 
AN EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
When Bonnie Pinkwater
arrived at East Plains Junior/Senior High Wednesday morning a cow stood in her
parking place. To be fair, the cow didn't know it stood in Bonnie's parking
place. The spot didn't have her name on it, although what that would have meant
to a Guernsey was problematic. Unfortunately, the space represented the last
remaining faculty parking place.
Bonnie hung
her head out the window. "Give me a break, Ruby. I'm running late."
Ruby gave a look that
could be interpreted either as "How you doin'?" or "That's nice, dear, don't
bother me." Milk-cow body language being the inexact science it is.
Frustrated, Bonnie exited
her car. She snatched up an egg-sized piece of granite. "I'm warning you,
Ruby. I've had a bad morning, and I'm in no mood to take any bovine crap." She
hefted the stone, feeling its weight and taking a bead on the bony rear end of
the cow.
Unfortunately for Bonnie
and fortunately for Ruby, one doesn't just toss rocks at a friend's back side
even if that friend weighs nine hundred pounds and gives milk for a living.
"You are one lucky cow, Ruby. There was a time when I wouldn't have thought
twice about pegging your skinny butt with a rock." To drive home her point,
Bonnie chucked the stone into the flagpole maybe fifteen meters distant. The
resounding clang echoed across the parking lot. She shook her head, conceding
the spot to Ruby and parking in the student lot north of the school.
Bonnie glanced at her
Mickey Mouse watch.
Damn!
Bonnie
swiveled the rear view mirror. She grimaced. Steel-gray hair stuck out like
straw from the loose bun she'd tied before leaving home. She tried to coax the
errant hairs back into a semblance of order with gentle and not-so-gentle pats,
but the rebels would have made Che Guervara proud.
Her lipstick had faded as
well. "Boys and girls, this morning Math Analysis will be taught by the Bride
of Frankenstein," she said in disgust.
Bonnie pulled
her coat tight about her small, thin frame and trudged through gravel and snow
to the side of the blue-steel and gray-brick school. After a struggle, the
aluminum door grudgingly opened. Squinting, she peered across the gymnasium.
Neither Harvey Sylvester,
nor his seventh-grade boys Physical Education class noticed her as she sped
across the gym. She exited through the far door onto the school's main hallway.
By the time she arrived at
her classroom, Bonnie was almost ten minutes late. While not a school record or
even a personal best, it was the latest she'd been this school year. "What the
hell, anybody can be on time."
Matthew Boone, her student
aide, held open the door for her. "Good Morning, Missus Pinkwater." He dropped
the absent-list/lunch-count slip in the wire basket fastened to the back side of
the door.
Good God, youngster.
"Thank you, Matt." She
squeezed by him into the room, keeping her face neutral, the acrid odor of burnt
rubber stinging her eyes.
The Boones were, by far,
the poorest family in East Plains and heated their trailers by burning used
tires in their wood stoves and fireplaces. They lived in a ramshackle
collection of four trailers, only one of which had running water. Matthew came
to school two days out of three with a less than delicate aroma.
"Glad you could make it,
Missus Pinkwater," Wesley Oliheiser said with a smirk.
"Glad to be here, Wes."
She turned back to Matt. "Go tell Mister Whittaker Ruby is loose in the parking
lot again."
The pungent boy nodded and
left. Bonnie went to her desk at the back of the room and opened her lesson
plan book.
She was writing that
night's homework on the front board when a girl's voice asked, "Why were you
late this time, Missus Pinkwater?"
Bonnie made sure her face
was set with a smile before she turned around. Ordinarily, Vikki Bressler
wasn't a problem in class, and she wasn't really a problem now. But what on
God's green earth makes you think I want to share my problems with a
sixteen-year old? Especially, after the crappy morning I've had.
In particular, Bonnie had
no intention of telling Vikki how, this morning, she woke and sleepily began to
talk to her husband Ben then realized he'd been dead these past two months. She
certainly wasn't going to tell this teenager that halfway through the feeding of
her cat and three dogs she'd broken down and cried for the better part of ten
minutes.
"I guess I need a new
alarm clock. Now I have a question, Vikki. What can you tell me about De
Moivre's Theorem?"
Bonnie gave sixty percent
of her attention to the girl's answer. The remaining forty percent flew the
distance to a hospital room in Colorado Springs where Ben had lain for the last
two weeks of his life.
