Free How Sweet It Is by Alice Wisler Page B

Mr. Livingston?”
    “Yes,” I say.
    “He died,” she tells me.
    “Yes.”
    There is chatter and comments I can’t decipher, and then Miriam claps her hands again and the class settles. When her phone rings, she leaves me alone with them.
    My stomach feels like a blender on high speed. I try to smile at the assembled group. They all look at me—all but Darren, who is focused on his notebook. Standing straight—how awful to slouch on my first day of teaching—I find my words. “We’ll start with the basics.”
    I found a cloth Whole Foods bag in the cabin and have used it to carry the ingredients for today’s lesson. From it, I take a saucepan and place it on the stove. Then I pull out a stick of butter, a small sealed jug of milk, and a bag of white flour. I look into my saucepan, and for a second, I have no clue what to say next. I look out at the students. They’re surprisingly silent, just staring back at me. I finally say, “We’ll make a white sauce.”
    “White sauce?” asks the one who I think is named Bobby. He is stocky, and his shirt keeps rising up to show his soft and generous white tummy.
    “Why can’t we make a brown sauce?” asks the girl named Rainy as she adjusts a pair of sunglasses over her large, round eyes.
    “How about French fries? Can we make them?” A girl with long brown hair jumps out of her chair. I think her name is Lisa.
    After that everyone talks at once.
    “Let’s just go get some at Burger King.”
    “Yeah, their fries are good.”
    “Duh!”
    “No, you have to go to McDonald’s. They have the best fries.”
    “No way!”
    “You’re making me hungry.”
    “Kids!” I am amazed at the power of my own voice. I have their attention; now what do I do? “Sit down.” I point to the chairs as if they don’t know where to sit. My tone is like a tractor leveling the ground on a spring day. “We are going to listen.” I measure milk and butter with yellow plastic cups I pull out of the paper bag. I turn the heat on low under the saucepan and add butter, flour, then milk. Suddenly I realize I have brought nothing with which to stir the sauce. I open a drawer and find knives. I slide over to another and find forks. “I need a spoon,” I say. The sauce is going to burn if I don’t stir it soon.
    “Look to your left,” says Lisa.
    “No, her right, dummy!” Bobby’s voice booms across the room.
    I look in both directions and find a wooden spoon in a canister filled with utensils. If the canister had been a snake, it would have just had to slither once to make it into the saucepan. Quickly, I stir the melted butter and bubbly milk. I lower the heat.
    “Can I go to the bathroom?” asks the girl named Charlotte. This is the first time she has spoken. I tell her she may go.
    “Are you Mr. Livingston’s granddaughter?” Joy asks. Flatly, she adds, “He never told us about you.”
    “Can we play basketball now?” Bobby asks. I try not to roll my eyes at the group, or scold them like my mother would. “Please come here and watch this sauce.”
    “Where do you live? Are you from here?” Joy seems to have a lot of questions.
    “Dummy, didn’t you hear? She’s from Atlanta!” This is from the boy with the buzz cut. I now realize his name is Dougy because I see that DOUGY is printed across his green shirt.
    “Please get out of your chairs and come here. Now!” I hope my voice sounds authoritative.
    They all leave their seats to form a circle around the stove as I stir the white sauce. “It will thicken soon,” I say and just then I notice one child is still seated and shading in some drawing on a notebook page.
    “Please come here.” I eye Darren, but he refuses to budge.
    “Darren never participates during the inside stuff,” Lisa tells me.
    “He’s afraid,” says another.
    “He’s scared of stoves,” says Bubba.
    Darren looks up. With fire in his eyes he shouts at me, “Cooking is a waste of time! Why did you come here? We don’t need