Stories

A short story has to come from somewhere and it has to have someone in it. In this story I remembered a teacher I once had in primary school. Nothing in this story is about her but without her there wouldn’t have been a story. Memories of her unlocked my imagination and off I ran.

A Hole in the Security Blanket

The bosomy Miss Cowpers sits quietly while her class of eight-year-olds settles for the task she has just given them. They are to draw a picture of whatever is most on their minds. It’s a way of encouraging expression; demonstrating to her brood how communication can come in different ways. But among the clatter of pencils, the rustle of paper and the general cacophony, there is something else.

Looking over the top of her thin, metal rimmed glasses, Miss Cowpers scans the class for the culprit. ‘Where is that smell coming from?’

         ‘It’s Aaron, Miss. I heard him do a rude noise.Everybody laughs and Miss Cowpers brings them to order with a well-understood slap of her rule on the desk. Aaron steals the moment of silence to retaliate.
         ‘You’re a dobber, Megan Temby!’
         ‘Enough,’ affirms Miss Cowpers, ‘Now, let’s just get on with what we are doing, shall we?’ She pushes back her glasses with the knuckle of an arthritic hand and then sits back in her chair. The noise of children’s chatter resumes and wraps itself around her like a security blanket.

She allows her thoughts to drift back forty six years, to her first class of scribbling eight-year-olds. She compares it with this class, and her eyes focus on Aaron. There’s always an Aaron; the source of rude noises, dirty words and practical jokes. In her first class it was Denis with his farting armpit. Like Aaron, if there was a disruption, he was behind it. The usual assumption is that the Denis or the Aaron of the class can’t cope; but the truth is that there just isn’t enough to hold their interest. Denis is now a successful barrister, and no doubt Aaron will succeed at whatever he chooses to do.

She remembers telling her first class that Mr Robert Menzies was Prime Minister, and that twelve pennies were in one shilling and twenty shillings made one pound. Now it’s Mr Kevin Rudd, and one hundred cents make a dollar, and one dollar doesn’t buy much. She allows herself a smile and hopes nobody notices.

Forty-six years ago Miss Cowpers was in love with Elvis Presley ¾ and Joe the janitor. The attraction to Joe was immediate and the chemistry between them instant. She was impetuous and beautiful; he told her so constantly. She remembers the nights sharing an illegal copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and the steamy moods it incited. She shifts in her seat, presses her knees together and hopes nobody notices the flush she feels in her face. The scribbling goes on and she feels comfortable.        Joe comes back to her so vividly young: so virile and yet so shy. She again feels the illicit sensations as she did when his fingers brushed across her nipple in the classroom after school so long ago; and she sees again, the face of Denis there at the window and then gone.

She never blamed Denis. How could she expect him to keep such an image to himself or to consider the consequences of not doing so? In the humiliation of the gossip and sniggering that swept the school, Joe chose to leave, never to return.

Miss Cowpers pulls herself out of her chair and saunters among her brood, offering smiles of encouragement for each individual effort. In all these years, she wonders, how many houses with windy footpaths and lollipop like trees has she praised? How many shot-down aeroplanes or space-ships has she been fascinated by?

There’s that smell again. It’s stronger. She’s being drawn to it. She is being drawn to Aaron! ‘Aaron, what is that smell?’
         ‘It’s not me Miss, honest! I never did anything!’
Miss Cowpers sniffs the air, flaring her nostrils like an old grey sheep dog. She leans forward, looks over the top of her glasses, pushes them back with her arthritic knuckle and declares, ‘It’s the bag! Aaron, it’s the bag!’  She lifts the school bag onto the table and peers inside. She pulls out a lunch box, a school jumper, a dog chewed ball, a rusty old bike bell and a cryptic puzzle. Left in the bottom of the bag are the last six editions of the school newsletter and something else. As Miss Cowpers removes the newsletters, the smell wafts up into her face causing her to jar away as if caught by a left hook. She reaches in and pulls out a furry object.
         ‘Oh, that’s the sandwich I lost ages ago, Miss!’
         ‘Yes, Aaron, and now it’s found.’
Miss Cowpers carries away the sandwich as if it were something long dead; and as she disposes of it, Aaron looks pleased with himself and the rest of the class are suitably impressed.
Miss Cowpers returns. ‘Now, Aaron, let’s get on with some work, shall we?’
         ‘I’ve finished Miss!’
         ‘Then we’ll have a look.’
Aaron hands his picture-of-thoughts proudly to his teacher. Miss Cowpers stares at the picture and the flush drains from her face. Silence descends and her security blanket falls away. ‘What is this?’ The normal softness is not in her voice and Aaron is confused.
         ‘It’s you, Miss.
         ‘I can see that.’
         ‘And your husband, Miss.’
         ‘I’m not married, Aaron.’
         Aaron has drawn his teacher at the blackboard, complete with metal rimmed glasses and a smiley faced man standing at her side, and with one stick-figure hand on her breast. Miss Cowpers breaths deeply and the softness returns to her voice, ‘It’s very nice Aaron.

The bell goes. The classroom noise returns and then drifts away, like a cloud. Left alone, Miss Cowpers removes her glasses and sinks into her chair. She dabs at her eyes with a flowery hanky and then lifts Aaron’s picture level with her face. Out of the picture, Joe smiles at her and she kisses him. She puts on her glasses in time to see Aaron’s little face disappear from the window. Instinctively she jumps up with that caught again feeling.

Miss Cowpers gathers her composure. Carefully and defiantly, she folds Aaron’s picture, places it into her handbag and snaps it tightly shut. ‘Not this time,’ she whispers. She lost Joe to her children all those years ago but, although he is now only a memory, he, once again, stirs inside her. This time, she decides, she will not wrap that security blanket around herself. Miss Cowpers walks out of the classroom, never to return.