The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt (8 page)

I was basically sitting as far from Ms. Hay as it was physically possible to get without rearranging the furniture. I got up sheepishly and transferred to the desk closest to her.

My inner voice #1 informed me that this was all my fault, because I had to go and be all
nice
and refuse to hurt the Hobbit’s feelings. Inner voice #2 told inner voice #1 to shut up.

“Much better. Okay Moxie Kipper, let’s get started. First off, tell me why you signed up for Self-Confidence Through Comedy.”

Because I experienced a clipboard malfunction. Because I didn’t want to hurt a Hobbit’s feelings.

“Um, that’s hard to say,” I stalled.

“That’s okay,” she replied.

I tried to look at her without seeming like I was staring. She was just so . . . little. Not like the little people in
The Wizard of Oz
, not munchkin-esque . . . just on the tiniest possible edge of normal I’d ever seen.

“You’re here, Moxie, and that’s what’s important. I could start by giving you a long-winded history of comedy, or I could go into a highbrow analysis of why being funny can be a powerful coping mechanism, or I could really milk the standard aphorisms like ‘Laughter is the best medicine.’ But I’m not going to.”

Okay. Good.

Were we done, then?

“The essential fact is that whether you’re a homecoming queen, a bookworm, a budding rocket scientist, or a teacher who’s not much bigger than an American Girl doll, it always helps to be able to crack a joke every now and then.”

Wait. That thing about the doll. Was she talking about
herself
?

Was I supposed to laugh?

“Some people think you’re either born funny, or you’re not. That isn’t true. To be funny, you have to make a conscious choice to take a risk. Like singing, for example. You’re potentially putting yourself out there to be judged, and if you care too much about that, it’ll affect the sound of your voice. Self-Confidence Through Comedy is going to show you how to stop caring about how people react to your jokes. Once you do that, you stop caring about what people think of you altogether. So it’s not so much teaching you how to be funny, which is impossible, as it is teaching you how not to care if sometimes you
aren’t.”

What?

Ms. Hay gave me one of her huge, mildly alarming smiles.

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it all out along the way. Let me just give you the information that we’re all supposed to give students up front. Our EE is scheduled to meet every Tuesday and Thursday at three thirty in this classroom. I teach Latin and Greek history in this classroom, so if you ever need to find me and I’m not in my office, check here. Attendance for EE is mandatory unless you have a note from the Health Center. That’s what it says on my memo. Between you and me, since it’s just the two of us, we can always reschedule if something comes up, like you have a big paper due the next day, or you have a fight with your roommate, whatever. We just need to meet twelve times in the next six weeks.

“The second thing I’m supposed to tell you is about what they call the”—she referred to the paper she was holding—“Educational Enrichment Program Academic Community Participation Fulfillment. I don’t know who makes up these names. Anyway, what it means is each EE has some public thing they have to do at Eaton in connection with what they’re studying. Green You, for example, has to make a presentation at Morning Meeting on how to lessen your home environmental impact.”

Why was Green You
constantly
reappearing in my life like an embarrassing uncle with a cologne-abuse problem?

“So your participation thing for this EE is pretty basic—all enrolled new students, that is
you
, have to do a five- to ten-minute presentation explaining what you’ve learned through this EE about how using humor can help us be more comfortable with who we are. It’s a school-wide event at the New Student Talent Show, which is on Open Visit weekend for parents in October. That’s all.”

That’s all? That’s ALL?

I shook my head.

“No, I . . . see, no. I can’t get up and perform in front of the school,” I said.

“Why not?” Ms. Hay asked.

“Well, the thing is . . . you see. I . . . I’m . . . Amish.”

Ms. Hay’s eyes widened. Her gaze fell momentarily to my T-shirt, which was black with red letters reading: “Death Metal University.” What can I say—I’d put it on this morning while sharing a DUCKI moment with Spinky.

“Amish?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s a kind of religious community that you live in, very old-fashioned. We keep our homes and persons very plain—no electricity even.”

“I know who the Amish are,” Ms. Hay said, glancing at my T-shirt again. The corners of her mouth tugged up slightly.

