Category: Mrs. Carnahan

Hi! I’m Margaret Carnahan, and I teach math at Hamptonville High School.

Valentine’s Day is always a big deal at Hamptonville. The florists deliver flowers and gifts all day long. Everything is stored in an empty classroom, and the girls collect them at the end of the day. There are stuffed animals and roses, jewelry and roses, chocolates and roses … For most of the guys, this is their first real Valentine’s Day, and they’re still learning the ropes. They do pretty well.

Except for Granger. Granger was young man with astonishing self-confidence but limited imagination. Granger sent a teddy-bear-and-single-rose arrangement to BOTH of his girlfriends.

Alexis was supposed to get hers just before lunch, when she was scheduled to leave the high school and go to her internship at the mayor’s. A broken water pipe closed the office, though, so Alexis spent the afternoon doing her homework in the library.

Ashley went to her locker at the end of the day and then to pick up her gift. They arrived at the same time, and as it happened, there were only two bouquets left, two teddy bears, each with a rose, side by side on a desk. Mrs. Griffin said, “Tell me your boyfriend’s name, and I’ll know whose is whose.”

Alexis said, “Mine’s the one from Granger.”

Ashley said, “My boyfriend’s name is Granger, too. Granger Shepherd.”

“Wait,” Alexis said. “Granger Shepherd is MY boyfriend. Are there TWO Granger Shepherds at this school?”

Mrs. Griffin took a deep breath. “No, honey, there’s only one.”

There was a long pause while the two girls glared at each other. Ashley said, “Well, he’s MY boyfriend. We’ve been dating since Christmas.”

Alexis said, “You must be the SIDE chick. He’s been dating ME since Homecoming.”

“I ain’t NOBODY’S SIDE chick!” Ashley said, and it was about to get ugly when Mrs. Griffin spoke up.

“Girls,” she said, “read me the card on your bouquet.”

Alexis went first. “’Happy Valentine’s Day with all my love, Granger.’ See? ‘All my love.’”

“Mine says the exact same thing!” Ashley said.

“Hold on! Hold on!” said Mrs. Griffin. Mrs. Griffin unfortunately had some personal experience with this kind of situation. “Girls, let’s think about this. What kind of a man dates two women at the same time, sends them identical gifts, and tells them both that they have all his love? What kind of a man would do that?”

Well, now the girls were confused. She had a point. But they were in love. They thought he loved them. They hated each other. But … how could he do this?

Alexis started to cry. “It’s not fair! I love him!”

Ashley started to cry, too. “Why would he do this to me? I love him!”

Mrs. Griffin gave them both a tissue. “Girls,” she said, “this is not your fault. It’s his fault. Some men are just like this; they think love is a game. It’s better to learn it when you’re young … You don’t want to have to learn it when you’re older.” Both girls were crying. “Now, remember this: you deserve better. Don’t you? Let me hear you say it, say, ‘I deserve better.’”

They sniffled, they glared at each other, and finally they agreed. They DID deserve better. They took a deep breath, and they all hugged, a sisterhood of shattered women. Mrs. Griffin ushered them out of the room.

“We ALL deserve better,” she said as she locked the door. “What HE deserves is another matter.” And she walked back into the office.

Ashley and Alexis took a long look at each other. They looked at their identical teddy bears and roses. And then Alexis said, “Ya wanna go get a coffee?”

Ashley said, “Yeah.” And they started talking about what he deserved.

At the coffee shop, one target emerged. They built their plan around his pride and joy, his shiny black truck.

They agreed that a guy who dated two girls at the same time would have no trouble dating a third, so Ashley recruited her friend Schuyler and swore her to secrecy. Ashley had helped Schuyler get an A on a biology project, and Schuyler was happy to return a favor.

Over the next couple of days Schuyler made sure Granger knew she was interested in him, and he didn’t notice that both Ashley and Alexis were suddenly covered up with projects and extra hours at work that week. Schuyler suggested a movie on Saturday afternoon, and Granger picked her up.

