Flash Fiction Friday: Peggy's Story

This is another in my random and growing collection of stories from the denizens of Skunk Corners.  Peggy Rossiter is one of Big Al's students, and secretly wanted to learn even before the Ninja Librarian came to town and made it okay.

Photo by Tom Dempsey, c. Photoseek.com.  Used with permission

Peggy’s Story: When Big Al Came to Town

So, Mr. Tom wanted me to tell you about when Big Al came to Skunk Corners.  It was a few years ago, so I was only maybe nine or something, and still stuck in the Second Reader.  I might not remember everything, but I saw Al come to town.
   It was like this.  I guess I was the only kid who hadn’t heard that Jake and Harry had chased off another teacher.  They used to make the schoolmasters’ lives miserable, until they’d just up and leave.  One time we had a schoolmarm, a real cranky old maid you wouldn’t think had ever had a soft feeling in her life, and she left in tears after just two days.  The boys never laid hand on any of them, not like how they treated librarians.  They had other ways, being bound and determined not to go to school, or to learn anything when their folks walloped them into going.
   I guess the last laugh was on them, come to think of it, but you know all about how they ended up coming back to Big Al to learn to read.
   Anyhow, I’d come into town that morning for school.  Even then I kind of liked it, though I wasn’t making much progress, what with never having a teacher for more than a few weeks at a time.
So I was standing in the street by the empty schoolhouse at sunrise when someone walked into town off the trail from Endoline.  I could tell it was a kid, dressed in his Pa’s clothes and hat, which were just a little too big.  You could see he was pretty uncertain.  He looked around a bit, then his eye lit on Two-Timin’ Tess’s Tavern, and I saw him nod.  Of course, there was no one up at the Tavern at that hour, so the kid just walked on up to have a seat under the tree.  That was where I was, but I guessed he didn’t see me, not until he was already sitting down and I spoke up.
   “Hey.”
   Then the kid jumped a mile, before getting a grip and looking at me.  Then he said, “Hey yourself,” and the voice sounded like a boy who’s just starting to change, so I guessed he was maybe 14 or 15, but big.
   “I’m Peggy.  What’s your name?” I asked.
   “Al.  Some call me Big Al, I guess cause I’m big for my age.”
   “What’re you doing here, Big Al?”
   “Looking for work.  What’re you doing?  Dodging chores?”
   “Naw.  I came for school.  But looks like the boys chased the Master off again.”
   “You like school?”  Seemed like the kid wanted to talk.  I think talking was better than thinking, but then I was just kind of flattered that a big kid would pass the time of day with a squirt like me, and I was curious.
   “Well, I like learning,” I hedged.  “School isn’t so great.”  That got a bit of a smile out of the stranger.
   “Me too.  Guess that’s all done for me now, though.”  He turned away and didn’t say anything more.
   After a bit I said, “I suppose if there’s no school, Pa’ll expect me to come home and do chores.”  I didn’t get up.  “What’re you doing?”
   “Waiting.  My Pa,” I saw him swallow hard, “Pa talked of Miss Tess and this here Tavern, so I thought I’d ask.”  Suddenly sounding angry, the stranger said, “You’d better shove off then.”
   I’m no dummy.  I figured there wasn’t any Pa any more, and maybe the kid needed to cry, so I took off.

