Ray placed the book that was in her hands on the desk beside her, letting the kids know they were done talking about literature for the day.
“You know,” she said, standing up and looking out the window herself.
The high school still had a football field, a soccer field, and a baseball diamond, but it had been four years since the athletics programs had been disbanded, none of them having enough kids who cared about playing games anymore, and all of the fields were overgrown and wild.
“You know,” she said, “just because of everything that’s happening”—she turned back from the window and from the wilderness that was creeping upon them, then motioned at all of the empty seats in the class—“doesn’t mean you can’t still do whatever you want in life.”
She thought Eric would snicker at this romantic’s notion of life, but he, along with all of the other kids in class, simply stared at her.
She said, “When I was little, I believed I could do anything I wanted, be anything I wanted. But by the time I got to high school, I didn’t feel that way anymore. The older you get, the more the world feels like a place for realists rather than dreamers. Everywhere I looked, I saw people trying to get through the day rather than people eager for the next adventure that life had to throw at them. Even my hippy parents got to be that way.”
Outside in the hallway, the bell rang. Class was over. The students were supposed to go to their next room. But everyone, Eric included, remained quiet and motionless. For a split second, it was as if Ray were the teacher of a class for Blocks instead of the final batch of regular kids. The thought made the hairs stand up on her arms.
“If there is anything at all that you take away from my class, I want it to be this one lesson: As long as you never give up, you can be whatever you want in life. I don’t care if you read the books I assign or pass the quizzes I hand out, just leave here remembering that you can do whatever you want and I’ll be happy.”
For once, Eric raised his hand before speaking.
“Yes, Eric?”
The boy did his best to offer a smile, then said, “Ms. Phillips?”
“Yes?”
“If the main character in The Awakening had someone say that to her, I completely understand why she would have decided to walk into the ocean.”
“Thanks, Eric.”
Sixth Country
“Did you hear the news?” Al Flanagan asked her. When Ray looked at him with a blank expression, he said, “Liechtenstein disbanded!” When her eyes remained blank, he yelled, “Liechtenstein! It was one thing when Maldives and San Marino disbanded, but Liechtenstein? Are you kidding me!”
Harry Rousner yawned and said, “Maldives is actually bigger than Liechtenstein, both in terms of size and population. If you’re going to get upset, Liechtenstein isn’t that big of a deal.”
“Suddenly, the Biology teacher knows everything!” Flanagan shouted. “Well, did you know this now makes six countries that have officially disbanded, now that the end of mankind is in sight?”
“And?” Rousner said.
Flanagan eyed the Math teacher up as if not caring about Liechtenstein dissolving into nothing was reason enough to fight him.
“And soon it will be seven,” he growled. “Then eight. Then nine.”
Rousner yawned and went back to reading his paper.
“How long until the Unites States disbands?” Flanagan shouted. “Huh, Mr. Smart Know-it-all?”
Barbara Wachowski opened the door to the teacher’s lounge, saw the state her Math teacher was in, and told Harry to leave Flannigan alone.
Rather than defend himself, Harry only shook his head and sighed.
The principal walked from sofa to sofa, acting as though she were simply assessing how many teachers she had left. But she always kept an eye on Ray. After sitting down next to her English teacher, Wachowski leaned to the side and said, “Did you tell your students they could be anything they wanted?”
“Of course.”
“Ray,” the principal said, frowning so hard that her eyes almost disappeared. “We’re going extinct.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t give me that. You know what I mean. You can’t tell kids they can be anything they want to be when the entire human race is fading away.”
“Oh.”
“Stop it with that,” Wachowski said. “You’re making it more difficult than it has to be.”
“Do you want me to tell them they can’t be anything they want?”
“No, of course not.”
Ray said, “So, I shouldn’t tell them they can be anything they want, and I also shouldn’t tell them they can’t be anything they want?”
Harry Rousner looked up from his paper, opened his mouth, then bit his lip to keep from saying something that would get him in trouble. Al Flannigan was pacing back and forth across the room, trying to figure out all the ways that Liechtenstein disbanding might have an impact on his life.
When the principal didn’t answer, Ray said, “I should just let them figure everything out for themselves? Instead of trying to help them? Instead of teaching them?”
“Exactly!” the principal said, beaming now that there was no confusion.
“Look at it this way, Ray,” Harry Rousner said. “They have to figure everything else out for themselves. Why should this be any different?”
Al Flanagan yelled, “Ask those kids in Liechtenstein if they can be anything they want!”
Seventh Student
The next day, three more of her students were absent, and she knew she would never see them again. Zack Childers, Farah Fran, and Kevin Mathiason were, in all likelihood, on their way south with their families. She imagined them sitting in the backseat of the respective cars they were passengers in, each of them reading one of the books she had assigned to the class.
But instead of only having five students remaining in her class, their were seven. Two new faces looked at her as if they had just as little an idea of why they were there as she did.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Ms. Phillips.”
“But feel free to call her Ray,” Eric said. “Like a man.”
“Thanks, Eric.” Then, to the two new faces, “What are your names?”
“Shawn Kaprosky,” one said.
“Debbie Vandenphal,” the other said.
“And where are you normally at this time of day?” she asked.
“We’re Juniors,” Shawn said weakly, almost mumbling.
He didn’t have to add that he and Debbie were the only two Juniors left at the high school. Already, there were no freshman or sophomores. Shawn and Debbie were the last juniors. And now, Ray only had five students who were seniors.
“Our normal teacher didn’t show up today,” Debbie said, trying not to sniffle. “Principal Wachowski told us to come here instead.”
So, in addition to the three students who must have left in a small caravan, the only other English teacher remaining in their school had also departed. While she liked to imagine her kids reading during their trip south, she doubted the teacher was thinking about the school work she had assigned or about her students. If she were thinking about either of those things, Ray thought, she wouldn’t have been able to leave them in the first place.
“Very well,” she said. “We’re happy to have you.”
She stood there for a moment trying to think of what to teach. Also, she tried to figure out which student, one still there or one who had already left, had complained to their parents about being told they could be anything they wanted. Was it her little troublemaker, sitting so smugly in the back corner? It seemed unlikely to her.