As Ashley was leaving the house Saturday, her father asked her where she was going with an aluminum baseball bat. And she tried. She said she was trying out for the girls’ softball team.

Her father pointed out that softball tryouts weren’t generally held in February, and besides, she had always hated softball. Ashley burst into tears. She told him what had happened on Valentine’s Day.

He gave her a fatherly hug. “So the baseball bat is for revenge?”

Ashley nodded. “His truck will be in the parking lot at the movies. Alexis is going to meet me there. She’s bringing spray paint.”

Ashley’s father thought for a moment about this young man whom he had NEVER liked. “Sweetie,” he said, “there’s a couple of problems with your plan. First, if you beat up his truck and spray paint his truck, you’re gonna be in trouble with the police. He’s not worth that. And second, his insurance will pay to have all the damage repaired, and a week from now his truck will look better than ever, thanks to you. Is that what you want?”

“Well,” she hesitated, “no, but … ” and she burst into tears again.

“It’s OK,” he said. “I have an idea.”

After some furious texting back and forth Ashley met Alexis in the movie parking lot. Alexis brought her brother, James. The girls started by letting the air out of the tires. James did a little work under the hood. Then they all got busy with duck tape.

They started with black tape on the windows. And they didn’t use long strips so that you could lift one end and pull the whole thing off. They used little 5-inch chunks. They were careful, and when they were done, if you squinted a little bit, the windows just looked tinted.

Other people were driving through the parking lot, but Alexis and James had made a couple of signs that said, “Practical joke in progress. No harm to this truck.” This was mostly true. People smiled and parked away from them, gave them room to work. No one phoned the police. Someone did phone the newspaper.

When they were finished with the windows, they soaked the seats with cheap perfume. Then they opened up the sunroof and poured in two extra-large bags of packing peanuts.

Then they got out the second roll of duck tape and worked on the rest of the truck.

When they were done, they took a few photos, packed up the signs and the trash, and disappeared.

And so it was that Granger and Schuyler emerged from the movie in the late afternoon sunshine, smiling and holding hands … until Granger saw his truck.

There sat his shiny black truck with 4 flat tires and bright orange duck tape letters on both sides spelling out the word, “Cheater!”

Schuyler came through with her cell phone – Granger was live on Instagram, and Ashley, Alexis, and James watched it all on their phones from the coffee shop. And as the crowd gathered in the parking lot, he went live on Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter, too.

He was furious. He pulled on a strip of orange tape and saw that the tape came off, but the white adhesive stayed. He had a few things to say about that as he went around the truck, pulling off the tape. Finally, he said, “It’s cold. Wait in the cab, Schuyler. I’ll call my dad to take us home.” And he opened the passenger side door for her.

It takes a long time for 2 extra-large bags of packing peanuts to fall out of an open truck door. Schuyler recorded close-ups of Granger’s face as he stood and watched. People in the parking lot took pictures and laughed. The manager came out and asked who was going to clean up this mess. He called the police.

Eventually enough peanuts fell out that the passenger’s seat was clear. There sat two identical teddy bears with two wilted roses.

Schuyler called her mom to come and get her. Granger called his dad.

Granger’s truck made the front page of the newspaper, with Granger next to it, pumping air into the tires with his dad’s portable compressor, and a police officer writing him a citation for littering. At school all the guys snickered. The girls gave Alexis and Ashley fist bumps.

Granger scrubbed his truck every day for two weeks. He had a lot of time to think about Alexis and Ashley. He did some soul searching, and he decided that it was all their fault, and NEXT TIME he’d be sneakier.

When his truck was shining black again, he went for a drive. Over by CVS a cute girl he’d never seen before smiled and waved at him. He smiled and waved and tapped his horn. From under hood came the distinct sound of a braying jackass.

He looked straight forward and drove on.

Good evening! I’m Margaret Carnahan, and I teach math at Hamptonville High School.

