The Magical Ms. Plum (9 page)

Becky swallowed.

“Wait,” she whispered.

The little donkey stopped.

Becky hesitated, then reached down.

“I think I’ll take out my note,” she said.

Mindy looked at Becky, then reached down and took out her note, too.

Eric did it next, and then so did most of the other kids.

By the time the donkey got to Ms. Plum, he was frisking his ears and his eyes were shining and there was only one note left in the basket.

Ms. Plum put down her chalk and lifted out the note.

She read it out loud:

I am liking to learn nouns. Thank you, Ms. Plum. Jovi.

Ms. Plum blinked. She pushed her sparkly glasses back up her sticky, hot nose.

“Why, thank you, Jovi,” she said. “I like teaching you nouns.”

She smiled at the class.

“Still, it is awfully hot, don’t you think?”

Becky raised her hand. “Maybe we could go out on the lawn and sit under the tree. It would be nice and cool in the shade.”

“What an excellent idea,” said Ms. Plum. “Class, let’s go do that.”

“Cool idea!” said Jeremy. “Get it—cool?”

“Hooray for Becky Oh,” said Emiko.

“Go Becky Oh!” said Jeremy.

And Becky grinned shyly because suddenly everyone was cheering her name, and she couldn’t think of a thing wrong with that.

Nadia worried. A lot. She didn’t want to worry, but every morning, first thing, Lucy told her all the bad things Lucy’s dad saw on the news.

“The ice caps are melting!” Lucy told Nadia. “There are angry cows running around. And birds are getting this really bad flu.

“The world is a mess. It’s getting messier every day!” said Lucy, shaking her head the way her dad did every night.

Every day Lucy had lots of new things for Nadia to worry about.

“If you get bitten by a rabid weasel, you have to get fourteen shots,” she said. “If you look straight at a rhinoceros, it will definitely attack.”

“Can’t I worry about stuff when I’m a grown-up?” asked Nadia.

“Don’t you get it?” cried Lucy. “You probably won’t even live to be a teenager!”

So Nadia bit her fingernails until they were ragged stubs. She had dark smudges under her eyes because she couldn’t sleep. If someone dropped a book on the floor, Nadia ducked.

“Who’d like to get me some purple paper?” asked Ms. Plum.

Of course, Lucy waved her hand super hard because purple was her favorite color, but Ms. Plum picked Nadia.

Nadia jumped up. She had wanted Ms. Plum to call on her all year.

“Remember the scary falcon and the nasty wolf,” whispered Lucy.

“Oh.” Nadia stopped, then said, “Ms. Plum? Maybe Lucy should do it.”

“I asked you, Nadia,” said Ms. Plum.

She didn’t say it in a mean way, but even so, Nadia knew it meant that she had to go into the closet. So she walked over, clenched her hands by her sides, and stepped inside.

There were no falcons or wolves or scary things anywhere. Only a smell like the woods in summer, and wonderful things beckoning from every shelf.

Nadia picked up three sheets of purple paper, then heard a soft purring sound.

There on the shelf next to the paper sat a little striped cat, its coat gleaming softly. It leapt gracefully onto Nadia’s shoulder and curled up there beside her ear.

“Look,” said Nadia, stepping shyly from the closet. “Look!”

Everyone oohed and aahed, even the boys, because Nadia’s little cat was just perfect.

Nadia hadn’t known she wanted a cat until she got this one. How soft it was. How pretty its striped fur and its pink nose. How calm its dark yellow eyes.

“Thank you, Nadia,” said Ms. Plum after everyone had gotten a good look at the little cat.

As Nadia headed back to her desk, Ms. Plum picked up her book to continue the story she was reading to the class.

“‘The barn was very large. It was very old,’” she read.

“Cats carry tons of diseases,” whispered Lucy when Nadia sat down at her desk.

“Really?” Nadia shifted her shoulders uneasily.

The little cat snuggled against her neck, soft and warm.

“I think I’ll give it some of my tuna sandwich,” Nadia whispered.

“Tuna fish has some kind of worm thing,” said Lucy. “It gets into your bones, I think, and eats them up.”

“Oh.” Nadia frowned.

The tiny cat purred against her ear.

“Plus there’s this weird algae thing happening in the ocean,” Lucy hissed, glancing to see if Ms. Plum was listening.

“‘It smelled of grain and of harness dressing and of axle grease and of rubber boots …,’” Ms. Plum was still reading.

“And that probably means that soon there won’t be enough oxygen in the air anymore,” said Lucy.

“Right.” Nadia’s shoulders slumped. The cat snuggled against her neck, soft and warm.

“You better give me your cat,” Lucy said. “It could bite you, you know.”

Nadia reached up and lifted the cat from her shoulder. She held it in her hand. The cat opened its mouth. It did have sharp white teeth. Then it licked Nadia’s finger with its pink tongue. Its tongue was soft and scratchy at the same time.

“Plus a giant meteor could hit the earth,” said Lucy. “That’s a real fact!”

Nadia ran her finger along the back of her cat. Its fur rippled under her finger like a piece of velvet.

“Elephants are most likely to attack at dawn,” said Lucy.

The cat leapt back onto Nadia’s shoulder and snuggled down again. It purred so loudly that Nadia had a hard time hearing Lucy.

“You can lose your hearing if you listen to really loud music,” said Lucy.

“Hmmmm,” said Nadia.

“Are you listening?” said Lucy as loud as she dared.

Nadia nodded dreamily. But she wasn’t really listening. All she could hear was the cat’s deep, contented purr. It was like soft, faraway thunder. And Nadia remembered she liked the rain.

She looked out the window. It was nearly summer. The tree outside Ms. Plum’s window was green with leaves that shifted with shadows and sunlight. A sparrow scolded and bobbed on one of the twigs. A tiny silvery plane whispered across the soft blue sky.

On the table by the window, Clyde, the hamster, nibbled on a sunflower seed, his
whiskers quivering. Hip-Hop blinked in the sun.

Ms. Plum closed her book. She placed it on her desk with the vase of plum flowers and jar of plum-colored pencils and the basket of plums dusted with silver.

She tilted her head, and her glasses sparkled in the sunlight. She smiled.

Everyone smiled back.

“What a wonderful class you are. What a wonderful year,” said Ms. Plum.

Nadia nodded. Everyone nodded. Ms. Plum really did have the best class in all of Springtime Elementary.

And Nadia was glad she was there.

Ms. Plum gazed out the window of her empty classroom. The playground was empty. The halls were empty. School was out for the summer
.

Ms. Plum sighed. Then she did something she did every year. She walked down the aisles and touched each desk as she passed, remembering each and every student. She dabbed at her eye and snuffled just a little bit
.

Surely this was her best class ever
.

Scooping up the plum-colored pencils on her desk, she went to the closet and set them in a pencil basket on the shelf
.

She stared into the very back of the back of the closet, where the dark was as soft and as deep as velvet
.

“My best class ever,” she said, pushing up her sparkly glasses
.

Then, after a moment, she said, “You’re right. I do say that every year, don’t I?”

She left the closet, then suddenly turned and declared loudly into the closet, “And every year it’s true!”

Then she closed the closet door for the summer
.