Under Cover

By Daniel Brothers

For my brother Robby,

“I left a steady plane for worlds of uncertainty

I miss the sureness of my feet, but god…

...what wonders there are to see”

Setting: A Teachers lounge. At minimum, there is a table with chairs, with an assortment of clutter beneath it.

Time: March 22, 2007

Characters:

Barbara: A 2nd grade teacher

John: An 8th grade teacher

Carly: A 2nd grader

[Patrons enter with lights on the stage, showing the teachers lounge. You see Barbara come in and sit down with some papers and begin to grade them. She does so throughout as patrons enter, other teachers may walk in and out grabbing papers, or food. They might converse as people do in the workplace, this continues until the house speech and the lights go down on the audience. At this point Barbara finishes a page and grabs ahold of the next assignement, it is a sizable number of pages.]

Barbara: [Sigh]

[Lights shift, Carly reveals themselves from behind the boxes below the table where Barbara is grading. The lights shift bringing focus to her as she speaks from her makeshift foxhole. ]

—-

Carly: I recognize that sigh. That’s the sigh she uses whenever she says hello. That’s my cue.

—-

[As Carly finishes speaking John enters the teachers lounge ]

Barbara: Hey John

John: Hi Barbara!

Barbara: Can you give me a hand here?

—-

Carly: Already my stakeout has been successful in learning new information. Barbara, some sort of code for Mrs. Miller. Teacher speak, Valuble intel. The boys back homeroom will be delighted to know the risk is already paying off.

—-

Barbara: It’s clear that she has a good understanding of writing skills, but it’s just clearly not answering the prompt

John: Well then mark her down a letter grade, you have a rubric I know you do!

Barbara: I do, I do. It’s just. Just read it and tell me it doesn’t feel intentional.

—-

Carly: I know that it’s mine, write three sentences using the words of the week Khoala, Effect, and swoop. Pointless waste of paper, I’m on a greater mission than some three sentence vocab vanity project.

—-

John: This Is a joke right? You’re serious. She’s what 7? She copied this from online.

Barbara: It seems like how she talks in class, I bet. (She types something into a device) see look. It checks out.

John: her parents then.

Barbara; She’s a foster kid i doubt it.

John: This paper has a better thesis than any of my 8th graders have written

Barbara: I know, strong argument, good paragraph structure, and a bold eye catching first line.

—-

Carly: [Reciting] “Child labor, already forced upon the young through our educational system, should be acknowledged as such and utilized in order to combat greater global issues like climate change or to fofile the social roles of office workers like accounting.”

—

John: You’re sure she didn’t get this online?

Barbara: You should see her in class. I’ve never had a student be so aware of news stories or economics, I overheard her telling another student about C span the other day.

John: Have you tried to get her moved up a year, or three.

Barbara: Of course! But she doesn’t want to, and her legal guardian situation is very complex. Also whenever i send her to the councilors they always come back looking more changed than she is.

—-

Carly: I’m not going to skip any steps. I’ll build my path and create a new standard. They are missing the point, I’m learning what I want to not what I’m force fed. Doesn’t matter what grade I’m in. And just because I spit up the slop I’m fed they want to move me, use social pressure to squelch my ideas. Hide me with ‘more developed’ minds. I make the biggest impact where I stand out, where I’m the leader. The line of fire.

—-

John: Welp. There is an odd one every year.

Barbara: Tell me about it.

John: Does she have any friends?

Barbara: A fair few, she is pretty popular with the class. She is good with stories

—-

Carly: better at shaping minds than you are Miss Barbara

—-

Barbara: She definitly has a crush on Tommy though

—-

Carly: Ewwww! Boys have cooties

—-

Barbara: But what she doesn’t know is that Tommy also has a crush on her.

—-

Carly: [gasps] Very valuble intell.

[She returns to hiding behind the boxes]

—-

John: Oh to be young again. Best of luck with the thesis on khoalas

Barbara: See yah John.

She grades the papers as the lights very slowly fade to black.

End of Play

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