“I’m sure.” He realized. “Actually, I think I know what to do.”
For whatever reason, it just felt right, he went out to the shed; he found the same old shovel and dug one more hole, to the left of the dog and the snake.
In the house, he sat a last while with the Remington.
He found three rounds of plastic, strong and smooth, and wrapped it up, so clear you could see the keys—first the Q and the W, then the midsection of F and G, H and J—and i
n the old backyard of an old-backyard-of-a-town, he took it there, he placed it there, and buried it in the ground:
The TW, the snake, and Moon.
You didn’t put that in ads for real estate.
* * *
—
At home again, life had to go on, and it did, with Michael staying up with her, as she wrote her assignments, and checked them. When she did the practical work, she was sent to Hyperno High. The toughest high school in town.
On her first day, she came back beaten:
“They’ve eaten me alive.”
On the second, it was worse:
“Today they spat me out.”
There were times when she would shout at them, in total loss of control—of them and of herself—and kids moving in for the kill. When once she near exploded, screaming, “QUIET!” then a mutter of “Little shits,” the class erupted with laughter. The mirth, the mockery of teenagers.
The fact of Penny Dunbar, though, as we know, is that she might have been slight, and perennially fragile, but she was an expert at somehow surviving. She spent lunchtimes with whole classes—the queen of detention and boredom. She bludgeoned them with organized silence.
As it turned out, she was the first candidate in years to last the student-teacher period, and they offered her a job, full-time.
She left the cleaning completely.
Her workmates took her out drinking.
Michael sat with her next day, by the toilet. He rubbed her back and spoke to her soothingly:
“Are these the spoils of freedom?”
She threw up and sobbed but laughed.
* * *
—
Early the next year, when Michael picked her up from work one afternoon, there were three giant boys surrounding her, with their sweat, their haircuts and arms. For a moment, he nearly got out, but then he saw it—she was holding a copy of Homer; she was reading aloud, and it must have been one of the gruesome bits, for the boys all grimaced and crowed.
She wore a dress the shade of peppermint.
When she realized Michael had pulled up, she clapped the book shut and the boys all cleared a path. They said, “Bye Miss, bye Miss, bye Miss,” and she got into the car.
But that’s not to say it was easy—it wasn’t.
When he was heading out to work sometimes, he heard her talk herself into it, in the bathroom; it was hard to face the day. He’d say, “Which kid is it this time?”—for the job became working with the toughest ones, one on one; and sometimes it took an hour, sometimes several months, but always she wore them down. Some would even protect her. If other kids mucked up, they’d be taken to the toilets, and shoved amongst the troughs. Don’t mess with Penny Dunbar.
In many ways, the title of ESL was ironic, because a good percentage of her students were kids whose first language was actually English, but could barely read a paragraph—and those were always the angriest.