The Year of Billy Miller (3 page)

All of a sudden, there was a noise like a single, penetrating toll of a bell. The laughter quieted. Silence, except for the resonant sound.

Ms. Silver stood at the front of the room beside her desk holding a little padded hammer. There was a small bronze gong at the corner of the desk. “Thank you,” she said in a hushed tone. “Whenever you hear the gong, it means I’d like your attention.”

Billy had never known a teacher with a gong. It had worked like magic—the room was noiseless, still.

Ms. Silver talked about herself for a while, and Billy’s mind wandered. The next thing he knew, Ned was kicking him under the table. “Say your name and something about yourself,” Ned whispered.

“I’m Billy Miller,” Billy said. “And I—” He couldn’t think of anything to say. “I’m in second grade.”

There were giggles. But the students weren’t giggling
at
Billy. They were giggling because they thought what he’d said was funny. A good, warm feeling came over him.

But not everyone thought he was funny. Emma looked at him, rolled her eyes, and said, “You are so dumb.”

The good, warm feeling vanished.

Later, when the students were writing and drawing in their new journals, Emma said to Billy, “Maybe you should write that you’re in second grade so you don’t forget.”

Billy took two red markers from the bin in the middle of the table. Using both hands, he held up the markers on his head as if they were the fiery horns of a devil. Then he stared at Emma with the meanest expression he could manage.

Ms. Silver happened to be walking by just then. She stopped and looked at Billy for a long moment.

Billy froze for a few seconds, then lowered his hands and dropped the markers back into the bin.

Ms. Silver raised one of her hands to her chopsticks. She frowned. Then she smoothed her hair and walked away. “Keep working, everyone,” she said.

“Oh no,” Billy whispered. It dawned on him. Ms. Silver thought he was making fun of
her
. She thought that the two red markers were meant to be her two red chopsticks. She thought that the ugly face he’d made at Emma was an imitation of her, Ms. Silver.

Billy didn’t know what to do. What he wanted to do was to run and run and run around the playground. Running always made him feel better. But he couldn’t do that, so, in his journal, he drew a picture of a hamster and wrote:
Hamsters smell bad
.

4

Sal and the Drop Sisters were sitting in a row on the front porch steps. “I’m waiting for you,” Sal called to Billy as he turned into the yard.

“Well, here I am,” said Billy. “You can stop waiting.”

Papa came around the house from the garage carrying a battered cello with only two strings. “Hi, Billy,” he said.

“Hi, Papa.”

“How was school?” asked Papa.

“Okay,” said Billy.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Give me one highlight from your day,” said Papa.

Billy was used to Papa’s probing, although he didn’t particularly like it. “There’s a kid named Hamster in my class,” he said.

“Boy or girl?” asked Papa.

“Girl.”

“Maybe her parents are celebrities,” said Papa. “They often give their kids unusual names.”

“Huh?” said Billy.

“Nothing,” said Papa. “How is Ms. Silver?”

Billy shrugged. An image of Ms. Silver’s disappointed face rose up in his mind. He did not want to talk about her, although he knew his father would think that her chopsticks were very interesting. “Can we not have any more questions?” asked Billy.

“No more questions,” said Papa.

Sal, who had been unusually silent, stood with her hands on her hips, and said, “Your school doesn’t sound very fun. My school with Papa was more fun. Look what I can do.”

Sal bent over and grabbed a book from a stack on the porch. “I can read Mama’s favorite book,” she said. She held up a worn paperback copy of
Pride and Prejudice
.

“You can’t read that book,” said Billy. The book was definitely for adults.

“Yes, I can,” said Sal. “Watch. I know the words
a
and
I
.” She opened the book to the first chapter. Her finger scanned across the lines and down the page. “A . . . a . . . a . . . a . . .” She paused. “There’s an I!” She flipped the page. Now her finger darted around. “A . . . I . . . a . . . a . . .” She slapped the book shut and beamed. “That was just two pages, but I can even read in the hundreds.” She opened the book again, this time to page 223. “See,” she said. “I . . . I . . . a . . .”

“That’s not really reading,” said Billy.

“Is so,” said Sal. “
A
is a word and
I
is a word.” She looked to Papa.

“Well,” said Papa. “It
is
reading. In a way.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Billy. He was still holding the dilapidated cello. He plucked one of the two strings, making a dull, heavy sound. “And this is making music.” He plucked again. “In a way.”

Billy laughed.

“I found the cello today, among other treasures. Come to the garage. I’ll show you.”

“Me, too,” said Sal. She gathered the Drop Sisters into her pillowcase. “I’m going to teach the girls to read,” Sal told Billy. “I’m teaching Raindrop first. She’s the smartest.”

Billy followed Papa, and Sal followed Billy into the garage.

Papa’s treasures for the day included: the cello, an old-fashioned telephone with a dial and a long curly cord, a gnarled piece of driftwood that looked like an elephant, and a shiny silver garden ball on a cement pedestal.

“We went to the dump,” said Sal.

Billy realized that if he’d spent the day with Papa, he would have had more fun than he did at school.

“Does any of this speak to you?” Papa asked. He rotated the driftwood in his hands, eyeing it critically. “Any ideas how your old Papa can turn these lovely bits of rummage into art?” He placed the driftwood at his feet, then rubbed the silver garden ornament as if it were a crystal ball. “Let’s look into the future . . .” said Papa.

Billy and Sal leaned closer.

“What do you see?” Papa asked, joking, stroking his beard.

Billy didn’t see the future, but if he could have, he would have liked to see Emma move to a different table at school, and he would have liked Ms. Silver to let him know, somehow, that she wasn’t mad at him.

“I see me!” said Sal. She touched her nose to the silver globe, then drew her face back a bit. She repeated this movement several times, mesmerized by her distorted reflection. “I like the silver ball best,” she said before she kissed her reflection.

“I like the telephone best,” said Billy. But he didn’t have any suggestions for how Papa could turn it into art. “It would be fun to take it apart.” He was fascinated by seeing the internal works of things—the wires and gears and nuts and bolts.

“You should like the silver ball best,” Sal told Billy. “It’s silver just like Ms. Silver. You should give it to her. Then
you
would be
her
favorite.”

Billy didn’t care about being Ms. Silver’s favorite, but he
did
care that she thought he’d been rude to her. Billy offered no response to Sal’s comments, but because of them, he experienced the first flicker of an idea, an idea of how to make things right with Ms. Silver.

Ned came over, and he and Billy took apart the telephone with Papa’s help.

And Billy’s idea was forming.

Mama came home, and she asked even more questions about second grade than Papa had. Billy’s answers stayed nearly the same: “Okay” and “Nothing” and “I don’t know.”

Billy’s idea continued to form during dinner and throughout the evening. By the time he went to bed, he had a plan.

5