The Key
by Eloise Hawking
Chapter 12
The school’s fight song could be heard in the hallway as we
approached the Quest room. This time,
Mrs. Eloise greeted us at the doorway having each of us give her a “paw five”
as we entered the room. She was dancing
around in that dog suit and all of the kids were cracking up. My hopes had been dashed that she was only
wearing it to the Friday teacher breakfast.
We picked up our notes for the day off the table near the
door, and made our way to the desks grouped in clusters at the center of the
classroom. At each of our desks, there
were dog dishes set up, the kind that look like rectangles that are divided
down the middle to put food on one side and water on the other. On the food side instead of dog kibble, there
were rocks.
“What are we doing
today?” Emily asked me. She never quits
asking me and I never run out of shrugs it seems. The kids just don’t understand that I don’t
know a thing more than they do.
“Check the board. I
didn’t come in early with her today, as you can probably see why.” We glanced over and Mrs. Eloise was doing the
cheerleader dance to the fight song now and just attempted a Russian
Eagle.
On the one side of the chalkboard was the word
HOOOWWWWLLLL! On the other was our list
of things we would do in class today. At
the top of today’s list there was something that Mrs. Eloise never made mention
of. It was just a simple addition
problem for us to solve. The problem was this:
19,102 + 331,971.
That seemed simple. Too simple.
Beneath that, Mrs. Eloise listed all our other tasks for the
day. They appeared in Roman Numeraled list.
Mrs. Eloise had study time planned for us, as well as the school’s Alma
Mater review.
“I got the answer,”
said Brainy Bailey, in reference to the mysterious math problem. It is easy.”
Bailey recited, “351,073.”
Mrs. Eloise wagged her tail in approval, but a muffled, “That’s part of it…” was heard from
within. I knew there had to be more to
it.
“Another puzzle, Mrs. McG?” said Henry. “We still didn’t figure out the key one from
yesterday!”
Mrs. Eloise removed her husky head to reveal rosy cheeks and
breakaway curls along her hairline. It
must have been warm in there.
“Hey,” said Rachel.
“Maybe that is the combination to the lock for the key.”
“Nice try, kids.
Think about it class. Sometimes
you have to examine something from all kinds of angles before you see the
complete solution. The answer will
eventually come to you. All answers do
in good time,” said Mrs. Eloise.
“What are the dog dishes for, Mrs. McG?” inquired
Emily. “Are you serving us dog food for
breakfast?”
“No, I ran out today because Ellen ate it all this morning,”
said Mother Eloise. It was a rare
occasion that she made mention of the fact that we were mother and
daughter. All the kids laughed.
“Did you eat your kibble roasted or toasted?” said Mikey with
his sneering smile.
“With ketchup,” I replied, pretending not to care that I was
suddenly in the spotlight.
“OK, pups. That’s
enough yipping and yapping for the moment.
It is time to get down to business.
You all have a test coming up next week---a real test-----a Quest test. The kind that you actually have to study
for. Let’s use some of our class time
practicing the names of these rocks.”
Mrs. Eloise went on to explain that we each had a pile of
rocks in our dog dish. We were to pick
them up and examine them. If we were
certain of the rock’s name, we were to move it to the empty side of the dog
dish, therefore knowns would remain on one side and unknowns on the other. We were to jot down the unknowns on a piece
of paper so we knew which ones to focus on when we studied.
My classmates and I put our class materials
beneath our desks, stood up, and began to circulate the room moving from dog
dish to dog dish.
Mrs. Eloise also made the rounds with us, moving from
student to student, placing a soft gray paw of encouragement on our backs. “What’s this one?” students would ask her,
and in keeping with Mrs. Eloise style, she never gave the answer. Instead she gave clues.
“I’m stuck on this one Mrs. McG,” said Bailey.
“Oh, for such a mathematician, I would have thought that one
wouldn’t have been very tough for you.” And so Mrs. Eloise stood for a moment
watching Bailey’s blank look. Then a
glimmer of recognition crossed Bailey’s face, followed by a broad smile.
“Oh, I get it!” she exclaimed. “That was a clue! The rock is tuff—the igneous rock. Thanks, Mrs. McG!”
And so it went as Mrs. Eloise soft pawed from student to
student giving clues such as these:
“Oh, geez.
That stinks that you don’t
know that one.” Pause. SULFUR!
“I must have been
drawn to you by some invisible force knowing
that you needed help with that one.”
Pause. MAGNETITE!
“Santa Paws is going to put this in the cleats of the football team
if they lose the game tonight.”
Pause. COAL!
“I have halitosis,
don’t I? (exhaling on the student). I should go home and brush my fangs with some
toothpaste.” Pause. FLUORITE!
By the end of the study session, I could identify most of
the rocks. There were just a few I was
still hung up on, so as instructed, I wrote the names in my notebook as well as
the addition problem from the morning puzzler.
I’d take a look at them later.
“The bell is going to ring in a few minutes, kids. Come and pick up your study sheet,” said
Mother Eloise.
“Over the weekend?!” complained Mikey. “That’s not fair.”
“A Quest student never stops thinking, Michael,” said Mrs.
Eloise. “You have a few days to complete
it. I have faith that you’ll get it done.”
Mother handed out the papers to us. At the top of the homework sheet it read,
What is the Most Expensive Rock?” That
seemed easy. It had to be the diamond.
