Free A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

Clara thought that when she was a teacher she wouldn't yell so much. She would smile more. But she would shake up the bad boys and scare them. She would be nice to the girls because the girls were afraid; even the big girl with the braids wound around her head, who was thirteen or fourteen, was quiet and afraid. Clara would be nice to all the girls but hard on the boys, the way her father was. He whipped Rodwell all the time but never Clara.…
    “Read. Start reading!”
    She was pointing at Clara. Clara's face tried to ward this off by smiling the way Rosalie's mother had smiled, but it did no good.
    She bent over the book. Silence. She could feel something itching up high on her legs but she could not scratch it. The words danced.
    “I live in a white house.…”
    “He just read that! We're on the next page.”
    The teacher walked heavily toward them. Rosalie was hunched over her book, not looking at Clara. Everything was quiet except the flies.
    Clara stared over at the next page. Her breath was coming fast. There was a picture of a strange man on that page, dressed in a strange way. He had a white shirt on but it was half covered up by a kind of coat, a short coat, that didn't come closed all the way up in front but left part of his chest to get cold. A red thing was tied around his neck. The strange coat was blue and the man's trousers were blue too. Clara wondered what kind of man this was supposed to be. He was smiling but she had no idea what he was smiling at; it looked as if he was just smiling, by itself.
    “Go on and read. We're waiting.”
    Clara gripped the book harder.
    “You can't be that stupid!” the teacher cried. “Go on and read!”
    “My … My …”
    The teacher leaned over Clara. With one long impatient finger she tapped at Clara's book. The baby had spilled something on this page and Clara's face burned with shame.
    “Begin with this word. This word!”
    She was tapping at a word. Clara knew it was a word, it was letters put together, it was like the letters up at the top of the blackboard that went all the way across the front of the room.…
    “Say it, come on! Say it!”
    “My …”
    Clara felt waves of heat rise about her. She and the teacher were both breathing hard.
    “
Father.
Say it—say
father.
”
    “Oh, father. Father. Father,” Clara whispered. “My father … My father …”
    There was silence when Clara's voice ran out. Someone giggled. The teacher's finger did not move. Clara could feel heat from the teacher and she could hear her breathing—she wanted to get away from here, get far away and sleep for a long time. That way no one would be mad at her.
    “How am I supposed to teach you anything? What do they expect? My God!” the teacher said bitterly. Clara remained sitting as straight as possible, the way Rosalie's mother had sat. It was the way to be. After a hot, ugly moment, the teacher said: “How long are you people going to be here?”
    She leaned around so that she could look at Rosalie too. But Rosalie sat the way Clara was sitting, with her own finger on the page, pretending not to notice. “How long are your parents going to be living here?” the teacher said. “Do you have any idea?”
    This frightened Clara more than anger, because she did not know what to do with it. She could hear something nice in the teacher's voice. She smiled, then stopped smiling, then looked over at Rosalie in panic. Rosalie turned and caught Clara's eye and both girls giggled suddenly. Their giggles were like something nasty.
    The teacher made an angry noise and straightened up.
    “All right, next. Bobbie. You read,” she said. Clara could tell that the teacher's voice was now going high over her head and that it could not hurt her.
    At recess they ran outside together. The teacher stood in the entry and made them pass one by one. If a boy pushed anybody she grabbed him and he had to wait until everyone else was out.
    Clara and Rosalie approached the other girls. The