A Few From the Back Wall - Part III

A little bit of smut

The board was set. Food textures ran across the top, and food tastes ran down the left side, leaving a blank grid in the middle. That was where the learning lived. One by one, students came up and wrote a food in a suitable crossing. The cold and sweet square practically begged out loud for ice cream. It got it. Crunchy and salty? That’s a potato chip my friends. How about crunchy and sweet?
Sweet little Kanae had an idea. Usually a bit shy, she raised her hand because she figured she had this one nailed. Slowly and meekly she made her way to the front board. Looking down the whole time at her ordinary black shoes that covered her pigeon toed、yet common, strides, so that her face was blocked by her ordinary black hair, you could see her mind begging people to stop looking at her. She asked me if it was ok to write wherever she wanted. She asked in Japanese, of course. To sweet little Kanae, speaking English was nodding her head yes or no to an English question, even if the question was something like, ‘What is your name?’ I figured, since she had already overcome two fears, that of public walking, and public Japanese speaking, I’d let her get away with the English speaking.
After deciding for two minutes which color marker to use, she furiously contemplated whether she should remove the cap and put it on the back of the marker, remove the cap and put down in the little tray at the bottom of the board, or remove the cap and hold it in her left hand. She decided to hold on to it, probably so that her left hand wouldn’t have to make up something else to do.
‘So Kanae, what food did you pick for crunchy and sweet?’ I asked. She nodded: yes. But, she nodded in response very quickly. Indeed, her English was growing in leaps and bounds.
Slowly, steadily, she traced out the letter ‘c,’ with the patience and concentration of a heart surgeon. I gave her all the time she needed. After all, she was making sense. To her, the English language is nothing but squiggles and sounds, a code to hide a Japanese word. It doesn’t mean anything by itself.
Candy? Cake? Cookies? What was she going for? She moved her entire body one miniscule step over to the right so that her elbow could remain tucked firmly against her side as she wrote. She drew a circle. Except, in English, that means ‘O.’ Cookie! She was going to write ‘cookie.’ Cookies are definitely crunchy and sweet. Great job Kanae! She began to draw another circle. But this time, she left it open. In English, that means ‘C.’ So, on the board we had: C-O-C. C-O-C? That looks like brewing trouble. I was frozen though, because these squiggles and symbols, while meaningless to sweet little Kanae, have an intrinsic and instant power over me. She froze me deeper by writing a ‘K.’ All she needed to do was write one more letter, any letter, and the freeze would be broken. But, she finished. And there it was on the board. ‘COCK.’
Sweet little Kanae stepped away to look at it. She cocked her head slightly to one side. She knew that the symbols didn’t make sense. The code was broken. So, she went back to her desk to consult her codebook and fix it. As she pored over her dictionary, I started to laugh. Not a giggle, or a chortle, or even a snicker. This was a full body laugh, enough to draw the attention of everyone. Seeing my amusement, of course, every student jumped to their codebook to decipher the joy for themselves. Thank goodness they agreed with me that calling a male chicken crunchy and sweet is indeed as funny as I made it out to be. And thank goodness sweet little Kanae remembered how to spell ‘cookie.’
Later on, I told my friend Eric about what had happened. He asked me, ‘Well, which way did you fix it?’ I told him I didn’t know what he meant. He sighed, exasperated, ‘did you change the spelling to ‘cookie’ or did you move it to hard and salty?’