The Lesson (17 page)

“Two.”

Each horse’s tensed ears were sharpened to a point now. Jimmy’s were, too.

Boom!

The horses hurtled into action. Jimmy managed a perfectly
nice, orderly start, but soon, there was a wall of horses in his way, veering rumps that forced Jimmy’s filly to fall back. Over the hoofbeats and horse snorts he could hear cheering and shouts of advice from the onlookers, but none of it truly registered. He was aware only that the riders of the other horses shouldered him out of the way, taking turns to rocket back and forth to keep Jimmy safely behind. He tried to collect his wits about him and focus on the turn ahead—that was where he hoped to gain his lead. By now they were thundering toward the last curve and Jimmy leaned as low as he could in the saddle, streamlining matters for the horse.

It worked. His horse seemed to sense that winning was imminent. Her ears pinned back as he stretched out and they edged ahead. They were nearing the lead! Her mane flew in the wind as Jimmy bent low over her neck. Hoof and tooth they flew, as one thought ran through Jimmy’s mind: being on the back of a running horse—preferably a winning horse—was the most wonderful place in the world to be. Just one last bend in the track and he had this race won. In the bag.

But the horse didn’t make the bend. Instead, she went straight and sailed over the fence. Jimmy lost his stirrups, then the reins, and tumbled off, landing in a farmer’s hay shock. Shouts and hoots and whoops of laughter filled the air as men and boys ran down to get a better look at Jimmy’s situation. Jimmy’s horse raced on, solo, through the alfafa field.

When M.K. reached Windmill Farm, she was surprised to see Orin Stoltzfus’s horse and buggy at the hitching post by the barn. Why would the head of the school board come visiting at such a late hour? Maybe he had news about Alice Smucker. Maybe her headache was gone and she was ready
to come back to teach. That would mean that M.K. would be finished with teaching two days earlier than expected. Ah, bliss!

M.K. dropped the scooter and bolted up the porch stairs, two at a time, to the kitchen. She slowed before she opened the door—Fern continually pointed out that M.K. entered a room like a gust of wind. At the sight of Orin’s face, she broke into a happy smile. “Orin, do you have some good news?”

Orin exchanged a glance with Amos, then Fern. Amos started to study the ceiling with great interest. Fern lowered her eyes and fixed them on her coffee cup.

Something wasn’t right. M.K. felt a shiver begin at the top of her head and travel to her toes.

Orin scratched his neck. “Might as well tell you, M.K. Alice quit on us.”

M.K. gasped. “But . . . isn’t she getting better?”

“Actually, she said now that she’s not teaching, she’s feeling good. Real good. Sadie—your sister—has been trying to help heal her. Sadie told her that she thought it was the teaching that was giving her so many ailments.”

M.K. understood
that
! Teaching could make anyone sick. On the heels of that thought came a terrible premonition—like a dog might feel right before an earthquake. Her eyes went wide. “You can’t be thinking that I’m going to fill in for Alice for a full term. Friday is supposed to be my last day!”

Orin took a sip of coffee, as calmly as if M.K. were discussing tomorrow’s weather. He avoided her eyes. “To tell the truth, Mary Kate, it’s in the best interest of the pupils to have you remain. They’re used to you. You’re used to them.” He chanced a glance at her. “And Fern tells me you’re getting some mentoring from Erma Yutzy. Fern said that teaching has been a real good challenge for you.”

Fern! So meddlesome.

M.K.’s heart knocked in her chest so fiercely she could scarcely breathe. This was terrible news! She looked to her father for support, but he didn’t return her gaze.

She was doomed. She was only nineteen years old and already her life was over.

Later that night, as M.K. tried to sleep, a single, horrifying phrase kept rolling over and over in her mind:
Dumb as a box of rocks. Dumb
as a box of rocks. Dumb as a box of
rocks.

There was no doubt in M.K.’s eyes. This was officially the worst day of her life.

9

C
hris had just finished removing a broken windowpane in Jenny’s bedroom and replacing it, adding a thin line of caulking around it to seal it in place. She was convinced a bat liked to come calling in her room each night to terrorize her. Chris was doubtful that the bat was so single-minded in purpose, but at least the new windowpane would keep the bat—or Jenny’s imagination—at bay. He was changing the caulking cartridge when he saw a car pull into the driveway. A man got out of the car and stood in front of the house, looking up at it, before climbing up the steps.

Chris hurried downstairs and opened the door just as the man’s hand was poised to knock. “Yes?”

The man looked surprised to find someone at home. Especially an Amish someone. “Well, well, you beat me to the punch.” He thrust a business card at Chris. “I’m Rodney S. Graystone. Real estate salesman.” He lifted one finger. “Numero uno.”

Chris looked at the card.

Rodney flashed Chris a big plastic smile. “You probably recognize my face. I’m on every grocery cart at the Giant.”

Chris didn’t shop at the Giant supermarket. Too expensive.
He and Jenny shopped at the nearby Bent N’ Dent where they could buy bulk foods or damaged goods that were marked down.

“I’ve been interested in listing this house for years but have never been able to locate the owner.” Rodney’s eager eyes roved behind Chris, trying to peer into the house. “You are the owner, I presume? I, uh, didn’t catch your name.”

Before Chris could reply, Rodney S. Graystone spotted Jenny in the kitchen and waved boisterously to her in an overly familiar way. Chris stole a glance at the man’s face and felt that his eyes were as flashy as the rest of him. His jacket was a brown plaid, and the elbows had been worn to a shine. Slippery, that’s what came to Chris’s mind.

