Work Text:
Miss Zarves’ Day Off
There was a knock on the door to Miss Zarves’ classroom.
Miss Zarves taught the class on the nineteenth story. There was no nineteenth story. There was no Miss Zarves.
But someone was knocking on her door just the same.
Her entire class looked up from their task of counting the grains of sand in their sand jars as Miss Zarves stared at the door. There must be some mistake. No one ever knocked on her door.
But whoever was on the other side knocked again.
Miss Zarves got up from her deck and walked across the front of her classroom and opened the door.
“Hello,” said a bald man with a very round head and a very blond moustache. “I am Mr. Sevraz. I am your supply teacher.”
“My supply teacher?” Miss Zarves said. “I didn’t request a supply teacher.”
“You had a cough that one day in July four years ago,” Virginia piped up.
“And you sneezed three times on the last Friday the 13th,” Nick said. “Maybe that’s why?”
“Hmm,” Miss Zarves thought. She did remember sneezing on Friday the 13th, but that didn’t explain why a supply teacher was here now. “There must have been some mistake. I’m sure you are a fine teacher, Mr. Sevraz, but I don’t need a supply teacher.”
“There’s no mistake,” Mr. Sevraz assured her. “Dispatch told me specifically: Wayside School, 19th floor, Miss Zarves’ class. They told me not to take no for an answer.”
“Well, if you insist…”
“I do.”
“Oh,” Miss Zarves said. “I suppose it would be nice to have a day off.” She hadn’t had a day off in 30 years, in fact, she hadn’t left the school in 30 years.
“I’m sure it would,” Mr. Sevraz said. “That is why I am here.”
“Very well,” said Miss Zarves. “Class, I expect you to be on your best behaviour for Mr. Sevraz.”
“We’ll have a great time together,” Mr. Sevraz said reassuringly.
Miss Zarves gathered her bag and headed to the door. Before she opened the door she turned back to the supply teacher.
“How long are you here to supply for?” Miss Zarves asked.
“Until you come back,” Mr. Sevraz replied.
Miss Zarves nodded. That made sense. With that sorted she opened the door and went through it.
She looked down the stairs, unsure of what to do with herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she had left her classroom, much less Wayside School.
But today was her day off, she reminded herself. She could go somewhere else. She could go anywhere and do anything! She just had to get started and see what happened next.
She started by going down the stairs.
Dana and a Good Book
A good book can transport a person to Somewhere Else.
So when I tell you that Dana was flopped in a bean bag chair tucked in the corner of the library on the 7th floor of Wayside school with her nose in a book, you’ll understand that she was really on a pirate ship with a group of adventurers being chased by a giant octopus while looking for buried treasure. Massive waves were crashing against the bow of the ship as the summer storm got worse and worse. Dana felt seasick as she wondered if this was all part of the mysterious mermaid’s plan. (The book also featured a prince who sang the songs of the stars and a dragon with a scar on her face. It was a very good book.)
The book Dana was reading was 304 pages, and she was already on page 96. Dana loved stories more than she loved anything else in the world, so visiting the library was one of her favourite parts of the week, second only to Wednesday afternoons when Mrs. Jewls would read a story aloud to the class. While the rest of the kids in her class roamed through the library to choose the book they would check out, Dana sat in the beanbag chair by the window. She didn’t want to waste a minute of her time in the library. She didn’t want to waste a minute of being Somewhere Else.
Mrs. Jewls watched as all of her students browsed through the library, made their selection and checked it out, and then hugged the large stuffed Walrus on the librarian’s deck. The rest of the kids were all scared of Mrs. Surlaw, the librarian, and always wanted to go back to their classroom on the 30th floor to start reading their books. Dana alone was unafraid of Mrs. Surlaw, though Mrs. Jewls knew that once Dana settled into her favourite bean bag chair, she wasn’t even aware the librarian was there.
The rest of the class had finished checking out their books and hugging the walrus. All of her students but one were waiting by the door of the library to go back to class. Only Dana was left in the library proper, and she was Somewhere Else.
Mrs. Jewls hated to interrupt a student who was Somewhere Else with a book. Being yanked out of a good book felt like being dragged out of the coziest bed and thrown into an icy lake. Mrs. Jewls still resented her fourth grade teacher who made her Stop Reading when Mrs. Jewls got too far ahead in the book the class was reading. When she became a teacher she swore she wouldn’t do that to her own students, so when Mrs. Jewls saw that Dana was Somewhere Else in the corner of the library she went over to Mrs. Surlaw and asked if it was okay that Dana remain there until she came back from Somewhere Else.
“Of course,” Mrs. Surlaw agreed. She also understood the magic of being Somewhere Else with a book, and this was far from the first time Dana had remained in the library after the rest of her class had left. Whenever Dana came back Mrs. Surlaw would welcome her back and send her back to her classroom.
