“Hello?” Estelle paused. “Hello, Bill? Chip?”
She hoped it was one of her two best friends from school calling her.
She needed to talk to someone, but not to anyone in her family, who were all gathered in the den watching the tragedy of the day unfold on the late news.
Again, silence.
But then, a woman spoke. Estelle knew the voice immediately , and it chilled her.
“Estelle, they are outside my door.”
Again, silence.
Estelle was stunned by the fear she heard in Miss Chester’s voice. She’d never heard an adult sound that way except on television or in a movie.
“Miss Chester? Hi! How are you?” Estelle tried to sound as light and as “up” as she could.
She trembled with that sudden fear of the unknown, of a world she felt she was being asked to view: a world where adults were not only imperfect, but seriously flawed
“Estelle, yellow smoke is seeping under my door. I won’t let them in , so they’re sending in the poison yellow smoke. Help me, please!”
The ensuing silence nauseated Estelle.
“Miss Chester, who? Who is at your door? What’s wrong?, she asked, fighting her fear and nausea.
Should she call her mother who was on the next room?
No. She felt embarrassed for her teacher and wanted to protect her.
“Miss Chester, please tell me…how can I…..”
Miss Chester interrupted her with a deep sob.
“Help me! Estelle. My ears. Green pus is oozing from my ears and from under my fingernails. I can’t hear. The smoke. Help me! They’re out there now. Banging on the door. Can you hear them?”
One more deep sob.
Then the line went dead.
Estelle couldn’t breathe.
What was she supposed to do now?
Earlier that day, a chilly November school day, by any standards an ordinary day, President John F.Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas ,Texas. That very early afternoon.
Estelle , along with her friends Chip and Bill, were sitting in Coach Maupin’s Civics class when the news came over the intercom , after which Coach turned on the class radio and they all sat there transfixed by the newscaster’s voice. They sat listening as the facts of the assassination became more and more real. Estelle sat at her desk, sharply observant of the dense mood developing around her, wondering if her next class, Miss Chester’s English , would meet.
The bell rang, the hallways filled with silent students, and soon Estelle was at her desk in English class.
Miss Chester sat at her large wooden desk weeping, which made Estelle start crying too, along with several other kids in the room. Otherwise there was silence. Eventually, Miss Chester simply sat silent and, seeming to grow smaller and smaller behind her enormous desk, as her eyes focused on the air in front of her, the teacher finally spoke.
“Write about it,” she quietly said. “Just get out your notebooks and start writing.”
When the final class bell rang, Estelle closed her notebook, intending to head for home as the Principal had instructed, and looked back at Miss Chester, who was still sitting behind her desk, like a statue, with her eyes closed.