“We won’t have to think too hard about this one,” said Emily
as she glanced at the paper before stuffing it in her folder.
I knew better than that.
I stood a moment and scanned the sheet. It looked like this:
_________________________________________________________________________________
Quest Rock and Mineral Study Sheet
For Good Little Students
Today’s QUESTion: What is the most expensive rock?
Your answer: _______________________________
If letters were
dollars, what is the cost of each rock or mineral?
Most kids would
scribble “Diamond” onto that line without giving it a second thought. Not me.
My eyes went immediately to the bottom of the page to the fine
print. If letters were dollars, what is the cost of each rock or mineral? It was some sort of code she wanted us to
figure out, and there would be more work involved with the assignment than thought a first glance.
The bell signaled the end of class and the kids
groaned. Only Mrs. Eloise could make
studying so much fun that we wouldn’t want to leave. My friends gathered up their things and
headed back to class. I lingered behind
a bit, as I sometimes do to get an extra minute with my mother.
I could see Mother Eloise retreat to the back of the room to
get a drink of her tea, something she brought to school with her every
day. Mom was a coffee drinker, but she
switched to tea during school hours because she said that she didn’t want to breathe stale coffee breath on her students all day
long. Tough as Mrs. Eloise was, she was
always thinking in the best interests of her students.
“Man, this organic tea is terrible! It is completely tasteless. Remind me next time that we go grocery
shopping not to buy that kind again, Cinderella,” said Mom.
“Is there any left in there, Mom? I am kind of parched, too.” I inquired.
“Parched. I am quite
impressed with the word choice, Danielle Webster. For that, you are welcome to drink the rest of it,” she said, walking towards me
handing me the cup. “Just rinse out the
cup for me when you’re done, Cinderella,” said Mom winking at me.
“Oh, and by the way,” she went on, “I have to return the
mascot suit to the football locker room after school today, Ellen” she stated
matter of factly. “Do you want to ride
with me or catch the bus home?”
I figured I’d get home a bit quicker if I caught the bus
because no doubt Mother would find someone to chat with about tonight’s
game. I informed her that the bus seemed
like the best option and then took a nice long drink of tea from Mom’s cup.
I, too, had to agree
that the tea was quite tasteless. I looked for
the little square tag on the string that usually hangs for the cup to see what
kind it was. I didn’t see it, so
curiosity got the best of me. I
unscrewed the lid to have a peek to see if the little taggy was floating
inside.
When I peered in the travel mug,
there was no tea bag. All the travel mug contained was
just hot water with the mild taste of yesterday’s tea residue. She forgot to put in a tea bag. I smiled, shook my head, and screwed the lid
back on. I handed back the cup to
Mother.
“Isn’t that tea bland?” she asked.
“Yes, it was,” I replied, deciding it best not to bring up
the fact that she had actually been drinking plain hot water all morning long.
By the time I got back to class, the rest of the Quest kids were
there had got there ahead of me and the room was a clatter with movement and
chatter. Several students surrounded Mr.
Nebauer, demanding to know what they missed.
We weren’t allowed to do this with our regular teachers. They said that was “rude” and that the world
didn’t stop just because we were gone for our special activity in Quest. No one told Mr. Nebauer that, though, so he
was caught in the trap of incessant questions for a few minutes.
I plopped back down into my seat only to find another
football shaped note on top of my desk.
I could feel the first one’s sharp corner poking me in the pocket, so I
determined this was a new one, crafted while I was at Quest. I looked up to see Kenny staring at me. He held my gaze a minute and slowly rose a
fist in the air, shaking it ever so slightly to let me know that this time I
had to pass the note along.
I sighed and stealthily opened the note in my lap. It read:
Skippy is a dud pass it on
Well what do you know!?!
Kenny for once got all the words spelled correctly! I was proud of him despite the fact that he
still failed to use punctuation. I
glanced over at him, rolling my eyes to signal that I had read it.
Kenny eagerly pointed to the person sitting
behind me, indicating that I was to pass it along to him. I glanced back at nasally Nick, who was
picking his nose at the moment, and shuddered.
I had to wait a moment for the nausea to pass before I could turn around
again when suddenly I had a great idea.
Sometimes you have to play messenger, even when you don’t
want to, just to blend in with the crowd.
But no one ever said the messenger couldn’t adjust the message a bit if
it was meant to better the world.
I
took my pencil and drew in a letter “e” scratchily just like Kenny would have,
directly after the second “d” in dud. I
also added an exclamation mark for a little extra effect. The note now read: Skippy
is a dude! pass it on
I made a big slapping motion with my hand onto Nick’s
boogered up desk to get both Nick’s and Kenny’s attention. The note was resting in my palm. When I raised my hand off of the desk, I left
the note there.
Nick was not stealth
in the least about reading it. He wiped
his finger on his pants and unfolded the note.
He smiled, gave me a thumbs up, and passed it backwards down the row and
went right back to picking his nose.
A message would be circulated today. Yet I got the sense that it may just be the
beginning of changing the way we looked at Mr. Nebauer, even if just for a
fleeting moment.
Maybe that was the key
to all things: the power of the silent
“e.” It was strong enough to change the entire meaning of something, just by
standing there and being silent. Kind of
like me—Ellen, the silent e.
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