Something was wrong. Principal Schneider and Vice-Principal Berg had never been in our classroom for longer than a minute—except for a Holiday party. But now they were hanging around, hovering, whispering at each other and ruffling through things on Ms. Gold’s desk and pretending as if we weren’t watching everything they did.

The longer they stayed, the more it reminded us that that morning was already way better than a normal morning.

We’d missed at least the first half of math because we’d been left standing near the foursquare court in our boy/girl line. After fifteen minutes, Keith decided that we should play Telephone since it was something to you could do if you had nothing to do and a bunch of people. Ms. Gold gave Keith the nickname “Stubborn” the first day of class, so everyone knew it wasn’t worth trying to disagree with him, especially when he had a good idea like telephone. He started the game and the message went from ear to ear, sometimes whispered two or three times as we tried to get it right. By the end of the line, “Ms. Gold’s sub is late” became “Sucked thumbs taste great,” which made us all laugh—even Walter who was never laughed because his family lived in a bus and he probably owned just two or three pairs of underwear and socks. And we kept laughing until Mrs. Lowry, the other fifth-grade teacher, heard us and brought us inside.

We all sat down in our seats, and Mrs. Lowry told us to fold our hands. She watched us for about a full minute and then left.

We were all alone there for a very long time, which seemed wrong. It seemed as if we were supposed to behave badly, but no one would go first. Keith’d finally worked up the courage to undo his hands and stand up when the door opened. He sat right down.

It was Vice-Principal Berg. She immediately leaned down to fix her pumpkin-colored high heel. When she was done with that, she stood up and said, “Um.”

She walked over to Ms. Gold’s desk and began moving things around.

Two minutes later Principal Schneider arrived. Vice-Principal Berg said, “Thank God.”

They hung-out, whispered and ruffled for a while, and then Principal Schneider turned toward us. We were ready to be scolded. But he smiled and said, “I’m sorry, girls and boys. There has been some mix up. Can anyone tell me what you would normally be doing right now?”

“We’d be done copying Math off the board,” Keith said. “We’d be waiting for Ms. Gold to check us.”

“And then?” Principal Schneider asked.

“We’d wait for every one to finish,” Keith said. What he said made sense, but it seemed very different when it was actually happening. “Walter is usually last.”

Even Principal Schneider and Walter smiled. “And then?”

“Reading groups,” Keith said.

“Hmmmm,” the Principal said. You could tell that he knew reading groups meant moving desks and finding books, which probably required Ms. Gold. “How about—“ he said and his voice trailed along for a while until the classroom door opened.

“Perfect,” Principal Schneider said. But then you could tell that he saw who was there.

It was a guy. Not a man or a boy. But a guy in a suit—but not a normal suit. It was a suit that was tight at the waist where suits usually drooped. And his tie was straight and thin, about the width of a ruler. The only teachery thing about him was the plain manila folder in his hands.

“May I help you?” Principal Schneider asked, his voice way deeper than before.

“This must be Mr. Pearl,” Vice-Principal Berg said. “Our sub.”

“Oh?” the Principal said. He placed his hands in front of himself as if he were going to clap. But he just pressed his palms together and left them there.

“Reporting for duty,” Mr. Pearl said, and he saluted. His hair was combed yet very tall and separated like train rails.

“It’s 8:45,” Principal Schneider said. It was an hour after school started.

“I got the worst directions. A trillion, billion apologies.” He saluted again. This time he clicked his shoes together. His black shoes were as shiny as a waxed car.

“OK, well, I guess we’re fine here,” the Principal said. It seemed like he should go. But he didn’t move at all.

Mr. Pearl opened up his folder. “I have a puzzle for our boys and girls to start while I get everything settled,” he said and began passing the puzzles out to us one-by-one style instead of pass-it-on style like Ms. Gold.

“OK, that’s very smart,” our Principal said.

“Oh, Principal Schneider, I should’ve mentioned. Mr. Pearl’s mother is Mrs. Pearl,” Vice-Principal Berg said. “She teaches at Buckley and did the Literacy training here last fall.”

