After three weeks at the school, Claude’s hair was two and a half centimeters of pathetic brown fuzz, and his class had grown from three to seven to ten to twenty-five children. The woman in charge with the painted cheeks (principal? teacher? secretary? mayor?) who’d assured him on the first day, “You fine,” had evidently not believed it herself. It became gradually clear to Claude that Mya, Dao, and Zeya were sent over first because they were the easy ones. They were well behaved, and their English was strong, and they weren’t really in need of the dubious skills of a ten-year-old American tagalong. This meant they were the ones Claude most wanted to spend time teaching. It also meant, Naw Ga, the principal/teacher/secretary/mayor explained, they were the ones who needed it least. She’d sent them over in the first place so as not to overly traumatize the new teacher—who in addition to being not even a teenager yet had no training whatsoever—but she got over that quickly.
“I don’t know how to teach English.” Claude was mildly panicked as his class doubled in size then doubled again and again.
“You speak.” Naw Ga gave him international so-what’s-the-problem eyes.
“I speak it, yeah, but I don’t know how to, you know, teach it to someone else.”
“No one know.” Naw Ga waved her hand, already turning off toward other students, other lessons. “How you learn?”
“To teach?”
“To talk.”
“Oh. I don’t remember. I was a baby.”
“So be they mama,” Naw Ga advised. “You learn from listen, talk, read. They same.”
Whereas the original three had sat quietly and respectfully and listened, the twenty-some wiggled and giggled in a language Claude didn’t know while he tried to be serious with them in a language they were supposed to be learning but weren’t. Whereas the original three had been happy to have old books read to them, the new ones complained (at least that’s what he thought they were doing) that they’d read these books already many times before. As far as learning English went, Claude suspected they’d already expanded their vocabulary as much as it could be expanded from their dusting-into-dry-leaves copy of Mother Goose. He did not think terms like “tuffet,” “curds,” “cockleshells,” and “pease porridge” were likely to come up in everyday English language conversation anyway. At least they had yet to do so for him. And whereas the original three were little girls like he was, like he had been at any rate, at least half of the new kids were boys, and though once upon a time he’d been one of those too, it seemed like something his father had made up: long ago and far away and pretend. The little boys were scary because he didn’t know how to talk to them. And because what if they looked at him and realized he was one?
“You tell us new story,” one of the alarming little boys demanded.
“A story about what?”
“About new.”
“I don’t know any stories about new,” said Claude.
“Tell story about old,” suggested Zeya, who at this point felt like an old friend. “New story about old.”
“I don’t know any new stories about old.” Did telling them stories instead of reading them stories even count? Was that learning English?
“Tell us favorite story,” someone said, and even as Claude was about to say he didn’t know any stories, he realized that of course he did.
“Well, I do know one story. One long, big, long story about a prince named Grumwald and a night fairy named Princess Stephanie.”
“Oooh,” the kids all said, an apparently universal sound meaning “Do, please, continue.”
So he told them the beginnings of the adventures of Grumwald, beginnings he himself had gotten only by deduction, osmosis, the plot filling in slowly like holes in the sand when the tide is out. The beginning of the Grumwald story way predated him. He knew his father invented Grumwald so his mother would go out with him. That was as much a part of the fairy tale as the fairy tale itself. Grumwald was a decade older than Claude, so he had to make some parts up, fill in what he could, guess at what he couldn’t. It was tiring to make stuff up. He had no idea all these years how hard his father was working when he wished he would just read them a book like everyone else’s dad.
The clinic children had questions. What “Grumwald” mean? What Grumwald was last life to come back as prince? Why he never look inside armor before? Why he no wanna be prince since he earn prince? Claude had no idea. He would have to ask his father and get back to them.
“In the meantime, you tell me a story,” he said to them. Storytelling was hard. He needed a break. Telling him a story was a good way to practice speaking English anyway, he thought.
“A new story?” said Dao.
“An old story,” said Claude. “A classic story. A fairy tale.”
That was how they started trading stories. Every day, Claude would tell his students an American fairy tale, and every day, his students would tell him a Thai or Burmese fairy tale. He told them about Beauty and the Beast, and they told him about two birds who were reincarnated as a princess and a farmer. He told them about the Little Mermaid, and they told him about a rabbit whose squirrel tail got bitten off by a crocodile with a long tongue. He told them Cinderella, and they had that one too, which he could not even believe, except in theirs the dead mom sent a fish instead of a fairy godmother, and the prince fell in love with her because of her trees instead of her shoes.
“Why he love her shoes?” they wondered.
“It’s not that he loved her shoes. He loved her whole outfit, and that’s why she really didn’t want him to see her in her dirty old clothes.”
“Why she forget her shoe?”
“She didn’t forget. It fell off, and she didn’t have time to go back and get it.”
“How long it take to stop and pick up drop shoe?”
This seemed a fair point to Claude. It made about as much sense, as far as he could figure, as their explanation, which involved a talking fish who got eaten then reincarnated as an eggplant and then as a matchmaking tree.