Ben Pinkwater, I hope
you get an arrow in your butt in those happy hunting grounds of yours, 'cause
I'm more than a little miserable being left here on my own.
Then she returned her mind
to the task of teaching Monsieur De Moivre's Theorem and how it could be used to
find the real and complex roots of a polynomial.
#
"The kid makes
me sick, Lloyd." Luther Devereaux was holding court over the lunch crowd in the
teacher's lounge. Fifteen teachers sat around two long tables, and Luther
slouched at the far end of the same table as Bonnie. "I have to open every
window in my classroom and still his smell makes my eyes smart."
"It's not his
fault." Principal Lloyd Whittaker stood in the doorway between the teacher's
lounge and the main office. "There're not enough beds out there for all those
Boone kids to sleep in, let alone enough showers. Matt's a good boy."
"Tell him,
Lloyd." Bonnie gave Luther a why-don't-you-eat-feces-and-die-you-missing-link
glare.
"Maybe someone
ought to look into how those kids are being raised." Luther removed his thick
glasses from his overlarge bald head and stared myopically around the room to
see if he had supporters for his suggestion. "Maybe get Social Services
involved."
From the dozen-plus
candidates, only a few teachers grunted noncommittally.
Bonnie slammed
her open palm down on the table. "To what end, Luther? Do we split up a family
that loves one another because they're peculiar and not as clean as we'd like?
Have you ever watched Matt take care of his little brothers and sisters? Never
raises his voice. Always listens when they have questions."
"That's about his
capacity." Again, Luther glanced around to see if anyone else agreed with him.
"First and second graders are his intellectual peers."
Several of the newer
teachers tittered in amused agreement but quickly turned their attention to
their food when Bonnie gave them dirty looks.
"Enough."
Lloyd cocked his head. His glance implored Bonnie to carry the argument no
further. "The boy works hard with what he has. He'll be the first Boone in
fifteen years to graduate. I'd say that's quite an accomplishment."
"Some of us
are handing it to him on a silver platter, if you ask me." Luther glanced
fleetingly at Bonnie before looking away.
"Well, who's
asking you?" It was all she could do not to throw her hummus and pinon nut
sandwich at him.
Lloyd hooked a
finger to invite Bonnie into his office.
She huffed then rose,
crossing the teacher's lounge close enough to slap Luther, but she kept her
hands to herself. I wish I had that rock again. She strode through the
adjoining main office and into Lloyd's tiny room.
He waited at the door and
shut it behind her.
Rather than
taking the seat in front of Lloyd's worn oak desk, Bonnie wheeled on her friend
of twenty years. "I know what you're going to say. I shouldn't let him get to
me." That said she fell into a red overstuffed chair, her arms folded across
her narrow chest.
Lloyd smiled,
and his weather-beaten face radiating good-natured wrinkles. He sat behind the
desk. "Then you also know I'm going to tell you after this year Luther
Devereaux is gone, retired, never to be seen in East Plains again."
Bonnie sighed
a defeated sigh. "I know. Just four more months." Though at the moment those
four months seemed to stretch out like a number line into positive infinity.
Lloyd spread
his hands across his mostly empty desk then leaned toward her. "He's a good
teacher and a great wrestling coach."
Shaking her
head, Bonnie frowned. "You mean those in reverse order, don't you?"
Lloyd wrapped
gnarled fingers around the golfing trophy on his desk. "Don't be an academic
snob, Bon. You know as well as I do the two aren't mutually exclusive. Luther
has his contingent of students who think he's the greatest thing since sliced
bread."
A grin tickled
the corners of Bonnie's mouth. Only Lloyd could get away with such a cliché and
make it sound original. She felt her anger slipping away and made a final grab
to hold onto it. "Dammit, Lloyd, he's borderline abusive to any student who's
different, and Matt Boone is different."
A sad cast
fell over Lloyd's eyes. He nodded solemnly. "I'll talk to him."
Suddenly,
Bonnie felt tired. Her shoulders sagged. She stared down at her tan corduroys
and grass-stained running shoes.
"How you
holding up?" Lloyd whispered.
Unexpectedly,
tears welled in Bonnie's eyes. She worked her jaw muscles and tried to mouth
something brave, something casual, but the words wouldn't come.