“That was a fine training,” Principal Schneider said and let his hands drop to his side. “Your mother really knows how to use the slide projector.”

“You should’ve seen my Bar Mitzvah,” Mr. Pearl said and kept on passing until we all had a sheet in front of us.

It was a Halloween crossword. Halloween had been over for months, but it still was a good subject for a crossword, especially since it was easy. The solution for one up was “blood.” One across was “guts.”

We were all in the middle of the crossword when Principal Schneider and Vice-Principal Berg said goodbye to Mr. Pearl but not us. The moment they were gone, Mr. Pearl sat at Ms. Gold’s desk and started opening drawers. He was very interested in what he was doing and didn’t stop looking until Keith said, “We’re all done.”

“You are? Well, aren’t you monkeys the gifted class,” Mr. Pearl said. He pressed out some cream from a bottle he’d found in the desk. He put some on his hands, then his face. “I feel ageless.” He stood up, still rubbing his hands together making little sounds that explained how good it felt. “All right. Who’s ready for a nap?”

We all looked at each other to see if anyone was going to raise their hand.

No one did.

“Fine. We’ll get to that later. Are you monkeys always this catatonic?”

Keith stood up. “Want me to collect the puzzles for you?”

“Keep them,” Mr. Pearl said, and Keith sat right down.

He told us to all stay quiet because he was trying to think. “Let me see,” he said a few times and he strolled the space between the chalkboard and our desks. “I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth getting to know names.”

“Ms. Gold has a seating chart in her desk,” Keith said, half as loud as he normally was.

“Right, I saw that.” He stopped strolling and said, “I’ve got it. Free Association. Let’s do some free association, right?”

He wrote the words on the chalkboard: FREE ASSOCAITION.

“All you kids have to do is listen to me. I’m going to say a word to each of you, and you say a word back to me, any word, doesn’t matter, as long as it’s the first word that comes to your mind. Then I’ll tell you what the word you said says about you. Got it? Let’s test it. You.”

He pointed at Laura. Her desk was right in the front, so Ms. Gold called on her a lot too.

“Me?” Laura said.

“That’s good, but we’re not playing yet. Let me think of a word. All right—summer. So I said summer, now you say the first word you think of, all right? Summer.”

“Dog?” Laura said.

“All right, that’s a start. It means you have a dog, right?”

“No.”

“But you want one.”

“Not really.”

“But you kind of do.”

“I’m allergic,” she said.

He went on to do Free Association with every one of us.

He gave Keith “Doctor” and Keith gave him back “Time.” Mr. Pearl said that Keith was thinking about death a lot and that was very normal even for kids.

Walter got “Hot Dog” and he gave back “Bun,” which meant that he was thinking of sex. “Or baby making,” Mr. Pearl said. “That’s normal. But I do think kids should know that sex is overrated. Urinating right sex after is usually better than the actual sex.” He talked so fast that by the time we wanted to ewww or anything, he was talking about something else.

When he was done with Free Association, he told us that it was time to practice taking notes. That meant he’d talk and we had to write down as much of what he said as possible, which was pretty impossible.

“I’m going to tell you about life,” he said. “Chapter one.”

He told us that all of all the kids we met in school only two or three would even matter.

Most of us would end up hating each other and even our families. And that was a good sign that we’d become grown-ups.

He said that the kids that were the most popular were actually the worst people. Those kids were just good at being kids, which is something that’s useless later on.

He said we should save half of all of our birthday money since we were going to waste it anyway.

Never get credit cards, he said. Unless you’re going to travel.

He explained how useless it was to have a crush on a person. Because if you have to have a crush on a person that means they don’t like you. So don’t give them that power. It was much better to be the person who got to decide things, and the easiest way to do that was never to like anyone very much at all.

When he was done it was time for recess.

When we got back to class, Mr. Pearl was going through the classroom’s closets. We took our seats, and he kept looking around.

Finally, he turned toward us and said, “Don’t you guys have some work to do?”

“We don’t know,” Keith said, almost whispering.

“Oh, right,” Mr. Pearl said. He went to Ms. Gold desk and opened his manila folder. “I’m going to pass this around. Copy what to do and do it. The first one done gets a prize. All right?”

