7
BY THE TIME I reached general science, my last class that first day, I was in a state of high bafflement. I filed into the room with the others, found a seat, sat, took one look at the teacher, and sank into an enchanted gape. She was astonishing. She was blond, and she had, to use the terminology of the time, a gorgeous figure. I can’t be certain just what the other kids were thinking, but she inspired in me a number of questions. What was she doing here? Why was this amazing woman, who ought to be in the movies or competing in a beauty contest, teaching science in Babbington? Was she lost?
Her name was written in looping script at the top of the green blackboard: Miss Rheingold. I felt an attraction toward her that seemed to be an actual force. I wanted to get out of my seat and go to her, get closer to her. I was aware, thank goodness, that if I did I’d be making a fool of myself, but still I had to fight the tug of her attraction. I’m sure I wasn’t alone. All the others must have felt this tug. Yet it seemed to be specific, individual, meant for me alone. Trying now to explain something that was beyond explanation for me at the time, the best I can do is this: It seemed to me that whatever the other kids may have felt for her could only come from a spillover of her effect on me, that her force was directed at me, but that some of it missed me, sprayed out around the edges of me, and caught them incidentally, as I sometimes accidentally squirted my father when I was shooting my water pistol at another target.
Miss Rheingold was so full of enthusiasm that it showed in even the simplest thing, like calling the roll. She made this seem a thrilling event. I wanted to distinguish myself when I answered—I’m sure I wasn’t alone in that desire—but “Here” was all I could think of to say, and it came out in a voice that shocked me by quavering. I wasn’t afraid of her—nothing like that. I was thrilled. Did she wink at me when she glanced up from the class list to see who had answered to “Leroy, Peter”? I’m sure she did. It was my reward for being there and for being me. Never before had simply being seemed so fine. This was what it meant to be in the right place at the right time.
When she finished the roll, she asked, suddenly, without any introductory signal that we were shifting from the familiar to the treacherous, “Have you ever looked at the night sky?” She looked at her class list. “Patti?”
“Oh, sure. Yeah.” This was comforting. We were all relieved. Looking at the night sky wasn’t hard. It was something we’d already done. If general science was going to be on this level, we might make it through.
“How many stars do you see?” Miss Rheingold asked quickly. She took another look at the class list. “Caroline?”
Caroline said, “Oh, I’d say—”
Miss Rheingold rushed on. “How far away are they?” she asked, her eyes flashing. “Marvin?”
Marvin said, “Well, I guess—”
Caroline looked around the room in confusion. Why hadn’t Miss Rheingold let her answer the last question? Something was going on here that she wasn’t familiar with. None of us were. The problem, I now know, was that Miss Rheingold was so enamored of her subject that she couldn’t see past it very well. She drew it to her like a lover, and the more closely she embraced it, the less she saw beyond it, and most important for us, the more oblivious she became to the requirement that she teach it. All she really wanted us to do was fall in love with it, as she had.
“How did they all get there?” asked Miss Rheingold.
“What?” said Marvin, still trying to decide how far away the stars might be.
“How far does the universe extend?” came from the Rheingold juggernaut.
“Thousands of miles,” said Caroline, trying to answer Marvin’s question, determined to get some kind of answer registered in her favor before Miss Rheingold hurtled on to the next puzzler.
[to be continued]
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🎧 580: By the time ...