SEPTEMBER 12, 2020 –
My second memorable lesson from fifth grade was about guilt, taught again unwittingly by Susan Johansen, the girl who sat in front of me (see my 9/11 post – “The Sneeze”).
One winter day our official teacher, Mrs. Hilliard, handed out a two-page, mimeographed math quiz and gave us instructions as she did so.
“You’ll have 10 minutes to complete the quiz,” she said in her signature voice—calm, sincere, authoritative, all in one. “When I say ‘stop,’ you’ll pass your sheet to the person behind you—last desk people, give yours to the front desk person in your row. I’ll then announce the correct answers while you mark up the sheet—checks for right answers, ‘X’s’ for wrong ones—and write the score at the top.”
After completing the test and reviewing my answers, I looked around the room. Half a dozen other students were soon looking around the room, but I could tell that at least three were searching cluelessly for answers. Susan was not among the six or the three. She was hunkered down . . . doing lots of erasing.
As the allotted time approached its end, Mrs. Hilliard held up her watch wrist gracefully and supported it gently in her other hand as she gave the countdown. “Ten, nine, eight . . .
“Time’s up,” she said, then recapped her efficient method of correcting papers.
As the other quiz sheets fluttered like pigeons off the steps of St. Stephen’s church in town, I handed mine off to the kid behind me, then turned to receive Susan’s. But she was handing out more than her paper. In her other hand were a bunch of coins. Among them I noticed a quarter.
“Here,” she whispered. “Take my money and circle the right answers.”
As my two older sisters could attest, by that stage of life I was infatuated with lucre. Just the previous Christmas I’d shocked them with my response when our grandmother handed out a shiny new half-dollar to each of us in addition to a meticulously wrapped gift of clothing from Dayton’s. My sisters gushed with gratitude while I held my half-dollar in one grubby paw and turned it over with the other unwashed hand. “Can’t I have a dollar?” I said. My sisters gasped and roundly condemned me. Our grandmother chuckled in polite amusement, gracefully hiding her true reaction.
There in Susan’s hand—now mine—was more loot than I’d collect in two weeks of allowance. I was good at counting money, but here was a sum too big to add before slipping it into my pocket. Blood rushed to my ears.
But as Mrs. Hilliard began announcing the answers, I felt something else—something “wrong,” something “bad.” I was on a sled hurtling down an icy hill toward an outcome far worse than ingratitude toward my grandmother.
Suddenly I pictured the unappetizing sloppy joes we’d had for lunch—and the lukewarm green beans that came out of the huge can parked on the counter behind the serving line. I felt a burgeoning urge to puke.
(Cont.)
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)
© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
