Byrd's School of English Fish
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Its engine stuttered, held rhythm for a moment, and died. The starboard wing,
perforated from RAF strafing and the flak from proximity fused antiaircraft
artillery, peeled off of the fuselage. The last thing Oberst Lieutenant
Jivosnic saw, through the flames pouring off of his engine, was a hopeful glimpse
of the English Channel only four miles distant. Free of a wing, his Ju87 rolled
on its side and began a rapid cartwheel that spun him unconscious
after the first revolution.
Nelson Byrd was walking to St. Alban's school, and was only three houses away
from his home when he heard the plane grumble, cough and become silent. It
appeared at treetop level when its engine died. Unused bullets spewed from the broken
wing as it fluttered into the trees. He felt something hit his shoulder and
noticed dust puffing up on the road around him. Nelson was unaware that he was
being pelted with Nazi ammunition. His eyes never left the black and white cross
Goerring required on the tail of every aircraft in Hitler's air force. The plane
spun three times as it descended and slammed through the bedroom Nelson walked
out of only three minutes earlier. The propeller caught underneath his window,
the tail sliced through his roof. The cross on the Stuka's rudder disappeared
into his second story where a writing desk pressed against the warped ledge
of a window frame.
Before Nelson's expression changed, and his next footstep fell, his house exploded.
The front door shot across the road and sliced into his neighbor's newly repaired
wooden and stone fence. Slate roofing tiles blew in all directions. Trees on
the opposite side of his yard caught chunks of debris and were flattened by
the shockwave of igniting aviation fuel that could have helped disintegrating Oberst
Lieutenant Jivosnic back to Germany. The same shockwave that flattened Nelson's
landscaping picked him up and deposited him in a row of shrubs a few hundred
feet farther down the road.
When he regained consciousness he could not hear. He was confused. It felt to
him as if he were in his home. He saw fragments of his possessions, but none
as he remembered them, nothing whole. His hearing returned slowly. He mistook
the erratic popping sound of baking machine gun bullets for fireworks and could
not figure out who would light them during war, tensions being as high as they
were. It was still unclear to him specifically where he was. Someone had played
a prank, perhaps one of his students, by removing items from his home and sprinkling
them all over his yard, his neighbors' yards and the street. He knew he had
to find something. He could not remember what.
He decided to begin cleaning up by picking up a charred chair leg from his dining
room table and the bathroom fixtures from his tub that were sitting on top of
it. The fire coming from where his house should have been was too intense for
him to approach so he wandered into the street and piled bits of plates, clothing,
melted pictures and silverware so his wife could help him carry it away. His
arms dropped, spilling books and a canary cage when he remembered what he was
looking for. His wife had waved to him from the front door before he stepped
into the street.
Les Petits Poissons
London, wary of impending German bombardment, sent its children away from strategic
targets to rural areas and farmland before the War started. Thousands left as tensions between Chamberlain
and Hitler grew. St. Alban's, a spacious school for the limited number of students
it admitted, filled to overflowing. The adjustment was extremely difficult for
the faculty. Before the exodus there was a minimal level of etiquette they could expect
in the school. That level disappeared as rowdy, adolescent thugs from the more impoverished neighborhoods entered. These children grew up learning that the loudest, most aggressive,
most abrasive people are the most successful.
Nelson's wife adjusted to the change in student behavior better
than the other faculty. She kept rowdiness in her art class at a tolerable level.
The other teachers envied her. She assumed it was easier for her because she
was keeping their hands busy, something the other teachers did not allow. The
children grew impatient sitting still through the earlier classes in the day.
They became more unruly as the day progressed. In the final few minutes of class
before hers began students were literally bouncing up and down in their chairs.
When the bell rang there was a rush to get into her class. Colors and pencils
were limited. The first few students clawed at one another for the best colors
in the fish bowl on the desk at the front of class. The stragglers wound up
with pebble sized nubs of the earth tones and even smaller pieces of last week's
favorite color. The greediest children, almost always the first boys to fly
into the classroom, had their crayons redistributed.
