bulletin board queen vs. the stomach tornado

all week the ninth graders have been sick. when ninth graders have swirly insides their parents send them to school. STOP DOING THAT!!! sick is sick. they lie on desks, moaning, faces pinched, creating a smell it takes days to recover from. they are too sick to do work yet they refuse to go to the nurse because their parents are at work and will not come get them. so on wednesday when i became violently ill at school, i shouldn't have been thinking food poisoning. it came on so fast and was so violent that food poisoning seemed likely, though. thursday i still felt wobbly and awful but figured that's just what happens when a person recovers from attack and near death by food. i silently swore a the corn chowder i'd eaten wednesday for lunch. i considered the cruelty of the chocolate bar with hazelnuts that had promised me happiness for dessert. lies, all of it. and even last night when the couch began to swirl and it felt like dinner was trying to escape, i figured it was the medication i take every day that quite often causes nausea if i don't shove a big pile of food down on top of it to shut it up. i got up, got a cup of lemon yogurt, and waited for peace. i'm still waiting.

you know how early mornings when you wake up you always feel more awful than you know you will feel later? so i trudged to the train with a body inhabited by hundreds of tiny tornados. everything was spinning. shaking. scrunching up. i don't know why i thought the bus would be better, but that second leg of the journey was endless. i had no idea how many potholes lurk on bay parkway. by the time i got to school i was pretty confident whatever had possessed my internal organs was fully in control and i was in some sort of awful trouble. a brief conversation with fellow teachers convinced me i wasn't fit to be in school. everybody's got it, they gasped, hands covering mouths, protecting themselves from my filth tornado germs. i did what they told me. i made plans to go back home.

this is where the control freak steps up. i can't help it. subs were lined up for the two classes i don't share with someone and i lurched up to the fourth floor to set up class for the day. kids filed in and started reading. i let them know i'd be going soon and all the usual questions followed. who would be watching them? why was i leaving? they offered kindnesses and suggested i stay home several days. this is because, even after all we've been through together, they still expect days off if i'm home. not a chance. a big slice of chart paper proclaimed the three part plan for the two hour class. i went over it with them twice, shaking as i pointed to books and charts to fill out. the sub waited patiently for me to shut up and go. one of my little angels asked why i kept telling them, not the sub, what they were to do. smile. because your grade will crash and burn if you don't do this. he already finished ninth grade. oh. ohhhh.

there are a hundred things i need to say and do before i go. my 6th period class, a class that doesn't meet fridays, is expecting to pick up a take home test from me. i show it to every person i see. the sub. the kids in my first period class. two kids from 6th period who stop by to ask about the test. i know, in spite of all this preparation, those two kids are the only ones who will leave school with the test. i show the kids one of handmade boxes for the bulletin board and explain how their poems will go in. i am blathering at this point, feverish, sick, unable to believe this world will continue if i walk out the door. one of my guys asks how to make the box. i tell him i'll show them monday. i am raving about butcher paper and how to tear it for their poems. i toss the black construction paper box on the table by the door. "i'll leave it here if you want to look at it. you can figure it out." they look at me like i'm out of my mind. they see me sweating and watch my shaking hands and assume it is sickness making me howl on as if they are capable. it does not occur to me until the cab i've taken home turns onto my very own street that they might not understand how to make two dimensions into three. but on monday, fever gone and sanity restored, i will still forget to consider this. i will pick up the paper, make a box and expect the first child who figures it out to show the others. and that will happen. children are heartbreakingly beautiful when they are teaching something. their faces change. their words come from somewhere else. on monday they will write and assemble and teach. and the control freak will sit down and shut up.