There are sounds we use to guide us through our days. The alarm clock says it’s time to get up. A car horn tells us to pay attention. A baby laughing says maybe there IS some hope for this world.

We have sounds like that school, too. Monday morning hellos. A baseball player comes back to school after breaking his collarbone sliding into third and everyone gathers ‘round to see the sling. A boy with wet sneakers gets maximum squeakage as he scoots down the hallway.

But there are silences, too, and they are just as helpful. There’s a silence that means they’re up to something – watch out. There’s a sudden silence in the hallway just before a fight breaks out. There’s that embarrassed silence that means the hip new slang term you just tried in front of a bunch of adolescents DOESN’T mean what you thought it means.

A teacher’s gotta know all of these, the sounds and the silences. Gotta be on your toes.

Like last week. We were short a substitute teacher on Tuesday, and the office asked me to cover a class during my prep time. All I had to do was walk them to the library media center, and they would take it from there. I said, sure, I could do that.

I got to the middle school part of the building just as the tardy bell rang. Two girls scooted in right behind me and sat down. I introduced myself and took attendance, and announced that we were going to the library media center. Most of the kids were happy about this. It meant they could pretend to look for books in the stacks while they were really talking about shoes and hairstyles and boys. Or girls.

And then I noticed Justin. Justin’s one of those kids – he’s OK, but he has to test every single limit. When he grows up, he’ll be the one who says, “Here, hold my beer” just before he does something that goes viral on the website “Rednecks at Play.” Justin wasn’t smiling at my announcement. He was thinking, and he was quiet.

So I wasn’t surprised that he was the last one out of the room. The rest of the class turned right and headed for the library media center. Justin turned left. “I’ll be right there,” he said. “I have to go to my locker.”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got an overdue library book.”

There’s only one way to deal with the Justins of this world. I smiled sweetly and said, “I’ll go with you.”

We walked all the way down to the very end of the hall until he stopped at a locker and turned the knob a few times. Of course it wouldn’t open. He said, “I can never remember the combination.”

So we walked back down the hall. He stopped at a drinking fountain, got a nice, long drink. And then he noticed the men’s room. “I gotta go,” he said.

“Justin, we just had passing period. You don’t need to go,” I said.

He thought quickly: “I need to comb my hair.”

I said that it looked fine, but he was determined.

We were the only ones in the hall. And the silence in the restroom told me that it was empty, too. There was only thing to do. I thought to myself, “Hold my beer.”

He stepped in the doorway to the men’s room. So did I. He took a second step. So did I. He looked over his shoulder at me and took a third step. I was right there.

“Uh … it’s OK,” he said. He turned around and walked back out. We went straight to the library media center, where the rest of the class was “looking for books.”

The hinge squeaked when we opened the library door, and the class got quiet. When a teacher walks in with one student, someone’s usually in trouble. I turned Justin over to the library assistant. As I walked out the door, I heard him say the words that bring joy to a teacher’s heart: “I hope I never get HER for a teacher! She’s CRAZY!”

Hi, George! Oh, I’m fine, thanks. I’m a little sad today. I lost my dog over the weekend.

No, the dog’s fine. You see, I got him last summer when I saw an ad in the paper. “Friendly dog, well trained, free to good home,” it said. “New owner must promise to keep in touch and send pictures.” I’d been wanting a dog for a while since Euclid died. And Bob liked the idea, since he had to travel so often, and we’d had a couple of break-ins in the neighborhood. The ad gave a phone number, so I called and went over to visit.

And do you know – the owner turned out to be Chad Olivetti. You remember him, don’t you? Chad was president of the PTO when Chad Junior graduated from Hamptonville High School maybe 10 years ago? Yeah, I thought you’d remember him. Great guy. I guess he’s been sick for a while. He didn’t look good.