"But Mrs. Byrd, I got eer fuhst! Eets not me fault they was 'ardy."
Weather permitting they met outside. Crayon selection took place once she counted
and arrived at the proper number of students. Each child carried an easel. After
they made a semicircle around her, Mrs. Byrd invited them to come up one at
a time to pick their colors from the bowl. Each time they ventured out they
drew a new feature on the school grounds. The renditions the children came up
with startled Mrs. Byrd at first. Landscape features from London appeared
in every drawing. A police box next to an oak tree. A light pole near the chapel
door. A bicycle leaning against a flower pot. A taxi pushing a stone. She expected
homesickness to infect the class further into the semester.
The back wall of her classroom reminded her students that there was an end to the
school year. Covered from the wainscoting to the ceiling with colorful
drawings of fish, the wall was a monument to Mrs. Byrd's years teaching. There was one fish for every year she had been at St. Alban's. Her career spanned
forty years. When London was evacuated the wall was nearly full. Enough drawings
were there to brighten the entire room. Being chosen for a slot on the wall
was an honor shared by a very small group. She introduced herself to each successive
class by standing in front of it and pointing at the empty spaces.
"On the last day of this class one of you will have his or her work elected
to one of the few remaining openings. It is an extremely high honor to join
this school. If you count them, there are thirty nine fish. Three of the drawings
were done by children whose parents also have a work on the wall. We call this
L'Ecole des Poissons Anglais. On the very last day of class one of you
will join The School."
Students were usually so impressed by her reverence for the L'Ecole des
Poissons that they immediately wanted to become members. If a student did not
already know a relative was a member of The School they found out during the
first roll call. Mrs. Byrd remembered the last names of every member and could
identify descendants by their facial features.
Her baton, a paint brush whose bristles fell out from use, hovered over the
canvases without touching them.
"Your uncle is Richard Wellstone? This one is his."
Eventually the students noticed she never let her baton touch the canvases.
They learned without being told, to put their hands behind their backs when
approaching the wall. Often, before class began and Mrs. Byrd started calling
roll, a row of children stood at-ease whispering to one another about their
favorite fish.
The other walls were a showcase of recent class projects. At least one piece by each student was on display at any time. Attention always drifted from the current work to the School.
Mrs. Byrd did not explain until late in the semester how a new member for the L'ecole was selected.
"On the last Saturday before the last day of school all of us will go to my house and gather around my pond. There each of you will select one of my fish to paint. I know each of their names and will help you choose. I know the fish well enough that they will eagerly line up along the shoreline to present you their silhouettes. There are times when they are more well-behaved than any of you."
What her class did not know was that every morning she placed bits of scone on the slate planks lining her pond. The fish were trained, over many years, to glide to the edge of the water and ease to the surface for their individual bits of food. If she was a few minutes behind schedule the fish forgot their training and collected atop one another as her shadow crossed into the water. A few moments later they fanned out and took their customary positions to nibble at their rations. The hottest days kept them hidden underneath the ferns sprouting from the island at the broad end of the pond, or under the moveable footbridge that connected the island to the rest of the yard.
Nelson reshaped the pond himself over the years, until, when he finished, the blunted silhouette of a goldfish took up a third of his lawn. His crowning achievement was the bridge, a grin that crept across the pond when he turned a crank in the kitchen. None of the children were tall enough to see how the pond was shaped. Alumni who made a point of visiting the Byrd's home were always shown the pond from the second floor.
The same alumni stopped by Mrs. Byrd's class to check on L'ecole des Poissons Anglais to find out who the new members were.
The tradition of inviting students to their home for the final project of Mrs. Byrd's class became so strong over the years that most of the faculty volunteered to help the Byrds prepare. Some baked cookies, others decorated table clothes. The musicians on the faculty formed a small orchestra on the island.
The class was allowed the entire day to work on drawings, but each student could only submit one for judging. When alumni visited St. Alban's they never left without finding out how many new members there were in The School. Reunions were planned around Mrs. Byrd's outing. Alumni cast their ballots last to break ties.
Continued.....
