Free Fallout by Todd Strasser

teacher because I think it’s an important job.”
    â€œAll of the teachers in this school are ladies,” said Puddin’ Belly. “Except for Mr. Brown, the gym teacher.”
    â€œAre you implying that the only teaching job a man should have is gym?” asked Mr. Kasman.
    Puddin’ Belly wasn’t implying anything. He was simply repeating what Ronnie had told him to say. Now that the subject had been broached without Mr. Kasman getting mad, Ronnie must have felt safe to add his two cents. “I think what Stuart means is that men usually don’t become teachers.”
    â€œMy father teaches economics at Hofstra,” said Paula.
    â€œThat’s college,” said Ronnie.
    â€œMr. Kasman?” the PA squawked. It was one of the secretaries. “Can you come down to the office for a moment?”
    â€œTake out your grammar workbooks, and work on pages fourteen and fifteen,” Mr. Kasman said, and left.
    Ronnie went to the back of the room to sharpen his pencil. The grinding filled our ears. When it stopped, he didn’t return to his desk. Instead, he looked up at the new sound-absorbing white cork squares in the ceiling. Holding the pencil at the point, he flicked his wrist. The pencil flew up and stuck, hanging from the ceiling like a thin yellow stalactite.
    Ronnie went to the front of the room, took a new pencil from the box on Mr. Kasman’s desk, and sharpened it. This time the whole room watched. A moment later, there were two yellow stalactites in the ceiling.
    Puddin’ Belly flipped his pencil at the ceiling. It bounced off and fell to the floor. Freak O’ Nature flipped his pencil. Same result. Eric Flom tried it. Still the same result.
    â€œStand guard, Scott,” Ronnie ordered.
    Standing guard was tricky because you had to be in the doorway and watch without being seen by the teacher you were on the lookout for. I’d perfected a method of keeping the door ajar with my foot while sticking just enough of my face out so I could see with one eye. It was nothing any other kid couldn’t do, but since I’d been the first to think of it, it had become my role.
    By now there was a line of boys at the pencil sharpener and nonstop grinding. Kids asked Ronnie to demonstrate his technique. Soon more pencils were stuck in the ceiling.
    Down the hall, Mr. Kasman came around the corner. I backed out of the doorway. “He’s coming!”
    Everyone hurried to their desks and got to work in their grammar workbooks.
    Mr. Kasman came in and sat down and wrote something in his notebook. Then he noticed the empty pencil box.
    Then he looked at us.
    Then he looked up.

The grown-ups sit at the table and talk. The kids sit on the bunks like spectators.
    â€œMaybe she just needs time to recover,” Mrs. Shaw says.
    â€œAnyone ever seen anything like this?” Dad asks.
    â€œThat depends on what you mean by
this,
” Mr. McGovern answers. I think he’s talking about his son, Paula’s brother, Teddy.
    â€œMr. Porter?” Janet says from the bunk where she’s sitting next to Mom. “She needs to be turned or she’ll get bedsores.”
    â€œNow?” Dad asks.
    â€œThe sooner the better, sir.”
    One of Mr. McGovern’s eyebrows dips. “And you know this because?”
    â€œI was studying to be a nurse, sir.”
    â€œYou? Where?” Mr. McGovern sounds a little mean.
    â€œLong Island College Hospital of Nursing, sir.”
    â€œNever heard of it,” Mr. McGovern says dismissively.
    For a moment, everyone goes still. I wish I could ask Mr. McGovern why he said that. Then the moment passes, and Dad helps Janet turn Mom onto her side.
    That’s when we all smell it.
    As if the mildew and pee odors aren’t bad enough, now there’s this. I feel embarrassed for Mom and try not to watch while Dad and Janet remove her soiled clothes and the sheet she was lying on. It all goes into the big