Queen Esther & the Second Graders of Doom

“Second—” the pen bobbed again “—it’s time to start the ball rolling on the Celebration.” That seemed to surprise some of the women around the table. “Now, gals, every January we’re caught scrambling. I know we’re all just getting our feet underneath us with Sunday school for the year, but I can’t help thinking now’s the time to start planning.”

Celebration? Could that be that “little drama thing later in the year” Mark-o mentioned? That thing he distinctly described as “nothing you’ll have to worry about”? She’d taught school long enough to know that any event requiring several months’ worth of preparation could never be classified as “nothing much.” Most especially when parents were in charge. Essie shot a look to her brother out of the corner of her eye. He knew this was just a trial stint. He knew she and Doug weren’t sure they could make it on one income, and that Essie going back to work in the new year was a distinct possibility. Now there was this Celebration thing in the mix? If she did go back to work, Essie was pretty sure she couldn’t handle this on top of it.

“Wise indeed, Dahlia,” Mark said in a pastoral tone. “It does feel like we scramble just after the holidays, doesn’t it? But I do think we ought to tackle the Sunday school stuff first, as I doubt my skills are really required for Celebration discussions.”

Oh, yes, Mark-o, get out while you can. Remind me to thank you later when I’m hand-sewing second graders into sheep costumes….

“Sorry I’m late. Max forgot his trumpet again and I had to swing by school. I think I’m going to make him take up the piccolo and tie it around his neck.” A woman in jeans and a red sweater dumped her large canvas bag on the floor next to one of the empty chairs and turned toward the coffeepots. “One of these days I’ll make it on time to a meeting.”

“We wouldn’t recognize you if you did, Meg. Come on, you haven’t missed much at all.” Celia waved her arm and pulled out the chair Meg had chosen.

“Which reminds me,” Mark said. “I’ve clean forgotten the introductions. Ladies, this is my sister, Esther Walker. She just moved here with her husband and baby to help us with Mom and Pop. Some of you already know her as the second-grade boys Sunday school teacher. Essie, these are my school soldiers. The fine ladies who keep Bayside’s Christian education programs up and running.”

“Pastor Taylor’s sister, hmm?” said Meg, plunking herself down in the chair. “I was wondering how he’d wrangled a newcomer into that spot. You’re either a brave woman, or you owe your brother a very big favor.”

“Now Meg, be nice….”

“I taught the Doom Room one year. I speak from firsthand knowledge.”

The Doom Room? The Doom Room? Essie swallowed hard. Just exactly what is it I’ve promised to do?

“Meg,” said Celia, “no fair scaring our new friend here. Just because you’ve now upgraded to the compliant third-grade girls’ class is no reason to think…”

“Ladies,” interjected Mark for the second time that morning, “Essie can handle our little men. I’d say one state champion athlete against eight small boys is more than a fair fight.”

“State champion athlete, is it?” said Celia, flexing perfectly manicured fingers. “Good. You’ll need it. What event?”

“Shot put.” Essie waited the obligatory ten seconds it took everyone on Planet Earth to realize all female shot-put champions did not necessarily look like pro wrestlers or have names like “Uta.” It happened every time.

The pastel corner didn’t seem to know what to do with that information. Nola nodded her head in a show of respect, Jan merely raised a dark eyebrow. Meg, however, looked downright tickled. “Shot put? Well, that ought to do nicely. Wow. How much does one of those things weigh, anyway?”

“About the weight of your average second grader.” Essie amazed even herself with the zippy comeback.

“I’d share that with the class next week,” Celia added.

“I just might.” Even the pastel contingency managed a giggle at that. Adding his own voice of approval, Josh produced a loud, squeaky grunt and shifted in his carrier. “Excuse me, but it seems I have a little business to take care of.”

“Want me to get Sam to handle it?”

“No, thanks, I think I’ll spare her the joy of diaper changing.” Truth be told, Essie wasn’t even sure he needed a diaper change—she was just glad for a reason to leave the room before the dissection of Sunday school began. Those women in the corner looked like they were in possession of firm opinions on all kinds of subjects. If they had suggestions—those kind of parents always called them “suggestions” rather than the more truthful label of “complaints”—Essie was sure she’d rather hear them through Mark-o’s compassionate filter than straight from the source.

Essie picked up Josh’s carrier as a pointed “Well now!” from Dahlia signaled the evaluation starting gun.

