It is a new moon. We stand out in the backyard, minutes before it darkens and there are a thousand geese flying over us. They are everywhere; honking, swooping, knitting together a series of large “V” formations. They soar and dip and the “V” dips and bends and shapes and re-shapes and closes and opens and then they are directly over us, dotting the slate gray sky. I hold a newspaper over my head just in case. In seconds, they are over the house and heading off in another direction. They are gone and it is silent. It is time to go back into the house.

I ride the wave, the tsunami of 1,300 souls into the school building and I am swept up in the energy. Children are everywhere. My little one spots me in that vast sea of people. “I drunk my pills. I drunk my pills”, he shrieks with his smile stretched tightly between his cheeks. He asks if he can come with me today. I assent and he gives me an aggressive hug and we part ways in the middle of the hallway. He heads off to the stairwell toward the first grade wing and I slowly climb the 44 stairs to my office; 16, 6, turn the corner, 11 and 11. I counted these stairs my first year of teaching because I wanted to know what I was up against. I hide away on the third floor where I sit quietly, drink a cup of hot tea and gather my thoughts. I recover from riding the wave of souls.

“Tomorrow my dad gets out of jail. He gonna be free”. I ask simply, “What will you do to celebrate?” “I’m gonna hug him”. The other child chimes in, “…my other daddy, he’s not getting out yet”. “How long?” I ask. “Oh…50 days, I’ll be 18.” The little one’s sense of time is convoluted at best. They sit together for awhile playing with some Legos they brought out when they came to see me. They are building guns. They are not my students but I  work them into my group in order to give them some stability, to give the classroom teachers some peace and since they don’t bother my other students, we have somewhat of a truce declared in this corner of the hallway.

“My teacher don’t like me”, the one offers. “How do you know your teacher doesn’t like you?” He moves some of the blocks around the table in a circle. “She yells all the time. People who yell don’t like each other”. I am silent for a moment. Then I offer this thought, “I don’t have yelling in my house”. They both look at me silently. “My dad yells”, he continues. I respond, “But I thought he was in jail”. “He is in jail, but he yells at me on the phone. They have phones in jail”. He looks at me as if I were slow.

I hear the sound of a classroom door opening. I look up. A little head pops out, looks furtively from side to side…and then she bolts. Skinny with bare legs and knee high boots, she races click clack, click clack down the hall toward the cafeteria. She disappears around the corner. She is our daily runner. The going gets tough after breakfast and she has learned to run. All appropriate phone calls are made. Security is alerted. The hall is quiet for awhile. My two go back to building guns and then I think I should intervene. “Let’s not build guns”, I suggest. “Let’s make pies! Look at all the colors we have”. I start to take the guns apart and I begin to pile my pies. The two watch. They are not yet convinced. “The green ones are apple. The purple are grape pies. We have pumpkin, blueberry, lemon, vanilla cream, cherry, chocolate, fudge, key lime and strawberry. Look at all the pies we have, boys!” I am determined to beat swords into pie at this point in the morning. The boys are convinced and begin to talk about what type of pie is their favorite. We agree that grape is too sweet.

I hear the click of the heavy door behind me and as I turn, our little runner re-surfaces. I smile at her and say, “Oh, there you are. You know everyone is looking for you”. She gives no answer and there is no facial expression as she pulls open the other door and begins the circuit again…heading click clack, click clack down the hall toward the cafeteria. She’s good at evading security; quite a skill at age 6. We go on building pies and my “real” students keep busy at their work. A door opens again and a teacher sticks her head out the door. She looks at me and asks, “Have you seen so and so?” I nod and point in the direction of the cafeteria. All systems are alerted again. Eventually the child is returned to the classroom and when the teacher questions an administrator what they would suggest she do now, she receives the answer that she should try “being firm”. That should do it.

On my ride home in the evening I watch the sky darkening from striated blues to copper and then to gray and I see geese. I listen to the local NPR station and hear that the Rochester City School District is holding a large teacher recruitment job fair on Saturday. There will be “on the spot hires” for those who qualify, which I find to be rather strange until I learn that the district is still trying to fill unfilled positions for THIS school year. The reporter drones on. Apparently the district is looking for “mission driven” individuals.

I thank God for the clear, open fields with the lone harvester pulling up the last of the dried copper field corn. I am focused on pie and on Thanksgiving and on the ordering of my private world.