   That night my Pa started talking about the school, and how the townsfolk thought maybe it would be a good idea just to leave it closed, seeing as it cost money and no one was getting much good out of it anyhow.  Pa glanced my way when he said that, being as he knew I liked school.  I felt pretty low.
   But next day I went into town, and Mr. Burton, who calls himself the Mayor, was saying that they had to get a new teacher, because the School Inspector was coming and we’d be in big trouble if our youngsters weren’t in school.  So they were pretty desperate for a teacher.  Mr. Burton was asking around for who could read, but of course all the grown folk who had any learning were either long gone from Skunk Corners, or they had work already, and no time to teach a pack of mostly unwilling youngsters.
   Now, don’t you tell Al, or I’ll end up in the creek, but I up and told the Mayor that this Big Al fellow, seemed to have maybe been to school some.  I was making a wide guess, but I wanted my school, and maybe I felt bad for him, because he hadn’t found any work yet, and was sleeping in Tess’s woodshed with the mice and spiders.
   Al dodged a bit at first, but five dollars a month and a room to sleep in must’ve been a powerful temptation, because pretty soon we had us a school again.  That’s when the fun started.
   Everyone always came to school the first day with a new teacher, to see the fun.  That meant Jake and Harry, too, and they set right in with their usual tricks.  They figured that Al being younger’n them, he’d be easy pickings.
   It took about a half a day before our new teacher had had enough.  The boys were making comments about Al being some kind of sissy, or even a girl, on account of his voice not being really changed.
   Instead of bursting into tears or anything, Big Al walked down the aisle past the rear desks, where the big kids—Jake and Harry and a couple of girls—sat, and opened the door.  Of course, we all thought our new teacher was going to walk out.  But instead, Al came back, grabbed one of those boys in each hand—and now we saw that even though Big Al wasn’t any taller than them, he had a lot of muscle.  Next thing Jake and Harry knew, they were out the door, and Al stood on the top step saying, “You are done with school.  I don’t want to see your faces here again, unless and until you actually want to learn, which I don’t reckon will happen in this world.  Idiots.”  Then Al closed the door and walked back to the front of the room.
   “Anyone else?  If anyone doesn’t want to at least pretend they want to learn, you can join those boys in the street.  Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean you can get away with anything here.”
   Well!  You could have knocked us over with a duster full of feathers!  There Al stood, looking just as much like a boy as ever, saying she was a girl as though we’d known all along.  We were too stunned to move.  After that, I think most stayed out of curiosity about this girl who dressed and acted like a boy, and could throw bullies out without breaking a sweat.  I’m not saying many of us did much learning.  But I’ll tell you, no one ever tried to make Al leave.

  

So that’s how Big Al came to Skunk Corners and how she became our Teacher.  I guess maybe Tom would like to know more about why she came and all that, but she’s never said, except that bit the first day.  Al’s private, and I guess Mr. Tom’s the only one could ask her about it and not end up in the creek, unless maybe Tess could.  I’m not asking.  I’ve no hankering for a swim this early in the spring.

The Librarian Explains

At last, I've heard from the Ninja Librarian again.  He sent me this bit, which seems to relate to an incident described by Big Al in her narrative of his first year in Skunk Corners.  Without further ado,
The Librarian Explains. 

The Librarian Explains

Once again, I feel it behooves me to present my own view of events in our town of  Skunk Corners.  Alice does her best to be fair, of course,  but she is not in a position to see all sides of things.  For example, I know that Alice never thought I stood up for her properly in the matter of the fellow who came courting.  I refer, of course, to the man who called himself Nebuchadnezzar Jones, to  whom she was forced to present an exceptionally clear indication of her lack of interest in any form of romantic involvement.
   I might, it is true, have handled that situation in a more helpful manner.  The difficulty, of course, lay in the fact that I know very little about young girls, and still less about the sort of young woman that is Alice.  To be sure, there are unlikely to be any others quite like Alice, so it is wrong to speak of her “sort.”  Alice is, I believe and hope, in many ways unique.
   But I can see Alice giving me that particular look that says she doesn’t believe I am telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  She is still young enough to believe that she should know everything—and, perhaps, that her way of seeing things is the only way.
   I admit to being rather taken aback when Alice presented to me her concern that the young man who had watched her practicing her kicks and blocks down by the watercourse meant to court her.  It struck me as unlikely that such a young man would recognize the value of a young woman as unconventional as our Alice.  Still less did I trust his assertions that she was the most beautiful creature he’d seen.
   Alice is the child of my heart, and is a great deal more good-looking than she allows herself to appear.  But she is not, as he tried to tell her, the loveliest woman ever.
Thus, my suspicions were aroused when Alice reported to me that the gentleman—I use the term to offer the man the benefit of the doubt—had run on about her loveliness.  I would have trusted him farther had he simply said that he admired her strength and thought she would handle life on his homestead well.  I would not have liked him any the better, as I do not believe that a man should evaluate a potential mate as though she were a draft horse, but I should have known then exactly what his intentions might be.
   Because Mr. Jones took us both by surprise with his claims of being rendered nearly senseless by her beautiful presence, neither of us could immediately establish an appropriate response.  Being further uncertain of Alice’s own desires in this matter, I chose to keep my mouth shut.
   Now, I know that Alice will tell you that she made her feelings completely clear to me, and so I should think she did.  But I have known young women in my early life. . . though perhaps the least said of that the soonest mended.  I did choose to separate myself from this event, so that there should be no opportunity of reproach.

