Miss Lydia Fairbanks and the Losers Club Read online

CHAPTER SIX

  "Class, today each of you is going to write your own resume," said Miss Fairbanks the next morning at the beginning of first period. "A resume is a single page with your name and address at the top, followed by your education, then your jobs and other accomplishments. You use a resume when you try to find a job. I am passing around a sample handout to show you how it's done."

  There was a collective groan from the group. Each student had entered the classroom that morning looking furtively around to see if Mr. Brek was there. While they were glad he wasn't, they were hesitant to start their normal routine of fighting, noise and ignoring their teacher just in case he happened to show up and break half their bones.

  Clearly however, Miss Fairbank's announcement of their assignment was going to push some of them over the edge.

  "Now, there is something you need to know about the resumes I want you to write today," said Miss Fairbanks quickly, knowing that she had only seconds before some in her class started to erupt, and chaos reigned once more. "I want the resumes you write today to be a pack of lies. I want you to write a resume that is not true. I want you to create a story for yourself that is completely fabricated, and is as far from the truth as possible. Do you understand?"

  The class stared at her dumbly. Finally, 'Armpit' Arnold voiced the question that was in many of their minds. "You want us to lie?" he said incredulously.

  "Now you're getting the picture," said Miss Fairbanks with a smile. "And I admit that maybe the words 'lie' and 'untrue' are a bit strong. Think for a moment of the action movies you have seen recently at the theater. Are they a pack of lies?"

  "Yes," said Slapface, the big girl in the front row.

  "Grow up, slopface," said Arnold, nearly throwing a book at her, then thinking better of it. "They aren't lies. They're just made-up. There's a difference."

  Slapface turned to glare at him, and launched her pen in his direction, which he easily dodged. "They're still a bunch of lies," she said flatly.

  "By the raise of hands," said Miss Fairbanks as loudly as she could, trying desperately to stop a riot from starting, "how many of you think action movies are a lie?" A little more than half the class raised their hands. "How many think there's a difference and action movies are not really lies, even though they're not strictly true?" Most of the rest of the class raised their hands, although Lydia noticed there were a few that had raised their hands both times just to be annoying.

  "You will be happy to know you are both right," said Miss Fairbanks. "Whether you call it fiction, fairy tales, make-believe, action movies, or whatever--it's all a lie because none of it is true. But we humans like this sort of thing just the same, and we are strangely not troubled when we know it's all fake. We seem to enjoy it. And in a way, our belief in it makes it real--sometimes more real than the reality of our own lives. It's only if we're tricked into thinking something is true but later find out it's not that we get upset and feel deceived. That is why real resumes must tell only the truth. The people you give them to expect them to not be fiction like an action movie, but to be the simple truth. However, today you are not going to write a real, true resume. You are going to write a make-believe, or fiction resume."

  Several of the students screwed up their faces at this, trying to make sense out of what she wanted them to do. Miss Fairbanks smiled. Since Mr. Brek wasn't here, she knew she had to keep the class on its toes--keep them thinking, keep presenting the unexpected to them. That was the only thing that was likely to keep her alive. Of course, her ultimate hope was to somehow find a way for her class to enjoy writing. Then they wouldn't give her trouble in class, because they would enjoy the class too much. But she knew this was about as realistic as expecting a pig to enjoy taking a bath, or a typical student at Inner City Junior High School to enjoy reading nursery rhymes.

  "The resumes you write today must be complete works of fiction," said Miss Fairbanks flatly. "For today, I do not want the truth of your lives. However, please remember that when you create a real resume and use it to get a real job, you cannot put fiction into it since that would be lying and your boss will not like it. I am merely having you write a fake resume today to show you how fun it can be to create one. You may begin." What she didn't tell them of course was that the real reason for having them write fake resumes was that it might keep their interest for the class period, and prevent the class from returning to chaos.

  Some of the students just looked at her in disbelief that she would have the audacity to expect them to work in her class two days in a row. But most of them joined the general rustle as papers were pulled out of book bags and backpacks. Some of them were even smiling at the wild resumes they were planning to write.

  "One final thing, before you begin," added Miss Fairbanks. "If there is even one word of profanity on your resume, it will receive a failing grade which I will have to tell your parents or guardian about, and you will have to write another one. If there is even one made-up reference to something highly indecent--like working for a porn magazine or being a stripper--it will receive a failing grade and you will have to write another. Only weak minds resort to profanity and sexual indecency, and I tend to think this class is not made up of weaklings."

