All Learners Welcome

A janitor with very little education forms an unlikely friendship with a fourth grade teacher.

The day I fell in love was a rainy one, but it didn’t stop her from going outside. We were like two ships passing--or, well, actually, I guess it was more like one ship gliding along while a motorboat coasts nearby, watching in awe and picking up the wake--me being the motorboat, of course. Anyway, I know it’s a crappy metaphor. What I’m trying to say is that I was heading into the school for my interview when I saw her out there on the blacktop, her fourth graders sprinting all around her. She was wearing tights and brown boots and a long black raincoat that tied round her waist and her hair was wild from the wind and rain. She was carrying some kind of coffee cup and a whistle, and even though it was recess and they should’ve been playing, her students kept coming back to her to tell her something or other like she was some kind of magnet. Every time one of them would come up to her, she’d lean down close and listen with such a smile that even all the way across that parking lot, I thought to myself how I’d miss out on recess too just to get that look from her. 

I started working there the very next week. I was the first in the building in the morning and the last to leave in the afternoon, but I was glad for it because I figured it’d give me as many opportunities as possible to glimpse that fourth grade teacher, Miss Wagner. I found out her name pretty quickly. We passed in the hallway and another teacher called out to her. When I unlocked the classrooms the next morning, I stayed in Miss Wagner’s room as long as I dared, trying to notice every detail about the place. 

Her desk was in the back corner of the room and there were kid pictures hanging all around it, which only made sense because if you had a teacher like that, of course you’d want to draw her pictures. She also had a reading corner back there with antique-looking lamps, old rugs, and beanbag chairs and a bookcase with shelves that were sagging in the middle from the weight of all those books. I made up my mind right then that I’d fix those shelves for her first thing. She had a big long quote above the windows that said, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” It was from Winnie the Pooh, which is one of the stories I actually liked when I was little. Well, I looked at that quote and it meant a lot more than it ever did when I used to read Winnie the Pooh. 

I unlocked all of the classrooms every morning, but hers was my favorite. She seemed to have the desks arranged differently every week. Sometimes it was rows, sometimes groups of four, sometimes one big square around the room. Her room was the most welcoming in the building. She hung kid projects on all the walls and even from the ceiling, and I knew she must be so proud of those fourth graders. There was a sign outside the door that said, “All Learners Welcome.” I always felt like that meant me as well as the kids because even grown-up janitors still need learning. 

The first time we spoke to each other was after school during my second week when she was leaving to go home. I was just wheeling the vacuum out of my closet and she hurried past, stooping slightly from the weight of her bag, her arms full of packets to be graded. There was a book on top of the pile that slid off and hit the floor before she could stop it. She meant to reach for it, but I picked it up and handed it back to her. It was called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. I remembered it because it’s my first name too. 

“Oh, thanks so much,” she said, giving me that same smile her fourth graders always stole from her. It was even better up close than it had been across the parking lot. She had rays of sunshine for a mouth and diamonds where her eyes should’ve been. 

I wanted to say something, but all I could manage was “no problem.” And she was out the door and gone away before I could try anything else.

At the end of the day, I’d vacuum each room and change the trash, but I’d always save hers for last so that I could wash her boards and wipe her desks and make sure they were put back perfectly straight. I figured out pretty quickly that she always left around 4:00, so I brought in fresh planks of wood the day after we first spoke and waited to fix her bookcase until after she’d gone home. I had to take all of the books off to do it and when I was moving them back, I saw another copy of that book she’d dropped the day before--the one with my name. It wasn’t right to take it from her, but I wanted to read that book because I knew she was reading it and I figured she wouldn’t notice one book gone missing. So I brought it home with me and started reading it that night. It was slow-going--I was never too good at reading--but sometimes, I’d say the words out loud to myself and imagine I was sitting in her class, listening to her read it out loud. 

It was on another one of those afternoons when most of the teachers had gone that I finally had a real conversation with her. I was in the room next to hers when I heard some kind of scraping noise through the wall. When I poked my head through the door, she was moving the desks all around. 

“Need some help?” I asked.

She had her back to me and she was looking around the room with her hands on her hips. When I spoke, she jumped and turned to look at me. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were there,” she said. “I know this is noisy.”