Go easy on me, ladies. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in twelve weeks.

“They gave it at least a seven-point-oh,” whispered Mark as she returned. He accompanied that last remark with a discreet thumbs-up under the conference table.

“Bible Heroes’ it is, then?” Dahlia was saying. “Arthur has a friend whose son is majoring in children’s theater at BSU—a fine young Christian man, someone we can trust with a project like this. I feel certain we can draft him into scriptwriting.” Essie was both impressed and baffled. This was a church play they were talking about, wasn’t it? One of those little forty-minute drama things? Where she came from, church plays were bought from the script rack at the local Christian bookstore or whipped up by someone’s good-natured mother. Drama penned by an advanced degree theater major; well, that was pretty hot stuff.

From the way Dahlia put it, however, it sounded as if the committee was going to request a statement of faith and four references from the poor young man. She could see it now: Dahlia’s silver pen slashing its way through the poor young scriptwriter’s first drafts, editing, cutting, changing. Asking for the theological reasons for dressing the wandering Israelites in blue, rather than beige.

Three years of teaching had taught her to spot this type of parent. Essie was glad it wasn’t Dahlia’s son who’d sketched the belching apostle. Dahlia looked like the kind of mom who would write a long letter over something like that. A really long letter. Anyone with a pen that formidable would know how to use it.

Twenty minutes of discussion followed. After they gave her class the story of Zacchaeus, Essie didn’t catch much of the rest. Her brain was busy concocting the image of second-grade boys launching themselves off of piled-up classroom chairs while others shouted, “Zacchaeus, come down,” in their best deep Son-of-God voices. Evidently, each classroom was being assigned their own hero. Mr. Scriptwriter would be given his detailed marching orders, and the “Celebration of Bible Heroes” was born.

Dahlia snapped the cap on her pen, signaling the end of the meeting.

“Come on,” said Celia as she stuffed her notes into a canvas bag. “I’ve got a bit of time before I have to drop Sam off. We can go get you those grapefruit spoons.”

“Just give me a second.” Essie ducked back into the church’s administrative offices, leaving Celia to grin at Josh as he made faces at her from his carrier. Waving at the harried-looking secretary, Essie snagged a Post-it note and pen off the woman’s desk. She wrote, “Mark-o, call me” in her large handwriting and stuck it to Mark-o’s closed door.

September in San Francisco was feeling complicated, but evidently it was going to make February look like a walk in the park…if she even lasted that long.

Chapter 3

Stinky Whale Guts

“You’re not going to let Joshua chew on that thing, are you?” Dorothy Taylor eyed the evil implement Essie was about to hand the First-Ever Grandson.

“Actually, yes. It really works.” Essie assumed the position she’d held every waking moment for the past two days. Josh in one arm, grapefruit spoon in other hand. Chew, drool, repeat. Sleep for thirty minutes, wail, then begin again. Essie had decided she was developing a healthy hatred for teeth. Teeth=no sleep. No sleep=bad days and worse nights. She had begun scouring the baby books this morning to see how much longer it would be before Josh could hold his own spoon, thereby buying her perhaps forty-five minutes of uninterrupted sleep. Evidently that precious mercy wouldn’t be forthcoming for at least another month. She yawned involuntarily at the thought of so little sleep for so long. “He’s having such trouble cutting this first tooth. I hope they’re not all like this.”

Dorothy Taylor eyed the handle of the grapefruit spoon, now wobbling with every gummy chomp as it stuck out of Joshua’s tiny mouth. She frowned again. “I just don’t know, Essie. I never gave you or Mark any such thing. I remember I just woke up one day…”

“And noticed we had teeth. Yes, Mom, you’ve told me.” And trust me, it’s not helping to hear how you never went through any such thing. I’m already feeling so confident in my parenting skills. Really, it does wonders for you to hand me another reason to question things. Please, if you think of any more, don’t hesitate to bring them up. “How’s Dad liking the new doctor?”

“Oh, he argues with this one just like he did in New Jersey. Yesterday he told Dr. Einhart that he walks thirty minutes each day.”

“He what?”

“He spent ten minutes telling Dr. Einhart how he exercises each day.”

“Mom! That couldn’t be further from the truth. Why did you let him do that?”

Essie’s mom blinked. “Do what?”

“Lie to his doctor? It’s ridiculous.”

“But he’s supposed to walk each day. They’ve told him he should walk each day.”

