Everyone began writing.
I saw my plane fall from my hand like a dead rat—I couldn’t wait to let go of its tail so I could wash my hands of it—straight down to the grass below. I remember being very proud of my rat simile, as trite and inaccurate as it sounds now. I also remember writing failure in big capital letters too, almost as if I were proud of my own perceived incompetence.
“Skip a line and write the number five followed by a period,” Mr. Vernon said. “When I say go, I want you to stand—remembering that if you talk, you fail—and take your paper airplane over to the window, stick your arm out into the sunlight, give your plane a throw, and watch it fly. Keep watching until it hits the ground. Make a mental movie of it. Then I want you to go outside and retrieve your airplane quickly—without running—return to your desk, and describe your airplane’s actual flight in great exact detail. Remember, you are not being graded on the flight, but on the degree of honesty you employ while describing the flight. If you are honest, you will receive an A. Go.”
No one moved.
“What are you waiting for?”
I remember James Hallaran standing first. He always wore a black leather jacket, drove a late 1970s Camaro painted aqua, and kept a pack of Marlboro Reds rolled in his T-shirt sleeve. Outside of school he’d have a cigarette tucked behind his left ear like he was John Travolta in Grease, although he looked more like Billy Idol.
This cliché of a rebel walked to the window and threw his airplane.
I remember him grinning as he watched it sail through the air.
Then he laughed in this curt way, like he had just gotten away with smoking a joint in front of the principal, and made his way to the door.
“Very good, Mr. . . .”
James spun around, pushed his lips together, locked them with an imaginary key, shrugged comically, and then spun around on the heel of his left boot quickly enough to make the chain that connected his wallet to his belt loop rise.
“You and I are going to get along,” Mr. Vernon called after him, smiling.
James lifted a thumb over his head as he walked out the door.
Then many of the other boys began giving their paper airplanes the gift of flight, and soon many of the popular girls did the same.
Being neither male nor popular, I was one of the last to stand.
It felt good to be moving in class, and the sun warmed my skin when I extended my arm out of the window, although my plane didn’t fly, but spun and sadly seesawed its way to the ground.
I was embarrassed as I exited the classroom, walked down the hallway and the stairs, and found Portia Kane Airways’ first female manned aircraft stuck in a bush.
Does a female pilot make it an unmanned plane? I thought, and smiled.
Back up in Mr. Vernon’s classroom, I wrote exactly what I had seen, likening my plane’s flight to that of an oak leaf plucked free from a tree by a gust of September wind, and feeling more than a little proud of the metaphor.
“Pencils down,” Mr. Vernon said. “Now I want you to reread your answers. Put a plus sign next to the answers that seem optimistic and positive. Put a minus sign next to the answers that seem pessimistic and gloomy. Remember, you are being graded on your honesty.”
As I reread my answers, I realized that I would be giving myself all minuses, because all of my answers were “pessimistic and gloomy.” And this made me angry, because I wasn’t a pessimistic and gloomy person.
Or was I?
Mr. Vernon had tricked me somehow. I wanted desperately to put little plus signs next to all of my paragraphs, because I had always thought of myself as a reasonably optimistic person, but it would be dishonest, and we were being graded on honesty.
“Pass your papers forward. You may keep your airplanes.”
We did as he asked, and once he had all of the papers in his hand, he tapped the pile straight. “How did you feel when I announced that you were going to be tested today? What did you write? Be honest. You may speak when called upon.”
A few kids raised their hands and said they felt betrayed, scared, worried, annoyed, anxious—mostly what I would have said. When Mr. Vernon asked, “How about you?” and pointed to me, I shrugged.
“You can tell the truth, Ms. . . .”
“Kane. I just told you that ten seconds ago.”
“Forgive me. I have more than a hundred new names to learn, and it’s only the first day of school. But how did you feel when I announced the test today, Ms. Kane?”
“Angry,” I said, too quickly.
“Why?”
“Because it wasn’t fair.”
“Why wasn’t it fair?”
“Because you didn’t give us a chance to study. We didn’t even know what the test was about. It wasn’t fair.”
“Would studying have helped you today?” he asked.
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. I didn’t like it.
“I could have read up on how to make paper airplanes.”
“Do you think that would have improved your grade, considering the fact that you’re being graded on honesty today and not your ability to make paper airplanes?”
I felt my face turning red.
Mr. Vernon picked another victim—and in my memory it’s Danielle Bass. I see her red hair teased out wildly and stiff with hair spray, like Axl Rose’s in the “Welcome to the Jungle” video.
“It was just different,” she answered.
“And different is bad?” Mr. Vernon asked her.
“Usually,” Danielle said. In my memory, she’s wearing black lipstick.
“Why?”