“I don’t care about the noise,” I said. “Just wanted to help you if I could.”

“Well, I’m making two groups of fifteen, if you don’t mind,” she said.

She formed one group while I worked on the other. We didn’t talk, but it would’ve been hard to hear anyway over the scraping. When we’d finished, she looked around the room again and shook her head. 

“It’s not going to work,” she said.

“What’s not going to?”

“The desks. The kids will be too distracted.” She shook her head again. “But I need them in these two groups for reading.”

I stood beside her and looked around the room too, though I didn’t put my hands on my hips. “What if you made two U-shapes coming off your reading table--one on either side? That way, you could use your table to meet with either group. They’d be like wings off your--off the reading table’s body.”

She followed the path of my hand as I pointed. “Let’s try it,” she said. “I like the idea.”

So, we moved the desks again. When we’d gotten them where I meant, she stopped and looked at me. 

“Did you fix my bookshelf?” she asked. 

I wasn’t expecting it. “Yeah, I did it after school last week.”

“You didn’t say anything,” she said.

“I guess I didn’t need anything. I just wanted to do it.”

“Well, I’m so grateful. I’ve been wanting to fix those shelves for a year now. They were so close to falling apart completely,” she said. “Thanks… Ed, isn’t it?”

I didn’t know she knew my name. “No problem.”

“I’m Marcy,” she said, sticking out a hand. 

We were just far enough apart that I had to take a step closer to reach her hand. “Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m used to just calling you Mrs. Wagner. Or is it Miss Wagner?”

“Miss Wagner,” she said. 

I had accomplished my goal with that line.

“Whaddya think about the desks now?” I asked.

“They’re good like this. I’ve never tried it before, but I’ll see how the kids like it. Thanks for your help, Ed.”

I wondered if she’d noticed her missing book. But she didn’t mention it so I figured I was in the clear. 

“Any time,” I said. 

Her hair wasn’t as wild today as it was that first time I’d seen her. It was pulled back with some kind of clip and it was just curled a little bit, like the notches in the handlebars on my bike. I wanted to tell her that it looked nice, but we barely knew each other and she was beautiful and I had a rip in my t-shirt and mud stains on my jeans from when I’d planted the new bushes out front earlier that day and she had a job to do and I was a janitor. So I bagged her trash instead, and waited until she’d gone home for the day before I vacuumed her room and washed her board and straightened her desks again.

In October, she got a cold. I heard her coughing in her classroom when I cleaned the bathrooms and she sounded like a smoker when she said, “Have a good day, Ed,” like she did every afternoon on her way out the door. 

I bought some cold medicine and cough drops at the drug store that night and left them on her desk the next morning before she got to school, but I didn’t leave a note because my handwriting wasn’t too good and my spelling was worse. She’d probably think the note was from one of her fourth graders, which was worse than not telling her it was me.

I didn’t hear anything about it, but I didn’t expect to. 

In November, she popped her head into my office--an old storage room with a desk and chair set up for me--and scared the hell out of me.

“Ed, sorry to bother you,” she said. It was the end of the day and her face was better than a pay raise. “I’ve got a broken desk in my room. One of the screws came out and the leg’s fallen off. Do you think you could take a look at it?”

I jumped up too quickly. “Sure, right now?”

“Well, I’ve got to run to an appointment, so any time that works for you is fine.”

I should have noticed that she was carrying her bag and work to be graded, but I’d been too busy with her smile. 

“I’ll take care of it this afternoon,” I said, following her out to the back door. 

Rain was falling in rivers outside. “Oh great,” she said. “The one day I don’t bring an umbrella.”

“I’ve got one,” I said. “I’ll walk you out.” I grabbed my umbrella from my ‘office’ and was back in a second. “Here,” I said, opening the door for her. 

“Well, this is very nice of you,” she said, laughing. “I feel like a princess.”

The umbrella was big enough to cover us both, but small enough to force us together. Our arms were so close to touching that I had goosebumps. I smelled her shampoo and felt her warmth and breathed her in.

“Wouldn’t want you to get sick again,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the rain.

She stopped beside her car. “It was you, wasn’t it?” she said. “You left me the cold medicine. You are too nice to us ungrateful teachers.”

