The Secret School (6 page)

"Miss Bidson," Miss Sedgewick said, no longer smiling, "I think it's wonderful that you..." She paused. "But school boards act independently. My office has the duty to oversee teacher certification, curriculum, and exit exams. So ... I'll have to look into this," she said with sudden abruptness. "You'll hear from me shortly."

With that, Miss Sedgewick, without another word, got into her car and drove off.

"Oh, you're going to get into trouble now," Herbert said.

"What do you think she'll do?" Tom asked Ida.

"Don't know," Ida said. "Has anyone—besides me—told their parents that I'm the new teacher?"

No one admitted to it.

"Best hold your tongues. Now, recess is a long time over," Ida announced, and headed back inside.

For what was left of the afternoon, the mood was anxious.

As Ida was getting into the car to head home, Tom went up to the front. He bent over to start cranking, but then stood up.

"What do you think is going to happen?" he asked.

"Don't know."

"I think you're doing a good job," he told her.

"Thank you," she said. "But, Tom, I don't think that'll have anything to do with it."

"It should," he said.

As Ida drove off—with Felix at the pedals—she recalled the places they had heard on the radio: Salt Lake City, Albany, Spokane, Chicago. In one day the world had become so big. But Elk Valley had never seemed so isolated.

I
N THE DAYS FOLLOWING
Miss Sedgewick's visit, the children often discussed—in worried terms—what the county inspector might do. Then when the woman did not return, their anxiety faded.

Ida tried to put it out of her mind, too—but with less success. She realized now that she couldn't be satisfied if just she and Tom took and passed their tests. She had an obligation to make sure that
everyone
did well.

A few days after that realization, Ida sat at her desk and tried to take the students' measure while they worked quietly.

Mary was behind in reading. Natasha was ahead. Should she review Natasha's progress before allowing her to go on to the next higher-level reader, or should she concentrate on Mary? Herbert continued to be absent a lot, and he didn't work much when he was there. He was slipping further and further behind. She tried to help him, but he was the only one in the class who didn't seem interested in learning. Charley was not achieving much, either—Ida was not sure why—but there he was every day, struggling. As for Felix, he was trying hard to succeed for his sister. Flourishing, too. Ida was grateful.

And Tom? He was working steadily, wanting, she knew, to do well in her eyes. But she had become more his teacher and less his friend. It didn't feel right. And Ida didn't know what to do about it.

She picked up a grammar exercise that Natasha had done. Even as she looked at it, red marking pencil in hand, she thought of her own studies. She was slipping behind. The problem was, there was so little time for herself. Each day ended with her getting home late, doing her chores, eating dinner, and grading schoolwork. Only then did she do her own studying, at least until she could no longer keep her eyes open.

Every day seemed the same, and every day she was growing more exhausted. And further behind. Could she be content if Tom passed and moved on to high school while she stayed back?

Her mind continued wandering until she noticed that Tom was raising his hand. "Yes, Tom?"

"Miss Bidson, I'm having trouble with this," he said, holding up a reader.

Ida went to his bench and took her old place beside him.

Tom, grinning shyly, slid his reader over. It was open to an excerpt from Shakespeare, from the play
Julius Caesar.

"I don't think I get it," Tom said.

Ida stared at the passage. "Friends, Romans, countrymen," it began, "lend me your ears." It was a memory passage required of every eighth grader. In fact, Ida had heard it so often she had memorized it in fifth grade. How, she wondered, could Tom not know it?
He must be trying to get my attention,
she thought, and didn't know whether to be pleased or annoyed.

"How," Tom asked, "can you lend your ears to someone?"

Ida read and then reread the passage to herself as Tom waited patiently.

"I suppose," she finally, if cautiously, said, "it means he just wants them to listen."

"Oh. That all?"

Ida slid the book back to him. "Do you think?" she asked.

"You're the teacher," he said. "What you say, goes."

Ida blushed, then rose from the bench and returned to her desk.

 

The next morning an hour before dawn, Ida heard her mother call up the ladder, "Ida, honey, it's past milking time!"