The dog was a Doberman named Boxer. He and I played together a little bit, and we hit it off.  He had the sweetest temperament. Chad said he was trained to respond to things like “Sit” and “Lie Down” – you know, the basic commands. He gave me the name of his vet and a list of all his shots and his water bowl and most of his chew toys. He kept one, a squeaky bone. He said he wanted something to remember his dog by. He also made sure I had his cell phone number and asked me to send a picture now and then.

Chad got choked up when he scratched Boxer’s ears to say good-bye. But he was so thin and frail, and he said, you know, things weren’t really going very well with his treatments. His wife had died, Chad Junior lived 2 states away, and he was trying to take care of things before he had to go to the hospital again. He shook his head and said he didn’t think he’d come home again if that happened. Cancer sucks.

Well, Boxer wasn’t happy to leave, but eventually he warmed up to me and things at my house, and we got along fine the rest of the summer. A couple of times when we were at the park I thought I saw Chad sitting in his car, watching. He never got out of the car, though, never wanted Boxer to know he was there. He always thanked me when I sent a photo. And I thought, “You know, I would want my dog to stay with me, even if I couldn’t take good care of him, just to have the company. But he is doing the right thing by his dog.”

And then it got too cold to go to the park; Boxer and I took short walks around the block and came right home. Over the winter I was thankful to have him. There were lots of nights just watching TV with Boxer stretched out on the couch between Bob and me.

And I know Chad said he was trained, but I could not get that dog to do anything. He sat IF he felt like it, not because I said so. Lie down? I don’t think so! He came when I called IF I had treats in my hand. And we won’t even talk about that time I tried to get him to wear an IU doggie sweater. He was not having it.

Then there was that one night Bob was gone and someone tried to break in the back door. Boxer barked that Doberman bark, and whoever it was, they ran away. I called 911. They caught the guy, too.

It got to be spring, and I noticed that Chad stopped saying “thanks” when I sent a photo. I kept sending them and hoping for the best. And then I thought, maybe I should check the obituaries. But I never saw his name.

And then Saturday morning Boxer started barking somethin’ fierce and jumped up at the window. He never did that before! But he barked and barked, and it didn’t matter how many times I said, “Down, boy!” I looked out the window, and there was Chad. He had put on weight, and he looked good. He heard Boxer barking and stood at the gate and looked surprised.

I opened the door and Boxer almost knocked me over racing out. He jumped up on the fence and barked and barked, and then Chad said something, and he sat! But he never took his eyes off Chad. He whined and yipped and was SO happy to see him. Chad reached over the gate and scratched his ears. By this time I had my shoes on and grabbed a jacket and went outside.

Chad said, “How’s Boxer doin’ for ya?” And Boxer started barking again.

I invited him in for coffee. He sat at the kitchen table and told Boxer, “Lie down,” and he did – go figure!

Chad said he got so sick that he qualified for a clinical trial of some new immunotherapy drug. It helps the body fight cancer like the cancer was a cold. It didn’t work for everyone, he said, but it sure was working for him. Trouble was, they didn’t know how long it would last. A lot of patients relapsed after 6 months. He was in his second month, and he was gaining weight and getting around OK and feeling better than he’d felt in a long time. It was a beautiful day and it was good to be alive, and he’d decided to go for a long walk. He didn’t realize this was Boxer’s street. Boxer’s tail thumped when Chad said his name.

So I told him how much I liked having Boxer and about the time he scared the burglar away. I told him about trying to get the IU doggie sweater on him, and we both laughed. I tried not to be jealous, but I did notice that Boxer’s tail didn’t wag a bit when *I* said his name, only when Chad did.

We finished our coffee, and there was a long, awkward pause. He wasn’t going to ask. But Boxer let out a long whine.

I kept one chew toy – a tennis ball – and the IU doggie sweater. The water bowl and the other toys fit into a plastic sack, and Chad took Boxer back home. If things don’t work out for him, he knows Boxer has another home.

None of us can know what will happen six months down the road. But this morning, George, I got a text before I came to school. Chad sent me a photo of Boxer in front of his fireplace – wearing a Purdue sweater.