   In the event, of course, as Alice has made clear in her own narration of the events, keeping my mouth shut left me open to strong reproach indeed.  I left the young woman to resolve her romantic troubles on her own, and as a result she was forced to fight off an attack from out of the dark.
Though I will point out, as she will not, that Neb Jones never stood a chance.

   And yet. . . as Miss Alice would say, I am dancing around the truth.  If I am to be wholly honest, as was my intent in writing to you, I will say that I had no wish to encounter the young man for reasons of my own.
   Neb Jones was not, in fact, a stranger to me.  I believe that he actually came to Skunk Corners in search of me, with intent to wreak some form of revenge. 
   I met Mr. Jones on the train coming west.  He was, as I came to understand, running a con on what he would doubtless refer to as “suckers,” or “ignert greenhorns.”  That I was, in fact, as green as the hills in spring, I have already confessed to you.  I am not, however, a fool.  Though I was taken in my Mr. Jones’ gambit in the beginning, I soon saw that he was less than honest.  Further, I saw that he had “taken” several poor immigrants for sums that they could surely ill afford. 
   I therefore exposed the man, and assisted him to leave the train rapidly.  In that, I gathered, I had done him something of a favor.  The other victims of his efforts, having recovered their valuables, were in favor of more violent reprisals.
   Mr. Jones, however, seemed to have little appreciation of the manner in which I had saved him from a worse fate, and vowed revenge.  How he found me in Skunk Corners I do not know, but I had little desire to meet him, feeling that I would either be forced to treat him with violence or would become the brunt of his coarse ribaldry for my failure to initially recognize his falsehoods.
   I had not thought that he might cause trouble in town by other means.  I still am not certain if he attached himself to Alice because she was my pupil, or merely out of what she might call cussedness.  He may have thought to humiliate her, or he may have had some idea that she would be easy prey to a man with a tongue he apparently considered golden. 
   Had Alice been a different sort of girl, I would, of course, have intervened at an early date.  Naturally, she never knew that I watched all that he did, albeit discretely.  I had no wish for him to even learn for certain that the man he sought was in Skunk Corners, and in fact he did not.  I beg you to understand that this sprung not from any physical cowardice, but rather from a worse source: a fear that I would lose my hard-won standing in the community.  This I greatly regret.
   Nonetheless, I believe that the outcome of the incident proved better than I deserved.  To wit: Alice learned to make up her own mind about a possible suitor, with no advice from a perhaps too-respected elder. 
   She then learned to discourage him through a series of escalating tactics, from simply declining to associate with him, through the final discouragement by means of the very fighting skills I have been at pains to teach her.  Finally, she learned to speak up—and speak back—to her townspeople.  I do not think that Alice herself has realized it, but from that point forward, the denizens of Skunk Corners have listened to what she says.  Not only those who like her, but also those who dislike or distrust her, or are merely flummoxed—to use her own word—by such a one as our  Alice.

   She does not yet see it, and might not like it if she did, but Alice has become a leader in her community.

**********************************************************************************
Look for it free on Amazon Feb. 7-11: Love Middle Grade, Actually!  Sample The Ninja Librarian and 13 other stories for middle-grade readers, free to your Kindle.  Almost as good (because nothing is better than finding great new stories!): find the secret message and enter to win a Kindle Fire!

For more information, watch the trailer at the top of the sidebar.