Stoney Ridge 03 - The Lesson Read online

  He looked at her. “What are you doing up there?”

  “Hanging pictures.” Startled by his sudden appearance, she felt her face grow warm, so she reached over to smooth a piece of tape out against the window. “What are you doing here?”

  “Jenny forgot a book she wanted to finish reading tonight. Which desk is hers?”

  She pointed to the far desk in the back row.

  Chris crossed the room, opened the desktop, and plucked a book out. “You shouldn’t be teetering on a rickety desktop when you’re alone in the schoolhouse. You could fall and hit your head and no one would know until morning.”

  She started to climb down because she had reached as far as she could on that desktop. “That’s true. That’s actually how my mother died.”

  Chris helped her down. “Then you should definitely know better.” He was so tall he didn’t need to stand on top of a desk. She handed him the pictures and he taped each one up, more precisely and evenly than she had been doing. He came to a picture of a snowy owl and stopped. “This should be hanging in a museum.”

  “I know. It was drawn by Eugene Miller. He’s been my most difficult student and my most rewarding one. Both.”

  Chris looked at her. “Sounds like Samson as a foal. Stubborn and feisty. Every day was a challenge. But he’s the one I’ve learned the most from.” He taped Eugene’s picture up on the wall. “I love that horse.”

  The way he said it touched M.K. She didn’t know many men who would admit they loved an animal. They talked about the scholars’ artwork as he continued to tape the pictures to the window. It struck her that she and Chris were actually having a conversation, getting to know each other, without any need for her to have to apologize for something stupid she had done to him. First time.

  She made the mistake of looking up into his eyes, which were as blue as the sky on a clear autumn afternoon. She felt breathless, as if she were treading water and trying not to drown. Think, think, think. Get my mind on something besides his beautiful blue eyes. “Tell me about your family, Chris. Where did you grow up?”

  A shadow passed over Chris’s face. “Raised on a farm outside a town you probably never heard of.”

  Oh. That was it. It was as if someone had turned the lights off. She had frightened him off again. When would she ever get it right?

  Silently, they worked through the last few pictures, then he handed her the tape dispenser. “Did you ever send away for a passport?”

  She hesitated. He remembered that?

  He read her mind. “The application you dropped that day I passed you on the road. That was before you turned me in to the sheriff.”

  Sheesh! What a memory. Would he ever let that go? “I did,” she finally admitted. “It will take awhile before it arrives, though.”

  “Why did you want one? Are you planning a trip to Canada?”

  He was gazing into her eyes, and suddenly, she lost her train of thought altogether. It took her a moment to remember the question. “Uh . . . yes. Canada. Maybe Mexico.” She sighed. “Shanghai, Borneo, Istanbul, Paris. Those are just some of the places I want to go to someday. I want to see the whole world.”

  Chris gave a two-note whistle, one up, one down. “Why?”

  Why? “Because . . .” Why? Why? “Because it’s exciting. And interesting. And fascinating to see other places. Other people and other cultures.” There. That was why.

  No. That wasn’t why. She had a restive search going on inside of her. She wanted to discover someplace that made her say, “This is it! This is what I’ve been looking for.”

  The sound was so faint she couldn’t be sure, but she suddenly realized that she was saying these thoughts out loud. She wondered if she might be losing her mind. It was entirely possible. She blamed teaching. Too overwhelming. She hoped it was getting too dark in the schoolhouse for Chris to notice her flushed cheeks.

  He smiled. A genuine one. He wasn’t laughing at her. “My grandmother would have answered that in a hurry.”

  “What would she have said?”

  He picked the book up from Jenny’s desk. “She would have said there’s nothing out there that isn’t right under your nose.” He started toward the door.

  “What would you be, if you weren’t born Amish?” she blurted, suddenly wanting him to stay.

  “I’d be doing exactly what I’m doing right now.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Fixing up a house. Planning to start a horse breeding farm on Samson’s fine lineage. Hoping for a farm of my own one day.” He stopped and glanced at her. “And if I weren’t born Amish, I’d become Amish.”

  One thing about Chris Yoder—he was not one to linger. He started toward the door again, so she grabbed her sweater and keys to follow him out.

