Free Emergency Teacher by Christina Asquith Page B

to bathroom,” a conversation started in the back. I didn’t want to do discipline on the first day, so I ignored it. “Where’s the bathroom, Miss?” the boy asked, walking to the door.
    â€œI don’t know. Just ask when you get out there.”
    Facing the class, I employed another classic teacher phrase by telling them, “Clear your desks, please.” No one really had anything on their desks. The door opened again. It was the bathroom boy. “It’s locked. Miss.”
    â€œWell, try to find someone to open it.”
    He disappeared again.
    â€œOkay, class, we’re going to make personal information cards.”
    A student in the back raised his hand.
    â€œMiss, can I sharpen my pencil?”
    â€œSure.” As I passed out index cards, he snaked around several aisles before arriving at the pencil sharpener. A few students twittered and looked to see my reaction. I glanced away, pretending I hadn’t noticed. Another student raised his hand.
    â€œMiss, I don’t have a pencil.” I returned to my desk to search for one.
    Another student raised her hand.
    â€œMiss, my Band-Aid is loose.”
    â€œUm.” Bringing Band-Aids had not been one of my Big Issues. I pretended to rifle through my desk, knowing there were none there. “Don’t worry about it.”
    Encouraged by my attentiveness, several students began raising their hands.
    â€œMiss, can we go by our other school from last year and say hi to our old teacher?”
    I fumbled to answer everyone’s questions and keep the class moving. Finally, I interrupted, “Look, everyone, please stop talking and write down your full name, address, and phone number on your index card.”
    But that unleashed a torrent of questions, and when I couldn’t keep up, they shouted them out.
    â€œMiss, I don’t know my address.”
    â€œMiss, how you spell Lehigh Avenue?”
    â€œMiss, we don’t got a phone.”
    â€œMiss, how you spell Lehigh Avenue???”
    From the back, a little girl, whose name tag read VALERIE, shouted, “Meessss, yo no entiendo.” “I don’t understand.” I rushed around trying to accommodate everyone. Several students chatted with one another. I ran to the back to help Valerie. An hour, maybe two, slipped past. By the time we finished personal-identification index cards, the class, like an orchestra with each musician playing a different song, had spun off in thirty-three different directions. I was trying to conduct each one. Everyone was calling my name, and when I turned to quiet one group, another one flared up. Several more students asked to use the bathroom, and when I started saying no, two girls claimed to “have my P.”
    â€œNo, no one else is using the bathroom,” I said. I thought this made me strict. But then, one girl started to cry, and later she reported this to Mrs. G., who informed me as though I were a sixth-grader myself, that students had a right to the bathroom.
    By 11:30 AM, I had to go to the bathroom, too. What were teachers supposed to do? At any given moment, at least one student from each corner of the room, and the middle, was calling my name. “Mmeeesss Asquith!”
    A little boy, his eyes bulging madly, waved his hand. I rushed to his desk. His name card said, “Miguel, 11 years old.” He had baby fat still bulging from his cheeks, like a chipmunk furrowing nuts. He had clasped his hand across his mouth, eyes wide with terror. Was Miguel about to become that “he-threw-upon-the-first-day” kid?
    â€œMy tooth came out,” he said.
    I kneeled and saw a baby tooth cupped in his palm, like a little bird.
    â€œOpen your mouth,” I said. I checked to make sure it wasn’t some joke on me—no student was gonna get one past this teacher. But his tongue had blood on it. I smothered a little laugh and put my hand on his head.
    â€œDoes it hurt?” He shook