Mrs. Heimerdinger
Mrs. White was old and not just by the standards of sixth-graders. On the first day of the year, she announced that this would be her last.
Sandy Moore joked that Mrs. White wasn’t really married, that she got her name from her hair. Mrs. White’s hair really was extraordinarily white, the color of icing on a wedding cake only fluffy, like cotton candy. She may once have been a competent teacher; but, by the time we had each other, she wasn’t. She couldn’t remember our names. At first, she mixed them up, then said “you” or just pointed.
Mrs. White avoided actually teaching. She assigned us a lot of reports. We would have to read these out to the class while she retreated to a chair behind the last row. The first report was to be about our favorite books. After Glenn Evans finished telling us about, Guadalcanal Diary, we found she had dozed off. We laughed in hushed voices and went quietly about needling each other and gossiping. The same thing happened during Vivian McMahon’s mawkishly adoring account of Little Women.
In sixth grade, latency is winding up. Childishness and adolescence mingle like gin and vermouth. Bodies change; feelings transmogrify. Our classroom was a hormonal hothouse with as many romances as a Renaissance court. Who liked whom and in what way? Excited girls whispered and teased. Shy, confused, resistant boys expressed themselves in small, sometimes affectionate cruelties, forbidden words, scraps in the schoolyard. Girls giggled and passed notes. Boys swore and shot spitballs.
One morning in November, Mrs. White wasn’t there at all. After the first few minutes, we went rapidly out of control. There was a game of tag, screaming, a scuffle in front of Mrs. White’s desk, some banged their rulers on the radiator. Then the principal, Miss Gibbs, came through the door. We all respected Ms. Gibbs, a formidable spinster. We feared her displeasure, sensed her dignity, but liked her kind face and that she never raised her voice. She had been in charge of our school since long before we started kindergarten. Forever, so far as we knew. Her authority had an air of eternity, was godlike. Even the rowdiest of us sat down and shut up.
She looked us over with a frown that conveyed disappointment rather than anger.
“Boys and girls, I’m afraid Mrs. White is indisposed today.”
“Indisposed?” whispered Sally.
“It means she won’t be in today. The substitute teacher will be here shortly. I’m sure you’ll do your work for her as well as you’ve done for Mrs. White.”
Substitute. The word pinballed silently around the room. Substitute signified license; it meant anything goes. Everybody knew that whatever you did didn’t count.
Then it got better, also worse.
“The substitute’s name is Mrs. Heimerdinger,” said Miss Gibbs.
Heimerdinger! There was giggling. Heimerdinger.
Miss Gibbs frowned more severely this time, then said something we didn’t understand at the time.
“Mrs. Heimerdinger has just been through a difficult time. Treat her well. I have to get back to the office. She’ll be here in a few minutes.”
So, the substitute had a ridiculous name and she was vulnerable. Better, and also worse.
“Who’d marry somebody named Heimerdinger?” Judy mocked.
“A difficult time?” said Glenn, laughing. “Not like she’s in for today!”
In the five minutes after Miss Gibbs left and the substitute arrived, chaos had come again. Pigtails were pulled. Elbows, insults, taunts, and blackboard erasers were thrown. The clamor rose to the level of a prison riot.
Then it got even better and, again, worse.
Mrs. Heimerdinger stepped almost reluctantly into the anarchy then stopped short, obviously terrified. Weak, we thought. Anything goes. What fun!
Mrs. Heimerdinger was oddly dressed up. Everything was white and pink. Her glasses were big and had pink frames. She wore pearl earrings and a long pearl necklace. There were bracelets too, and her hair was odd and fussy. She looked like an unhappy mother of the bride.
“Please, boys and girls, take your seats,” she said in a voice we barely heard.
“Please,” she begged. It was pathetic.
Glenn Evans smiled wickedly and told us all to sit. We did.
“Good morning, Mrs. Heimerdinger,” he crooned with a wicked smile.
Heimerdinger. More giggling.
“Thank you…?”
“I’m Glenn,” he said, then proceeded to point to each of us and rattled off thirty-two names at top speed.
“Oh, thank you, Glenn. Well then. Good morning, everybody. Now, can anyone tell me what homework Mrs. White assigned for today? I’ll collect it for her.”
“Mrs. White never gives us any homework, Mrs. Heimerdinger,” said Glenn.
There was scarcely repressed giggling from the back of the room.
The woman didn’t look dubious but scared. “Well then,” she stammered, “what has Mrs. White had you working on this week? It’s Wednesday, what do you usually do on Wednesdays?”
“Geography, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”
“History, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”
“Fractions, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”
“Art, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”
“Can we go to recess now, Mrs. Heimerdinger?”
Even those in the last row could see the dismay, the helplessness, could almost smell the sweat.
Then Freddy threw a book at George across the room. George ducked and it hit Jill.
“Ow!” screeched Jill rubbing her shoulder.
George retrieved the book and hurled it back at Freddy.
Joey pursued his courtship of Suzanne by punching her on the arm.
“Ouch, Joey! Mrs. Heimerdinger, Joey hit me!”
A barrage of spitballs was launched from east to west. Balled-up loose-leaf paper flew from west to east. Sammy began singing a version of “Jingle Bells” with improper lyrics. This evoked general hilarity and much off-key, off-color repetition.
Mrs. Heimerdinger tried. “Please, children,” she begged. “Please settle down.”
Judy started a duet with Jerry. “Heimerdinger! Heimer Dinger! High Mer Dinger!”
Only those who had yet to undergo their growth spurt, to suffer the first waves of puberty, those whose default was obedience because their fathers had belts, because their mothers used sarcasm, because they feared the withdrawal of allowances and love, held back. But in less than half an hour, even they didn’t. That Wednesday was a Feast of Fools.
Mrs. Heimerdinger grew frantic. “Please, please,” she importuned as though she were praying to God and not us. Her face was nearly as white as Mrs. White’s hair. Her trembling grew worse. Her hands flopped about spastically, and when they went to her throat the day reached its climax, its catastrophe.
The sound of three dozen pearls bouncing on the hardwood floor quieted us, briefly. They bounded everywhere, like popcorn. They bounced between our desks, rolled under the radiators.
Mrs. Heimerdinger was openly weeping now. She dropped to all fours and tried desperately to gather the pearls. Our laughter turned almost mad. Mrs. Heimerdinger began to scream.
That was when I thought, quite rightly, “I’m never going to forget this.”
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