Flora by Gail Godwin

Author:Gail Godwin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781408840870
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2013-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

“YOU ARE SO good at this,” Flora would say, shaking her head in awe. Not during our class practices anymore, because during those I had pretty successfully weaned her from lapsing out of character. “I feel I know these children. I want to keep them interested. I love what we did with Alabama history, having them be the Indians and then the Spanish and French and so on. I lie awake at night and think about them, I think up ways to help them improve. For instance, what if I asked little Mildred to practice using the word ‘dread’ in different sentences? ‘I dread the dentist,’ and so on. She might find she could pronounce her own name after all.”

“Better not use that example, though. If she doesn’t dread the dentist, it might make her start.”

“Oh dear, you’re right. You know, maybe it’s just as well, Helen, that I won’t have someone like you in my real fifth-grade class.”

“Why is that?” I asked, though I could tell she was going to say something flattering.

“You’re just so quick and imaginative I couldn’t keep up with you, that’s why.”

“But how do you know there won’t be someone—I mean, it’s possible that you’ll have someone like Brick or Suzanne,” I deflected modestly.

“No,” said Flora. “You made up Brick and Suzanne, whereas this is a rural school and … oh, I don’t know. Your mother used to say Alabama’s education standards were woefully behind. That’s why she practically starved herself so she could finish college at Chapel Hill and get a North Carolina teaching certificate.”

“How do you know she starved herself?” This was the first I’d heard of it.

“Because we all had to help her out. I mean, not me, I was still a child, though I contributed little candies for the food packages. But everyone sent money orders, even Juliet. And, even then, Lisbeth had to go to bed early so she could do without the dinner meal.”

“How did you know this?”

“Well, Lisbeth still wrote to us fairly often in those days, and she would describe what it was like to go to bed on an empty stomach. She said she would curl up in a ball so she felt fuller in the middle and then pull the blanket over her head to keep out the sounds of other students heading off to dinner. It made Daddy cry to think of her suffering like that for an education. Juliet said that was when he started going out and playing cards for bigger stakes.”

I, too, lie awake at night now, when I am older than Nonie ever became, and think about those children, the only fifth-grade class Flora ever got to teach. Brick and Suzanne and Lulabelle and Ebenezer and Jock and Jason and Hitty and Timmy and Angela and little “Milderd.” I round them up in whatever order they present themselves on that particular night and meditate on whatever pattern they want to form. It might be winners and losers. It might be

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