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Still my mind was only nibbling at what had happened and showed no inclination
to set its teeth into any sort of explanation. I awakened with a start to find
the moonlight gone, my arms asleep and my prayers unsaid.
Tucked in bed and ringed about with the familiar comfort of my prayers, I slid
away from awareness into sleep, following the dance and gleam of a harmonica
that cried in the moonlight.
Morning sunlight slid across the boardinghouse breakfast table, casting alpine
shadows behind the spilled corn flakes that lay beyond the sugar bowl. I
squinted against the brightness and felt aggrieved that anything should be
alive and active and so-so-hopeful so early in the morning. I leaned on my
elbows over my coffee cup and contemplated a mood as black as the coffee.
"... Francher kid."
I rotated my head upward on the axis of my two supporting hands, my interest
caught. "Last night," I half remembered, "last night-"
"I give up." Anna Semper put a third spoonful of sugar in her coffee and
stirred morosely. "'Every child has a something-I mean there's some way to
reach every child-all but the Francher kid. I can't reach him at all. If he'd
even be aggressive or actively mean or actively anything, maybe I could
do something, but he just sits there being a vegetable. And then I get so
spittin' mad when he finally does do something, just enough to keep him from
flunking, that I could bust a gusset. I can't abide a child who can and
won't." She frowned darkly and added two more spoonfuls of sugar to her
coffee.
"'I'd rather have an eager moron than a won't-do genius!" She tasted the
coffee and grimaced. "Can't even get a decent cup of coffee to arm me for my
struggle with the little monster."
I laughed. "Five spoonfuls of sugar would spoil almost anything. And don't
give up hope. Have you tried music? Remember, 'Music hath charms-'"
Anna reddened to the tips of her ears. I couldn't tell if it was anger or
embarrassment. "Music!" Her spoon clished against her saucer sharply. She
groped for words. "This is ridiculous, but I have had to send that Francher
kid out of the room during music appreciation."
"Out of the room? Why ever for? I thought he was a vegetable."
Anna reddened still further. "He is," she said stubbornly, "but-" She fumbled
with her spoon, then burst forth, "But sometimes the record player won't work
when he's in the room."
I put my cup down slowly. "Oh, come now! This coffee is awfully strong, I'll
admit, but it's not that strong."
"No, really!" Anna twisted her spoon between her two hands. "When he's in the
room that darned player goes too fast or too slow or even backwards. I swear
it. And one time-" Anna looked around furtively and lowered her voice, "one
time it played a whole record and it wasn't even plugged in!"
"You ought to patent that! That'd be a real money-maker."
"Go on, laugh!" Anna gulped coffee again and grimaced.
"I'm beginning to believe in poltergeists-you know, the kind that are supposed
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to work through or because of adolescent kids. If you had that kid to deal
with in class-"
"Yes." I fingered my cold toast. "If only I did."
And for a minute I hated Anna fiercely for the sympathy on her open face and
for the studied not-looking at my leaning crutches. She opened her mouth,
closed it, then leaned across the table.
"Polio?" she blurted, reddening.
"No," I said. "Car wreck."
"Oh." She hesitated. "Well, maybe someday-"
"No," I said. "No." Denying the faint possibility that was just enough to keep
me nagged out of resignation.
"Oh," she said. "How long ago?"
"How long?" For a minute I was suspended in wonder at the distortion of time.
How long? Recent enough to he a shock each time of immobility when I expected
motion. Long enough ago that eternity was between me and the last time I moved
unthinkingly.
"Almost a year," I said, my memory aching to this time last year I could...
"You were a teacher?" Anna gave her watch a quick appraising look.
"Yes." I didn't automatically verify the time. The immediacy of watches had
died for me. Then I smiled.
"'That's why I can sympathize with you about the Francher kid. I've had them
before."
"There's always one," Anna sighed, getting up. "Well, it's time for my
pilgrimage up the hill. I'll see you."
And the swinging door to the hall repeated her departure again and again with
diminishing enthusiasm. I
struggled to my feet and swung myself to the window.
"Hey!" I shouted. She turned at the gate, peering back as she rested her load
of workbooks on the gatepost.
"Yes?"
"If he gives you too much trouble send him over here with a note for me. It'll
take him off your hands for a while at least."
"Hey, that's an idea. Thanks. That's swell! Straighten your halo!" And she
waved an elbow at me as she disappeared beyond the box elder outside the gate.
I didn't think she would, but she did.
It was only a couple of days later that I looked up from my book at the creak
of the old gate. The heavy old gear that served as a weight to pull it shut
thudded dully behind the Francher kid. He walked up the porch steps under my
close scrutiny with none of the hesitant embarrassment that most people would
feel. He mounted the three steps and wordlessly handed me an envelope. I
opened it. It said:
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