A/N: I literally only went to see Interstellar because I like John Lithgow. The same reason I saw Planet of the Apes.
Donald parked the truck outside the school grounds, it was ten thirty and there were only a handful of kids outside, most of the children stayed inside at recess now but there were still a few who ventured out, only to walk, to stretch their legs, running and jumping were not really on the cards, those sorts of activities kicked up too much dust.
His granddaughter was one of the kids walking in the yard, she waved to him and smiled as he got out of the truck, he waved back and she walked to the school gates to join him as he came through. "It'll be ok with them, right, Grandpa?" she spoke quietly as they walked to the doors of the main school building.
"They've got bigger worries than you, Murph," he told her, and he smiled down at her. She didn't follow him in, she preferred to stay outside and so Donald made his way to the school office on his own.
Her teacher had been expecting him, the school secretary showed him the way and he apologized for being late, even though it was only by a couple of minutes.
"I know why you're here, Mr Clark," she spoke rather wearily before she had even sat down, she offered him a chair and they both sat. "She's only 13, don't you think she should at least get her diploma before you take her out of school?"
"Miss Hanley," Donald spoke slowly, calmly, "What's the sense in it?" he sighed, "Murph is already smarter than I am, I'm not taking her out of school so she can help at home, we both know that."
"I know," Miss Hanley shook her head tiredly and looked down at her hands, she shrugged, "It's not that I don't think she's smart," she confessed, "to be honest," she looked up at him and smiled, "it's not even about what we can teach her, it- it's just about how much time she has left being a kid." Donald raised his eyebrows in surprise. "If she goes away on this scholarship- and I know she has a brilliant mind, but if she goes away now, that's it, that's her childhood over, at 13." Miss Hanley looked up at him, "I like to think that no matter how trivial the things we teach kids here, how boring Murph must find it, at least she has friends and- and she laughs and plays."
Donald looked at the young woman in front of him, there was definitely an air of sadness about her but her deep concern surprised him for a teacher, he hadn't remembered teachers being like that. "That- that's very considerate of you," he said softly, "and how I wish it was true, but I think that in Murph's circumstances- I mean, with her father gone and all, I think she grew up a long time ago." He spoke sadly and Miss Hanley nodded, she knew the way it was and the way Murph was, she just wished it wasn't.
"She's a very serious girl," the teacher spoke, "she has always been clever," she clarified, "but she has been so serious these last three years, I hoped there was maybe at least some kid still in her at home?" she asked hopefully.
Donald smiled, "She's still my little girl," he told her comfortingly, "no matter how serious she is, she still tells me silly things occasionally. But," he raised his eyebrows and shrugged a little, "sometimes I think she only does it because she knows I want to hear it. Which I guess is even more grown up of her."
Miss Hanley smiled sadly at the old man, "How- how's Tom getting on?" she tried, "he still happy?"
"Tom is like his mom," Donald smiled, "he's content knowing he's looking after us. He's got a girlfriend too," he grinned a little, "so he's happier still."
"That's good," she smiled, "Murph- Murph will still come home each night, won't she? If she goes to- to this place," she asked tentatively.
"On weekends. Too far to drive each day, waste of gas too. She'll be fine, I know her, she'll forget she even lived here at all," he laughed.
"I wasn't worried so much about Murph," Miss Hanley admitted.
"Uh oh," Donald stood up and looked out of the window as the light in the room faded, out in the hall a bell sounded and Miss Hanley stood up and walked to her desk to pick up the register of names. There was a large cloud approaching.
"Excuse me," the teacher spoke and she closed the shutters of her window and then walked from her office. Donald followed her into the hallway. The kids of the school were assembling in the main hall where older students closed the shutters and the children arranged themselves in neat lines to be accounted for. Teachers in the hall were ticking them off as they went through the roll call. It was all just part of their daily routine but Donald would never find the dust storms normal.
