ChapterX

It took more than a month before I finally got a fountain pen to replace the one Mr. Willard had destroyed, and a lot happened before then, most of it good though it didn't seem that way at first.
On Saturday, the day after the hearing, my mom got a call from Dr. McCallister telling her that Mr. Willard refused to have me back in his class. She was furious and told him that she didn't want me to have to be in a class taught by such a shithead. I was surprised when she said that because she almost never used bad language. Since Mr. Willard was teaching the only health education class that semester Dr. McCallister said that I'd have to make up the credits during the summer and would not graduate with my class. He hung up before my mom had a chance to argue with him, and she called Ed Conley again.
"Amanda," Ed said, "I think you'd be wasting your money if you had me to sue the school board over this. Call DeContreni and tell him what's happened. If that doesn't work, you might try Anita Carswell."
Mom really didn't want to call Miss Carswell, but when Mr. DeContreni told her he had no control over the principal's administrative decisions, she felt that she didn't have a choice. I was in the room when she did it, and she was more nervous than I've ever seen her. Despite her nervousness she was completely coherent when she explained the latest development to Miss Carswell. I don't know what Miss Carswell said to her, but she gave a big sigh of relief and handed the phone to me.
"Hello, Jason," Miss Carswell said as soon as she heard me breathe into the phone. "Some people just don't learn, do they?"
I laughed because she was so right.
"Well," she went on, "what do you want to do?"
I thought about it for a second and answered, "I'd like to graduate with my class and I don't want to be in that shit…, er, Mr. Willard's class."
She chuckled. "It's okay, Jason, I've heard worse. I've even said worse myself on occasion with no more justification than you have at the moment."
For a minute I thought she was telling me I wasn't justified in calling Willard a shithead, but then I realized she was telling I was. So I breathed a big sigh of relief and made her laugh.
"It sounds," she said after a short pause to catch her breath, "as if I need to talk to someone on the school board with a little more backbone than Alex DeContreni.. It should be possible for you to do the health education class as an independent study."
Health education was always taught by one of the two physical education teachers, but I was pretty sure that Mr. Benson, my track coach, would refuse to cross Willard and do the independent study with me.
"I don't know, Miss Carswell," I said. "Mr. Benson is the only other health ed. teacher, and since Mr. Willard and he are in the same department, I don't think he'd be willing to do it."
"There is no rule that health education can only be taught by a physical education teacher," she replied. "Let me make a call or two and I'll see what I can do."
She hung up, and my mom, who'd been lurking in the room while I spoke with Miss Carswell, wanted to know what she'd said.
"She'll try to work it out," I replied, feeling unaccountably irritated with my mother. She sensed it, I know, and I immediately went over and hugged her. "Mom, why are you so scared of her?"
My mother smiled and shook her head. "I'm not scared of her. She just makes me uncomfortable. She's so…odd. And so utterly convinced of her right to do whatever she chooses. It's unnerving. No woman…, no human being should be that self-assured."
I didn't understand what it was that really bothered her about Miss Carswell, but I didn't have a chance to think about it too long before Miss Carswell called back. Somehow I knew who was calling and answered the phone, saving my mom some anxiety.
"Jason, I talked with Dr. McCallister myself, and he agreed that if I could find anyone currently on the faculty who was willing to direct your independent study, he would sign off on it." She cackled gleefully. "I think he repeated that it would have to be a current faculty member ten times in a five minute conversation. I guess he was afraid I'd do it myself."
"Thank you, thank you so much, Miss Carswell.".
"Don't thank me yet," she said. "You haven't heard the best part. Don't you want to know who I got to direct your independent study?"
"Well, yes, I guess I do," I replied, but in my heart I already knew.
"I figure Bob owes you for not telling you right off what happened to your pen. I told him so, and it didn't take much to convince him. But you have to promise to work on the health education curriculum with him and not just talk about pens."
"I promise," I said quickly.
"You'll have plenty of opportunity to talk about pens at the pen club meeting," she added. "You're expected at my house next Sunday at two in the afternoon unless you have some other commitment you can't get out of. If you can't get here on your own, Bob will pick you up."