Ida bolted up. Before she climbed down the ladder, she glanced at Felix, still asleep.

He looks so peaceful,
she thought with a twinge of envy.

Wearing a pair of her father's rubber boots, she went to the barn. A low-burning lantern hung from a stall peg. Crisp air clouded her breath. The air was thick with the smell of cow and sheep.

Sitting on a stool with her mother's shawl over her thin dress, Ida pressed her face against the rough, warm belly of Bluebell and milked her. As Ida squirted the milk into the pail rhythmically, she thought of all the problems that lay before her.

But the big problem was that she was so tired. Teaching was much more exhausting than she ever thought it would be. She wanted to be young again, like Felix. Felix was content to do what he was told and was capable of plodding on cheerfully, eager for hard work or fun, no matter which.

Suddenly Bluebell slapped Ida in the face with her wet tail. With a start, Ida looked up. There was light in the sky. She was really late. And filthy. Pail in hand, she ran for the house and tripped, landing on her knees in the mud. The milk sloshed away, wasted.

"Pa," Ida said wretchedly when she went into the sheep barn to tell her father what had happened, "I'm no good at anything!"

Her father sighed and gave her a hug. "I suppose I could tell you everything's going to be all right," he said, "but you're too old for that."

Ida, to her own surprise, felt stung by his remark. "What's going to happen?" she asked.

"Happen?"

"To me."

"Honey," her father said, "think of what you're trying to do: the work around here, your teaching, moving on with your own studies, and I guess just being yourself. You've taken on a whole lot."

"Spilling the milk was an accident."

"Sure it was. But you were rushing. You've got too much on your mind. Lord knows, living round here is a full-time job. Lambing. Spring shearing coming up. Culling. Fence work. Cooking. Cleaning. Fixing. Planning. It ain't ever done."

"Should I stop teaching?" Ida asked in a small voice.

"Sweetheart, when you choose a hard way, it's going to be hard. No harm in admitting to a mistake."

"But I want to go to high school!" Ida cried.

"Ida, I'm going to remind you again that's not a sure thing. Even if you do get in, we'll need to find you a place to board. You know we might not have the money."

Ida hung her head.

"Ida, love, it's never mean to tell the truth."

She said nothing.

"Ida...," he went on gently, a hand on her shoulder. Her head was still bowed. "How do you want to be treated, like a kid or a grown-up?"

The question startled her, and so, even more,
did her lack of a ready answer. She looked up into her father's face. It was the same as always, but for the first time she saw a hint of sadness in it. "I don't know," she confessed softly.

"Honey, that makes two of us," he said.

Ida pulled herself away and gathered up the empty milk pail. In the barn she carefully washed it out, then turned it upside down to drain dry. Her father would scald it later.

Back in the house she went up to the loft and dressed herself for school. Then she woke Felix.

They were late in leaving. Felix tried to talk, but Ida kept shushing him up. "Got to plan the day," she snapped. Her head ached.

By the time they drove up to the school, everybody except Herbert was there. Someone had already gone through the window and opened the door. Ida rushed inside.

On her desk was an apple. Seeing it, she stopped short, overcome with a flood of emotion. Leaving an apple was something she had done for
her
teachers. Did that mean—despite her faults, her tiredness—they thought she was doing a good job?

The day began as usual with flag raising. Then,
just before lessons started, Ida said, "Someone left me an apple. Thank you. May I ask ... who it was?"

At first no one raised a hand. Then, rather bashfully, Tom did.

Ida felt herself blush. Of all the people in the room, the one person she didn't want thinking of her as just a teacher was Tom.

"She don't even like apples," Felix blurted out.

"Felix!" Ida cried.

Everyone laughed.

Ida stammered another thank you.

Then with a start she realized the class was waiting for her to begin.

"Susie Spool," she asked tremulously, "will you lead us in a song?"

T
HAT
F
RIDAY, BECAUSE
Herbert had been out of school for three successive days, Ida decided to visit him.

She didn't tell anyone what she was doing, not even Felix. When she drove away from school that afternoon, she simply turned the car to the right instead of the left. The Bixler farm was two miles south down the valley.