In a flash,
Lloyd was around his desk, kneeling beside her, holding her in his arms.
She buried her face into
the shoulder of his western shirt and let the tears flow in earnest. Every
sorrow she'd been keeping safely bottled came pouring out.
"Shit, I hate crying," she
said in gasped whispers. She gritted her teeth to get control of herself.
Lloyd patted her back. "I
miss that ornery red-skin myself."
Bonnie smiled at Lloyd's
good-old-boy sensitivity. She God-dammed well didn't need someone telling her
everything would be all right. She knew better. Bonnie lifted her head from
Lloyd's shoulder and looked him in the eyes.
"I had a rough morning."
She sniffed, struggling to keep her voice even. The peal of the
end-of-lunch-bell startled her.
Lloyd handed her a
tissue. "Why don't you go on home? We'll get someone to cover your last
period."
Bonnie shook her head
while wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I've already missed too
many days this year. I've got too much material to make up." She blew her
nose. "Besides, I don't want to sit around that empty old house any more than I
have to."
Lloyd stood then held out
a hand. "I'd hardly call your house empty, what with two dogs and a cat."
She pulled herself to her
feet. "Three dogs."
They shared the laughter
of old friends as he opened his door. Doris, the school secretary, pretended to
find something interesting on her computer keyboard even though her monitor
screen was blank.
I probably look like I
just materialized out of a wind tunnel,
Bonnie thought.
Lloyd squeezed her arm.
"Take care of yourself."
She hurried from the
office, through the now empty teacher's lounge. She had just one minute to get
to class before she was late for the second time in one day.
#
Bonnie sat at
her desk in the back of the classroom and watched Matt Boone struggle with a
linear equation. Since Matt was her first block aide, fourth block Algebra One
was his actual math class. Add to that the number of times Matt came for help
at lunch, break, and after school, and it seemed as if the redolent young man
was connected to her at the hip.
She ignored a
furtive whisper from the front of the room. Another senior, Greg Hansen, her
fourth period aide and possibly Matt's best buddy, was trying to sneak a hint to
his friend.
On the
surface, the two young men couldn't be more different. Where Matt carried
himself with a good-natured clumsiness, Greg was self-assured, almost graceful.
The latter young man, already student council president, stood a good chance of
being named this year's valedictorian.
Matt would be grateful
just to graduate.
Both were wrestlers, but
Greg was one of Luther Devereaux's favorites, a champion expected to go to the
state tournament next month in March. He'd already received offers from
colleges to wrestle.
Matt had yet to win his
first match.
Bonnie also
knew that below the surface they had another thing in common.
Like Matt, Greg's family
was poor. Unlike Matt's ultra-religious family, it was rumored Greg's father
and older brother supplemented their income with the growing and selling of
marijuana. More than once, Greg had confessed he couldn't wait to get out of
East Plains and off to college. With any luck, he'd do it with a wrestling
scholarship.
At the board, Matt grew
animated.
Evidently, with Greg's
help, Matt saw his equation had variable quantities on both sides of the equal
sign. He had to eliminate one or the other.
He looked to where Bonnie
sat and announced, "I'll kill the five X with a negative five X." Then he
hastily added, "And I'll add a negative five X to the other side too."
When Bonnie offered him a
nod of encouragement, his moon face split into a wide grin. Greg shot him a
thumbs-up.
The rest of the problem
Matt finished without additional help. He beamed going back to his desk.
Rather than sitting, he approached Bonnie.
"Missus Pinkwater?" Matt
looked embarrassed about whatever he meant to ask.
"Yes, Matt."
He rubbed his palms on his
faded jeans. "Mister Devereaux told me to come see him up in the wrestling loft
before the end of the day."
She checked the clock.
"Is it really important? We only have thirty minutes more of class."
She needn't have asked.
Matt would never miss a moment of class if Devereaux hadn't insisted. Bonnie
wondered if the odious science teacher had done it on purpose to torture either
Matt or herself.
Red climbed from Matt's
grimy neck up into his cheeks.
She waved him still.
"Never mind. Of course you can go, but hurry back."
She erased the board and
wrote another linear equation. As she finished, Bonnie heard the voice of the
new girl who had transferred in that week from Colorado Springs.
"Janice, would you like to
tackle this one?"
