Circumstances 53

The next week at school, everyone was talking about Mr. Johnson being fired.  They hadn’t appointed a new vice-principal yet, or a new football coach, but as the football season was already over, there wasn’t any rush to do that. 

Dr. Jacoby was at the school every day, which was a change for us.  We hadn’t seen much of him before this.  Where Mr. Johnson had patrolled the halls, scowling at everyone and yelling and assigning detentions whenever he saw something he didn’t like, Dr. Jacoby smiled a lot, stopped and talked with kids and often left them laughing.  What a difference he made!  There seemed to be a lighter atmosphere in the school now.  Everyone’s circumstances at school had changed for the better.

I wasn’t being quite so introspective now, and nowhere near as reclusive, but I did think about that a little, about circumstances changing.  About change, really.  I’d changed a lot, as my circumstances had changed.  Now I saw how the school was changing, too, and because of that, how much friendlier a lot of the kids seemed to be.

Not everything changed.  On Wednesday, Mrs. Bowerman got on my case.  I’d used arcsecant in a problem where I should have used arctangent, and she started riding me about it, in front of everyone, making sarcastic comments about my intelligence.  She did that to anyone who made a mistake, so it wasn’t anything personal, I didn’t think.  It was just her being her.  No one liked her much.

But my mood was so much better these days, and I’d learned that standing up for myself usually had good consequences, so I let her blather on without losing the smile that had been a pretty constant companion of mine this week.  She saw the smile, and she didn’t like it.  Not at all.

“Do you think this is funny, Keith?”  She was glaring at me.

“No, it’s not funny, but it isn’t life-threatening or anything, either.  You’re getting all upset and uptight over a silly mistake that I probably won’t make again, and it probably isn’t good for you.”

Now that got her really mad!  “We’re talking about your performance, young man!  Not me!  You’re out of line, talking about me that way.  Maybe you’d like to take that smile to detention tonight?”

“Detention?  No, I don’t think I want to do that.  The last time I got sent there, by Mr. Johnson, he got in trouble and then was fired.  And anyway, Dr. Jacoby announced that all detentions were cancelled, so if I went, I’d be the only one there, and he’d have to monitor me as there isn’t any vice-principal to watch detention any longer, which means, since he’s as friendly as he is and likes to chat with us kids, I’d probably end up having to tell him all about why I was there, and I guess I’d have to tell him I was serving detention because, if you really think about it, I smiled in your class.”

I smiled even harder at her.  She got red in the face, and opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out, and she finally turned away from me and started talking to some other kid who’d made a dumber mistake than I had.  So, I’d had a confrontation with an adult, hadn’t backed down, and won, with a smile!  Yep, things were certainly changing.

Except for Mrs. Bowerman herself.  Nobody had liked her much before, and that hadn’t changed at all.

Friday, I was excited all day.  Darryl was coming for a sleepover!  He’d be there for dinner, too.  Then Gary was going on a date with Amy, a date he had high hopes for.  I was just going to hang with Darryl at home.  I had high hopes for my evening too, and figured, circumstances being what they were, that my chances were a whole lot better than Gary’s.

After dinner, Mr. Jenks asked me if we could talk in private in his den for a few minutes.  Gary was getting ready for his date.  Mrs. Jenks asked Darryl to help her with the dishes.  I sensed a conspiracy.

Mr. Jenks and I went to his den, and he closed the door.  We both sat down.

“Keith, I just wanted to tell you, when I was a boy, there were lots of things I liked to do, but I can remember, when I was 14—well, actually all through my teens—there wasn’t much I liked better than skinny dipping.  And while it was all kinds of fun, it was even better if”—and here he stopped, looked around suspiciously like he was making sure not one was eavesdropping on us, and then continued in a whisper—“I wasn’t alone.”

He looked at me and raised his eyes in a way that make me know he wanted me to say something.

“Uh, just what are you telling me here?”  My heart had started racing.  But, I noted, my stomach wasn’t tight at all.  Since my mom had left, my stomach hadn’t bothered me once.

Back in his normal voice, and with a smile growing broader as he spoke, he said, “I guess I’m telling you that Mrs. Jenks and I are going to make an early night of it.  We’ll be going up to our room when the dishes are done.  You know where our room is, don’t you?  On the front side of the house?”  He was really smiling hard now.  There was no mistaking what that smile meant.  My heart beat a little faster.

“Uh, are you like saying, uh, I should skinny dip tonight?”  I felt myself starting to blush.  “With Darryl?”

“What I’m saying is, Keith, is that if you wanted to do that, you wouldn't have to worry about your privacy at all.”

I looked at him then, and saw only warmth and caring in his eyes, and asked, “Why do you think I’d like to skinny dip with Darryl?” 

He smiled and said, “Keith, Darryl has been over here several times now.  I’ve seen how you two are together, how you talk to each other with your eyes.  I could be wrong, I could be misreading things, but I’d be surprised if that were true.  So, I just wanted you to know that his sleeping over, his going skinny dipping with you, you two having fun together, it’s all fine with Mrs. Jenks and me.”

I got up, and then I was in his lap.  We hugged, and I may have let my emotions run over the top a little, until finally my heart slowed down, until I began thinking of Darryl, in the kitchen.  Which made me ask a question, my voice still a little shaky from all those emotions.  “Is Mrs. Jenks having a conversation like this with Darryl?”

He laughed.  “Well, maybe something like this.”  I tried to laugh, too, but it was hard, through my tears.

It wasn’t much later than that when the two older Jenks said good night to Darryl and me.  Mr. Jenks took his wife’s hand and they walked upstairs together. 

I looked at Darryl, and he looked at me.  Then Gary came downstairs.  He wasn’t dressed for a date.  He was also scowling.

“What’s wrong?”  I asked.

“Amy cancelled.  So, what you guys want to do tonight?”

Damned circumstances!

The End