  “So if things were different, if you weren’t born Amish, and you could be anything in the world, what would you be?”

  “I suppose . . .” Should she tell him? This was her deepest secret, after all. “I suppose I would be . . . a detective.”

  He groaned. “That should put fear in the hearts of all criminals.”

  “I would love to solve mysteries and help catch criminals. Though,” she glanced at him, “I suppose there are some who think my reputation as a detective might not have gotten off to a very good start.”

  He guffawed. “Might not have?”

  She gave him a playful punch on his arm and he ducked away, but it caused her to miss a step on the porch and she lost her balance. He reached out to steady her and somehow ended up with his hands around her waist. She put her hands up against his chest—her face was so close to his that she could even smell the pine soap he showered with—and before she thought twice, she closed her eyes and lifted her chin, expecting him to kiss her.

  Nothing. Nothing happened.

  When she blinked her eyes open, he was looking at her strangely, as if she might be a little sun touched. He released his hands from her waist as if she were a hot potato. He moved backward one step and held up Jenny’s book.

  “I got what I came for. So . . . uh . . . so long.” He swiveled on his heels and walked away.

  Oh. Oh. She felt a massive disappointment. Massive.

  Jimmy Fisher had two serious things weighing on his mind, and that was unusual for him. First, he needed to find a way to convince Chris Yoder to loan Samson to him for a quick lap or two around Domino Joe’s racetrack. Second, he needed to convince M.K. Lapp that she loved him.

  First things first. He had done everything—dropped hints, offered to barter—everything but ask Chris outright for the use of Samson. He didn’t know Yoder all that well, and he was one of those guys who kept his cards close to his vest. That was an expression Jimmy had picked up on the racetracks and liked to use. In the right company, of course. Never around his mother. But there was something about Chris’s manner that made Jimmy hesitate to ask to borrow Samson. That, and he could probably beat Jimmy to a jelly if he took a notion to.

  Today, he stopped by Chris’s house with the intention of directing the conversation to the temporary loan of Samson. Somehow, he ended up helping Chris patch shingles on the roof before winter arrived. Chris was up on the roof, bareheaded and without a coat, though there was a bitter wind. He was muscled like a bull, tight as a tree. One after another, in a couple of mighty blows, Chris drove the nails into the shingles. Jimmy tried to keep up and finally just became Chris’s assistant—handing him nails and shingles as he needed them.

  Jimmy kept getting close to the topic of Samson, but Chris was preoccupied with how many more shingles he needed and didn’t pay him any mind. That was the way it went with Chris. If he didn’t want to answer your question, he’d just pretend you hadn’t said anything.

  Finally, Jimmy just came out with it. “Chris, I just need Samson one time. Just one little race. Half a day, and he’ll be back in the barn. Or . . . garage. Whatever you call it.”

  Chris was on the other side of the roof peak, peering down at the front of the
house.

  “One time, Chris. That’s all I’m asking for. I’m an expert horseman. You can have complete confidence in me.” Still, Chris ignored him. Or maybe he couldn’t hear him?

  Jimmy climbed to the peak to see what Chris was staring at. M.K. Lapp had driven up in the buggy with Cayenne. Jenny climbed out of the buggy and M.K. leaned out the window to hand a pie basket to her. M.K. looked up at the roof and gave a small wave with her hand. “We brought some extra apple pies!” she shouted up to Chris and Jimmy after she climbed out of the buggy. “Come down and try a slice while it’s still warm!”

  M.K.’s timing couldn’t have been worse. Jimmy needed to nail down borrowing Samson with Chris. Now. No distractions, even for Fern’s apple pie and the girl who was destined to be his future missus. Time was running out. “So, what do you say?”

  “Sure, whatever,” Chris said absently, watching M.K. cross to the house, and the way she gathered her skirts. “I sure do like apple pie. I sure do.”

  That was a yes, Jimmy concluded.

  M.K. rode better than a mile in silence. Her chin was set and she gripped the reins. For the last two weeks, she had taken Erma’s advice and made a point to visit each of her pupils at their home. It was amazing what layers of understanding she had uncovered, even though she had known these families all her life.

