Free Soil by Jamie Kornegay

and expectations filled the room like noxious gas. Snickers and whispers rebounded off the cinder-block walls. A desk leg screeched and someone snorted up a throatful of mucus.
    Today is a new day , she reminded herself. Last night, rock-bottom in a vanquished tub of powdered donuts, she vowed to correct all the miscalculations that had brought her here, so many blind corners gone from where she needed to be. No longer would she simply let life happen to her. She would struggle back to normal and then advance toward the excellence she’d forsaken somewhere during the past year.
    The spell was broken by a kid in the corner scooting his hand across the desktop, drawing a farting squelch from the laminate. The noise earned an equal clamor of praise and rebuke from his classmates.
    â€œThat’s enough now, everyone settle down,” she demanded.
    â€œMiz Mize, why you look so nice today?” cried a girl up front, Balivia.
    â€œI said everyone quiet!” She actually shouted at them and rapped the desk with the flat of her hand, surprising even herself. “Now take out your journals, please.”
    There followed a general murmur of disapproval. They probably thought she was a bitch for refusing the compliment, but Balivia’s loud graceless pleasantries were insidious and had to be routed straightaway. To apologize or confess gratitude would show weakness. They were animals who would just as easily turn on her as seek favor.
    The intercom crackled to life with morning announcements. A rotating cast of students and faculty read dispassionately of club meetings, upcoming sports events, birthday listings, and a prayer disguised as “daily reflection.” The students listened halfheartedly, their restlessness creating a kind of vibration in the room.
    Last year had been effortless. She’d shared a profound rapport with her students. Some of them still stopped by to visit and called out to her in the hallway. She’d been recognized as Most Outstanding First-Year Educator at awards day last spring, and some predicted she would achieve Teacher of the Year in three to five. But now, six weeks into the new year, she hadn’t synced with these kids. They were still battling for trust that should have been won weeks ago. She knew it was her fault. When life was good, you were happy to share inspiration, but after the sudden disintegration of her marriage and the new squalid conditions she’d made for her young son, she simply hadn’t been able to muster the will. It was like climbing a mountain each day with no prospect of reaching the summit.
    But she’d revised her outlook. According to her father, it wasn’t the peak she needed to appreciate but the climb.
    By order of the intercom, the students rose and directed their attention to a limp dusty flag propped in the corner. She observed them, hands on hearts, awkward and fidgety as they droned through the Pledge of Allegiance, and then collapsed back into their seats, looking around to each other for validation or else down at their desks, striving for anonymity. She’d devisedan assignment that might engage them, get them talking to each other and thinking for themselves. She gathered the armful of newspapers and walked up and down the rows passing out pages from the Sunday New York Times .
    â€œThere’s a big world outside of Madrid, and I want to know what you think of it,” she told them. “Just pick a story from your section and write about it in your journal. Whatever comes into your head.”
    Balivia rattled her paper, staring bewildered. “What’s this word, Miz Mize?”
    Sandy peered over her shoulder and recoiled.
    â€œDrought?” she replied.
    â€œDrought?”
    â€œYes.” She worried Balivia wouldn’t be able to comprehend the article if she couldn’t read the headline. How did these kids pass from grade to grade without such rudimentary knowledge? She looked around