Present

story nine · figures 25–27

The story →

PRESENT · THE REGISTER, READ AT NINE — one class, one name, four years · who answers it, and what the answer is worth on the invoice PRESENT · THE REGISTER, READ AT NINE one class, one name, four years · who answers it, and what the answer is worth on the invoice the first year she answers the desk fee sits on the term’s invoice, between milk and swimming the second year she answers the children hide things in her desk · they are quicker about it than the staff the year of long division THE RENEWALS STOP and the answer stops with them one term more nobody answers the head keeps the name on the roll, unpaid · the headcount holds the following year a different name the desk holds pencil shavings and somebody’s marbles, like any desk twenty years on THE ROOM ANSWERS the old paper register, read out for the joke of it, in grown voices THE FUNDING FOLLOWS THE HEADCOUNT. THE HEADCOUNT FOLLOWS THE ROLL. THE ROLL FOLLOWS NOBODY. A teacher asks once, in the corridor, whether the fourth name might be taken off now, and is told it will sort itself out at the end of term, and reads it every morning until it does. She leaves the school the following year and does not say why. "NOBODY ASKS WHICH KINDNESS IT WAS."
25 · Present
PRESENT · WHO SAYS THE WORD, AND IN WHAT VOICE — the same word, answered four ways in four hundred words PRESENT · WHO SAYS THE WORD, AND IN WHAT VOICE the same word, answered four ways in four hundred words THE CONTINUATION Present. in the standard voice, with the standard brightness a paid service, from the seat by the window THE CHILDREN they cover for her hiding things in her desk, as for anyone unpaid, unprompted, and quicker about it than the staff THE SCHOOL the name stays on the roll one term more, unpaid a kindness that is also a headcount that is also a budget THE ROOM, TWENTY YEARS ON Present name after name, in grown voices off the paper register — the one the funding never read THE SILENCE THAT ANSWERS IS EIGHT YEARS OLD. Everybody in this story answers for her at some point, and only one of them is billed for it.
26 · Present
PRESENT · THE ARITHMETIC OF A NAME ON A ROLL — what a name is worth to each party, and to whom the loss falls when the renewals stop PRESENT · THE ARITHMETIC OF A NAME ON A ROLL what a name is worth to each party, and to whom the loss falls when the renewals stop THE FAMILY the renewal pays monthly, until it cannot THE SCHOOL the headcount one name = one place = funding THE CLASS the fourth name a person, then a habit, then a joke told kindly THE TEACHER the reading of it every morning, until it sorts itself out WHEN THE RENEWALS STOP the family loses her twice the school loses nothing for one term the class loses nothing at all, and gains a ritual the teacher carries it alone, and leaves the next year A CONTINUATION IS BOUGHT BY A HOUSEHOLD AND CONSUMED BY AN INSTITUTION. The desk fee sits on the term’s invoice between milk and swimming, which is where the story puts it.
27 · Present

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