Jenny disappeared from view, then peeked her head around the corner. “Adorable!” Rodney S. Graystone told Chris. “She’s adorable. Same age as my niece. Is she eight? Nine?”

“Thirteen!” Jenny snapped, poking her head around the doorjamb again.

“My next guess.” The man turned back to Chris. “Looks like you’ve been doing a lot of work.” He walked up and down the porch, peering in the windows. “I take it you’re fixing it up to flip it. Say, I could probably give you some pointers on remodeling—what to do and what’s a waste of time.”

Rodney S. Graystone was itching to get into the house and have a tour. Chris started to close the door.

“I’ve got a buyer who’s always been interested in this old d—, uh, diamond in the rough. I’m confident I could find you a buyer—” he snapped his fingers—“in the blink of an eye. Cash on the barrel.”

“Not interested in selling.” Chris closed the door in Rodney S. Graystone’s surprised face.

“Keep my card handy, in case you reconsider. I’ll stop by
now and then, just to keep checking in. In case you change your mind,” came a muffled reply.

On the way to the schoolhouse in the morning, Mary Kate noticed a squirrel perched on the limb of a maple tree. It chattered at the sight of a cardinal, darting around the squirrel with a bright splash of red. She watched for a while as the squirrel scolded the cardinal for coming too close to his tree. Then the bird flew off and the squirrel scampered away.

It wouldn’t be so bad to be a bird, would it? Summers wouldn’t be bad. Winters might get a little challenging. She liked the idea of being able to travel to far-flung places every spring and fall. No passport needed. Birds seemed so . . . carefree.

Unlike a nineteen-year-old Amish woman who had no say-so about her life. None whatsoever. Who was stuck teaching school for an
entire
term.

Fern!
This is all your doing,
M.K. thought for the hundred and thirteenth time.

Fern was always so certain that her opinion was the only one that mattered. Fern had always been so hard on M.K. And to make everything worse, last night her father had sided with Fern. Of all the times! All M.K’s life, her dad had stuck right beside her, had been her ally, had been easy to talk into agreeing with her. But when it counted most, Amos turned around and took Fern’s side—insisting that M.K. fill in Alice’s void.

And why did her sister Sadie have to butt her nose into it? Why did she have to point out that teaching was making Alice sick? Granted, Sadie was a healer and Alice was her husband’s sister, but didn’t blood sisters count more? She thought so.

M.K. wished her mother were still alive. Maggie Lapp
had died when M.K. was only five and she only had wisps of memories of her. If M.K. squeezed her eyes tightly, she could conjure up a memory of her mother in the kitchen, with her black apron pinned around her waist. Under the apron, she was wearing a dark plum dress. She was humming. M.K. did remember that. Her mother was always humming.

Chocolate chip cookies. In this particular memory, that’s what her mother was pulling out of the oven. They were M.K.’s favorites. Her mother would scoot them off the baking sheet with a spatula, slipping them onto a clean dish towel so they would cool. But she would always split one down the middle and hand half to M.K. “I think this cookie was hoping we would eat it first,” her mother would whisper, as if they were keeping a secret from the other cookies.

Maggie Lapp would never have insisted that she finish out Alice Smucker’s teaching term. She would have understood M.K.’s point of view, which was . . .

What was it? Well, that she didn’t
want
to teach.

But maybe her mother would say that growing up meant you realized you didn’t always get what you wanted. Growing up meant that you start to look for ways to give to others.

Wait. That sounded an awful lot like Fern.

How exasperating! M.K. was getting Fern’s voice mixed up with her mother’s voice.

As M.K. cut through the corner of a cornfield to reach the schoolhouse, her thoughts drifted to Jenny Yoder.
Imagine anyone calling
me dumb!
Yet a little part of it felt true. About teaching . . . she did act dumb. She didn’t teach. She just watched the clock.

A feeling of shame burned within her when she thought of how she handled a situation yesterday afternoon. She had caught Jenny Yoder with her nose buried in a book while the
class was supposed to be doing arithmetic. M.K. took one look at the book’s title,
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee, and told Jenny to keep reading. No wonder Jenny thought she was as dumb as a box of rocks.

What is wrong with me that everything I touch
turns out a chaotic mess?

She wished she could go home, fling herself across her bed, and put a pillow over her head.

Dry cornstalks started to rustle, like a small animal was following her. The brush crackled behind her and she whirled, ears straining. Suddenly, a boy’s round face appeared out of the cornstalks.

M.K. let out her breath. “Danny Riehl! You gave me quite a start.”

Danny looked down the dirt path at the school yard where the pupils were starting to gather. “I just thought you should know that the reason Eugene Miller leaves in the afternoon isn’t because of your teaching. He slipped out a lot with Teacher Alice too.”

“Why does he leave?” M.K. said.

“Because the upper grades read out loud after lunch.” Danny poked his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. “Eugene can’t read very well. He doesn’t want anyone to know.” He squinted up at M.K. “You won’t tell him I told you, will you?”

“I won’t tell, Danny. Thank you.”

Danny slipped back into the cornfield and disappeared. She heard more rustling, then she saw him burst through another section of the field and cross over the fence to meet his friends on the school yard. Danny could be a crackerjack detective, she thought.

Eugene Miller was drawing a picture in the dirt with a
stick and stuck his foot out as Danny hurried past. Danny tripped, went flying into the dirt, picked himself up, brushed himself off, and joined his friends by the softball diamond.