And that was how I joined the pen club and got to meet eight people besides Mr. Harmon, Miss Carswell and myself who lived nearby and loved fountain pens. I wasn't even the youngest member of the club. There was a girl there three months younger than me who lived in the next town over and knew how to resack pens. We found out we had a lot of other interests in common, but that's a whole other story.
Miss Carswell made sure that I got a chance to look at a lot of fountain pens before I picked the one that Mr. Willard paid for. She pulled out a whole shelf full of books that she ordered me to read, and I got a real fountain pen education in the process. I did end up choosing a snorkel-filling Sheaffer Sentinel with a triumph nib though, just like Miss Carswell's, not necessarily because it was the best pen I could have chosen, but for what Miss Carswell called sentimental reasons. She laughed a little when she told me I had a sentimental streak just like my grandfather.
"I can't believe you and Grandpa Edgar were friends, I told her after a pen club meeting shortly before the end of the school term. I'd stayed around to help her rake leaves.
"Oh, we were great friends at one time, Jason," she replied. In fact, Edgar wanted us to get engaged when we were about to start college."
I stopped raking and stare at her in astonishment. "But you didn't," I said.
She shook her head. "No, we didn't."
I didn't ask why.
"His family didn't approve," she volunteered after a few seconds, "and it was probably for the best."
"But if you'd gotten married, you could have been my grandmother," I blurted out. I flushed and started raking again. "I'd have liked that," I said quietly. "I'd have liked that a lot."
She laughed. "But Lore Harnisch was so much more suitable. That's what Edgar's parents said anyway, and Edgar, well, Edgar wasn't much of a fighter. Besides, I had my career, which I didn't want to give up."
I smiled at her. "I'd have loved having you as my grandmother, but I think it's even better having you for a friend," I said, as gallantly as I could.
She smiled back at me. "Jason, you get more like your grandfather Edgar every time I see you."
"You mean I look like him?" I asked, preening a little since my grandfather had been quite handsome.
"No, you act like him and talk like him. You look like Lore Harnisch," she replied and then almost fell over laughing at the expression on my face.
"Your grandfather," she told me when she recovered from her fit of laughter, "believed in truth, and kindness. That's a hard combination to believe in."
"But don't you?" I asked her.
She shook her head. "I'll settle for truth. Kindness is often beyond me."
I smiled, not believing her at all. I didn't argue though. I could tell there was more she wanted to tell me.
"Your grandfather was very compassionate, Jason. He had great tolerance for people's lies and evasions. 'He is just trying to save face', he'd say to me when someone acted the way Tom Willard did."
I smiled at her. "Well, Mr. Willard was trying to save face, wasn't he?"
She chuckled. "You know what I used to tell Edgar? 'Save face, cover his ass, it's all the same. And when someone can't tell those parts of his anatomy apart, well, I don't have to go along with it'. Edgar used to laugh just the way you are now whenever I said that. It was so unladylike and therefore so unlike anyone else. Any other female, that is."
"Are you sorry you two didn't marry?"
She shook her head. No, I'd have bossed him around something awful."
"Grandma Lore Harnisch did," I interjected, "and if I had to have someone bossing me around, I'd much rather it be you."
She shook her head. "But I'd much rather not be in the position of bossing someone around. Especially not anyone I was fond of."
"So you didn't boss you friend, Miss Clarence, around?" I asked.
Miss Carswell looked at me sharply for a second, and I was afraid I'd offended her. But then she smiled and shook her head. I was relieved though when she changed the subject.
She pulled out an early Waterman eyedropper filler with an extraordinarily flexible nib. I'd never seen that particular pen before, and she let me handle and admire it for a few moments. I knew she'd let me try it out before I went home. She took it from me and capped it. "Look, Jason, look!" she said, balancing the pen out straight in front of her on that strong hand with the swollen joints, an aged hand, but one I hoped would still be showing me fountain pens for a long time.
"Imagine," she said, her slightly hoarse voice crackling with enthusiasm, "just imagine what it must have been like to be around when fountain pens were first manufactured. Imagine being able to write pages and pages without having to dip your pen. For the first time your hand would be able to keep up with your mind. What an accomplishment!"

Things are never the way they seem.

FINIS

Miss Carswell will be back!