The note was from Ms. Gold to Mr. Pearl. It listed all of the work we were to do. She finished the note saying how much she loved Mr. Pearl’s mother and she said she knew how proud she was of him. It was a lot nicer than Ms. Gold normally was.

It was nice to get a list of the work and just do it. It was easy to go fast and then slow down for the hard stuff. All of the answers were in the books somewhere, so it was just a lot of reading and some writing.

Lunch came fast. Mr. Pearl was looking through the last closet when Keith told him it was time for us to eat. “Go on,” Mr. Pearl said. “Leave me then.”

After lunch we came back and just started working again. We were all getting close to being finished.

Mr. Pearl stopped us all and told us that he was bored. He wanted to do more Free Association as we worked. But after two or three with no one paying much attention, he gave up and went back to Ms. Gold’s desk.

“Done,” Keith said at one-fifteen. He jumped up with a stack of papers in his hand. Everyone was close, but he was first.

Walter hit his desk with his fist. He was so close.

“You win,” Mr. Pearl said. “Come up for the award presentation.”

He made a speech about the importance of finish busywork quickly and then gave Keith his manila folder. He said that that folder was very special. It was where his family kept his grandfather’s will until just this morning.

He made Keith bow, which Keith did over and over.

We all finished one by one. Mr. Pearl told us to slow down. But by one forty-five everyone was done.

“Are we going to do PE?” Keith asked. He was loud again after winning the folder, which stood up on his desk so everyone could see it without touching it.

“Go on,” Mr. Pearl said. He had his feet on the desk and was holding his hands in the air to dry the clear fingernail polish he’d put on them.

“What?” Keith asked.

“Tell me about this PE.”

Keith told him it was when we went outside and rang until the bell rang at two forty-five.

“What does Ms. Gold do during PE?” he asked.

“Read, usually.”

“All right. Why didn’t you monkeys tell me this before?”

“It doesn’t start until two thirty,” Keith said. “That’s the earliest.”

“We’ll go at two,” Mr. Pearl said.

Keith was going to tell him that it didn’t start till two thirty again. But you could tell by the way Mr. Pearl started to blow on his nails that he didn’t want to hear it.

We were the only ones on the playground. Mr. Pearl brought out our class’ entire bag of balls and told us to go play whatever we wanted.

We spread out everywhere. We began making up games where we could use two or three balls at the same time.

It was a great PE until Keith pointed out that Principal Schneider was outside looking around. His hand was blocking the sun and you could tell he was looking for Mr. Pearl who’d found a bench in the shade at the far corner of the playground to lie down on.

We saw what going on and figured we should probably collect the balls. Once they were all in. It was Walter’s idea for us to run to Mr. Pearl and make a line in front of him.

We got to Mr. Pearl’s bench right before Principal Schneider did.

“It’s two-fifteen,” Principal Schneider kept repeating. Vice-Principal Berg showed up behind him. She was saying the same thing.

“Mr. Pearl,” Principal Schneider said when he was finally close enough to not have to yell. We pretty much in our normal line, boy/girl. “It’s two-fifteen. It’s too early for this.”

Mr. Pearl sat up as he noticed the commotion around him.

“Look,” Keith said. He pointed to Mrs. Lowry leading her class out.

“Mrs. Berg would you go see about that?” Principal Schneider said to Vice-Principal Berg who’d just arrived at his side. She turned on the tips of her high heels and marched back where she came from.

“Look,” Keith said. He pointed to main building where four or five classes were walking out. Each class had a teacher leading it, holding a bag of balls.

“Christ,” Principal Schneider said. He looked at us in our line and Mr. Berg on the bench. “Christ.”

He turned and walked toward the main building.

“Is he always like this?” Mr. Pearl asked.

Nobody knew what to say. We’d never thought to think about what he was like.

We were silent, listening to Principal Schneider and Vice-Principal Berg yell at the other teachers.

“Yes,” Walter said. “I guess.”

“No wonder you monkeys act so strange,” Mr. Pearl said and laid back down.

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