The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman Read Free Book Online Page A

children were almost grown and now I yearned to embark on all my long-deferred adventures: to see Stockholm and Amsterdam, to try absinthe and get puking drunk in the tradition of the great poets, to have wild sex in sketchy locations—with Russ would be just fine, if he was willing—and to grow myself a garden as paradisiacal as the one I remembered from my childhood. I would tell her how I felt as though Russ and I were two captives tied back-to-back to a pole, and while I was willing to whistle at the sky and look helpless until Scott left for college, I felt ready to start chewing through the restraints when nobody was looking.
    But she wasn’t Bobbie. I liked Sandy, but she was only the woman I had been assigned to help get oriented on short notice; and though we might be real friends one day, we weren’t now. She was youngish and pretty and unmarried and still winked at life to suggest it come and get her. If she and I had anything in common beyond our place of employment, I did not have the ego to presume it.
    And so I followed her brisk walk to the multipurpose room, hurrying on my shorter legs to keep up. Partway there she reached over and patted me on the back, as if to say she understood, or, perhaps, that she pitied me.
     
    “We had an auditor from the Department of Health in our office this morning,” our headmaster told us teachers as we settled in for our meeting. “She is concerned about the number of religious affidavits we have on file in lieu of vaccination records. Also, it seems we have a number of families who haveturned in neither a vaccination record nor an affidavit. Clearly our record-keeping leaves much to be desired.”
    We stared uncomfortably at our shoes.
    “We will be following up with those families in the coming weeks,” he continued. “The longer this continues, the more it makes the pro-vax and anti-vax families feel at odds with each other. We cannot afford to give anyone the impression that the atmosphere at this school is contentious. And when I say we can’t afford it, I mean that very literally. Which brings me to our next item.”
    I looked up from the floor, glad to move on.
    “In light of the current situation,” Dan began in an artificially cheerful voice, “we have decided to hold our first annual class ring sale for the Upper School, beginning Monday.”
    The murmur was immediate, but I looked left and right despite it, calculating from my colleagues’ expressions whether they felt as shocked as I did. Surprise, but not disapproval, was apparent on the faces around me. I lifted my hand and spoke without being acknowledged.
    “I disapprove,” I said.
    Dan met this with a thin smile, clearly prepared for my reaction. “I understand, Judy, but the board of trustees has decided it.”
    “Then the board of trustees needs to reconsider,” I countered. “Those rings can cost hundreds of dollars. They represent exactly the sort of consumerist culture we oppose here. The parents are not going to like that one bit.”
    “We receive eighteen percent of each ring sold.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t care if we make a hundred percent. It’s a complete contradiction of the values of the school. I understand we need to raise funds, but that is the wrong way.”
    Andrea Riss, the first-grade teacher, spoke up. “Judy…withrespect, our other options haven’t been realistic. The recorder and lunch basket sales netted us very little. I don’t know how it is in the kindergarten, but my classroom is suffering. Most of my chairs have threadbare seats and I only have two knights left in my castle. And my harp hasn’t had strings for a year now.”
    A clamor of complaints went up. I looked at Dan, expecting him to call for order, but he remained silent in his chair, tapping a pen against his notebook and gazing in my general direction. Finally I spoke above the din.
    “I do understand,” I said, and waited for the noise to die down. “But tight budget or not, this is a