Suffering from Swooning
I don’t know what further discussions we might have had about Miss Switch if the school bell hadn’t rung. We all scrambled down from the monkey bars and headed across the blacktop toward the building. It was then a thought struck me. “Banana,” I said, “isn’t your mother some kind of a big wheel in the PTA?”
“Yeah,” said Banana, looking uncomfortable. “President. Why?”
“I’d think she’d know who our teacher is,” I said. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“No,” said Banana. “If she did, wouldn’t I have said? I think she knows, but she says unless it’s a matter of life or death, I’m going to have to find things out just like everyone else whose mother is not PTA president.”
We all shrugged. There went the pipeline to interesting advance information.
“I did find out something, though,” Banana said quickly, as if he needed to make up for his mother’s unfortunate attitude. “I heard her talking to someone on the telephone about it. Mrs. Grimble had an accident and busted an arm and a leg. There’s going to be a substitute principal until she gets back.”
Substitute? Wasn’t that what Miss Switch had been, a substitute? So what if it was as a substitute teacher? Wasn’t it just possible she could just as well come as a substitute principal? I was having difficulty breathing thinking about it.
“Did you hear any name … er … mentioned, Banana?” I asked, digging for clues.
“No,” said Banana, “but my mother was giggling, and her face was all pink.”
“She must have changed the subject. I never heard of anyone giggling about a new principal,” said Peatmouse.
You couldn’t argue with that. Anyway, first things first, and we were now about to find out who was going to be leading us through the perils of sixth grade. Hands in pockets, being cool-guy sixth graders, we slouched on down the old, familiar Pepperdine hallway, and entered the door of Room Twelve.
Oh, no!
Seated at the teacher’s desk was not our fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Fitzgerald. Instead it was very old Mrs. Potts, who had been our teacher in second grade! I thought she had retired the year before. Was she going to be able to remember that second grade had been replaced with sixth grade?
She beamed at us as we all filed into the room.
“My!” she said. “Almost all of my old second-grade class back with me again. Isn’t it wonderful? Why, there’s Rupert, and Wayne, and Tommy, and Harvey Oh, and there’s Melvin and Billy and … and oh, so many of you.”
We smiled weakly at Mrs. Potts, found desks for ourselves, and fell into them. I didn’t mind about everyone else, but I couldn’t agree with Mrs. Potts about Melvin Bothwick and Billy Swanson being wonderful in anyone’s class. Melvin was a sneak and a tattletale, and Billy was an oversized bully who thought he could get away with just about anything. He had made every teacher’s life miserable, including Mrs. Potts, since the first grade. If she couldn’t remember, how was she going to remember we weren’t her little second graders anymore?
The bell rang, and the school year officially began. But you wouldn’t have known it from the hubbub continuing in the classroom.
“Now, children, children!” Mrs. Potts said helplessly.
But the boys kept on shoving and punching each other in the ribs as books were passed out. The girls kept on talking to each other. And Billy Swanson was already at work tearing off bits of paper and making the spitballs for which he had been famous all through first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grade. I could see that things were not looking good for the sixth grade.
Would this situation in Miss Switch’s former fifth grade be enough to bring her back as our substitute principal? How long was I going to have to wait to find out? As it turned out, no more than an hour later Mrs. Potts made the following announcement:
“The new principal will be visiting each class this morning, starting with our class. Why, it should be about this very minute!” Sure enough, at that moment, voices were heard approaching Room Twelve. My eyes were nailed to the doorway. Soon all would be revealed.
First through the door came Mrs. Fanna, Banana’s mother, president of the PTA. Now, 1 could understand why a mother who is president of the PTA might have to dress up a little to take the principal on a tour of the school. But Mrs. Fanna, who generally appeared at Pepperdine like most of the other mothers in whatever baggy old clothes she could find in her closet, was so dressed up it was ridiculous. Her cheeks were flushed, and she had a goofy smile on her face.
Right behind Mrs. Fanna appeared a small woman approximately the shape of a rain barrel and not much taller. Her face, as round as a full moon, exactly matched the rest of her. She only looked at the class briefly, however, as she came through the door, because she was too busy trying to balance an enormous green notebook in one hand and scratch notes in it with the other.
Right behind her someone else came striding in. And my high hopes came crashing down. It was not Miss Switch. It was not Miss Anything. It was not even Mrs. Anything. It was Mr. Something! But this was not just any Mr. Something. This was the handsomest man I’d ever seen in my life!
What I mean is, that on a scale of one to ten—oh well, forget it. I couldn’t come up with a scale long enough. All I can say is you had to be there to see the moony looks develop on the faces of every girl in the class as soon as they saw him. The same look even appeared on the face of old Mrs. Potts, not to mention the moony look on the moon-faced person whose pen began skittering all over her notebook as she gazed up at this fellow. As for Mrs. Fanna, she was so busy fluttering her eyelashes at him that for a few moments it seemed as if she had forgotten what the president of the PTA was supposed to be doing in front of the sixth-grade class. Banana slunk down into his desk, looking as if he would like to slide under it and never be seen again.
But Mrs. Fanna finally managed to stop fluttering long enough to let us know that this was our acting principal, Mr. Dorking, and his assistant, Miss Tuna. Then Mrs. Fanna got even more flustered, and started clapping. I couldn’t see why this event called for applause, but like a bunch of sixth-grade sheep, we all clapped away.
After that, Mr. Dorking made a speech of about two sentences. He told us how happy he was to be at Pepperdine Elementary School. He told us how happy he was to be talking to the sixth grade. And while he was telling us these exciting things, the girls were all swooning at their desks. Mrs. Potts, Mrs. Fanna, and Miss Tuna were likewise swooning. When Mr. Dorking had finished inspiring the sixth grade with his speech, he flashed us a gazillion-dollar smile and left the room with Mrs. Fanna and Miss Tuna practically fainting behind him. Banana finally slithered back up in his desk seat, trying to look as if he had no connection whatsoever to the whole event.
The day didn’t get any better. Billy Swanson built up a big arsenal of spitballs, and they began whizzing around the room. Mrs. Potts finally gave up and sent him to the principal. That only improved the Billy Swanson situation slightly but it unfortunately gave the girls ideas. They started giggling and whispering and passing notes so busily that Mrs. Potts gave up on that as well and started sending them in relays to the principal. Which is just what they wanted! They came back looking moonier than ever after seeing Mr. Dorking, and by the end of the day they were calling him Adorable Dorry.
I began to wonder how Mrs. Potts was going to last the day much less the year. But then I was in for another shock. Just before the closing bell, Mrs. Potts told us how much she had enjoyed having her second-grade class again, and how sorry she was that it was for only one day. Our regular teacher, however, who had been delayed in flight, would be there with us in the morning.
Mrs. Potts only there for a day! A teacher delayed in flight! Flight! The word rang in my ears. Who was there to say it had to be by airplane? Could it mean—could it mean—another form of air transport? I hardly allowed myself to think the word. No, I told myself, stop thinking this has anything to do with Miss Switch. There is no more reason for her to come back now than there had been. Forget it! Forget Miss Switch!