March 2018

The first day of seventh grade our teacher, Mrs. Mahoney, took attendance. Each name was called and answered. None of them were new. We had all known each other since at least fourth grade. My name, always the last to be called, finally came. “Whitby, Sam.” I responded, “Here!” But unusually, she didn’t stop there. One more name was called. “Zachary, Sophie.” There was silence, punctuated only by the occasional whisper or giggle. Mrs. Mahoney called, a faint frown creasing her forehead: “Sophie? Are you here?” Still there was no response. Now we were all paying attention, and we all saw the empty desk at the very back of the room. The shadowed chair sat vacantly under our stares. Just then there was a ding! from the front of the room, and everyone whirled back around to look at Mrs. Mahoney’s computer on her desk. Our teacher read her message quickly, and her frown deepened. “It seems that Sophie will not be joining us today,” she told us finally. “She has… other matters to attend to. However, she wishes you all a wonderful day at school.” Mrs. Mahoney made a mark on her clipboard, and then smiled around at us. “First on the schedule is math. Pencils out, please.” *          *          * During recess we all gathered by the wall of the school to discuss the mysterious “Zachary, Sophie.” John, one of my friends, spoke the loudest. “She’s new,” he announced. “Did you hear her? She wishes us a ‘wonderful day at school.’” “She’s taunting us, this hoity-toity Sophie,” scowled Winnie Adams. “Acting all high and mighty. Being snobbish.” “And what other matters do you think she has to attend to?” John added. “Sleeping in?” This idea was instantly seized upon by the rest of us. “Watching television!” “Going shopping!” “Playing computer games!” We hated “Zachary, Sophie” for not coming to school. We hated her for being new. We hated her for having other matters to attend to. In other words, we hated her for no reason at all. *          *          * For the next six days, “Zachary, Sophie” had no response at attendance. Every day, just after roll call, there would be another ding! She had other matters to attend to, she told us, and she would be unable to come to school. However, she wished us, her “fellow classmates, a wonderful day at school.” Every day we hated her more; we would gather in the courtyard at recess and sneer at “Zachary, Sophie” and her “other matters.” I was among them, but John was the unofficial leader of our group. “Fellow classmates! As if she has the right to say that at all,” he said one day. We all agreed. “She hasn’t even talked to us! Or seen us, or known us at all,” I added. “She hasn’t even learned anything with us! She’s not a fellow anything,” John said indignantly, and off we were again. “I hope she never comes to this school,” Winnie said darkly. But on the seventh day, “Zachary, Sophie” showed up in the front row—in a manner of speaking. *          *          * As soon as we walked in, we could tell something was different. Mrs. Mahoney met us at the door. “Frances, I would like you to move to the back row, to the empty seat,” she said as soon as she saw Frances, who was one of Winnie’s closest friends. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” cried Frances, indignant. “I’m not punishing you,” Mrs. Mahoney told her. “I just need your seat in the front.” We all looked towards Frances’s desk in the front row and saw, to our surprise, Mrs. Mahoney’s open computer. As we filed in and took our seats, we all glanced at the screen curiously. Finally we were all settled. We waited for Mrs. Mahoney to take up her clipboard and take attendance, but she didn’t. She took up her computer instead. The class studied the face on-screen. It was a girl’s face, with brown hair. That was as much as we could tell, because the image was of extremely bad quality. “All right.” Mrs. Mahoney tilted the screen towards us. “Now, this is my class. I’m taking attendance now.” Who was she talking to? The picture on-screen? She put the computer on her desk (screen facing us), and ran through our names. “Whitby, Sam.” “Here,” I said. There was a pause. “Zachary, Sophie,” Mrs. Mahoney said, with an air of finality. The rest of us were already whispering, taking the extra time we knew would follow to put in a few last words of conversation with our friends before math. But then a clear voice cut through the whispers. “Here,” it said. All of our heads jerked up, and we all stared with shock at the face on the screen, the face of “Zachary, Sophie” at last. *          *          * Because I was the last name before “Zachary, Sophie,” I was the one in charge of the computer. I was to direct the camera to whoever was speaking in class, to the board up front if Mrs. Mahoney was writing on it, to the page of my book if we were reading together as a class. I was warned severely not to break the computer, or there would be “dire consequences.” “I would also like you to bring Sophie out to recess to be part of the socialization there,” Mrs. Mahoney added. “She’s never been to school before, so she doesn’t quite know how this works. Please include her in your conversations.” At this, everyone exchanged glances. *          *          * At recess I dutifully took Sophie out to the wall, where we all looked at each other with helpless stares. Finally John turned the computer towards him.