Wet
by Trilby Kent.
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That is what I remember most of all: the chafing, damp-warm itchiness of wool tights pulled over barely-dry skin. After swimming lessons our faces burned from the chlorine, and we would press clutches of wet hair to our cheeks to quell the pain. Our Doc Martens were no match for the sludge of half-melted snow soiled with street salt and sand; a typical Canadian winter slouching into spring. Downpours reduced the tennis courts to soup bowls, and our blackened socks would have to be draped, eel-like, over radiators that rattled and clanged at the back of the classroom.
Despite our dripping hair – plastered to our heads, seeping into crumpled collars – there was no other way to get from the changing rooms to the main building without trespassing through the graduate common room. Skirting the sodden fields and tarmac, we sighed at the smell of buttered popcorn wafting from an open window, a glimpse into the smug world of school leavers in their penultimate term. Just one more year, and it would be ours.
We were inside when the storm broke. Raindrops bulleted against bevelled glass, splattering on impact as Marci slipped her arm through mine and sashayed giddily through the empty corridor. We were already five minutes late.
“The clouds never expect it / when it rains,
But the sea changes colours - but the sea / does not change…”
“Would you shut up?”
“And so with the graceful flow of age / I went forth With an age old desire to please…”
“It’s such a stupid song, Marci.”
“Sing!” She tugged roughly at my arm, and I rolled my eyes.
“On the edge of...”
“Seventeen!”
Part of what made Marci cool was the fact that she listened to Stevie Nicks. Anything 80s was cool in the late 90s, but Marci did her research better than most girls who ventured no further than Madonna and Eurythmics and dressed up as Flashdance characters for themed parties. I didn’t have a best friend in those days, but Marci allowed me a vicarious insight into the lives of our cooler peers, while I…well, I guess I amused her.
I’d been skipped up a year when I was fifteen, partly because I’d started writing book reports on The Brothers Karamazov when my classmates were still struggling with To Kill A Mockingbird, and partly because my English teacher – Miss Plewitt – knew that I was being bullied. Although drawing attention to my abilities might undermine the confidence of other students, who were neccessarily – and by the depth of their fathers' pockets – considered “equally and uniquely talented”, Miss Plewitt never cared for the administration’s political correctness. Once she’d secured the consent of Mrs Streuber in the next year up, there wasn’t much the Principal could do without seeming reactionary.
“Danica Yorke, you look as if you’ve been dragged through a bush backwards,” barked Dr. Olsen from the front of the chemistry lab as we squelched to our seats.
“Swimming went late,” pleaded Marci, pitifully.
“As for you, Marcia Speller – ” He glared at her through Coke-bottle glasses, “If I didn’t know what kind of school this was, from your uniform I’d think you’d qualify for free breakfasts. Tuck in that shirt.”
Halfway through the lesson, as we fiddled pointlessly with a defunct Bunsen burner, Dr. Olsen summoned me to his desk.
“Take this to Mrs. Streuber,” he muttered, not glancing up from his marking. “Pronto.”
I considered him – grey hairs bristling from his large ears and pockmarked nose, oversized specs magnifying his bulbous eyes – and wondered what it was that made him so popular among his students. Maybe it was his cultivated brusqueness, or the knowledge that such a fearsome giant was openly partial to Leonard Cohen. Maybe it was the fact that, besides an aged English teacher unanimously believed to be gay, Dr Olsen was the sole representative of his sex at our all-girls school. Still, this was getting to be a bit much.
“But Marci and I are in the middle of – ”
“Sometime this year, Danica.”
I couldn’t be sure that something was up; I’d never had the nerve to open one of the notes, despite Marci’s urgings.
“I don’t want to know, Marci – it’s none of my business.”
“But it would be so gross – can you imagine?”
“No!”