Essie shot out a frustrated sigh. “Well, he doesn’t, does he? We both know he doesn’t.”

“Well, of course he doesn’t. His knees bother him.”

“Mom, we’ve been over this a gazillion times. If he’d walk more, his knees wouldn’t bother him, then he’d drop some of that weight, then his knees would bother him less. It’s just going to get worse if he keeps sitting there. No, no, it’s not just that, but sitting there and lying to his doctor.”

Mom crossed her arms. “I’m not going to make him look bad in front of his doctor.”

Essie wanted to scream. “This is not a popularity contest, this is Dad and his doctor. What’s the point of going to a doctor if you don’t actually tell him what’s going on?”

“How’s Doug, dear?” Mom clipped that thread of conversation clean off. It was quite clear no further discussion on the subject of honesty with one’s doctors would be allowed. Essie fought the urge to go find her father and shake him by the shoulders. Lord, help me. They sure won’t help themselves. Patience, just send gallons and gallons of patience. Right this minute, or I’m going to go out of my mind.

Essie let out a long, slow exhale, rolling her shoulders back as she watched Joshua inspect his thumb. “Doug’s doing fine. The new department has more people and more resources than he had in Jersey, so he’s happy. It’s been a good move for him.”

“That’s nice, dear. Have you talked about having another child? Soon?”

Essie popped her eyes wide open. “Mom, Josh is five months old!”

“I had you and Mark only a year apart. You played so well together.”

Oh, yes, Mom, I have such happy memories of tearing Mark-o apart in joyful siblinghood. Not to mention I’d like to get acquainted with the sight of my toes again.

“Really, Mom, it’s a bit early for that sort of thing.”

“Nonsense. You’re thirty-one. Life won’t go on forever you know. An old woman can pine for grandchildren, can’t she?”

Essie didn’t quite know how to convince her mother she didn’t want to be pregnant for every waking moment of her thirties. Deflect the attention. “You know, there’s always Mark-o. He could have children. He’s married, you know. Married people do that sort of thing.”

Her mother waved a hand as if that were an absurd suggestion. “Oh, yes, but Mark is so very busy with that church. And Peggy—well, I just don’t see Peggy being ready to have children soon. She’s just not that motherly type.”

So I should pop out a gaggle of grandchildren to compensate? And aren’t Doug and I busy? Now that I’m at home with Joshua, is procreation my only purpose in life?

“You, my little Queen Esther.” Essie watched her mother burst into a wide smile. “You were always meant to be a mother. I always knew you’d give me precious, beautiful grandbabies to love.” She scooped up Joshua just as he was dozing off, and made loud snuggly noises into his neck.

Which, of course, sent him into a full-fledged wail.

“I just never thought I’d see the day my Essie fed her children silverware.” Her disapproval of the now-revered grapefruit spoon trick was almost palpable. “Really. No wonder he cries so much.”

He cries so much because you just did the unthinkable: you woke a sleeping baby. A sleeping cranky baby. My sleeping cranky baby that almost never sleeps. Mother-r-r…

“How can such a darling boy be so miserable?” Dorothy made a sour face and handed her “precious grandbaby” back to Essie, obviously unwilling to hold anything making that much noise, even if it was flesh of her flesh.

“He’s teething, Mom. Don’t you remember how miserable a toothache is?” Essie fished around on the couch for the spoon, mentally convincing herself it didn’t need reboiling just because it had endured forty-five seconds on her mother’s couch cushions. She returned it to Joshua’s gaping mouth.

Within fifteen seconds Mount Joshua ceased to erupt. With a dying chorus of wet gurgles, Josh settled into a slow, relieved chew. Essie felt the spoon’s handle wobble up and down as Josh’s besieged gums found their solace. “I know it’s weird,” Essie replied to her mother’s subsequent frown. “But it works. See? It works. I don’t care how, I don’t care why, I just know it works. If putting him in purple socks worked, I’d probably do that, too.”

The front door pushed open and Essie’s dad shuffled in, clutching a white paper pharmacy bag. Mark-o entered behind him, holding a paper bag of groceries. It took Bob Taylor four full minutes to make it from the front door to his permanent spot on the recliner beside the couch. He grunted with every step, and groused with every breath about “those knuckleheaded quacks and their useless pills.”

