(Peggy is narrating)
Marc sighed. “I always get that first day on the job.” He glared at Ms. Webber. “Please pronounce it ‘Du Kayne’ by the way.” The man’s basso voice even in quiet sternness could threaten to rattle windows, and so she winced from this gentle reprimand.
He nodded toward me and the other kids. “Single file, ladies and gentlemen.” With his stature, salt and pepper military crewcut, and a short brush of beard, he cut an intimidating swath for us to follow through the hallway.
We arrived at an empty room, seating ourselves in desks arranged in a semicircle. He drew his name on the front whiteboard in outstanding Palmer Method cursive – Marc DuQuesne, Ph. D.
Perkins, a blonde haired blue eyed boy, raised his hand.
DuQuesne rubbed his chin. “Did I call for questions?”
Perkins blinked. “No.”
“No, what?” boomed this lumberjack of a man.
Perkins blanched. “No, sir!” he squeaked.
The man grinned. “I have a brighter class than usual this year!” It was also a tinier class than usual, just seven rather than the usual twenty five or even thirty. “Name, and what did you want to know?”
“Robert Lee Perkins, sir. Your last name is Fudd. Why isn’t your first name Elmer?” A few kids laughed on hearing this. Now Perkins was a young man who got away with murder using his humor. I wanted to watch DuQuesne rip him a new one for trying that here.
Instead, the teacher shrugged. “Every kid gets one free chance in my classroom to seriously screw up. You just burned up yours. ‘Ph. D.’ is pronounced Doctor. I am a professor of physics, visiting the Spokane Institute of Technology.” He then snapped his fingers at me, slumped in my chair in back. “Wake up, Miss Wallflower!”
I cringed. “Uh… Margaret Spencer, sir. Can I ask a question?”
He smiled. “Fire when ready!”
“Does special math mean slow math, sir?”
DuQuesne winked. “The ‘special’ in this case stands for ‘political’. I teach without salary, as a volunteer, except for gas and food. You seven are the highest scoring cluster for your grade in math for the district, so let us review factoring of two term polynomials.”
He wrote five sets on the board, produced a stopwatch, then clicked it, barking, “Go!”
The first four were routine, but the last was a bear: x2–4x + 13.
I noticed my classmates had their pencils down, so I slammed myself mentally for being such a doofus as to be the slowest.
Sometimes I got insights closing my eyes and praying to my ‘math angel’. Usually the result was a glimpse, but POW! Blinding white light with flaming red lines and figures hurt my eyeballs.
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