Ten Years

At the behest of my younger sister, I present today's post─an essay I wrote for my freshman writing class ten years ago. I was tempted, as I reread this, to edit and try to rework or polish the piece, but chose instead to present it as it is.

                                                               Spear-Tooth Jenny

On a below-freezing February afternoon, we gathered in an empty concrete classroom to meet our new students. They filed in, marching in two neat lines, bundled in so many layers that their arms stuck out at a forty-degree angle from their marshmallow bodies. We were told they needed English names so we would be able to identify them. Duct tape and a Sharpie were produced, and the ensuing chatter echoed off the bare walls. We moved from child to child, kneeling on the cement floor until the frost seeped through our four layers of clothing and began to freeze our knees. Our gloved hands shook uncontrollably as we spelled out any name we could possibly think of. I took the last label from Sarah and stuck it to the second smallest girl in the room. “Your name is Jenny.”

She was the quietest of my seven first-rotation students. A small girl, even by Chinese standards, she barely cleared two and a half feet. She chose to sit in the tallest desk, and for practical purposes, I chose to give her the tallest chair. Even then she was only high enough to rest her chin on the edge of the wooden desktop. She paid little attention to the antics of her fellow classmates and demanded even less from me. So for the first few weeks, Jenny went almost entirely overlooked.

The boarding school had taught the children three key phrases in preparation for our classes. They could tell us their names, ask us how we were, and respond with a robotic “Fine, thank you, and you?” Our classes were as basic as possible. We encouraged the children to try, to explore, to test out new words. Most were delighted at the thought of being able to communicate with us and were eager to gain the necessary tools. Others lacked such enthusiasm and spent the class periods gazing out the third-story windows or meandering around the edges of the whitewashed walls. Jenny sat in her desk, never saying anything more than “My name is Jenny, ” and eventually saying nothing at all. I dismissed her casually and focused my attention on the six children who were at least attempting to learn my name.

My name, however, proved too difficult for the Chinese to pronounce. After two frustrating weeks, the children decided “Teacher” was an adequate title. I felt oddly disappointed. It had never occurred to me that something so simple would create such a barrier between me and my students. I grew more and more distant from the children and spent less time preparing for class and more time just trying to stay warm.

I wore four layers of clothing to class and still had to take time to run laps around the room. I never sat down for fear of losing feeling in my feet. My nose was chapped, my cheeks were raw, and my lips were cracked because I couldn’t cover my face. The metal frame of my glasses got so cold it felt like fire when it pushed against my skin. My fingers were numb and leaden after the first hour of teaching. After two hours, I stamped around the classroom to keep the blood flowing to my feet. After the third hour, I was shaking so hard I could barely make it down the stairs without falling. This, I told myself, is not worth it for a bunch of kids who don’t even know my name.

The Chinese told us it would be warming up soon, but we had to make it through the coldest week first. I decided to make a lesson out of hot chocolate so that I wouldn’t freeze to death in my cell-like classroom. I set everything up a few minutes before class and went to collect my students. The lesson went well and was in full swing when I asked if anyone could tell me my name. I glanced around the semicircle of broken plastic desks and waited as the children hemmed and hawed and scrunched their noses in deep thought. No surprise here. I hadn’t expected them to know it. I picked up a bottle of heated water and moved to fill the paper cups sitting on each desk. Suddenly from behind me came a low, squeaky utterance. I turned, wondering who was trying to say something and what was trying to be said. I found myself facing Jenny’s desk. She sat as upright as she could, her chin just a half inch away from the desktop. She had a red beanie with Minnie Mouse on the right hand side pulled down to cover her ears and rest just above her eyebrows. Her chocolate brown eyes gazed up at me and she smiled as though she knew something I didn’t and thought it extremely funny. “Man-nee,” she said.

“What?”

“Man-nee. Teacher name Man-nee.” She sat back, obviously proud of herself. She had remembered my name. I stood, still holding the hot water in one hand and a packet of Swiss Miss in the other and stared in wonder at little Jenny. I couldn’t recall any time in the last month that she had said anything besides her own name. Now, here she sat, remarkably happy with her success in being the first to remember mine.

A whistle sounded from the next room, and I suddenly realized I had class to finish and only two minutes to finish it in. I hurried the children through cleanup and told them to line up. Jenny was first in line, and as we stood at the door waiting for the rotation to come around, she tapped my leg and pulled at my hoodie. I turned, and she motioned for me to crouch down. I obeyed, and she turned my head to whisper in my ear. “Teacher name My-nee.” I smiled at her and told her she was right. She opened her mouth to laugh out loud and revealed tiny teeth that had begun to rot from the outside and work on in. Her four front teeth were already triangular and blackened at the edges, each one coming to an almost perfect point. We called her Spear-Tooth Jenny.

Jenny made it her business to teach every student my name. By the end of the week, even the students I had never taught would call out to me from across the courtyard. In class Jenny became one of the most active participants. She left her seat and perched on top of the desk in order to command a better view of the classroom. If the lesson I had prepared was less than perfect, she made sure I knew. If her classmates got distracted, she made sure to bring their focus back to me. If I ever acted too tired or distant in class, she climbed down off her desk, onto my lap and made sure I was okay.

Every other weekend the children went home to visit their families, and we took time to explore China. We loved the time off, but we were always sure to be back by Sunday dinner when the children waited to welcome us home. We braced ourselves on the bumpy ground as the wave of running children broke against us like the sea on a rocky beach. Little Jenny was always among the first to run straight into my arms. We played with our kids until dusk fell, flying kites on the soccer field and running races around the track. We made dandelion chain necklaces and tried to whistle through grass blades. We swung them round in circles until we collapsed from dizziness and exhaustion. When dark fell, we kissed them good-night and sent them off to bed.

Months passed, and suddenly we realized the time had come to say good-bye. The children raced across the courtyard to gather around us in one huge squirming mob. We hushed them and took the smaller ones in our arms. With Jenny resting her head on my shoulder, I made the announcement. “Tomorrow Teacher go to America.” An instant silence fell. We couldn’t bring ourselves to say more, and the children couldn’t bring themselves to believe it.

I hadn’t come to China for the children. They were a side note. A postscript. I had come for the Great Wall, for the Terra Cotta Warriors, for the Guilin mountains. I thought when I left that those were the things I would be saying good-bye to. Those were the things I would miss. But when the time came, as we loaded our suitcases on the bus, we turned to a crescendo of voices rising from across the campus. Fifty-six Chinese children were running full tilt across the soccer field. They raced down the track and jumped up the stairs. They sprinted over the decorative sidewalk tiles edged with weeds. They flew past the fountain where the goldfish lived and sailed into our open arms. I found myself surrounded, with Jenny in my arms and tears on my face and hers. I had not come to China for the children. But as the bus pulled out, as we waved good-bye to everything we had called home, I found I could say good-bye to everything. Everything except Spear-Tooth Jenny.