An Ocean in Iowa by Peter Hedges Read Free Book Online Page B

that!”
    When the Judge returned home, it was past their bedtime. He shooed them upstairs to bed.
    “Where’s Mom?” Scotty asked.
    The Judge said, “She’s painting. On to bed everyone.”
    And up the girls went. Scotty lingered. He wanted the Judge to carry him to bed.
    “You’re a second grader now, Scotty. Go on by yourself.”
    Scotty sighed and climbed the stairs alone.
    (6)
    With the first week of classes out of the way, and having established the class rules and procedures, Mrs. Boyden felt that they could finally get around to the business of learning. Soearly on Monday of the second week, she asked her students, “What do we all have in common?” She paused. “What about us is
the same
?”
    Ruth Rethman raised her hand and said, “We all have hair.”
    “Yes, Ruth, we all have hair in common.”
    Carole Staley, tall for her age, her hair in pigtails, raised her hand.
    “Mrs. Boyden? My dad doesn’t. He’s bald.”
    Mrs. Boyden clarified: “Carole, I’m talking about all of us in this room. Look around. What do all of us
in this room
have in common?”
    While she waited for more answers, Mrs. Boyden turned and wrote “hair” on the chalkboard. “What else?”
    They began to call out their ideas and Mrs. Boyden compiled a list.
    Eyes. Nose. Feet. Toes.
    “Very good, everyone.”
    Shoes. Clothes. Teeth.
    “Very, very good!”
    “We’re all seven,” Scotty called out.
    “I’m not!” Craig Hunt shouted. Craig was eight. He’d been held back. He would be nine in March.
    “And I won’t be for long,” Dan Burkhett added. Dan Burkhett’s birthday was less than two weeks away.
    “So we’re not all seven. Anyone else?”
    “Pets,” Cindy McCameron suggested.
    “Does everyone have a pet?”
    A disappointed Tom Conway slowly raised his hand. “Not me,” he said.
    “If we don’t all have pets, then we don’t have that in common.”
    Bev Fowler said, “We all have moms.”
    “That’s right. You all have moms. And dads. Let’s not forget dads. Even I have a mom and dad,” Mrs. Boyden added, “and I’m old enough to be your grandmother. Both of my parents are still alive.”
    Every so often Mrs. Boyden let a personal revelation slip out. Sometimes she forgot that she was talking to second graders. Usually, though, their lack of response snapped her back into reality, reminding her that the people in front of her were children.
    “Can anyone think of anything else we have in common?”
    There was a silence.
    “Anyone?”
    Mrs. Boyden had written so much she had to take out a new piece of chalk, which, when she wasn’t writing, she held like a cigarette.
    “I’m looking for an answer that I suspect none of you will have.”
    No room remained on the chalkboard so Mrs. Boyden took an eraser and rubbed a large circular area clean. With her back to them, she wrote in large, thick block lettering, “IOWANS.”
    Mrs. Boyden asked, “What does that mean?”
    No one knew.
    “It means we’re from Iowa.”
    Over the next several days, she would teach them the state bird (goldfinch), the state rock (geode), the state flower (goldenrod), and the state song, which on special days they would sing after saying the Pledge of Allegiance. She would tell them about the many famous Iowans—John Wayne was from Winterset, Johnny Carson had been born over near Council Bluffs, and Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first Presidentof the United States, was born and now was buried in West Branch. This intense study of “the Corn State” would culminate with a trip to the Iowa Historical Society early in October.
    ***
    But it was always on the first day she taught Iowa that Mrs. Boyden said and did the following:
    “Three quarters of the earth is covered by water; there are five continents, hundreds of countries (including America), and fifty states, of which Iowa is one.”
    She pulled down a map of the United States. Each state was a different color.
    “Who can find Iowa?”
    Before any of her students