CHAPTER SEVEN
In Miss Fairbank's classroom after school that day, Brent and Heather were joined by an unexpected new arrival. It was none other than Jerry Drusk, the overweight, balding kid from third period. She had quietly slipped him a note earlier during class asking if he wouldn't mind meeting her after school.
Brent scowled as Jerry's considerable bulk appeared in the door, while Heather just looked blankly at him with her dead eyes. "Jerry!" said Miss Fairbanks, coming up to where he was blinking in confusion since he'd thought she'd be alone. "I'm so glad you could come. We're having a brainstorming session about how to improve the ugly appearance of this room, and I naturally thought of inviting you because you're so creative." While Jerry just stared at her dumfounded, Miss Fairbanks pointed to the others in the room. "You probably already know my good friends Brent and Heather. Yesterday we discussed putting up pictures of unicorns on the walls, but finally decided that wouldn't quite fit in this room. What do you think?"
Jerry just continued to gape at her, not moving from the doorway. Finally he mumbled, "I thought you wanted me to come after school to go over my grade or something."
"No, nothing like that," said Miss Fairbanks, taking his arm and steering him to a desk. "I hope I didn't make you miss your bus or anything. I just wanted your ideas for a few minutes, that's all."
Silence reigned in the room as each of its occupants looked uncomfortably at each other. They each had a shared fascination with Miss Fairbanks, who seemed to draw something out of them they had never known was there. But they weren't too sure about each other. Each of them had learned to never open up to other kids at this school no matter who they were, unless they wanted to be hurt.
"Well, I'll tell you what I was thinking of last night," said Miss Fairbanks, since she sensed that her new friends were all so paranoid that none of them was going to say a word for the next hour. "I thought of putting up pictures of cute, cuddly little babies all over! That would create quite a transformation, wouldn't it?"
The idea was so insane that none of the three could keep from laughing at the stupidity of it all--which was exactly what Miss Fairbanks intended.
"That'd be dumb," blurted Brent with a smile. "All the bozos like Armpit Arnold would draw mustaches on them, or beards or something."
"Then they'd make jokes about how they all stank and needed diaper changes," added Jerry.
"The girls would all complain that it reminded them of their younger brothers and sisters they have to put up with at home," said Heather. "I think you should put up pictures of wildflowers instead."
"Wildflowers?" scoffed Brent, causing Heather to quickly lower her eyes in embarrassment. "That's as bad as baby pictures!"
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," said Miss Fairbanks. "Go to the Disney studios, or Pixar, or Dreamworks, or any of the big movie studios when they're having a brainstorming session like we're having, and do you know what you'll find?" They all stared at her dumbly, wondering what this new question had to do with wildflower pictures. "What you'll find is that there are no bad ideas, no matter how bad they are," said Miss Fairbanks confusingly. "The people in those meetings might roll their eyes at some of the wild ideas that get thrown out, but no one criticizes them out loud. And do you know why?"
They all shook their heads dumbly. "Because people only open up with their really good and creative ideas when they feel safe, and know that no one will attack them. And when you get a team like that with the ideas flowing fast and furious, they come up with a lot of nonsense, but also some pretty amazing good stuff too."
Miss Fairbanks spread her arms wide in a needless dramatic gesture that made no sense. "So I like Heather's idea of wildflowers. I think it's solid. We may not decide to go with it in the end, but it's just the sort of creative thinking I was hoping you would all come up with."
Heather smiled shyly at Miss Fairbanks while Brent scowled. Then he said grumpily, "I still think pictures of people hitting or shooting each other would fit best in here."
"And so they might," said Miss Fairbanks, following her own advice to not be critical of his idea. "But can you think of any other ideas?" She looked at them all expectantly. "Surely you can come up with more than hitting and wildflowers.
"How about action comics," said Jerry suddenly. "Most kids like them."
"Yeah, that's not bad," agreed Brent. "Thor and Green Arrow and stuff."
"Excellent!" said Miss Fairbanks, pulling out a paper and starting to write rapidly. "I knew I could count on you three for some good ideas."
"You could have funny comic strip characters too," added Heather. "Like Garfield or Calvin and Hobbes. They're pretty popular too."
"How about movie posters?" suggested Brent. Suddenly the three of them were all talking at once, offering more ideas than they'd known they had.
Miss Fairbanks smiled. As far as she was concerned, her goal had already been achieved. To see these three open up and feel like they could act like normal human beings was all the decoration this room had ever needed ...
When Miss Fairbanks got home to her seedy apartment that night, her happy mood was abruptly brought to an end by a letter waiting for her under her door. The landlady always tossed all the mail of her tenants under their doors, along with rent reminder notices to encourage people to pay. This particular letter was in a dark grey envelope with a return address of the state penitentiary. Miss Fairbanks didn't need to open it to know what it was, or what it would tell her.
She sat down heavily on the couch, her hands shaking slightly. She had always known a letter like this would come someday, and had been dreading it. Sometimes she'd almost convinced herself that maybe it wouldn't come, that perhaps things would just stay the same forever. But deep down inside she always knew that wasn't true. It was sure to come, even if it was decades before it arrived.
And indeed, twenty years had passed in which a letter from the penitentiary could have come. Twenty years of nightmares and struggles for Miss Fairbanks, and of hopelessness and despair because of what she had caused. Twenty years ago she had been just a little girl. Now she was grown up and mature, and should be able to handle things better. During those twenty years she had tried to put the events of that horrible night out of her mind, or at least to find a way to cope with them. But she had not been particularly successful. And try as she might, the nightmare events from that night two decades ago were always lingering in the shadows of her mind, never quite letting her experience the peace she so much yearned for.
She stared at the letter, her eyes glazed. Her heart was in that letter. Everything that had once been dear to her was there too. All the childish dreams that she had felt as a little girl were curled around them as well--all of which had come shattering to nothingness on that horrible night, because of what she had caused. Her life was sitting there in that grey envelope on the floor. And it was not a pretty life, either.
Miss Fairbanks suddenly stood up. Although she knew it was dark outside and not entirely safe, she knew she had to go out. She would go to the library--that always helped her to forget, as she became absorbed in the looking at the many books she would like to read. She quickly put on her shawl and grabbed her purse. But she hesitated by the door for a moment, looking down at the grey envelope beneath her feet. Slowly, as if drawn by a magnet, she reached down and picked it up, then stuffed it in her bag with shaking hands.
She would not open it of course. She was only taking it because there was a wonderful trash can outside the library, a trash can decorated to look like Bilbo Baggins the hobbit. That would be the perfect place for this letter.
After all, she knew she couldn't leave it here. It would just haunt her more and more until she gave in and opened it. And then the news she knew it contained would haunt her even more ...