Janice Flick was short
with sallow skin and oily ringlets of black hair, which hung perpetually in her
eyes. "Not really." Her mouth turned down in disgust as if the very thought of
doing a math problem on the board was distasteful.
Bonnie adopted the icy
smile she reserved for teenagers she wanted to irradiate. "Why is that, dear?"
Janice shrugged an
I-haven't-the-energy-for-this-crap-shrug. "I've never been very good at math.
Maybe I just don't have the math gene."
Bonnie almost snickered
until she saw the girl was serious. "The math gene?"
Janice glanced around the
room to make sure she had an audience. "You know. Something that makes certain
people good at math and other people hate it." She stared up at Bonnie with a
smug look on her face. "Math's mostly a guy thing anyway."
The class drew a
collective breath.
"You actually believe
Mathematics is a guy thing?"
The rest of Bonnie's class
refused to make eye contact with the girl. Several students shook their heads
in antipathy.
Janice shrank into her
desk.
Normally this show of
repentance would have been enough to quell Bonnie's indignation, but coming at
the end of a horrible day she felt the need to hammer home her point. "Let's
put aside the fact that I am a female and a mathematician."
Bonnie put both silk and
iron into her voice. "Have you ever heard of Hypatia?"
Several students groaned,
and Bonnie shot them threatening glances.
Janice merely shook her
head.
"Hypatia was born around
370 A.D. in the city of Alexandria, perhaps the greatest center of learning the
world has ever known. Her father, Theon, was a professor of Mathematics at the
university there. He told her, at an early age, 'Reserve your right to think,
for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.'"
Bonnie paused to let the
words sink in. When Janice merely sat there, Bonnie asked, "Isn't that a
wonderful thing to tell a child?"
The girl folded her arms
across her chest and shrugged again--the non-verbal form of whatever.
I'll let that pass, you
pint-sized curmudgeon. "Hypatia went on to become a famous
mathematician and astronomer, even more celebrated than her father. Scholars
from Africa, Europe, and Asia came to Alexandria to hear her dissertations. She
wrote Mathematics books that became standards for thirteen hundred years."
Janice opened
her mouth to speak.
Bonnie cut her off. "I
know what you're going to say. What does the life of a woman who lived almost
two thousand years ago have to do with you?"
The girl
pursed her lips and nodded. "Yeah, I guess that's right. Why should anybody
care what she did?"
Bonnie smiled,
this time with less ice at the edges. "I'm glad you asked that, Janice. We
should remember Hypatia not just for the things she did while she was alive, but
for the way she died."
Janice sat up
straighter. "How did she die?"
"She was
murdered. On the way to teach her class at the university, she was snatched
from her chariot by a mob that thought much the same as you. It was unseemly
for a woman to possess so much knowledge. They tortured her, cut the flesh from
her body with sharpened clam shells then burned her at the stake."
"Dude," the
girl whispered, wide-eyed.
"Dude,
indeed. Can you see why I might get upset when you say Mathematics is the
province of males?"
Janice glanced
at Bonnie warily. "I guess so."
Bonnie
squatted down in front of Janice's desk until her face was level the girl's. "Hypatia
paid a terrible price so you don't have to take a back seat to any man. She
showed us all that Mathematics doesn't care about gender."
Bonnie's knees
creaked as she stood. "It's our birthright."
"Missus
Pinkwater?" Janice tentatively raised a hand.
Bonnie stared
down at the girl thinking she meant to ask something more about Hypatia. "Yes,
Janice."
"Could I go
the bathroom?"
Serves you
right, Pinkwater, for thinking yourself a fount of inspiration. She
resisted an urge to be petty and refuse the girl. "Why not?"
As Bonnie watched Janice
exit the room, the clock caught her eye. She shook her head ruefully. Only six
minutes left in class.
Then she remembered Matt.
Damn you, Luther Devereaux.
She glanced
over to Greg. "Go see what's happened to Matthew? He's been gone over twenty
minutes."
With a
determined look on his face, Greg legged it out the door.
Bonnie had
just finished solving Janice's equation when Greg stumbled back into the room,
his face chalky, his hands trembling.
"Mister
Devereaux, dead, stabbed." Greg's chest heaved. "I think Matt killed him."
September 2007
from
Medallion Press
ISBN#1933836156
|
