Miss Shoulder Pads wasn’t sold. “I heard her say it involved having meets at other schools. You can’t tell me you’re not going to want a budget allocation for this activity.”
Mr. Armstrong said yes, probably. Shoulder Pads asked what the school board said about it. The principal woke up and said they’d already made their decision, so we really had no say. He said it’s not like we have any new information here, that those men don’t know.
We kids had zoned out, waiting for something to happen, which finally it was. Mr. Armstrong was getting ticked off. We could always tell by his accent getting stronger. He said with all due respect to our school board, we all know who those gentlemen are. Which honestly, we kids did not. Miss Shoulder Pads probably did. She was in the back of the room, and Mr. Armstrong in front, with all the kids turning back to front, watching. You could actually hear the action. She asked him what he was implying. （Turn, shuffle.） Mr. Armstrong said, Only that most of the men on the school board were experienced in the corporate world and coal business. （Turn back.）
She said, And is there something wrong with business experience.
He said, All he meant was that these men weren’t trained in education per se. They came up in another era when mining labor was the end game, and college was not on anybody’s radar.
Angus meanwhile is looking at me like, Help! But what did any of us kids know? As far as school board, college, radar, our general thinking on that topic was: So what and who cares.
Mr. Armstrong made a point of asking who among us kids had participated in any school activity other than football that brought us into competition with other schools. Which was ridiculous. We had Science Fair once that some few kids had wanted to do, girls and nerds. But not in state competitions obviously. We said duh, no. We’d get creamed. Everybody knows this.
And he said that’s right, we would. Because every school district to the east of us in this state has AP classes and science labs and other things our students have never had here.
That’s where the bell rang, fight over. The principal had already slipped out with nobody noticing, Shoulder Pads packed up her business and left, but some few kids stuck around to disagree with Mr. Armstrong, remembering the fun times of seventh-grade Language Arts. No, they told him. Wrong. We’d get creamed because the kids in Northern Virginia and those places just have more brains. But outside of a schoolroom, we could whip their asses.
And Mr. Armstrong rubbed his eyes and shook his head and said, “Oh, my effing God.” Which we felt was walking a fine line, languagewise.
I was sorry for the crushed dream of Angus, but art time with Ms. Annie was all the extra I needed. Other than it being another thing to want more of, Demon and his cravings: for food, for love and touch, and now her lit-up face seeing something I’d done right. I didn’t really care about the main gifted thing, the spring trip over school break. All year we had to study on this certain place and write our papers so we’d be all wised up whenever we got there. Which makes no sense. I mean, why not just go? Whatever. Sixth-grade trip I couldn’t, being not yet up to par on my grades. It was just science museum in Charlotte, no overnighter due to budget cuts, so. Rip-off. The teachers promised they’d make it up to us the next year, which I didn’t believe for one minute. Angus said wait and see. Her failed victory of smartness thing was a setback, but in better days she was always one to tell me I should start trusting the wild ride, meaning life or whatever. Because it’s not one hundred percent fucked up, once in a while it delivers.
And in seventh grade, holy God, it did. They said we were going to Colonial Williamsburg, plus an afternoon at Busch Gardens amusement park, and one entire day at Virginia everloving goddamn Beach. The ocean. For my paper I didn’t even know where to start, but I narrowed it down eventually. Currents. They travel around the earth in gigantic circles, you seriously would not believe it. Then March rolled around and the school said there wasn’t money after all for a bus. No trip. And I was the idiot for listening to Angus, trusting the damn ride.
But then came a last-minute save: some volunteer moms would drive us. Hot damn. The car I got assigned to was a Plymouth Eagle wagon of me, driver-mom, her daughter Lacey, and her two bffs Gleanna and Pristene. All being mad Christian from the same church, so they knew all these Jesus songs they sang back-to-back from the minute of pulling out of the school parking lot. Hand motions. This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine （hold up a finger like a candle）， don’t let Satan blow it out （PHWOOF!）。 I thought of Mr. Peg saying a man can get used to anything except hanging by the neck. Fine. I was going to see the motherfucking ocean.