I guess I felt an allegiance to timid, bespectacled Mrs. Streuber. She’d introduced me to Nietzsche, Auden, Gertrude Stein and Simone de Beauvoir, and allowed me to pursue extra-credit work independently of the staid, unchallenging curriculum. We could all see that she had dropped one tab too many in her hippy days; an occasional stutter and her constant fallback to the word “awesome” as an expression of encouragement to even the thickest girls had become something of a tagline. “You’ve got S-S-Streuber for Social Studies?” kids would ask each other on registration day. “Awesome, man.” She had the skittishness of a tormented kitten; the watchful tension of a child torn between sharing in a playground game and taking cover in the teacher’s skirts. Yet somewhere in that washed-up little mouse was a real Brain – and I admired brains above anything else.
I pocketed the note and left the classroom.
~
Strange how you can be whipped back into adolescence by the merest of glances, a familiar voice, some long-forgotten joke. A bungee cord relaxes, snaps at its lowest point, and plunges you into a time and place that you’ve come to associate with someone else. By the time I caught sight of Mrs. Streuber in the express line at the local no-frills, it was too late to turn around. She had registered me; understood me realizing her presence, scanning my memory for the exact words that had appeared in the school paper, judging my responsibility for what happened. She was wearing the fur coat her husband had bought her long ago, a Christmas present that seemed to weigh on her tiny frame like a grizzly bear offering a crushing hug.
I had a degree now, a boyfriend, a job. It didn’t matter. As she stared through me with the pale stoicism of a weather-worn statue, I was sixteen again, unshaven knees prickling with the fine hairs that shamed me before the carefully manicured girls in my class. Almost instinctively, I tugged at my socks, willing them to be long enough that they might cover the bristling embarrassment of fuzzy legs.
When I looked again, she was gone.
There were other notes, in addition to the ones I couriered between Dr. Olsen and Mrs. Streuber. Earlier that year, Miss Plewitt had introduced me to a new kid in our tutor group – a girl called Callie Edwards, who had been home-schooled by strict Christian parents until being dumped into boarding school at the age of eleven. Not what you would call a well-adjusted kid, Callie. The youngest boarder, her kilt drooped below her knees and her collar buttons were always fastened. She had to use eye drops every morning, and her eyes would gum together, crusting and watering until lunchtime.
I wasn’t much good at chumming up to the younger kids like the house captains and junior coaches did. But the idea of having my very own protégé held a certain appeal, so I reached out in a different way. The first time I left Callie a note on the middle school notice board, it took half a lunch break for it to disappear. I’d written her name in code, using figures from the Sherlock Holmes story “The Dancing Men” - stick figures with their arms and legs contorted in various combinations to represent different letters. Miss Plewitt had told me that Callie was a Conan Doyle fan, so I knew that this was a good way to attract her attention. It only took a week or so before I could differentiate between the prancing stick figures, drawn with earnest care on ruled paper.
Is Miss Plewitt really a lezzy? Chloe says she caught her looking up Isabel’s skirt when she was opening a window. - C.
read one. Bright she may have been, but immune to childish gossip she was not.
Don’t be stupid. Plewitt's divorced. I saw pictures of her husband at the Bulletin party at her place last year.
(Chloe’s a mutt, anyway – who’d want to look up her skirt?) - D.
Two periods later, another note would appear.
She had you to her house? Isabel says she seduces students there. - C.
Miss Plewitt was pretty nuts, but she wasn’t into girls. Hearing her proffer a detailed analysis of some of the grads’ boyfriends after one too many glasses of mulled wine at the Carol Concert had been enough to convince me of that.
"I've seen dolphins with hairier chests!" she'd spluttered, copper bracelets clattering as she gesticulated. Miss Plewitt was never to be seen without some unlikely combination of accessories: an Amazonian bean necklace, African bone earrings, a crudely hammered Cambodian belt buckle or lumpy Mongolian poncho. She rolled her kohl-smudged eyes with mock pathos, mannish chin dropping. "Just you wait until you meet some real men to whet the appetite - then you'll realise what pathetic specimens those snotty St. Christopher's mamma's boys are. Now, my sister's husband..."