"I'm on recess duty," Miss Hanley told him as he walked with her to the front door of the school, the kids who had been outside were assembled in the foyer, Murph and seven or eight other children were there, Miss Hanley ticked them all off her list, "Where's Stephen?" she asked the children as she consulted her list, the others shrugged.
"I didn't see him," Murph spoke, "are you sure he was outside?"
"I'll go," Donald walked to the door.
"No don't," Miss Hanley spoke, "we have to check the roll call first, he might be in the hall," she had already begun to walk back the hall as she spoke, but Donald spoke to his granddaughter.
"What's this kid's name?" he asked her.
"Stephen James," she told him as he walked through the door. "Grandpa, don't!" she hissed.
"It's ok, sweetie, I'll be safe in the truck, I promise. You go inside."
Murph watched her grandfather leave the school and she sighed before following her classmates into the hall.
"Stephen James?" Miss Hanley spoke above the whispered rumblings in the hall, there was no reply, she checked with the other teachers, he had not answered his name, he was not in the hall. "Stephen James?" she asked once more, still nothing.
She walked back to the foyer, picked up the bell and pulled her coat on zipping it up as she walked out into the yard, the cloud was close but there was still time.
She rang the bell as she jogged around the yard, "Stephen?" she called his name. She jogged to the gate and noticed it was open, "shit," she swore under her breath and looked up at the sky, "Stephen?" she called louder out into the parking lot outside the school. The gates were not usually left open. Miss Hanley went through the gates and ran through the parked cars, "Stephen?" she called as she glanced between each vehicle, her voice was getting more hoarse as she got further from the school, and then suddenly it was dark, she looked up at the sky and then back at the school, the dust was falling.
"Hey!" she stood paralyzed for a moment but she looked around as Donald Clark ran to her and grabbed her. She ran with him and he opened the door of his truck and pushed her into it, he climbed in beside her and closed the door as the clattering sound of the dust hit the windscreen.
The dust was loud and dark, Donald handed her the goggles and the mask from the pocket on the back of the seat. "Shit! Shit!" she cried "Stephen!" she spoke the boy's name despairingly and didn't put on the mask or the goggles.
"That trouble maker," Donald said and she watched him in the gloom reach up through the gap in the front seats and shove. 12-year-old Stephen James looked through the gap wearing a scuba mask.
"Sorry, Miss Hanley!" he said in a muffled voice. And she looked at him in relief.
Donald put her mask over her head for her as she still hadn't done it and she looked up at him gratefully and raised her hands to her face and put the goggles on herself, then they sat in darkness and listened to the dust falling.
"Stepho," Donald said through his mask after they had sat in silence for more than a minute, "what letter of the alphabet is the wettest?"
"What?" Stephen James said in a muffled voice and he looked back at them through the gap.
"I said which letter of the alphabet is the wettest?" he said again.
Stephen James shrugged and raised his hands.
"C" Donald told him.
"What?" Stephen said incredulously.
"Come on, Stepho, I thought your dad was supposed to be a writer. C! As in the sea. I'll try another one." Stephen James looked blankly through his mask and the dust still landed loudly on the roof of the truck. "Johnny's mom has three kids, the first is April, the second is May. What's the name of her third kid?"
"June!" Miss Hanley said automatically.
"Wrong," said Donald.
There was a pause then Stephen said "Johnny!"
"Correct!" Donald said, "You can tell your dad that one later," he told the boy.
"I will!" he said eagerly, "do you know any more?"
"I do," Miss Hanley spoke, "I mean, I know one. What has a face, two hands but no arms or legs?"
Donald smiled beneath his mask and pretended to think on the schoolteacher's riddle, he scratched his head and repeated it slowly, "a face and two hands but no arms or legs…"
"Some kind of sea monster, I guess," Stephen pondered out loud.
"It's a bit easier than that, Stephen," she told him with a little laugh.
"I know," Donald said smugly.
"What is it?" Stephen asked still eagerly, it seemed the joy was in knowing the answer, not guessing it.