“I see you’ve noticed the Death Metal University shirt,” I said. “I wouldn’t normally be wearing it. My roommate lent it to me.”

That part was true.

“But while I’m at Eaton,” I continued, “I’m . . . well, we Amish folks . . . this is a . . . um . . .”

“Your rumspringa?” Ms. Hay asked.

What? Was this a trap? Was rump springer a real word? Wait. Don’t panic. Go with it.

“Well, that’s what you English may call it,” I said, trailing off.

“Hmmmm.”

Keep talking, I told myself. But it was difficult. My stomach was doing a weird sort of flutter, like it was preparing to escape from the rest of my body.

“Right, so anyway, the Amish are okay with humor, sort of, I mean, smiling is definitely okay. But getting up onstage to make jokes and talk about myself is probably . . . Being humble is really important to us, and you know, being that my parents will probably be visiting that weekend, it could really shock them, and I’d hate for them to take the horse and buggy all this way only to feel . . . shamed.”

Ms. Hay made an odd coughing sound while keeping her lips pressed firmly together. Then she cleared her throat.

“Well, it is a requirement of the class,” she said. “And there are many ways to be funny without being offensive. I’m here to teach you humor as a coping mechanism, to be comfortable with who you are. Speaking publicly is part of that. Take me, for example. If I have to make an announcement in Morning Meeting, I have to bring a little box to stand on so I can reach the microphone. Now, I could try to do that discreetly, or I could make a joke out of it. Being extremely short is part of who I am. I own it by seeing the humor in it.”

Wow. That was sort of impressive, although I had no idea what personality that made her. She was clearly not a DUCKI or a MEG or any of the other classifications on my list. What was she? Or did standard personalities not apply to teachers?

“So I feel certain that you can learn something in this class, Moxie. Even with your . . . Amish limitations.”

Oh.

“Okay,” I mumbled. I was trapped. What else could I do?

“Okay, then. I think that’s probably it for today. The students always say the shorter, the better,” Ms. Hay said. “I think that’s why I’m so popular. So I’ll see you on Thursday, Moxie.”

She just sat there on top of the desk, like a collectible Buddha paperweight. But she’d said we were done, so I got up.

“Bye,” I said. Then I walked as Amishly as possible out the door and into the hallway.

I felt like I had pulled that off okay. But it had all been for nothing, because I was still going to have to get up in front of the entire school and perform. How nauseating and potentially stupid. Everyone would . . .

I froze in my tracks. Performing in front of
the entire school
. Together in one room at the same time. Some of them thought I was a DUCKI, some believed I was a MEG, several figured I was an ARA or a HHSE, and I’d just told one I was Amish.

Well then.

I had a problem.

B
y nearly the end of the first week and with two sessions under my belt, I still wasn’t sure I could live with Self-Confidence Through Comedy. Ms. Hay seemed nice enough, but I couldn’t stop silently agonizing about my unwilling upcoming comedy debut. I was mulling it over again in the lunch line when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see a smiling girl with brown hair and bright blue eyes. Sage Juliusburger. I could always remember her name right away because we both lived in Sage.

“Hey, Moxie,” she said, smiling. She turned to the person behind her. “I want you to meet my roommate. Reagan, this is the girl I was telling you about—the one who crewed on the sloop this summer to publicize the plight of the sea cow.”

Reagan shot into view next to Sage. It was a good thing I’d just gone over the Personality Log. The sloop scenario was nothing if not detail-heavy, and the name “sea cow” had popped into my head so randomly I could never come up with it again without notes.

“Hey, I’ve been dying to meet you!” she exclaimed.

She was of medium height and build, with shoulder-length brown hair and large intelligent eyes behind thick glasses. I didn’t get an immediate read on her. Her glasses said brain. Her Bean boots said preppie. Her black T-shirt said possibly prone to brooding.The wide silver cuff bracelet on her wrist said expensive. On her dinner tray she was carrying a small glass bowl containing two little fish. That said . . . eccentric. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at the bowl as the fish swam in lazy little circles.

“I didn’t want to leave them alone in my room,” Reagan explained when she saw me looking at the fish. “I decided to take them for a walk so they could experience other life forms. They’ve had a very difficult day.”

