There was only one class left for the day. I promised myself, no matter what, I wouldn’t make another teacher angry. It turned out to be a difficult promise to try to keep.
GOING NOWHERE
I guess every teacher had his own idea of how to teach a class at Edgeview. Mr. Briggs obviously belonged to the crowd that thought a teacher should be a buddy and a pal. Ms. Crenshaw was really into getting the class involved. Mr. Parsons was one of those teachers who experimented with all sorts of methods. Miss Nomad seemed to think a smile and a cheerful attitude would work wonders.
Mr. Langhorn, the geography teacher, had a more traditional approach. Mr. Langhorn depended on discipline from start to finish. Strict discipline. As he stomped into the room, I sensed a change in everyone’s mood. They had that pathetic look that a dog gets when it expects a whack on the snout with a rolled-up newspaper. Mr. Langhorn stood at his desk and glared at us for a moment. He wore his hair in a crew cut and it almost looked like he ironed his suits. I had the feeling he spent a good chunk of each day polishing his shoes.
Even though everyone was reasonably quiet, Mr. Langhorn began class by shouting, “Quiet! No more talking!” His voice was hoarse, like it had suffered from a lifetime of yelling. Little bits of spit sprayed from his mouth. I was happy the seats Cheater had grabbed for us weren’t in the front row. Being close to Mr. Langhorn for a whole class would probably be a lot like taking a warm shower.
For the next hour, he filled us with geography facts. Anytime anybody fidgeted a little or whispered, Mr. Langhorn shouted. I remembered him yelling, shouting, ranting, raving, and snarling. I remembered him pointing at kids and demanding silence. I remembered him calling us all sorts of names. But I didn’t remember a single fact he told us about geography—not one ocean or river or capital. I knew he talked about geography. When he wasn’t yelling, he was teaching us about some country—I think it was in South America. But as hard as I tried, at the end of the period I couldn’t recall a single fact he’d mentioned.
That wouldn’t have been a big problem, except that as the class was ending, Mr. Langhorn strutted from desk to desk, firing questions at us. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d failed to absorb the lesson. Nobody came up with answers. This definitely didn’t please him. By the time he got to me, he was not a happy teacher.
“You,” he snapped, bending over until his face was just inches from mine. He smelled like stale tobacco and sugar-free gum. “Tell me one thing you’ve learned today.”
I looked around the room, hoping for a clue. The walls were lined with travel posters. There were beautiful pictures of exotic places—Portugal, Singapore, New Guinea.
“Are you an idiot?” Mr. Langhorn asked. He grabbed my jaw and yanked my head back toward him. “Don’t look around the room. Look at me when I’m talking to you. Did I just waste my time? Can’t you give me one simple fact?” He let his hand drop from my face.
“Here’s a fact,” I yelled. “You’ve never been to any of these places. You just talk about them.” It was a shot in the dark. I mean, most people don’t get to travel a lot. I’d never been anywhere. For all I knew, maybe Mr. Langhorn had flown all over the world. But it was like Torchie’s picture of Mars. You don’t fill a room with posters of places you’ve been. You fill it with dreams. Still, as the words I’d just shouted echoed in my mind, I figured it wasn’t something that would get me in much trouble.
Wrong again.
Mr. Langhorn got redder. He leaned closer and grabbed the edges of my desk. I expected him to pick up the desk and break it across his knee. Apparently, I’d hit on the truth, and it didn’t make him happy. He stared at me for another minute. The bell rang. He stood up and backed away. “Class dismissed,” he snarled.
I got up slowly. I still expected him to hit me or twist my head off. But I got out through the doorway in one piece.
“Martin, wait up.”
I turned toward Mr. Briggs, who was jogging down the hallway.
“See you upstairs,” Torchie said. He headed off. Cheater went the other way down the hall. I guess he was going to the library.
“Yeah?” I asked Mr. Briggs when he reached me.
“What you said before. Maybe part of that is true.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s all true. But what I said was true, too. I am here if you need someone to talk to. Okay?”
“Sure.” I backed up a step. Just because he understood physics and chemistry didn’t mean he had any chance of understanding me. “Is that all?”