only five at the time but already straining the abilities of their ancient housekeeper.
The teacher Kate assisted was named Mrs. Chauncey. (All the teachers were “Mrs.” to their assistants.) She was a comfortable, extremely overweight woman who had been tending four-year-olds longer than Kate had been alive. Ordinarily she treated them with a benign absentmindedness, but when one of them misbehaved, it was “Connor Fitzgerald, I
see
what you’re up to!” and “Emma Gray, Emma Wills: eyes front!” She thought that Kate was too lax with them. If a child refused to lie down at Quiet Rest Time, Kate just said, “Fine, be that way,” and stomped off in a huff. Mrs. Chauncey would send her a reproachful look before telling the child, “
Somebody
isn’t doing what Miss Kate told him to.” At such moments, Kate felt like an impostor. Who was she to order a child to take a nap? She completely lacked authority, and all the children knew it; they seemed to view her as just an extra-tall, more obstreperous four-year-old. Not once during her six years at the school had the students themselves addressed her as “Miss Kate.”
From time to time Kate entertained the notion of looking for work elsewhere, but it never came to anything. She didn’t interview well, to be honest. And anyhow, she couldn’t think what she might be qualified to do instead.
In her coed dorm back in college she had once been drawn into a game of chess in the common room. Kate was not very good at chess, but she was an audacious player, reckless and unorthodox, and she managed to keep her opponent on the defensive for some time. A small crowd of her dorm mates gathered around the board to watch, but Kate paid them no attention until she overheard what the boy behind her whispered to someone standing next to him. “She has. No. Plan,” he whispered. Which was true, in fact. And she lost the game shortly thereafter.
She thought of that remark often now, walking to school every morning. Helping children out of their boots, scraping Play-Doh from under their nails, plastering Band-Aids onto their knees. Helping them back into their boots.
She has. No. Plan.
—
Lunch was noodles with tomato sauce. As usual, Kate headed one table and Mrs. Chauncey the other, on the other side of the lunchroom, with the class divided between them. Before the children took their seats they had to hold up their hands, fronts first and then backs, for Kate or Mrs. Chauncey to inspect. Then they all sat down and Mrs. Chauncey dinged her milk glass with her fork and called out, “Blessing time!” The children ducked their heads. “Dear Lord,” Mrs. Chauncey said in a ringing voice, “thank you for the gift of this food and for these fresh sweet faces. Amen.”
The children at Kate’s table bobbed up instantly. “Kate had her eyes open,” Chloe told the others.
Kate said, “So? What of it, Miss Holy One?”
This made the Samson twins giggle. “Miss Holy One,” David repeated to himself, as if memorizing the words for future use.
“If you open your eyes during blessing,” Chloe said, “God will think you’re not grateful.”
“Well, I’m
not
grateful,” Kate said. “I don’t like pasta.”
There was a shocked silence.
“How could you not like pasta?” Jason asked finally.
“It smells like wet dog,” Kate told him. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“Eew!” everyone said.
They lowered their faces to their plates and took a sniff.
“Right?” Kate asked.
They looked at one another.
“It does,” Jason said.
“Like they put my dog Fritz in a big old crab pot and cooked him,” Antwan said.
“
Eew!
”
“But the carrots seem okay,” Kate said. She was beginning to be sorry she’d started this. “Go ahead and eat, everybody.”
A couple of children picked up their forks. Most didn’t.
Kate dipped a hand in her jeans pocket and brought forth a strip of beef jerky. She always carried beef jerky in case lunch didn’t work out; she