  There were a few guffaws and swear words, as well as a few shocked looks of disbelief. Everybody in this school used profanity, nonstop, and many looked at porn too! Did that mean they all had weak minds? But even though they were not sure they believed her, most of them mentally discarded the profanity and indecency they'd been planning to write. After all, they didn't want to write the stupid resume over again.

  And so it was that when Principal Clyde one more popped his head in the classroom to see if Miss Fairbanks was still breathing, he once again saw a classroom of busily writing students. And while he was grateful to not see the monstrous student he had witnessed yesterday sitting by the wall, he found himself feeling profoundly annoyed that this mousy little woman seemed able to control these hopeless, worthless students in ways he and all the other teaches could not.

  Seeing him, Miss Fairbanks stepped out into the hall. "Is anything wrong?" she asked innocently.

  "Wrong?" grumbled Mr. Clyde as he glanced at the busy class with a frown. "Oh, nothing--just that your class it ... well it's ... I mean I just can't stand how its ..." His mind groped hopelessly for something that would express the pure jealousy he was feeling, without sounding stupid.

  Miss Fairbanks smiled at him. "It just goes to show that you're doing a much better job as principal than you thought," she said innocently. "Some of my students told me yesterday they would never dream of leaving a classroom and wandering the halls--because of you! So you must have gotten through to them!"

  Mr. Clyde stared at Miss Fairbanks, taken aback. He suddenly felt his ears going red, just as gout pains started shooting up his leg. Finally, not knowing what else to do, he just grunted and walked off down the hall.

  As Miss Fairbanks reentered the classroom, a paper airplane soared past her head. "My resume," said Armpit Arnold, looking at her with a smirk on his face. Miss Fairbanks picked it up and unfolded it, then smiled in spite of herself. As she'd suspected, the creativity of the rough kids in this school knew no bounds. Arnold's resume showed that he was a triple agent spy, a former president of the United States, and the proud owner of a cupcake factory. And as she stared at his ridiculous resume, she got a brilliant idea.

  "Class, I was just thinking," said Miss Fairbanks as she turned to them. "When you're finished I will read at random some of the things in your resumes and let you try to guess which one of you wrote them." At the startled, worried looks that immediately crossed the faces of some of her students--especially the more timid and shy ones--she hastily added, "I won't pick anything that will embarrass you, and will probably only share the things written by the more vocal among you, since that's probably all we'll have time for. But if you'll quickly finish up, we can begin our guessing game."

  There was a frenzied scrambling of pens and
papers as most of the class tried to think of something they could add to their resume that would knock Miss Fairbank's socks off and give the class a good hoot as well. Many of them could hardly believe they were being encouraged to goof off!

  Miss Fairbanks smiled. This was exactly what she'd been hoping for. Convince them they're goofing off, when in reality the teacher is controlling it all and they might learn a thing or two. After all, any good writing teacher always tries to get their class to write creative fiction. She just happened to be doing it in respect to boring resumes.

  For the next twenty minutes after the papers were handed in, the noise from Miss Fairbank's class was at times as great as it had ever been, while students screamed, yelled and shouted their resume guesses for all they were worth. No one down the halls paid any attention since they were used to such sounds. The difference of course was that the roar came and went like a tide on the beach, since Miss Fairbank's voice was so low they had to shut up in order to hear her next clue from another student's resume. In short, it was controlled chaos.

  "Which student," said Miss Fairbanks in her loudest voice, which could barely be heard beyond the third row, "has piloted a nuclear submarine beneath the north pole, created a world famous pickle recipe, and invented a spray that turns a person's fingernails inside-out?"

  There was an instant explosion as almost every voice in class yelled their best guess. "Arnold! Slapface! McQuirk! Maggotbreath!" The shouts resounded round and round the room, until finally the students had yelled themselves sufficiently hoarse that Miss Fairbanks could actually hear what they were saying and tell them if they'd guessed right.

  And so it went, with each student wildly guessing and yelling and jumping up and down in their seats. And when the bell finally rang at the end of class, a strange and very unusual thing happened. For the first time in most of their lives, the students in a class at Inner City Junior High School found themselves thinking something truly incredible.

  They didn't want to leave!