* * *
His father called early in the mornings, but sometimes his mother had already left for the clinic anyway. It wasn’t just that it was night in Seattle when it was day in Thailand, it’s that it was still yesterday in Seattle when it was today in Thailand. Sometimes they had cell service and sometimes they did not, so mostly they kept in touch over Wi-Fi. Claude could chat with his brothers easily enough because they were up all night, but his parents were having trouble connecting. He was glad, though, to have his father all to himself sometimes, an occurrence rare enough in his life it wasn’t surprising he had to go halfway around the world to find it.
Penn was sorry those mornings to have missed Rosie but also happy to have some time alone with his youngest. “How are you, baby?”
“Fine, Dad.”
“Really?”
“Really.” This was only sometimes true. Sometimes Claude considered that probably they were not going to stay in Thailand forever, and probably his parents were not going to think a fourth-and-a-half-grade education was sufficient, and probably he was going to have to go back to his old life except his old life was gone. Poppy had friends, but Claude had none. Poppy had talents, but Claude sucked at everything. Poppy was normal, but Claude would never, ever, ever, ever stop being a freak. He had been able to picture Poppy’s life next year in middle school and then high school after that and how Poppy and Aggie would go off to college together and how someday Poppy would have a job and be a mom and eventually an old lady like Carmy, smoking and swimming in lakes and drinking gin and tonics and making her grandchildren laugh. Poppy had futures, but Claude had nothing. He couldn’t even picture Claude’s life now, even while he was looking at it in the tiny picture in the corner of his computer screen.
But sometimes he really was fine because none of it was possible, and this was a comfort. Claude was impossible but so was Poppy, so was Aggie, so was fifth grade, so was Seattle, so was last month when her biggest worry was those stupid, embarrassing movies they showed in health class. Sometimes all there was in the world was the jungle and a school that was barely a building and little kids whose parents had been killed by bugs and the small, scant, desperate possibility that somehow maybe he could help them a little bit, and in that case, who he was didn’t matter, not even to him. “Really,” he told his father. “I’m okay.”
“I miss you, baby,” said Penn. “I wish I were there.”
“You do,” Claude agreed, “because you can’t even believe it, Dad. They have Cinderella in Thailand. It’s like the exact same story only completely different.”
“Of course.” Penn played nonchalance, but even over grainy, laggy Wi-Fi, he saw his child spark. His daughter spark. For the first time since what had happened, there was a glimmering there. Seeing it was like a benediction. Seeing it was like a laceration. There were too many miles in between them to reach across and cup his hands around this precious flame, his arms around this precious child. This precious girl.
So he settled for chalk talk. “That’s how fairy tales work.”
“It is?”
“They’re renewed and retold and reimagined everywhere forever. The oral tradition. That’s what makes them endless.”
“I thought it was magic that made them endless. I thought it was the magic armor.”
“Well, sure, that too.”
“I was telling them about Grumwald—”
“You were?”
“Yeah?”
“Oh. Poppy. Claude. Sweetheart. I’m so…” But then his voice broke, and he didn’t finish saying whatever it was he was saying.
“There’s a lot I don’t know about because I never heard the beginning of the story or I don’t remember.”
“It’s your story, sweetheart. Not just your story to pass on. Your story to make up as well. Over time, stories change; they shift; they become something new but with elements of the original and elements of what’s to come.”
“Oh.” Claude was suddenly sullen again. “Like me.”
“Exactly.” Penn panicked for the precious flame. “Exactly like you. What a wonderful thing. Why would change make you sad?”
“Because it doesn’t mean different,” said Claude. “It means ruined. Why can’t one thing just stay the same?”
“Some things do stay the same. Like how we love you no matter what.” Penn thought how much easier it was to say things from halfway around the world sometimes. It wasn’t because it was on a computer instead of in person. It was because remote love hurt but gave you clarity. Sending your child to a jungle seven thousand miles away was oddly elucidating. “And some things change because it’s good and natural that they do. Because it’s time. And you wouldn’t want to stop them.”
“I would.” Claude started crying, and then he was embarrassed because if he was a boy now he couldn’t cry anymore.
“And some things change exactly because we try to prevent their doing so.” Penn dropped his voice and then his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh baby, I think what happened was maybe my fault.” He’d been thinking about this since they left. He’d gone over it and over it. Marnie Alison was a nicer scapegoat and probably a more deserving one, but Penn recognized all that was at stake here. “I think maybe we waited too long to tell everyone how special you are. We tried to keep you a secret, but why would we keep anything as wonderful and remarkable as you a secret?”
“So everyone at school isn’t thinking about what’s in my pants.”
Penn had to admit this was a good reason. He remembered sitting in wet paint at recess once when he was in fifth grade and thinking he would die of embarrassment before the end of the school day, and then kids were just thinking about what was on his pants. And they probably weren’t even thinking about that. But Penn had realized something new. Something new about something old. Something important. “It’s funny you were telling stories with your students. I’ve been thinking about the same thing. You know what I like about fairy tales?”
“Everything?”