"Brake and clutch!" she called to Felix after the short ride. She stopped the car, but kept the motor running. Cranking it up on her own was very hard.

"Why are we stopping?" Felix asked.

Ida untied the door. "We're at the Bixler farm," she announced.

"What we doing here?" Felix wanted to know as he squirmed out from under the dashboard.

"I want to see if Herbert is all right," Ida said as she stepped down.

"Is something the matter with him?"

"I don't know. Thought I'd better find out why he's not been at school. You wait here."

The road where she had parked ran along a slight bluff. The Bixler farm was below her, cradled by a curve in the road. While Ida didn't exactly know how big the place was, she knew a poor farm when she saw it.

There was one small house, its wooden sides gray with weather and the remnants of red paint. Not far from the dilapidated porch was a rusty truck. It had no wheels and seemed to be permanently mired in the ground. There were two other pieces of farm equipment, both quite rusty. The remains of a child's swing hung from a cottonwood tree, its two frayed rope strands dangling.

Some thirty yards from the house was the barn. It was fairly large, but its main doors were lopsided and, from all appearances, permanently open. Over the doorway hung the bleached skull of an elk, its white antlers extended like long fingers of ice.

In the small corral in front of the barn stood a horse. A leggy young colt hovered close by, the only new thing in sight. Herbert was not to be seen nor, for that matter, was any other human.

There was a sense of disorder about the farm. Surely not the way Ida's father ran things. Ida wondered if it was a good idea for her to even be here.

As she hesitated, a man strolled out of the barn. Ida recognized him immediately as Herbert's father, Mr. Bixler. He wore rubber boots, rather dirty clothing, and a straw Western-style hat on his head. His face, what she could see of it, was hidden by a shaggy gray mustache.

"Howdy," he called, looking up to where Ida stood. He touched his hand to the brim of his hat in a gesture of polite greeting even as he poked the pitchfork tines into the earth, then leaned on it. "Can I help you, ma'am?"

"I'm ... Ida Bidson," Ida called down. "I'm Herbert's ... classmate."

"Are you, now?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what's bringing you here?"

"His ... teacher wanted to know if he was all right."

"Did she? I'm sure I told Miss Fletcher it wasn't none of her business where my boy is. That she wasn't to come asking for him no more. She didn't ask you to come here, did she?"

Shocked by Mr. Bixler's words, Ida stammered, "No. Not ... really."

"Then what you doing here?"

Ida didn't know what to say.

"Aren't you a bit young to come a courting?" he asked dryly.

Ida blushed. "No, I'm actually ... his teacher," she blurted out, only to instantly regret her words.

Momentarily, Mr. Bixler glanced toward the barn. Then he looked back at Ida. "What happened to Miss Fletcher?" he asked her.

"She left," Ida said, wishing she had never come.

"Did she?"

"Her mother got ill," Ida said. Now, dimly, she saw Herbert standing deep in the interior of the barn. Hidden by the shadows, he stood motionless.

"Just how old are you, anyway?" Mr. Bixler asked.

"Fourteen."

"I see," Mr. Bixler said with care. There was no anger in his voice, just a dry tone that was burdened with a sad and weary weight. "You Noah Bidson's daughter?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"And you're playing at teacher, are you?"

"We're not
playing,
Mr. Bixler," Ida said with growing frustration. "We're trying to do things properly. And since I ... I am his teacher, I was wondering about Herbert. He hasn't been to school lately. We've missed him."

"That right? Look here, Miss Ida, as I told that Miss Fletcher, Herbert is sorely needed around here. Schooling, I'm afraid, comes second to this farm, specially now that I hear it's just a play school."

"Mr. Bixler, it's not a—" Ida started to protest.

"Excuse my interruption, miss, but did you get the school board's approval for what you're doing?"

"I—"

"Miss Ida, the truth is, schooling just hasn't much to do with what's here." Mr. Bixler again touched his hat with his hand. "So I'd be much obliged if this was your last visit. Otherwise I just might have to visit Mr. Jordan and let him know what's going on." Without another word, he turned and headed for the barn.