(I’ve never done anything so nice for the other teachers.)

“I had some extra stuff at home,” I said.

“It was nice of you to think of me,” she said.

(I don’t think of anyone but you.)

“No problem. I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I said.

“You sure are a day-brightener, Ed.”

(You sure are a life-brightener, Marcy.)

“Any time. Hey, drive safe,” I said. “The roads are bad right now.”

She got into her car and pulled away, giving me a wave as she went. 

In December, the building cleared out faster in the afternoons. Christmas break was coming and the teachers kept hurrying off at the end of the day to go shopping. Marcy Wagner still left around 4:00 every day, though, and her pile of papers to grade didn’t get any smaller. I was done with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane--I’d read it four times now--and I stopped by her room every afternoon, hoping I’d have the courage to stick my head in and tell her how much I’d liked it--and then return it secretly one day when she wasn’t in the room. But I’d usually just stand there for a minute and then go and get my vacuum instead.

Two weeks before Christmas break, there was snow on the ground and I stopped by her room as usual, but when I looked through the window, I didn’t see her hanging projects on the walls, or grading papers, or erasing the white boards, or moving the desks like usual. She had her head down on her desk and her shoulders were moving in that way that meant she was crying. She was far enough across the room that she looked almost like a little child and I wanted to open the door and hug her until she didn’t have any reason to cry anymore, but I was too afraid, even with the Winnie the Pooh quote on the wall telling me I’m braver than I believed. So I just watched her for a few minutes through the door and then I left her alone. When she went home, I scrubbed her boards and her floors and the tops of her desks and her windows. Then, I vacuumed her rug and straightened her beanbag chairs and cleaned up all the trash around the room and put all the stray books back on the shelf. I couldn’t find anything else to fix after that, so I locked up her room and hoped that someone would be able to fix her too.

She didn’t come to school for the next several days. One of the other teachers said she’d gone to a funeral. 

When she came back, I stopped by her room like usual, but this time, I made myself step through the door. She was sitting at her desk, looking closely at some papers in front of her. I walked in far enough so that I was standing right in front of her, like one of her fourth graders waiting to ask her a question.

“Ed, hi, do you need something?” she said, looking up at me from her papers--a math test, I could see now. Her eyes were a little unfocused.

“I wanted--I wanted to tell you it was me that took that book from your shelf. I’ve got it here.” I pulled the worn copy out of my coat pocket and set it on her desk.

“The book from my shelf?” She reached for the copy. “Oh, I hadn’t even noticed it was gone. I’m glad you took it--you’re welcome to any of those books.” She looked like she might set it aside, but then she changed her mind and stared at it for a bit. “This is the book you picked up for me in the hallway, isn’t it? Back in September?”

“It isn’t the same exact book, no, but it was that story.”

“Sure, I thought I had another copy of it.” 

She looked at me then and I had to clench my fists inside my coat pockets to keep from sprinting in the opposite direction. Not because she was scary, see, but because she was so beautiful that I couldn’t stand it. She probably wasn’t the most beautiful lady in the world, but she was the most beautiful one to me. 

“Did you like it?” she asked.

“Well, I’m not too good at all this literature stuff, but I liked the story pretty well. I keep thinking about the one part. You know, the one where the old doll says to Edward something like, ‘If you don’t plan on loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless.’ That made sense to me.”

She nodded and she wasn’t smiling now, just listening. “It makes sense to me too.”

I wanted to say something else about the book, but my mind was like a classroom whiteboard at the end of a school day. “I’ll just get your trash,” I said.

“Thanks. Wait, Ed,” she said, stopping my quick retreat, “hang on.” She stood up and went to look at the books on her shelves. She pulled one down and extended it to me. “I’m reading Shiloh next and I’ve got an extra copy. Maybe you’d like to read it too? We could form our own little book club.”

I took the book from her and glanced at the cover. It was a picture of a boy holding a beagle that looked kind of like my own dog. “Yeah, I’d like that,” I said.

“Merry Christmas, Ed.”

“Merry Christmas, Marcy.”

I left her classroom with her trash in one hand and a copy of Shiloh in the other, feeling a little bit braver and stronger and smarter than I had before.