew and was simply too nice to mention it openly. And so she assumed that Stevie had told on her, had gotten her in trouble with her boss, and so she decided to get even with him.
"Son, I think I believe you. I'm sorry I didn't believe you before, but you have to understand, this is such a terrible thing for a teacher to do that it's hard to believe that any teacher would ever do it. I mean, I had some strict teachers in my life, but never one who was downright mean like this. You should have told us this before.