Miss Fernandez was talking, and I was trying hard to stay focused. Her face was in a square in the center of the screen, and there were eighteen other little squares around it—our entire class.
As she talked, I stared at her. She was dressed in a gray sweatshirt. It had a little stain by the collar. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her hair was messy. Behind her I could see a picture on the wall, a bookcase and a cluttered table. Sometimes her cat jumped up onto her desk and joined the class. He hadn’t appeared yet today, and I missed him.
My square on the screen was in the middle and toward the bottom. I was grateful that it wasn’t big enough for others to see more than my face and a little bit of my clothing. I was still wearing my pajama bottoms. I wondered if Miss Fernandez was too.
I looked from square to square, locating my friends and classmates. Reese was on the left. She’d asked a few questions. Isaac was close to the top. He would be there for a while, gone briefly and then reappear. I pictured him wandering around his house the way he normally wandered around the class.
“I will be emailing the assignment,” Miss Fernandez said. “You have until Friday afternoon to send in the completed work. Are there any questions?”
A number of people electronically “raised” their hands. I did too. She started addressing them person by person, unmuting each microphone so we could all hear the question. Some students asked things they should have known if they’d been listening. Some things didn’t change whether we were in class or in a Zoom session.
“Hello, Quinn. You have a question?” Miss Fernandez asked.
I had spaced out, so I was thrown, and I hesitated before starting. “Uh…it isn’t about this assignment. It’s about something new.”
“Please, go ahead.”
“I thought it would be nice if we could do something a bit more practical.”
“Go on.”
“I heard there’s a shortage of personal protective equipment. Masks.”
“I’ve heard that as well. What do you have in mind?”
“I thought that maybe we could make some masks.”
“I’m afraid that many of us don’t have a sewing machine or any skills.”
“You don’t need either of those. There are videos online about how to sew masks by hand. I even made one to try it out.”
I pulled it up and held it in front of the camera. Miss Fernandez did something with the controls, and suddenly my face and the mask were in the big square in the middle. Now I wished I had washed my hair.
“Wow, Quinn. I am very impressed.”
“There are patterns you can download, and it’s explained really well.”
“And what would we do with these masks?” Miss Fernandez asked.
“We could donate them to the staff at Vista Village Lodge. Reese’s grandmother lives there.”
“That makes it even more special. Reese, would you like that?” Miss Fernandez asked.
I knew Reese was on board because we’d already talked about it.
“I’d like that a lot,” Reese replied.
“All in favor of this project, please raise your hands,” Miss Fernandez said.
I saw a whole bunch of little electronic hands go up.
“Then it’s unanimous. We’ll work out the details. Now are there any more questions before we break for the day?…Yes, Isaac?”
I looked down at his square. What the heck was he wearing? Miss Fernandez began to laugh, and a new center square came on. It was somebody—it had to be Isaac—wearing a hockey goalie’s mask.
“I was wondering, would this work?” he asked.
Miss Fernandez was laughing louder, and I could see other people giggling and pointing.
“And if that didn’t work, how about this?” Isaac asked. He pulled off the goalie mask and replaced it with a Spider-Man mask.
I was laughing now, and I could hear other people chuckling as well. Miss Fernandez must have unmuted everybody’s microphones. It felt so good to hear their laughter, to share their joy. And for those few seconds it felt like we weren’t alone in our little electronic video squares and houses and apartments.
“Isaac, I have truly missed you,” Miss Fernandez said. “I’ve missed everyone. Thank you all for joining us today.”