Among School Children by Tracy Kidder

Author:Tracy Kidder [Kidder, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It would be "unprofessional" to get very upset about Clarence's leaving. Unprofessional. Sometimes that term seemed to apply best to teachers who used it most often. And yet it would apply to her in this case if she let her feelings show. Everyone involved had tried to do the best thing for the boy and for her class. Alpha was not a terminal illness. These things happened in school. This problem Chris was having with her sleep should not have to do with Clarence. She'd have to figure it out by herself. She couldn't talk it out the way she usually did. Professional colleagues didn't discuss such things. It just wasn't done.

She couldn't even really talk to Mary Ann about it, though Mary Ann gave her the chance. "It's so sad," Mary Ann said. "Just because this happened, yesterday I walked in your room, and he's being perfect. Today I walk in, and he's being perfect. Ohhhh."

But Chris looked away and, as if reciting, hurriedly said, "But I also have to consider the other kids in the room. And there are no real alternatives. I think that's not a great statement about Holyoke, but I don't know what other towns have to offer. There's always the danger he'll be influenced by the other kids there. But that's balanced by the fact that there's a full-time counselor there, and everybody says the teacher's excellent."

She couldn't even talk to herself openly. Chris went home the day she gave up caffeine, had a pleasant evening with Billy and the kids, and thought, "Thank God. I'm over whatever it was," and then she woke up in the middle of the night, gritting her teeth.

She said to Billy, "I think this is the first kid who's ever left my room this way."

Billy said, "No, it isn't. You had one your first year at Sullivan."

"I did?"

"Yes," said Billy. "If you say the name, I'll remember."

"Oh!" she said. "But he came out of a program like Alpha, and I only had him two weeks." She laughed, remembering that boy. "Everything I said, he used to give me the finger." That was long ago, and she'd had nothing to do with that boy's being sent away.

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