“I’m gonna spend my pension at that pharmacy,” he grumbled as he eased his large frame into the worn chair. “Every day and every dollar’s gonna buy some drug executive a shiny new yacht.”

“Now, Pop—” Mark-o had put on his counseling persona; Essie could tell by his voice. “If it weren’t for those useless pills, you’d be in the hospital looking at a shiny new wheelchair.”

“Baloney.” Essie’s dad tossed the bag on the coffee table in disgust. “I’m slow, but I’m still moving. Since when is it a sin to get old and slow?”

“At your young years,” Mark shot back, his fraying patience beginning to show through the practiced calm, “it’s a sin.”

“So’s lying.” The words jumped out of Essie’s sleep-deprived mouth before she could think better of it. “As in lying to your doctor.”

“Oh, honey…” began her mother.

“Pop, all she’s…”

Pop’s next booming question stopped the argument in its tracks: “What on earth is that in my grandson’s mouth?”

“Now, who knows the story of Jonah?”

Four cookie-crumbed hands shot up. Essie passed out a second set of napkins before she allowed Justin to answer.

“He got stuck inside a fish.”

Essie smiled. “He sure did. You were listening in assembly this morning, Justin. Who knows how he got there?”

Stanton, a tall boy in pressed pants and gelled hair, strained to get his hand as high as possible. He yipped a series of small “Me! Me! Me!” s. Frantic to be picked, he seemed oblivious to the fact that his was the only hand aloft.

“Stanton?”

“I bet he was swimming. My dad, he took us swimming once, on vacation, and I was really worried about the fishes when we were swimming. I didn’t want to swim where the fishes were, but he told me pools don’t have fishes,’ specially hotel pools. And we were in a hotel ’cuz we were on vacation and stuff, ’cuz we went on vacation over Christmas and we got to go somewhere warm so we could go swimming, but my big brother got in trouble ’cuz he…” The entire speech whooshed out of him in a single breath.

“Okay,” Essie cut in, placing her hand on Stanton’s arm. The boy was wearing a watch. A fancy one. Who buys designer watches for their eight-year-old? Dahlia Mannington, of course. For all his dapper duds, Stanton was a sweet boy with tender green eyes and a near insatiable appetite for attention.

“Swimming is fun. But Jonah wasn’t swimming for fun. Can anyone tell me why Jonah was in the water?”

“It’s hot where he lives!” said Decker Maxwell, as he tipped his chair back far enough to send himself head over heels. The resulting laughter stopped any hope of education dead in its tracks for the next five minutes, as all the other boys tried immediately to follow suit. Essie finally had to resume her lesson on the floor in a circle, without the benefit of chairs. She tried to ignore the sensation of her legs falling asleep as she patiently suggested that Jonah was running from God’s commands.

“Did Jonah get a time-out? I wanna do my time-outs in whale guts!” Peter, a smaller boy with wildly curly hair and an obsession with all things bug-and animal-related, pushed his glasses back up on his face as he joined the conversation.

“Well,” replied Essie, catching a pencil as Stanton sent it through the air in another boy’s direction, “it was sort of a time-out. In one way, God saved Jonah because he wouldn’t have survived being thrown out into the middle of the ocean like that. But in another way, God gave Jonah a good long time to think about what he’d done.”

“My mom does that,” grumbled Peter. “In my ‘Think It Over Chair.’” He crossed his arms over his chest in an exaggerated fashion that made his next comment almost unnecessary. “I hate my Think It Over Chair.”

“Discipline isn’t much fun, is it?” Essie passed around the large blue whales she’d spent two hours cutting out last night.

“What’s dicey-pline?”

“Di-sci-pline.” Essie made a mental note to strike any word over three syllables from her lesson plan. “It’s what your mom or dad does to help you think about something wrong you’ve done.”

“You mean like getting spanked?” Steven Bendenfogle offered. Essie continually felt sorry for a little boy with such a mouthful of a last name. She guessed Steven’s meek demeanor came from endless teasing.

“That’s one kind of discipline, yes.”

“God spanked somebody?” Steven seemed scandalized at the idea. “Wow, I bet God hits really hard.” Essie wondered if Steven even realized he was rubbing his backside protectively. Which made her wonder if Steven had considerable personal experience. Did people still spank their kids?

Would she ever spank Josh? It seemed hard to imagine. She couldn’t fathom doing anything like that to her son. Then again, when Decker took the paper whale lovingly prepared for him, crumpled it without a moment’s hesitation, and threw it straight into Steven’s face—hard—Essie could see where a spanking might have its uses.