“No. Well, yes. But one of the things I like best is the magic is so simple. It’s painless. It doesn’t hurt Cinderella when she turns into a princess. It’s easy. It’s fast. A wand is waved, some pixie dust is strewn, and presto—perfect princess. The transformation is immediate and complete, and no one looks back. It erases all the pain of her past, and it guarantees her happily ever after going forward.”
“Sounds nice.” Claude wiped his eyes.
“It does.” Penn tried to keep his voice steady as his own eyes filled because this was important. “And it makes for great stories. But it’s not real. It’s not possible. I think it’s not even desirable.”
“I desire it.”
“I don’t.” Penn shook his head. “I don’t want to erase your past. You were a perfect baby. You were the smartest three-year-old I ever knew. I don’t want to erase your transformation either. You’re so special, and you’re so brave. You proclaiming who you are and being who you want to be in a world that makes that hard is awe inspiring. I’m so proud of you, Poppy. I don’t want to pretend you’re ordinary. I want to climb your turret and shout your extraordinary to the entire city.”
Claude pictured his father clinging like Godzilla to the turret roof, roaring Poppy’s slow but inspiring transformation to the sky. He was glad he was in Thailand.
* * *
The next day at school, Claude started back in with the fairy tale. But not his father’s fairy tale. Having introduced all these other characters, it seemed a shame to him not to use them.
“Princess Stephanie had tons of friends. They all knew she was a princess, but none of them knew she was also a night fairy, and she didn’t want them to find out.”
“Why?” Claude’s students could not imagine being something as cool as a night fairy and not wanting anyone to know.
“She was embarrassed,” Claude explained.
“Why?”
“Because none of her friends were night fairies. She was the only one.”
“Why that does not make her feel special?”
“Because it was weird,” said Claude. “And disgusting. Her friends would be grossed out if they knew she was really a night fairy, so she hid it from them. But one day they were all hanging around after school, and suddenly, without warning, her wings popped out, right before their eyes. Princess Stephanie was so upset she ran away crying. But her friends ran after her. They totally understood.”
“It’s no big deal, Steph,” Cinderella assured her. “The same thing happens to me all the time. If I’m running late, my shoes, my clothes, my car—POOF—suddenly it’s like they’re someone else’s. I don’t even recognize myself.”
“Me too,” said Ariel. “I swear to you I used to be a fish.”
“You did?” Stephanie was so grateful to her friends she started crying again.
“Well, half.”
“And you should have seen me before I got eaten by a wolf,” said Little Red Riding Hood. “You would have hated me. I was such a weak little thing I got in trouble picking flowers. Lame.”
“What happened?” Stephanie sniffed.
“I got eaten, that’s what happened. I grew up. I figured out I needed to be smart and strong, and I took control.”
“How?”
“I worked out.” Little Red smiled and flexed her biceps. Claude demonstrated. The class giggled. “I got a personal trainer. I’ll give you her number.”
Claude’s students nodded along, pleased so far.
“So all of Princess Stephanie’s friends finally knew who she really was, and they all loved her anyway, all except one. Her rival neighbor princess was angry.”
“But not her fault,” Claude’s students objected en masse.
“It wasn’t her fault she turned into a night fairy,” Claude acknowledged, “but it was her fault she lied about it.”
“She have to keep secret,” the students insisted.
Claude shook his head. “The rival neighbor princess told Stephanie everything, so she didn’t think they had any secrets.”
“Every princess and person have secret,” Dao said.
“That’s true.” Claude tried to think if he’d ever seen a teacher cry in front of the class. “But some secrets are secrets, whereas some secrets are lies.”
“Every person have another person inside,” Mya insisted. As in: the rival neighbor princess shouldn’t have needed to be told. As in: it doesn’t count because Stephanie’s secret was actually the human condition.
“Princess Stephanie couldn’t convince her not to be mad,” Claude continued. “She tried to explain and she tried to say sorry, but the neighbor princess didn’t care. So Stephanie had to use magic on her.”
“Turn her into frog?” one little boy guessed.
“Turn her into big giant big gross monster who stink?” guessed another.
“Turn her into night fairy also?” said Zeya.
“No, no, no,” though Claude thought these were not half-bad ideas. “Stephanie waved her magic wand and turned the angry neighbor princess into an understanding neighbor princess, one who didn’t mind and wasn’t mad and still loved Stephanie and always would.”
Claude took a deep breath. That seemed like a good place to stop, so he did. But his students looked unconvinced.
“Not magic,” complained Zeya. As in: spells are for enchanted transmutation, not changing someone’s mind.
“Not enough,” complained Dao. As in: bitchy neighbor princesses deserve some kind of actual punishment.
“Not possible,” complained the boy who’d suggested turning her into a frog. As in: homo-amphibian metamorphosis might not be real, but it’s still more credible than Aggie getting over Poppy’s secret.
But Claude felt better. He realized this was what his father had been up to all these years, not entertaining his children but perfecting his world. If you wrote your own characters, they didn’t disappoint you like real people did. If you told your own story, you got to pick your ending. Just being yourself never worked, but if you made yourself up, you got to be exactly who you knew yourself to be.