By: CNJ
PG-13
11: Countdown To Graduation, Part 1
Kristy:
We got to school early that
Monday morning and parted for our homerooms. Mona and Mary Anne are in
my homeroom with Ms. Fedders, so we headed there.
"Just one more month to
go," I let out my breath. "I can't wait."
"Me either," Mona added.
Just then we saw Ms. Fedders down the hall walking with Ms. Silverbein,
our principal. They were talking in low voices and Ms. Fedders seemed to
reach out to Ms. Silverbein. Ms. Silverbein kind of nodded and Ms. Fedders
touched her shoulder, then put an arm around her. I noticed Ms. Silverbein
kind of stiffen. That's strange, I thought.
"Did you see that?" Mary
Anne whispered.
"Yeah..." Mona nodded. I
wondered what was going on between them. I'd heard through the grapevine
that those two were close friends outside of school. I wondered if Ms.
Silverbein was upset about something. Just then they disappeared around
a split in the corridor. We looked at each other then, entered our room.
It was hard to believe that in one short month, we'd be through with high
school. We wouldn't be kids anymore and in the fall we'd be headed toward
college and our own places! As if to celebrate our coming of age,
the weather had finally warmed up.
"How's Singer's baby coming
along?" Mary Anne asked me. Singer is my cousin and is having a baby next
month. She's our age and just found someone to adopt her baby.
"It's coming along great,"
I told her. "She can feel the kicks every few minutes." The kids slowly
quieted down as Ms. Fedders came into the room.
Mary Anne:
Ms. Fedders looked over at
all of us with a troubled expression and once again, I wondered if she
and Ms. Silverbein were troubled about something. Maybe someone in one
of their families died. I'd heard that Ms. Silverbein had had an enormous
tragedy in her life when she was in her thirties. She was widowed and along
with being widowed, most of her family...her older brother, parents, aunt,
uncle, a nephew and niece had died when a building collapsed on them. All
that is left of her family is her younger sister, one niece and her own
three kids, who are now grown. It had to have been so awful for her. I
hoped nothing more happened to her. "I'm leaving Stoneybrook High at the
end of this year," was Ms. Fedders' announcement.
"Ohhh..." "Whaaat...?" Several
students gasped and I felt my own breath pull, then draw inward, inside
my lungs. Leaving? Ms. Fedders won't be back next year? We all sat in shocked
silence a minute. Ms. Fedders looked over at us, a little pale, then went
on.
"I've accepted a position
in Maine as a publisher for Scholastic Instructor and start there
in August. I've loved teaching each and every one of you. But I feel a
need for a change in my career. I wanted to announce this to you first,
since all of you are seniors and will be gone next year anyway. I will
announce it to my other classes as well." The room fell silent once again.
I was stunned. My heart seemed to actually slow down and glancing at my
classmates, I could see that they were shocked too. It was as if we were
frozen in a paused video.
"Shocked?" Ms. Fedders smiled
weakly at us. We all nodded, our eyes wide. "I'm so sorry this has to startle
you." She paused a minute before continuing. "I might as well tell you...this
is hard on Ms. Silverbein...we're rather close as some of you can tell...so
all of you take it easy on her, please." We nodded. "Promise all of you
will. She's...an important person in my life."
"Promise..." "Swear..."
"Scout's honor..." We promised bit by bit.
"Thank you, all of you."
Ms. Fedders seemed to relax and managed to more genuine smile. It seemed
like a rather sad smile, though and she let us absorb the shocking news
for a few minutes before starting attendance.