jumpingfish

“Mister,” she whispered from a table just a few feet away from where I stand.

It was the end of the day. Many of the students had been testing in the morning. And now we were done with the lesson that I had forced upon them in spite of their fatigue.

‘Mister,” she whispered again.

“What?” I whispered back.

“Do you have any food?”

I turned around and reached down. Normally there isn’t any extra food in my room, but finals are approaching, and Oreos were on sale at Costco a week ago. So there is a plastic crate sitting on the floor behind my desk where the Oreos are not expertly concealed. And there are four or five grab bags of chips equally not expertly concealed in the carton — left-overs from a faculty meeting.

I picked up a bag of Fritos and held it in the air. Her eyes opened wide. I put them on her table and slid the bag towards her.

“For me?”

“For you,” I said. “If you share with Lucia.”

And now there they sit, the two of them with a pile of Fritos poured on the table between their phones. There they sit, talking quietly to each other and snacking on Fritos, waiting for the day to end.

He told me he has to start bringing his MacBook, which instantly got my attention.

“Really?” I said. “How long have you had it?”

“Just a few days.”

“Really!? Is it like … an M2 or M3?”

“It’s like one of those,” he said, pointing to our shelf of workbooks.

And so now I’m swimming trying to figure out what he’s talking about. Clearly not talking about a MacBook.

“I like working the problems in them,” he said. “I still have mine from last year.”

Oh. So… math book not MacBook.

Still, how can I complain. He likes doing math problems in his math book from last year. Let’s count that as a win.

This might be a good time to grab a phone or camera.

The Texas Star and Pink Evening Primrose and Mealy Blue Sage and Salvia Greggii and the last vestiges of the Giant Spiderwort blossoms are dancing in the breeze. The Nuthatches and Wrens and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are singing in the trees. It has warmed up enough for the bees to come out. The noontime sun is trying to come thru the clouds. A pot of coffee sits beside the bench, and Fleetwood Mac is playing on the speaker nearby.

There is a Black Swallowtail fluttering circles in the yard, sampling each dancing, wide-open primrose, its metallic blue wing patches glinting in the slivers of sunlight.

Yeah, this could be a good time to grab a phone or camera. But I’m out here, and they’re inside. So no. This isn’t such a good time for that, after all.

Izzy was the first to notice the growing darkness. She came out from under the bushes where she had been investigating some shenanigans. She looked up and asked to be held. 

The Wrens started singing their evening song.

And then with only moments to go, the clouds grew thick, and we could no longer see the eclipsed sun. The glimmering light turned dark. The Wrens stopped singing. KUTX streamed, of course, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon/Eclipse with the lyrics perfectly timed for Austin.

everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon

Trudy was on her back in the grass, wearing eclipse glasses, hoping for the clouds to thin. I was sitting in a bouncy chair with my head back, balancing welding glass on my glasses, holding Izzy in my lap, with tears running down my face. We didn’t get to see totality, but the music that filled the backyard and the day turning to night was enough. Daylight began to return. KUTX played Deodato’s Also Spruce Zarathustra. And then, of course, Here Comes the Sun.

The Wrens started singing their morning song.  

Trudy and I danced in the growing light as Izzy sniffed at the breeze. Then Trudy turned to go back to work. Izzy followed her inside. And I added a couple more bags of oak leaves to the compost pile.

They sat in arrayed desks, a few moving when asked to make sure they were not sitting next to anyone from their school. They had pencils and pens in front of them and nothing else.

I passed out a folded sheet of paper. The proctor told them not to unfold it until the competition began. He then called out their names from the official roster, giving each their number, which they wrote in a box on the top-left of the folded sheet. 

There was a knock on the door. Four students were sheepishly looking in the window.

“Oh my heavens,” I said as I opened the door to let them in. They chuckled nervously. “Go ahead,” I said. “Pick a seat apart from each other.”  

After the full roster had been read and the students had written their numbers down, the proctor read the official instructions and then reminded them not to begin until he said “Go”. 

“On your mark… Get set…”

One of the students loudly flipped her paper open. The others looked over in horror as she realized her false start.

“Not yet,” the proctor said, and she quickly folded her paper back.

“Go!” 

There was a great rush of rustling paper as they all unfolded the questions and began their mental calculations.

You see, in Number Sense, you solve math problems without writing anything down except your answers. No calculators. No scribbles. No scratch paper. No erasures. No corrections. Just answers to the questions.

After just a few minutes, someone on the far side of the room loudly flipped their paper over. The other students looked over in shock. There are only a few minutes for this event, and the number of questions is laughable. Many students answer fewer than ten questions. No one gets to the back.

Well on this day, almost no one.