I smirked, scribbling a reply on one knee before the second bell.
Give me a break. What would any teacher see in dumb kids like Chloe and Isabel?! Those girls need a life. Miss Plewitt's alright. - D.
That was the risk you ran, being kooky and ‘of an age’. You were safe if you were a young don straight out of teacher’s college. Then, being chummy with your students was cool. But if you were a spinster, extra time outside of class was viewed by the students with eager, grotesque suspicion. There were times when I thought that Mrs Streuber was all brain; a dynamic mind trapped in crocheted frumpery, a tragic premonition of what I myself might become. But Miss Plewitt was earthy and rhythmic, liberated and unpredictable. We got into some heated arguments about essays and content for the student newspaper. I somehow trusted her more than Mrs Streuber – for all her gentle, submissive stroking of my youthful ego.
“Callie’s like that girl in Children of the Corn.” Marci observed one afternoon, as I unpinned the latest missive from the board.
“You’re so mean!”
“It’s true.” Marci grinned, tossing her carefully disheveled ponytail with a jaunty flick of the head. “Plewitt attracts all the weirdos.”
“Very funny.”
“Honestly, Danica. Even you could teach that poor kid a thing or two about style.”
“Just because we don’t feel the need to hike up our skirts for other girls – ”
Even now, the perfect symmetry of Marci’s expertly hitched kilt remains a mystery to me.
“As if!”
“Hold on – I’ve got to drop something off.”
Marci sighed loudly.
“What do you think this one says, eh? I’m a few years older than you…my love…”
“I don’t think Streuber knows Stevie Nicks, Marci.”
“Geez, Danica. How wet can you get?”
~
Our school felt safe in the rain, swaddled by darkening clouds, dimly warm. Moments before the storm, colonies of silverfish would scatter along the floors like rats exposing themselves on a sinking ship. The sweet smell of damp wood filled each classroom like incense, sweating through the ancient walls.
In her room, Mrs. Streuber was removing photocopied images of flood scenes used in a comparative literature lesson. Next to a picture of Noah’s Ark was a depiction of Krishna sheltering cowherds from a rainstorm by holding up a mountain. The younger students loved the easy symbolism of it all. Mrs. Streuber made them feel that it was profound.
“Dr. Olsen asked me to bring this to you.”
“Thanks, Danica.”
“Why don’t you just talk to him? In breaks, or whatever. Rather than during class. It’s pretty obvious, you know.”
I don’t know where the words came from; I was speaking as calmly as if asking to confirm last night’s homework.
Mrs Streuber shot me a wounded look. A stray curl of hair, peppery grey, trembled askew. Beneath the shapeless courdoroy dress, I sensed her tense.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I pulsed with a flush of embarrassment.
“I…I guess I’d rather not deliver any more notes, that’s all. Miss Plewitt – ”
“What about Miss Plewitt?” Her voice was pitched a note too high, and I faltered.
“Nothing. She’d seen me going past here and the lab, asked if I wasn’t taking any other classes this year that weren’t taught by you and Dr. Olsen.” I laughed weakly. “I think she was joking…”
“Look, Danica. This has nothing to do with Miss Plewitt.” She straightened, shuffling the photocopies with white, nervous fingers. “Or you, for that matter. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.”
“I didn’t – ”
“It's just not like that, Danica." She fixed me with a watery stare. "There are dangers to being so clever, you know. Best to keep your nose out of adult affairs."
I scowled. She had never patronized me before.
“Excuse me?”
“Tell Patrick – ” She caught herself. “Never mind. I’ve got a lot to do here, if you don’t have anything else…”
Enraged, I told Marci everything.
“Streuber’s so weird. I thought she loved you!”
“She seemed scared. You know how she gets all agitated at the most random things?"
“Girl, we don't want to be here the day Streuber snaps. All that peace and love crap is so unreal. She's totally bursting to let rip.”