  Barbara Jean’s mother seemed to be in very low spirits since this new baby had been born. She seemed frail and unhappy and overwhelmed. No wonder Barbara Jean constantly worried about her mother. M.K. was going to ask her sister Sadie to go fix her up with one of those teas or remedies she concocted. Sadie was good at helping new moms get over the blues.

  Here was another thing that surprised M.K.: she had known that Anna Mae was an only child, but she never thought much about it. As she sat in the kitchen of the Glicks’ home, she noticed that everything revolved around Anna Mae. M.K. was the youngest in the Lapp family, and nothing had ever revolved around her. Nothing. Not ever.

  The Glicks had invited M.K. to stay for dinner, which she did, and ate a meal that was customized to suit Anna Mae’s peculiar tastes. Everything was beige because Anna Mae didn’t like to eat things with too much color or texture: meatloaf without onions, white bread, mashed potatoes. No vegetables or fruit because she didn’t like them. Even the chocolate cookies didn’t have walnuts, because Anna Mae thought walnuts tasted yucky.

  On the way home from the Glicks’, M.K. had two thoughts. One: what in the world would Fern have done with a child like Anna Mae? And two: Danny Riehl had better watch out—because Anne Mae Glick was a girl who got what she wanted. And she wanted Danny Riehl.

  The last pupil to visit was Eugene Miller. She had held it off as long as possible. Dread swept her as she turned Cayenne into the long lane that led to the Millers’. She smelled the farm before it ever came into view: pigs. The smell watered her eyes. She had a fondness for most animals, but she took exception to pigs.

  The house was in worse shape than the barn. M.K. turned Cayenne to the hitching post by the never-shoveled-out barn and climbed down out of the buggy. She made her way gingerly to the house—everyone knew you wanted to be careful where you stepped around the Miller farm. The only time it was mildly cleaned up was when it was the Millers’ turn to host Sunday church, once a year. Deacon Abraham would ask for a work frolic for the Millers, two Sundays before they were due to host church, and there was always a quiet shuffling in the seats as people were loathe to volunteer. Finally, Amos would raise his hand and others would follow suit.

  M.K. knocked on the door but no one answered. She turned around and shielded her eyes from the sun, and then she saw Eugene crossing over from the barn, a pitchfork in his hand.

  “Why are you here?” he hissed as he approached her.

  “I’ve been visiting everyone’s home, Eugene. I just wanted—”

  The door opened then and a large, grim-looking man appeared. Eugene’s father. His dark mean eyes shifted from Eugene to M.K. and back to Eugene. “What do you want?”

  “Good afternoon.” M.K. tried to make her voice sound casual.

  “Daddy, she’s my teacher,” Eugene said.

  Could she have heard him right? Did M.K. hear the word “daddy” coming out of the usually sneering lips of Eugene Miller?

  He pointed to Eugene. “Is he giving you any trouble?”

  M.K. glanced at Eugene, who had lost all color in his face. He seemed to shrink the closer he got to his father. “No. No trouble at all.” She turned back to Eugene’s father and said, rather primly, as she smoothed the wrinkles of her dress, “I just wanted to stop by and say hello. To let you know that Eugene has been a real . . . pleasure . . . to have in the classroom.”

  Eugene’s father looked suspicious. “He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.”

  M.K. looked at Eugene and felt a wave of pity for him. “I think he’s one of the smartest eighth graders I’ve ever taught.”

  Eugene’s father lifted a bushy eyebrow. “Ain’t you new at teaching?”

  She pulled out a manila folder. “I thought you might want this.” She handed him the drawing of the snowy owl. “Eugene drew this. Isn’t it wonderful?” She wasn’t quite sure her voice carried a seasoned teacher-authority as she wanted it to, but she did the best she could under the circumstances.

  Eugene’s father squinted his eyes at the drawing. He grunted, gave Eugene the once-over, then, to M.K.’s horror, he wadded it up into a ball and tossed it on the ground. “That’s how you’ll give the boy a big head.” He turned to go back into the house, stopping at the threshold to point at Eugene. “Get back out to the field with your brothers. Farms don’t run themselves.” He shut the door behind him, muttering something about “Just useless.”

