Short Story / Mrs. Buttercurl's Red Rule

They had the worst teacher.

All teachers were bad, but they had Mr. Singlesnap. He expected to teach in silence. He expected that children should never ask questions. Never laugh, giggle, or misbehave. Whenever he ordered the class silent Samuel would often keep talking to Marguerite, and Mr. Singlesnap would shout louder than if the entire class had been talking. He would shout Samuel down and then send him to the principal’s office. Someone must have certainly wished this horrible man away because, one morning, the principal walked in instead of dreadful Mr. Singlesnap.

“Good morning, children.”

They were afraid to speak, but Samuel nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You have a new teacher. I hope you’ll welcome Mrs. Buttercurl.”

A bright woman entered with glowing features, a balanced and confident step. The children, their spirits unconsciously beside themselves, wanted to sit more erect, they wanted to say hello, and everyone began to shift in their seats.

“Good morning to all of your bright young eyes,” said the woman. Their eyes certainly weren’t bright, and they didn’t know how to respond to positively insincere flattery as they weren’t really taught to speak.

“Say ‘good morning,’ children,” said the principal

“G-Good morning,” they murmured. She nodded and principal left.

Mrs. Buttercurl held in her hand a bright red apple and raised it for the class to see. “An apple, children. My apple.” She took a lace handkerchief and polished the fruit, displaying it on her desk beside a big box of facial tissue. “Do you know what this apple means, boys and girls?”

They shook their heads.

“You’ll never have to be silent again.”

The room was full of chatter. Children arranged their desks in unassigned groups of nattering, reading, sleeping, or staring at each other. Mrs. Buttercurl sat at her desk watching all while reading her book.

The children liked their new teacher. She encouraged them to talk. Every morning, she taught briefly from books she’d brought from home, and they could ask her questions as they felt necessary. She encouraged them also to read, read her books or bring their own materials to occupy their time.

Children shared their books and other things with like-minded children. Others had no books or things to play with, but all admired Mrs. Buttercurl. They listened to her stories, and she inspired them to decorate their classroom bulletin boards and cover bare walls with posters they made themselves.

Everyone brought her apples to show their appreciation, and apples gathered on her desk. She ate them to the delight of her students, who glowed with every bite she took. Whenever she finished an apple, she smiled, and the children blushed in their pride. But she never bit the apple she had brushed with lace.

Aubrey brought a magazine from home. A bright magazine with glossy pictures and fine print, and its ideas must have made the boy’s imagination soar because his eyes were smart and his smile wide. Caleb noticed this and went to visit his classmate. “Can I read too?”
“No, you bring your own book.”
“I don’t have one. Can’t I read with you?”
“It’s my book. You bring your own.”
“How can I bring a book I don’t have?”
“If you don’t have books but want them, you must be lazy or lazy-minded.”
Caleb frowned at this logic, as so many steps had been skipped, he was speechless as to how he should approach response and repair the gaps. “You’re an idiot, Aubrey.”
Aubrey ignored this remark, of course, because he had brought his own book.
“Did you hear me? I said you’re an idiot!”
Aubrey continued to ignore his classmate, but Mrs. Buttercurl had heard everything.
“Caleb,” she called politely. “You shouldn’t say things like that, son. It makes you appear not bright.”
The children laughed, and Caleb lowered his head. “Because you’re stupid,” he muttered.
“Excuse me? Say that again, please?” Everyone knew that she had heard him the first time, even above their noise, but they grew quiet for Caleb’s voice to rise alone. He didn’t answer her; in fact, he pretended he hadn’t heard her at all. “Caleb, I asked you a question,” she said politely.
“I-I didn’t say anything,” he said beneath his breath, distressed he could get no lower than the silence of his classmates.
“Well, you certainly said something. You offered a critique of me, and I think I deserve to hear it.”
The child, perhaps, naively, answered. “I-I said y-you’re stupid.”
The children giggled. Not so much in agreement or amusement, but as children do, in anticipation of a classmate’s good chastening.
Mrs. Buttercurl shook her head at their innocence. “Perhaps you should say that louder, Caleb. For everyone to hear you.”
There was no more giggling as all were certain their young friend was being ensnared. They were sure he knew, and that he would take a second chance to remain silent.
“You’re stupid,” said Caleb, nevertheless.
“Again, Caleb. Louder.”
“You’re stupid!” He shouted, empowered by the silence of his classmates and the increasing sound of his own voice.
The children, their eyes wide, were floored by their classmate’s stupidity. Caleb, even, was surprised by his own boldness.
Mrs. Buttercurl smiled. “There, son. You feel better now, don’t you?”

Mrs. Buttercurl was the talk of the lunchroom. Every child wanted to be transferred to her class. Samuel and Marguerite went on and on about all the really neat bulletin boards, coloring books, extended recesses, lunches, and free time students of Mrs. Buttercurl enjoyed. Other children were envious. Their teachers were so mean, so cruel. They required of their students the strictest discipline, rarely answered questions, and never let them laugh. The unlucky ones, as they called themselves, would often, on their way to the restroom, go out of their way to pass Mrs. Buttercurl’s classroom. They would stand on their toes, trying to peer through the window of her door, but their legs were so short and the window always so high, they could never see inside.

Children brought more apples, and Mrs. Buttercurl ate them, as described. When she called her class in from recess, no one was afraid to express his displeasure, some complaining that this recess was shorter than the previous one, which had not been as long as the one before that, they’d noticed. She only nodded, ushering them inside with a smile, and they were comforted.

Julius found himself obsessed with staring at the apples on Mrs. Buttercurl’s desk. She had questioned him about it once before. He only shook his head that nothing was on his mind. His classmates assumed he stared at all of the apples, red, yellow, green, brown, if they noticed his staring at all, but quiet Julius only really watched the one brushed with lace. The apple Mrs. Buttercurl never ate.

The room was full of chatter. Julius stood, and Mrs. Buttercurl raised her head as the boy approached. “Julius, what is it, son? Is something on your mind?”

The boy looked at no one and nothing but a single apple. Mrs. Buttercurl stood, and Julius darted, stretching his arm forward, his fingers punching rows of apples lining the neat front of her mahogany desktop, punching fruit in many directions, scattering red, yellow, green, and brown over and onto the floor. He reached for the single red apple, still unmoved beside her tissue box. He reached, but she snatched the wrist of his open hand, yanking him to the side of her desk.

She kept, in her hand, a single rule. No one had seen it as she walked in, no one had seen it when she showed an apple to the class, and no one had seen it as she ate their apples. Who could miss it, now, as she raised the rule and bore it down upon the child as a sword.

The children, broken from their jangling, joined in curiosity, having heard the strangest noise. An odd shriek. Not the shriek of a child nor the shriek of an adult. They only heard this sound because they were still so close to infancy themselves and had made the same noise when they were born. They recognized it now, as Julius died. The sound of a soul, so recently departed, so unexpectedly returning.

His face split, his body crumpled upon the green tile floor, and blood cradled his head.

The children’s eyes turned from the pile of Julius to the dull and reddened rule, still raised in Mrs. Buttercurl’s hand. She lowered the arm, and with a square of facial tissue, wiped its edge.

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