“What constitutes a difficult day for your fish?” I asked.

“They’re not
my
fish,” Reagan stated.

“Oh. Okay. I thought you said . . .”

“The fish and I are together. But they are not
my
fish.”

I didn’t say anything, which is often an excellent tactic when you have no idea what someone is talking about.

“Reagan doesn’t believe that humans should assert ownership over animals,” Sage explained. “She won’t even eat meat.”

“Oh, of course. No. Me neither. Right! But where’d you get them?” I asked. “I mean, how did they come into your company?”

“I liberated them from a flea market in town yesterday,” Reagan said. “I spent my last five dollars trying to toss three Ping-Pong balls into one of their bowls to ‘win them,’ as the vendor put it. As far as I’m concerned, they won me. So these fish and I are temporarily hanging together until I can reintroduce them into the wild.”

“That’s great!” I exclaimed.

This was kind of along the lines of my old plan to liberate lobsters from fish sellers. As far as I was concerned, Reagan was good people.

“So I want to hear about your experience on the sloop!” Reagan said eagerly. “What did you do?”

We had reached the selection of entrees. I bought some time by examining the meatloaf with a serious eye.

“Well, I was an apprentice. Apprentice to the . . . swabber.”

“I know beans about sailing, sorry,” Reagan said. “What’s a swabber do?”

I shook my head, like it was all too technical to get into.

“Just basic, you know. Swabbing. Everything needs swabbing in the salt air, right?”

“I could never swab,” Sage said, a little ruefully. “I’d get seasick.”

“Me neither. But the sea cow . . . I’ve never heard of them. Are they an endangered species?” Reagan asked. She knitted her eyebrows in a worried way.

Without giving it any real thought, I took a piece of meatloaf and dropped it onto my plate. It made kind of a smacking sound, followed by a resounding silence. I looked up to see Reagan watching me with a confused frown. Had I splattered her with gravy? Taken too large a slice? Was there something wrong with the meatlo . . . Meatloaf. Meat. I was a vegetarian sea cow activist, committing the ultimate sin.
Think fast, think fast!

“The tofu-loaf looks a little weird, doesn’t it?” I asked. It was a shame I wasn’t wearing my “I Love Tofu” T-shirt to lend some helpful weight to my words.

A look of relief crossed Reagan’s face. “Oh, Moxie, that isn’t tofu-loaf. It’s actually meat,” she said.

I stared at the plate in horror.

“What?” I asked, trying to look indignantly shocked. I grabbed the plate and put it back on the counter, shoving it as far away from me as I could.

“Try the eggplant Parmesan, maybe,” Sage suggested.

“Great idea,” I said, helping myself.

The taste of eggplant made me a little sick, but maybe I could just eat the cheese off the top and no one would be the wiser.

With the entrée disaster now averted, I followed my two new friends to a table.

“So I hear you have a missing roommate,” Sage said.

“Yeah, I guess she’s coming later in the semester,” I said.

“I hear she released some kind of virus from a Petri dish in the bio lab and they had to burn all the desks,” Sage said.

I hesitated.

“I’m not exactly sure what happened with her,” I said carefully. A virus?

“So you were talking about the sea cow? Being endangered?” Reagan prompted as we sat down.

“What? Well, yeah!” I said. “Because the sea cow subsists, of course, by, um . . . grazing.”

“Grazing?” asked Sage. In spite of her suggestion, she had avoided the eggplant and grabbed a mixed salad. I eyed it jealously.

“Yes. So the recent decline in the uh . . . the algae pastures . . . affects the ability to graze efficiently.You know how it goes.”

“There’s nothing for them to eat?” Sage asked, pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth. She looked ready to pack up her salad and ship it off to the sea cows immediately.

I shook my head. Reagan looked like she might cry.

“That’s terrible! There are so many species of animals that are suffering like this, mostly because of humans. We’ve spent the last century or two creating obstacle after obstacle to the ecosystem with our self-interested industry and technology. Why can’t more people understand that we owe animals our help?” Reagan asked. She paused with emotion, her lower lip quivering a little.