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THE SUBSTITUTE
a Brent story by Tanner

Everybody knows the rule about substitute teachers. You can tell within the first thirty seconds whether a sub is going to be a pushover or a drill sergeant. You can tell by how they say your name.

Ms. Saez said everybody's name like it was the nicest name she had ever heard.

She was sitting at Mrs. Schick's desk when they came in for third period English. She had curly hair and a cardigan with little apples on it and a coffee mug that said I'D RATHER BE GARDENING. She smiled at every single person who came through the door. When Todd came in, last, sliding through just as the bell rang, she smiled at him too, and said, "Oh, good, you made it!"

Todd stopped. Todd is the kind of kid who has never once in his life been told "oh good, you made it." He looked at her for a second like a dog looking at a sandwich somebody just dropped. Then he smiled, slowly.

Brent saw that smile, and he knew what was going to happen.

"Now," said Ms. Saez, "Mrs. Schick left me a seating chart..."

"Oh, she doesn't use that anymore," said Todd. "We sit wherever we want on Fridays. It's a reward. For being good."

Ms. Saez looked at the chart. She looked at Todd. "Well, isn't that nice," she said, and put the chart down. "Go ahead, then."

There was a moment of total silence while twenty-six eighth graders realized what this meant. Then everybody moved at once. Justin moved next to Brent. Nina moved next to the window. Todd moved his desk all the way to the back corner and sat with his feet up on the radiator like a man on vacation.

After that it was like a dam broke.

"Mrs. Schick always lets us have five minutes of free talk first," said a girl in the front. "To get our wiggles out."

"Oh, that's a good idea," said Ms. Saez.

"And she lets us chew gum if we share."

"That's very generous of her."

"And on Fridays we read outside. In the courtyard. Because of the fresh air. It's good for our brains."

"Is it? I didn't know that."

Each lie got a little bigger. Every time she believed one, somebody tried a bigger one, like they were stacking blocks to see how high it could go before it fell over. Nobody could believe it. It was like finding out the vending machine was broken and gave out free stuff.

Then Todd raised his hand from the back corner.

"Ms. Saez," he said, very seriously. "I think you should know that we have an exchange student." He pointed at Brent. "He's from Iceland. He doesn't speak a lot of English yet. Mrs. Schick says we should all be patient with him."

Brent's mouth fell open.

Ms. Saez turned to him with a huge, warm smile. "Oh, how wonderful! Welcome! What's your name, dear?"

Everybody was looking at him. Todd was making a face like, go on. Justin was biting his fist to keep from laughing. Brent had about one second to decide, and he did not decide well.

"Brrrent," he said, in what he hoped was an Icelandic accent. It came out sounding like a pirate with a cold.

"Brrrent," said Ms. Saez. "What a lovely name. Do you have a lot of snow in Iceland, Brent?"

"Ja," said Brent. "Very snow. Much... ice." He had no idea what else they had in Iceland. He thought maybe volcanoes, but he had a bad history with volcanoes. "Also... fish."

"Fish!" said Ms. Saez. "How interesting."

They went outside to the courtyard and sat on the grass for twenty minutes to "read," which mostly meant lying in the sun. Ms. Saez sat on a bench with her mug and asked Brent questions about Iceland the whole time. What did they eat for breakfast? (Fish.) What did his parents do? (Fish.) Did he have any pets? (A fish.) Was he homesick? Brent looked very sad and said "Ja," and Ms. Saez patted his hand, and Brent felt like the worst person in the state of Ohio.

It's really hard to lie to somebody who is being nice to you. Nobody tells you that. Lying to a mean sub is a sport. Lying to a nice one feels like stepping on a puppy.

When they came back in, there were ten minutes left. Ms. Saez sat down at Mrs. Schick's desk and opened her lesson folder.

"Well!" she said. "This has been the most interesting class I've had all year. Thank you all for teaching me so much about how things work here. Now, Mrs. Schick did leave you an assignment. I'll write it on the board."

She stood up. She picked up a piece of chalk. And she wrote, in perfect teacher handwriting:

The whole class went silent.

Ms. Saez turned around. She was still smiling, but it was a different smile. It was the smile of someone who has been playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers.

"Mrs. Schick is my aunt," she said.

Nobody breathed.

"I've been a teacher for nineteen years. She told me on the phone last night that third period would try to tell me she lets you sit wherever you want." She looked at the back corner. "She said Todd would start it."

Todd took his feet off the radiator.

"She also said you were all good writers who don't practice enough. So I thought I'd let you practice out loud first." She picked up her mug. "For the record, the courtyard thing was a nice touch. The gum was weak. You can do better on Monday."

Then she looked straight at Brent.

"And Brent," she said, in perfect, unaccented English, "my husband's family is from Reykjavik. That's in Iceland. I'd love to hear more about the fish sometime."

Brent put his head down on his desk.

The bell rang. Nobody moved for a second. Then everybody got up very quietly and filed out past her, and every single person said "bye, Ms. Saez," like a hundred times nicer than they'd said it to any sub ever, and she said goodbye to each of them by name.

Except Brent. To Brent she said "Bless, Brent," which Justin looked up later. It's how you say goodbye in Icelandic.

That weekend Brent sat at the kitchen table with a pencil and a notebook, trying to write 500 words convincing somebody of something that wasn't true.

He couldn't think of anything. Every lie he tried sounded phony after Friday.

So instead he wrote down exactly what happened, the whole thing, the seating chart and the gum and the courtyard and Iceland and the fish, and at the top he put the title: THE SUBSTITUTE.

He figured if anybody ever read it, they wouldn't believe it anyway.