There are a few details about my
7th grade math teacher Ms. Palenik that will never disappear, no
matter how hard I try to eradicate them. She was short and rather nondescript
other than the fact that her skin was elephant wrinkly, and her thin gray hair
always flopped into her eyes, so she continually flipped her head in an effort
to see. She knew her math, but I often wondered if she hated children.
Above all, one trait and one
incident have been seared into my memory: Ms. Palenik was a coffee consumer;
she always had several Styrofoam cups on her desk scattered like chess pieces
in a half-finished game, standing over the crooked board of grade sheets and
assignments. A few were empty and knocked over, but many remained partially
full and cold, effigies to her caffeine addiction. She often had a half-full
ceramic mug or two as well. I believe she guzzled more brownish-black wake-up
serum than the rest of the faculty combined. Possibly because of her dependence
on the stuff, her voice cracked and croaked whenever she ran dry.
Because
my last name begins with A, I was seated in the front of the room, and from
there I could smell her coffee breath quite distinctly when she talked to the
class and wrote on the board. She rarely cleaned the chalkboards in the front
of the room, so a perpetual dust cloud hovered around me. I coughed quite
frequently. When she would write on the board each day, she would wear a foam
mitten thing—kind of like a bath sponge—that she would use as an eraser. Only
it didn’t work very well; it just smeared things with built up chalk dust. Even
worse, she would often stick the chalky mitten in the waistband at the back of
her pants, which were mostly polyester track suits or something equally as
hideous that should have been left in the ‘70s. She and her yellowing teeth
would often get in our faces—much too closely—if we had a question. I never
asked many for that reason alone.
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I
don’t remember which kids comprised my math class that half year I was with
them. Patrick started school the same day I did, so I know he was there. And I
think Tim, Carrie, and Lori were there, too, but I don’t really remember. One
boy that I knew was there for sure was Chris Gallaway, and I think I remember
him mostly because of this episode (and the fact that on a field trip later that
year he pestered a llama at the zoo so intensely, it spit all over him, chunks
in the face and all, but that’s another story). I remember he was often defiant
and getting into trouble. He blatantly fought against Ms. Palenik in just about
everything. However, at the time of this incident, it had been a while since he
had been sent to see the vice principal.
Now it wasn’t a common practice for
Ms. Palenik to send someone to the office to get her more coffee, but I do
remember that one cold morning Chris volunteered to traverse the blacktop to
the office building which contained the teachers’ lounge and Ms. Palenik’s
beloved life blood. While he was gone, Ms. Palenik commented to the rest of the
class about how wonderfully he had been behaving as of late. She may have even
forgiven him for mooing at her; I don’t know. I remember that he came back all
smiles, but the teacher was not in the room; she had just stepped out. He set
the mug on her desk and started whispering to some of the girls on the other
side of the room.
My first inclination as to what
was happening was when Lori, smacking her gum like a cow or camel or some other
cud-chewer, asked in a very disgusted, very non-quiet whisper, “Chris, did you
really spit in her coffee?”
“What?”
someone asked, and pretty soon the whole class was abuzz.
Chris
stood up, a rather proud look on his face. “Yep. Hawked a big ol’ goober into,
too. I even stirred it
around with one of those stick things. Couldn’t even tell when I was done.” He
laughed.
A
hush fell over the room, and soon our math teacher strode back into the room.
She seemed surprised that we were all working diligently and complimented us
accordingly, something that normally didn’t happen first thing in the morning.
My
mind was not on math any more. And I, having no real knowledge of coffee,
wondered if the big greenie swimming in the coffee would be obvious. Whether or
not she could tell the snot glob was in there, it didn’t matter. I knew—we all
knew—that what Chris had done was wrong. He had definitely crossed a line. I
felt like I should say something, but I was scared to do it. I was the new kid.
I was not a tattle-tale. I wanted friends. I wanted to belong.
The
class held its collective breath as she maneuvered over to her desk, thanking
Chris again for fetching her drink. She drank deeply—she never sipped—chugged,
then suddenly croaked.
“Ack!”
She threw her mug directly into the garbage, where it shattered, bringing us
out of our daze. She glared at us, and shaking a finger, threatened that if we
even moved a muscle before she got back, we would regret it.
We
sat a moment in a stunned silence.
“Dude.
She must have swallowed it.” Someone on the other side of the room voiced the
exact thoughts running through my mind.
“Chris,
what have you done?” someone else shrieked. The implications started settling
into our seventh grade minds. Previously he had been known as a joker, and his
open abhorrence for math, our math teacher, and school in general had just manifested
itself at a new level. I’m not sure whether to describe it as a new high or
low; I guess it depends on how you want to look at it. Our silence at his
disgusting prank had dragged the rest of us into his ongoing warfare against
Ms. Palenik.
Not
long after her abrupt departure, Mr. Allan, the vice principal rushed into the
classroom, his cheeks still red from hurrying across the quad from the main
office. For a moment he glared at us from under his bushy eyebrows and shock of
windblown, curly, brown hair. His striped ‘70s tie hung askew, poking out from
his normally crisply pressed yellow dress shirt and brown sports coat with
stylish patches on the elbows. He tucked the tie into his now-buttoned jacket
and cleared his throat. Again, a guilty silence fell over the room. Hands went
to hips. “I am very disappointed in you…all,” he began, but before he could say
more, Ms. Palenik returned, accompanied by Mrs. Heard, the principal. Her
large, imposing frame filled the door; her presence filled our souls with dread.
The only time she ever left her office was for assemblies or serious trouble.
We knew there was a dead man sitting among us.
Our
math teacher didn’t say anything, but her body shook. Tear trails streaked her
blotchy, red face. She simply pointed a finger at Chris, who stood immediately,
owning his transgression. Leaving his books, he marched over to the adults in
the doorway, and the three of them disappeared. I don’t think he even got to
request a last meal.
We
didn’t see Chris again for a week. Maybe two.
Ms.
Palenik returned after a day. And even though Chris wasn’t there for a while,
she came back with a vengeance. If anyone even breathed wrong, the whole class
felt her wrath in the amount of homework problems. She dealt worksheets like a
card shark in Vegas, and no one beat the house. I remained buried in redundant
math exercises because of someone else’s choices.
I
suppose I could have made a different choice myself, one that may or may not
have prevented the class’s plight. But at that point in my life I was not
strong enough. Looking back, I wonder if anyone else’s consciences spoke to
them, or if anything would have changed if someone had spoken up about the foreign
object in Ms. Palenik’s coffee, but I’m not sure. Perhaps our silent cruelty was
bred out of a longing to belong, a fear of standing up and standing out. Junior
high can be harsh.