  M.K. bent down to pick up the drawing and smooth it out.

  Eugene clenched his jaw.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. She saw a glassy sheen in his eyes.

  He spat out an unrepeatable word before running out to the field.

  Chris woke up one morning to a silent world. No birdsong, no wind rattling the windows. Groggily he lay there, wondering why he felt as if his ears were stuffed with cotton. The strange grayish light that filtered through the window slowly registered on him. The world outside was covered with a blanket of snow.

  During breakfast, Jenny complained bitterly about the snow. “That schoolhouse is going to be freezing.”

  “There’s a heater in there,” Chris said. “A big thing. It should warm that room up quick.”

  “Teacher M.K. doesn’t use it,” Jenny said sourly. “She says it’s good for our brains to be slightly chilled.” She shivered. “My fingers are so cold in that room that I can’t even hold a pencil.”

  Chris thought about that for a while as he ate his watery oatmeal. Jenny had been complaining about the chill in the schoolroom for a few weeks now, ever since the weather had turned brisk. Why wouldn’t Mary Kate use the heater? Then it dawned on him. Of course! He bolted from his chair and grabbed his coat and hat from the wall peg. “I’ve got to go. I’ve already fed Samson. Turn him into the paddock before you leave for school.”

  As he hurried down the street to the schoolhouse, he found himself grinning. He loved the first real snowfall of the year, damp and clinging, like winter was trying to decide if it was ready to come yet. He picked up his pace when he saw a small black-bonneted figure down the road. He broke into a jog.

  “You know, Jenny has been complaining about the temperature in the schoolhouse lately,” he said when he caught up with Mary Kate. “But I told her just to wear an extra sweater or two. That her teacher must be feeling the need to save coal.”

  M.K.’s cheeks were red from the cold air and her brown eyes were snapping. “Absolutely. It’s important for the children to learn to be frugal.”

  “Then she started wearing mittens all day, and scarves and ear muffs. Then she asked to borrow my coat. I told her that her teacher must have a pretty good reason to keep the schoolhouse wel
l chilled.”

  “Well, the theory is that cold helps to keep them awake. Especially the big boys.”

  “Or maybe . . . the teacher doesn’t know how to get the heater started.”

  Mary Kate stopped short, opened her mouth to say something. Snapped it shut. She looked up at him with those dark-fringed eyes. “Maybe I forgot to pay attention when Orin Stoltzfus was giving me his lengthy tutorial on the fussy heater.” She cringed. “Oh Chris, I have tried to get it started every morning for two weeks now! I just can’t make it work.” She frowned. “The truth is, I think this heater has it in for me.”

  He laughed, and then she laughed. “Why didn’t you just say something to someone?”

  “I did ask Jimmy Fisher for help and he promised to stop by, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask your dad? Or your uncle Hank?”

  She frowned. “Fern is forever telling me to solve my problems by myself. I nearly asked Uncle Hank, but he has a tendency to make problems worse. Yesterday I thought I had it figured out at last. Then it blew up and sputtered coal dust at me. Ruined my apron. And today, I wake up to find snow!”

  They were at the schoolhouse now. Mary Kate unlocked the door and Chris went right to work. It was a temperamental old coal heater, he had to admit. But it wasn’t too different a model from Old Deborah’s old heater. Soon, he had a small fire started in the base of the heater, added coal, and it wasn’t long before the chill in the air tapered off. Just in time too. He heard the sounds of children arriving.

  Mary Kate was staring out the window, stunned. Chris came up behind her to gaze at the schoolhouse scene. Whoops and squeals, snowballs firing through the air, exploding on the back of one child or another, laughter as bright as sleigh bells. Excellent snowball fighting weather. He grinned, wondering how Mary Kate would adjust to the classroom climate today. The first snow substantially altered the environment. Boys would be chomping at the bit to stampede their way outside for recess. Remembering his own school years, it wasn’t long before there was as much snow being flung through the air as was resting on the ground. An all-out free-for-all.