*
The book Dana was reading was very good. She was Somewhere Else when the ship crashed against a deserted island on page 135, and when they fought an army of giant grabs on page 208, and when the prince sang to the brightest star in the sky on page 287. In fact, Dana stayed firmly Somewhere Else until she got all the way to page 304 and read the words ‘The End’ with tears streaming down her cheeks.
But even when Dana closed the book and looked up, she was still Somewhere Else. Her head and her heart were still wrapped up in the story she had just read. Mrs. Surlaw welcomed her back to the library gently. She knew better than most that transitioning out of a book was a tough thing to do. She let Dana hug the Walrus until she stopped crying about the beautiful ending before she told her it was time to go back to her classroom.
Dana nodded, but she was still Somewhere Else. Her head was full of pirates and princes and mermaids and treasure and music and love and wonder. Her mind was not on the stairs she was climbing at all.
At one point she was so enthralled remembering the battle between the prince and the sea captain that she bumped into the wall. She sat down on the stairs so she could be fully Somewhere Else without little distractions like stairs and walls.
And that was where Miss. Zarves found her.
Miss Zarves Returns
“Are you all right?” Miss Zarves asked the girl sitting on the stairs. She was staring off into space with a smile on her face, but there was something sad about her.
The girl blinked a few times before she looked at Miss Zarves. “Sorry,” she said. “I was Somewhere Else.”
Miss Zarves nodded, relieved the girl wasn’t hurt or lost. “I completely understand. I was somewhere else today too.”
“Where were you?” the girl asked.
“Today was my first day off in many many years,” Miss Zarves said. “It was a real adventure for me. Quite the story, if I do say so myself!”
“Will you tell it to me?” the girl asked. “I love stories.”
“What’s your name?” Miss Zarves asked. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked to hear one of her stories. Her own class was always too wrapped up in their projects to listen to her stories.
“Dana,” said Dana.
“Shouldn’t you be in class, Dana?” Miss Zarves asked. “You can come join my class if you don’t have one.”
“I’m in Mrs. Jewls’ class,” Dana said. “But I was Somewhere Else in a good story and I don’t have to go back to class until I’m Right Here again. Please tell me your story. The only thing that helps after being Somewhere Else in a story is finding another story to take me to another Somewhere Else.”
“Well…” Miss Zarves hesitated. “Maybe just a quick story.”
*
Miss Zarves started to tell the story of her day off. When she began she intended to just tell a little part of it, but Dana was entranced, hanging on to her every word, so Miss Zarves told her a little more. Miss Zarves told Dana about going bungee jumping and surfing, about her trip to Antarctica and what it was like to swim with the sharks. Dana gasped in all the right places, like when Miss Zarves got stuck at the top of the highest rollercoaster in the world, and she cried in all the right places too, like when Miss Zarves told her about finishing writing the book of poems she’d held in her heart all these years. Dana was the perfect audience as Miss Zarves told her about her day off, and even though they were both sitting on the stairwell in Wayside School, they were Somewhere Else.
At the end of Miss Zarves' story, she told Dana about how she came back to Wayside School after her day off and began to climb the stairs back to her classroom. On those stairs she ran into a girl who was Somewhere Else who she was telling this story to, but by the time Miss Zarves said “The End” she and Dana were Right Here on the stairs of Wayside School.
Now that Dana was Right Here again and not Somewhere Else, she knew it was time to go back to her classroom. She thanked Miss Zarves for telling her a story and then began to climb the stairs to go back to her classroom.
Miss Zarves took a deep breath before she did the same.
*
When Miss Zarves opened the door to her classroom her students all gasped and leapt out of their chairs to welcome her back.
“It’s good to see you all too,” Miss Zarves said over the excited chatter of her students. It was nice to be greeted so enthusiastically, but she thought it was a bit of an overreaction. She’d only been gone a day after all.
“Welcome back,” Mr. Sevraz said. His long blond hair was almost down to his waist and he had a big fluffy beard. “Your students were a pleasure to teach. I would be happy to supply for them again. Call me anytime you need some time off.”
“Thank you,” Miss Zarves said, “but I don’t think that will be necessary. One day off every 30 years was more than enough for her.
“I understand,” Mr. Sevraz said to Miss Zarves before he turned to the students. “It was a wonderful experience teaching you all. I hope I get to see you again sometime soon.”
Once Mr. Serraz had left the room Miss Zarves said, “We really must get back to work. Everyone please get out their jar of sand and continue counting grains of sand.”
“But Miss Zarves, we finished counting our grains of sand ages ago!” Virginia said.
“Really?” Miss Zarves asked. She had just started that project the day before her day off, and there were a lot of grains of sand to count.
“Yes,” Ray answered. “We finished it when Mr. Sevraz was here. And then we traded jars and counted those to double check our numbers.”
Miss Zarves was impressed. Usually projects like this took a lot longer. “Mr. Sevraz must be quite the teacher if you finished all that in a day!”
She went over to her desk to look through her notes to assign the next class project.
“A day?” Virginia whispered as she looked around at her classmates while Miss Zarves rummaged through her desk. They all were as confused as she was. “Does she really not know she was gone for three years?”