130: At the end of the day . . .
Little Follies, “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” Chapter 6
6
AT THE END OF THE DAY, I made my way out the front door of the school, in a crowd of boys and girls. Mrs. Graham was standing beside the door. “Peter,” she called. “I’d like to speak to you for just a minute.”
She took a step toward me, advancing into the stream of boys and girls. A boy in a wrinkled white shirt and brown corduroys stumbled over her foot. Without taking her eyes off me, Mrs. Graham caught the boy with her right arm and stood him upright, gathering his books in against his chest. The boy continued on.
“You know, Peter,” she said, “I’ve been thinking that it might be a good idea for you to practice your times tables.”
“Oh?” I asked. I had had the hope that I had heard the last of the times tables, that all of us in Mrs. Graham’s classroom had discharged our obligation to the times tables that day and would be going on to something else—drawing maps, perhaps, or carving swans from soap.
“Yes, I think you were just nervous today, but it would be a good idea for you to practice the times tables until you can rattle them off like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Don’t you think so?”
I clutched my camera tightly. I understood, if only vaguely, that she was giving me a chance to pretend that I knew the times tables, to avoid having any passing boy or girl realize that I didn’t know something that I should have known. I was going to thank her and say to her simply, “Mrs. Graham, I don’t know the times tables at all.” But just as I was about to speak, Clarissa walked through the doorway. When I saw her, I blushed. When she saw me, she blushed and bent her head so that she was looking down at the white fur muff in which she held her hands. Mrs. Graham saw me blush and turned to find the cause.
“Oh, Clarissa,” she said. “I was just telling Peter that I thought it might be a good idea for him to practice his times tables. Don’t you think that would be a good idea?”
Without looking up, Clarissa said, “Yes, I guess it would.” It seemed to me so beautiful a remark, spoken so liltingly, that it could have been made into a song.
“Maybe it would be a good idea for you and Peter to practice together for a while each day,” said Mrs. Graham. “How would that be?”
I tried not to look at Mrs. Graham, but I couldn’t help it. I was awestruck. How could she understand everything so well? How could she make things turn out so well? The woman was uncanny.
“I think that would be fine,” said Clarissa. She raised her head and looked into my eyes.
“I think it would be great!” I said.
[to be continued on Friday, November 12, 2021]
You can listen to this episode on the Personal History podcast.
In Topical Guide 130, Mark Dorset considers Security Blanket, Comfort Object, and “Lovey” from this episode.
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At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” and “The Fox and the Clam,” the first five novellas in Little Follies.
You’ll find an overview of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.