In it: a teacher, Miss, weary in her skirt but standing, and twentyeight fourth graders silent as the sky in rows at their desks. Miss clapped her hands four times and said, "Ta, tee-tee, ta," one clap to each syllable. Then a translation: "Long, shortshort, long." And the students all died.With laughter, like a cloudburst.Why so funny? Miss didn't understand, fresh from Althouse and already of waning hope, B.A. History with a minor in Music also. She held up her hand in a gesture that meant: silence. It took a while; the laughs were a downpour, a drizzle, the occasional drip from a drainpipe. "Shhh," the one named Trish encouraged them, though Miss was sure she had been the first to laugh. Then, okay, quiet enough.Miss tried again. Clap, clap-clap, clap. "Long, short-short, long."Boom. Down rained hilarity.Miss threw up her hands and retreated behind her desk. When her students had settled she decreed, "Work period," and from her book bag got out some marking, set to it, trying not to think about the basement bachelor apartment she rented with the towels for drapes, her life.IF MISS HAD been watching Bogdan, the pale boy by the door, when the words short and long had come from her mouth, she would have seen him tense.
