It was half past eleven on a Monday morning as I was striding down the hallway toward my homeroom. I was enjoying the sound my Christian Louboutin high heels made on the polished concrete and the pleasant echoes as the sound ricocheted down the halls announcing my presence. The sound of heels (shoe or boot!) is always pleasant. My high heels are quite elegant and are the only thing French I am able to tolerate.
I had assigned the little children a few tasks to occupy themselves while I was away making myself a cup of good strong German tea in the teachers’ lounge.
With the satisfying sound of my heels in my ears, I entered my lovely classroom. The sun outside may have been nonexistent, but inside it was all sunny and bright and beautiful.
All the children had their heads bent over their desks, writing furiously in their journals or doing their homework or reading a wonderful book. Every child, save one. And I’m certain you are able to guess which one that one was.
In the back of the classroom, by himself, next to my hand-rubbed walnut bookcase, young Tobias Wilcox was perusing my collection of old yearbooks.
“Tobias!”
“Yes, ma’am?”
Young Tobias Wilcox tossed the yearbook down and scuttled like a crab across the floor, endeavoring to return to his seat as quickly as possible. I am certain that the young lad also wished he had been quite invisible. Fourth grade boys often wish they could be invisible.
Tobias’s fat little bottom slapped the hard wood of his chair. I could tell he was sweating. Sweat is not a pleasant thing in a fourth grade boy.
“Why were you away from your desk?”
He said what all fat little fourth grade boys say, but in this case, with a tiny voice that sounded like it was coming from the dark side of the moon: “I didn’t know I was supposed to be at my desk, Mrs. Ravenbach.” But, I thought I detected a faint note of sarcasm . . . I drew in my breath in surprise. The tone of that child’s voice! So snooty. So holier-than-thou. So grating. So unpleasant. So disrespectful to his adoring teacher.
It was astounding, but, evidently, true: Mrs. Button’s heartfelt refrigerator lecture had not worked! That sweaty tub of sass, evidently, still . . . wanted . . . to go . . . his own . . . way.
I would see about that.
I turned my magnificent blond head to Drusilla. My favorite student. “Drusilla?”
“Yes, Mrs. Ravenbach? How may I help you?”
“You may help me by telling young Tobias Wilcox what the instructions were that I left for the entire classroom when I went up to the teachers’ lounge to make my good strong German tea.”
Drusilla stood up brightly beside her desk. “Mrs. Ravenbach, you told everybody we were to remain at our desks working quietly until you returned.”
Drusilla curtsied, sat down, and folded her well-manicured hands on her desk. Her mother makes me homemade pastries and sweets and little tarts with my name in pink icing across each one. They are so beautiful, I almost hesitate to eat them. Almost. Drusilla is a sensible child, and has been gifted with a sensible mother.
“Tobias?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Why were you nosing about in my collection of yearbooks?”
“I was conducting a personal research project. I wanted to see what kinda clothes people wore a long time ago. They were really ugly.”
I picked up the yearbook. 1993. I sniffed. I remember beginning to put together a question in my mind about why he had picked the yearbook for 1993 to root through, but the bell rang for dismissal. I replaced the yearbook on the shelf in its proper spot with all the other yearbooks and turned my magnificent brain toward thoughts of parent-teacher conferences.
The parent-teacher conference which is beginning with the smell of the freshly baked bread is sure to be a wonderfully successful parent-teacher conference. Nothing pleases me more at the beginning of a parent-teacher conference like the crinkle of a paper bag marked “The Floured Board.” Oh my, my, my, my. Because the warm, friendly, bakery-smelling, crinkly white bag marked “The Floured Board” that Tobias was holding in his nervous, chubby little hands was exceptionally large, I knew that this parent-teacher conference with young Tobias Wilcox and his mother and father was going to go exceptionally well.
I have never met a mother or a father who did not seek and value my advice on how they could better do their important job as a parent. The fact that I have no actual children of my own has nothing to do with my knowledge of pediatric behavior. All the parents know and respect this.
Because he started at the McKegway School for Clever and Gifted Children only this semester, this was the first time I had met the parents of young Tobias Wilcox. Because of the immense size of the crinkly paper bag marked “The Floured Board,” it was clear they understood that a successful education is an important thing in a child’s life.
Mr. Wilcox, I am sorry to report, was fat. He had a round face and a round little tummy. It would be cute on a young boy of nine or ten years old, but on a grown man it showed a lack of the order and the discipline.
Mrs. Wilcox was quite pretty, if you like that sort of look.
I had before me, on my hand-inlaid Biedermeier desk, a list of items for discussion about Tobias Wilcox, beautifully written in magenta fountain pen ink. Every single item on my desk is in perfect alignment with every other item on my desk at precisely an angle of 90 degrees to the bottom edge of the desk. So comforting to be precise. The order and the discipline, ja!
As you may not be aware, my desk is on a two-foot-tall platform that raises it high above the little students. It gives them a sense of well-being to know that their teacher is above them, looking down on them, watching them carefully, like an eagle inspecting its prey.
I could tell the parents were a bit nervous. It is important to be a little uneasy in front of an authority figure, especially one tall and imposing and with beautiful blond hair such as myself.
Sitting there, below me, in front of my desk, young Tobias Wilcox stared at me and stared at me and stared at me. Fortunately the eyes are not laser beams or I would have been sliced into sixteen pieces of wonderful German woman.
What I needed was a stiff riding crop I could smack on the desk each time I made an important point, which was often, knowing that the smack on the shining wood would certainly get the parents’ attention, not to mention the attention of young Tobias Wilcox, who needed some attention-getting, I can assure you.
Sadly, I had no such riding crop. While they cowered before me, I thought about purchasing several.
I smiled kindly. “Tobias. Hat.” He carefully placed his filthy headgear on his knee. “Now, Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox. I have been delighted to have your son Tobias in my classroom.”
Mr. Wilcox said, “We like to call him Toby.”
“I prefer Tobias. Formality is critical in the well-balanced student-teacher relationship.”
“We’re not very formal people,” said his mother.