“Dr. Olsen's also married, remember.”
“And Streuber’s man is scaaaaary.”
“He’s an existentialist.”
“Whatever.”
“And Catholic.”
“There you go.”
I didn’t intend to betray her. The article that appeared in the school paper – slipped in past Miss Plewitt's keen editorial eye, on the back page minutes before the deadline – didn’t name names. It simply argued that if a girl had been drawn into adult affairs, she should not tolerate being treated as a child. It resonated with the student body more than anything else I’d ever written. Verbose diatribes on human rights in Guatemala didn’t sell nearly as well as a veiled expose on a school scandal.
The backlash was immediate. At lunchtime, a string of Dancing Men reappeared on the notice board.
Miss O’Connor told our class that you’re being foolish. Teachers won’t give you the grades for university if they think you’ll go on crusade against them. - C.
I scribbled a reply on the reverse.
They wouldn't dare. It's called blackmail!
But at that point, I'd not realised the potential for a wilful misreading of my attack.
Marci let out a low whistle when she read it.
"So, this is about Streuber, right?"
"Duh!"
"Kiddo, it'll never wash."
"What do you mean?"
"Coming from Little Miss Teacher's Pet? Especially with Plewitt nominating you for that scholarship - you say "adult affairs". You know what I think of when I read that? Like you've been...used or something. Little girl lost."
"You're sick."
"That's how it could read. Compare: Streuber versus Plewitt. Some misfits are more acceptable than others. Plewitt's got a rep." She sucked her lip hard, releasing it freshly moistened. “This could be a whole lotta trouble…a whole lotta trouble…for you…”
“It’s not funny, Marci.”
“Chill out, kiddo. As if teachers really care what goes into some dumb student rag?”
Evidently, someone did.
Miss Plewitt's eyes were red, a crumpled tissue drooping from her sleeve, when I stumbled upon her in the English classroom piling books into a battered cardboard box.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve been told to leave, Danica.”
“Why?”
“Someone on staff has issued allegations against me.”
“For what?” My skin prickled.
“I’ve been told not to speak to you, Danica. Not to any of the students. I’m sorry.”
Someone had to go, and it couldn’t be two adored teachers. The administration wasn’t blind to the growing relationship between Rowena Streuber and Patrick Olsen, but my article had tipped the balance. Apparently, I had been crying out for help. Years of rumours about Miss Plewitt were coming to fruition. It made enough sense to everyone else.
It made too much sense to me.
~
My favourite kind of rain had always been the type that rages. I used to imagine myself in a Henri Rousseau monsoon, lashed by flying water and tropical branches, the roars of jungle creatures harmonizing with the distant cascade of a crashing sea.
That week, however – the week that Miss Plewitt left under a cloud of rumours, fuelled by gossiping mothers at the school gates and hushed conversations in the chapel alcoves – a thin drizzle fell. As transparent as a veil, intangible as light, it felt bleak and empty.
Mrs. Streuber was promoted to head of Humanities the following year. After weeks of vacillation, I decided to use her reference letter for my university application to St. Andrews. Two days after Christmas, I received my acceptance.
We are pleased to welcome you to one of Britain's most ancient and esteemed centres of learning, the letter read.
(You betrayed them both, it should have blared, in crisp courier font. You clumsy little fool).
When the rain finally cleared, and the summer sunshine played on the patterned floorboards in the Hall once more, I left school for good. The warm pavement absorbs wet patches until they are invisible, raindrops that had once been fat and free seeping into an uncertain future. Now, I am told that Mrs Streuber’s husband organizes workshops on Camus in the philosophy class that Callie has joined. Dr. Olsen took early retirement to nurse his ailing wife. Miss Plewitt no longer teaches. And I have given myself over to a land where the air always hangs heavy and wet, suspended between sea and sky, waiting to be freed by the storm.
©2006 Trilby Kent