"A clock." He showed the boy his watch and pointed at it.
"That one's not as good as the three kids one," Stephen told the adults. "Hey, the cloud has passed," he noticed they were sitting in silence.
"Everyone else will be back in class," Miss Hanley said from under her mask, "maybe the next riddle I ask you should be a math question."
Stephen didn't reply to his teacher, he was not keen on her proposal, but spoke to them all as a group, "we have to stay until the dust is settled, ten minutes minimum, that's what my dad always says."
"Murph will guess you're with me," Donald told the teacher, "they'll cover for you."
"She'll be happier," she looked up at him through her goggles and finished their meeting, "I think she'll be much happier there."
"I know. I hope she comes back some times though," Donald agreed.
"I meant happier not being here, at the school, not- not away from home."
"Is Murph going away?" Stephen James invited himself into the conversation. "Is she going to be with her dad?"
"Mind your business, Stephen!" Miss Hanley scolded him, "Murph is transferring to another school, that's all," she told him, "don't poke your nose in other people's lives, you just sit there and think about how we're going to explain to your dad why you didn't come in when the bell rang!"
Donald was quiet as the teacher did her job, he wondered if his son-in-law had ever asked her out as he had suggested years ago that he should, had he merely imagined that she'd got a little flustered after the boy in the front seat had mentioned him?
Donald had known Carrie Hanley's father when they were teenagers. They'd been at the same high school and then afterwards, when most of the kids left to travel or to go to universities across the country David Hanley had stayed home, married a homebody and gone into teaching. In their youth they had mocked him for having no ambition, no drive to leave the town, but they had all come back in the end and David Hanley had been head teacher at the school where their children and their grandchildren were safe. David had died five or six years ago, about the same time Donald's daughter had died. Carrie Hanley, grown-up and teacher at the same school her dad had taught at, had been living with her folks and Donald guessed she still did.
"How's your mom?" he asked her as they sat in the back of the truck.
She looked up at him and she shrugged, "Oh- ok, I guess," she told him, "she lives with her sister, in Kansas."
"Oh, oh I'm sorry, I thought she was still living with you."
"Not since- since a couple of years back," she shrugged again, "She sends me letters, I think she's doing ok."
Donald wanted to ask her who she was living with. He didn't like the idea of a young woman being on her own these days. But he knew he couldn't ask something so personal in front of one of her students. He knew he'd never be on his own, Tom was running the farm, he would always be there even if Murph didn't come back.
Ten minutes passed quickly, Stephen told the adults about a book he was reading, Miss Hanley had suggested he do so and it would count as part of his book report, so the adults listened quietly to his retelling of a book about a bunch of animals searching for a better place to live.
Donald found it depressing and he knew the young woman beside him would be feeling that way too, but the boy was enthusiastic and did not connect the fantasy to reality. Because fantasy was all it was.
They opened the truck doors with their masks still on and closed them gently, the dust had settled and they could see the school but they kept goggles and masks on for safety. "Stephen, walk," Miss Hanley said firmly, "I'll be there in a moment." She watched him walking slowly, enjoying making satisfying tracks in the new layer of dirt on the ground. She looked up at Donald "I'll get the mask off him when we get in, I'll make sure they're cleaned and I'll give them to Murph so you get them back today."
"Thanks," he looked down at her, "And thanks for understanding, about Murph, I mean," he told her, "what you want for her and for all these kids is really decent, I wish we'd had teachers like you and your dad back when I was at school."
"Probably not much cause for it then," she tried, "I mean, you know, " she trailed off and didn't know how to phrase it. His generation was the last of the modern men, they had ruled the world and they could do anything.
"I know," he said. "Goodbye, Miss Hanley, I'll be here to pick up Murph this afternoon, maybe see you later."
He turned and walked to the front seat of his truck this time. "See you later," she agreed and she walked away before he got in, the dust falling in a grey cloud to the ground as he closed the door behind him.