Well, she’d taken on this class as a chance to see what young boys were really like. Oh, Essie, she chided herself, when will you realize it isn’t always great when you get what you pray for?

“God has never spanked someone, Steven. He— Decker, uncrumple that whale right now, you’re going to need it in a minute. And say you’re sorry to Steven. Nobody throws anything at anyone in this class. God’s so smart, He can find different ways to let us know we’ve not obeyed.”

“I still like the whale guts,” said Peter, obviously disappointed that a stint in whale innards wasn’t in his immediate future. “I bet they smell really gross.”

The suggestion sent the boys into a flurry of stinky adjectives, each in a full-out competition to find the grossest possible description for how bad whale guts would smell. How can I hope to teach obedience here, Lord, when I can’t get past the stinky whale guts?

Just when she thought she could restore order, Peter remembered the lyrics to “Gobs and Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts,” a revolting camp song Essie was horrified to discover had still survived even from her childhood. Within seconds all decorum was lost. Essie stood up as fast as her thirty-one-year-old knees would allow, bellowed out a menacing, “Settle down!” in her most authoritative voice and flicked the light switch. It sent the room into darkness.

That shocked ’em. All noise and movement stilled.

“When I turn these lights on, I want everyone to pick up their paper whale and come back quietly to the table. Okay?”

A few whimpered “Okay” s signaled her return to superiority.

“Now,” Essie said in a calm voice as she turned the lights back on, “I want each of you to think about something that you know you should do, but is hard. Something that you know you have to do, but you don’t always want to do. Those things are like Jonah’s trip to Ninevah. We’re going to write those things on your whales. Raise your hand when you have an idea of what to write, and I’ll come help you.”

Peter’s hand shot up first. “I hate getting my allergy shots.”

Essie nodded in agreement. “That’s a good example. It’s no fun, but you know you’ll feel better when you get them, right?”

“Yep, but they hurt.”

Essie wrote “allergy shots” in large letters on Peter’s whale. “When you get them, you can remember that you’re being obedient, and doing what you need to, even though it’s tough. God is very happy when we do obedient things like that.”

Soon the other boys chimed in with their ideas. “Practice piano.” “Be nice to my new baby sister.” “Go to bed.” And a host of other examples until one little response gave her pause.

“Like my new stepmom,” said Alex Faber quietly. “She’s my third stepmom,” he added, kicking his chair with his foot over and over. “I don’t like her. And I don’t think she likes me very much.”

What do you say to something like that?

“It’s hard to be the new person,” Essie responded. “It’s hard to get used to new people. What makes you think your stepmom doesn’t like you?”

“She said so.” Alex kept kicking the chair.

Oh, my.

“I wonder if that’s really true, Alex. Grown-ups have a funny way of saying things sometimes that little boys don’t always understand.” Essie squatted down beside him, warning her knees to cooperate in the name of human compassion. “Can you remember what she said?”

“Well—” Alex took his crayon and began drawing swirly circles on his whale as he talked. “She was talking to Dad at night. I wasn’t s’posed to be up, but I was thirsty so I got a drink and I heard them talking down the hall. You know, in Dad’s room. Vicki—that’s her name, Vicki—didn’t have kids before she married Dad. She was telling him how she didn’t like being a mom so quick.” Alex looked at her with hard eyes. “But she’s not my mom. My mom’s in Minnosoda now.”

“That’s hard.”

“Vicki doesn’t now how to make peanut butter sandwiches or play Uno or do any mom stuff. My sister calls her Icky Vicki. That’s when Vicki gets all mad and locks herself in the bathroom and tells me to go play outside.”

Essie didn’t think it would be wise to admit that she’d have liked to lock herself in the church ladies’ room a couple of times in the last few Sundays.

She took Alex’s hand, stilling the flow of crayon swirls for a moment. “You’re right, Alex, that is a hard thing. And God would want you to learn to like Vicki. And I think He’ll help you if you ask Him.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “I dunno.”

“I do. Every family’s got an Icky Vicki. Someone who’s hard to like. But sometimes, the Icky Vickies turn out to be the nicest people if you just give them a chance.”

“Yeah,” offered Justin with sudden enthusiasm. “I thought my Uncle Arthur was really boring until he showed me how he can take his teeth out. All of ’em.”