Elephant Bangs Train Read Free

ARIE C OBBINSKI picked up her dress. We could see her legs, Ducky Doodle, Ralph Jenkins, and me. A summer wind blew through the room. Paper birds flapped on the window. Life was sweet, we were young, teacher was in the hall.
    'Ya, ya!' yelled Ducky Doodle. 'Last day in second grade!'
    The meadow tossed its perfume. A serpent danced in the sunlit grass. The earth was turning.
    'I wore my tap shoes today,' said Marie. Intoxicated, we stared at her knees.       
    'Higher, please,' said Ralph Jenkins.
    Marie rose from her seat and stood before us in the aisle, blonde, beautiful, if a bit too full in the nose. She smiled shyly, tugged her dress up higher. Open-mouthed, we stared. The class was sailing airplanes. We were hidden in delight, beside the papier-mâché mountain in the corner.
    'Show us your panties, Marie,' suggested Ralph Jenkins. Ducky Doodle drummed on his head. I said, 'Oh, Marie.'
    Swept up in our admiration, she twirled in the sunlight, as a flower opened inside her, and the wind dived in the window, beguiling her. Unable to resist, she showed her panties.
    Our souls reeled. The distant ages wheeled into view. Ducky the Jester stood on his hands. Ralph Jenkins wiggled his ears. Our princess skipped down the aisle, holding up her dress with two fingers. The lilac bush beat on the windowpane. How nice her black two-shoes tapped.
    'More panties!' yelled Ralph, wet-mouthed, calling the toast.
    Over the seven hills of the valley came the summer goddess, trailing her veils. Marie bent over, threw her dress up from behind.
    Her panties were as white as Christ's linen, pure as the summer, filled with promises, sweet, untouched by vacationing boys. We buzzed around her, drawn by her delicate essence, her petalling prepubescence. She danced, we sang, teacher was forever down the hall, splashing in the fountain.
    The clock ticked and jumped. We had the answer. It was Marie Cobbinski, Ducky Doodle, Ralph Jenkins, and me. We cut the moorings, sailed away, out of the classroom and into the air. There, in the sky, the trapeze: I am swung from it, she catches me, we hang, suspended. I gaze into the face of love, uncertain if I am Ralph, or Ducky, or me, when suddenly, we are upended. The high wire is broken, the team is falling.
    'What is going on in this room?'
    Marie's eyes crossed, she bit her lip.
    Standing in the doorway was the teacher, a musty old bird of gloom, eggs petrified inside her. Cackling, she ran to her perch in front of the room.
    Ducky and I wheeled in front of Marie. She pulled down her dress. Teacher didn't see the panties, she was scratching in her nest. 'Marie Cobbinski, get to your seat immediately!' she said, and charged down the aisle with a ruler.
    Marie ran to her seat. We stood frozen beneath the beak of the hoarfrost bird. 'How dare you!' she shrieked, snapping Ducky Doodle by the braces. 'Hey, hey,' was all he could say. 'How dare you interrupt this class with your—' She smacked Doodle on the head. '—antics! Now sit ,' she said, and catapulted him down the aisle.
    She turned to me. There were the little people in the village under the mountain, working with their rakes and shovels. 'Who do you think you are?' she asked.
    'Nobody,' I said.
    'That's right,' she said. 'Hold out your hands!'
    The ruler came down. There was a fire in my palms. I looked up. Taking my head in her claw, she clamped me in my seat.
    Ralph Jenkins stood alone, wet-mouthed and surprised . The class laughed. Ralph was a dumbbell. He'd catch hell.
    Head trembling, she went for him, past the open window. The wind caught her hair, waved it aloft. 'Oh,' she said, touching her bald spot. 'Why do you torment me?'
    She sailed towards Ralph, a Chinese dragon kite, red-faced and terrible, flapping her horny tail. 'I'll teach you,' she said. Ralph ran to the window, tried to fly, it was too late. He searched the sky, hoping to jump the room, but the summer goddess was playing with other boys in the valley, boys on the loose and