I Grew Up Brown County

Mr. Fitzgerald teaches health class. He was my mom’s health teacher too when she was in Junior High. When you raise your hand in class and ask to go get a drink, he always says, “As long as you make it non-alcoholic!” with a wink and a smile. In his class, we study the effects of smoking on the respiratory system by running up and down the hallways and then trying to breathe through straws. We make carb charts and present about whether apples really help you avoid the doctor.

Mr. Fitzgerald has a very special talent. On afternoons when we have taken all of our notes, graded our homework, and finished our tests, he lets us play a game. He has a key that he keeps at this desk. He hands one of us the key and leaves the room. We then scramble and pass it from hand to hand and decide who will hide it for when he comes back in the room.

People stick it in their shoes or under their seats or up jacket sleeves. Mr. Fitz, after several minutes, comes back into the room. We all sit still and try not to look at the real key holder. Some of us act as a red herring, attempting to trick our telepathic teacher.

He takes slow, measured steps up and down each aisle. He pauses here and there, a finger to his lips, considering this student and then that one. He makes idle remarks that offset the deep concentration it takes for him to play this game.

We always think we will fool him. We are always wrong. We never play a single key game that he doesn’t win. It remains a mystery, how he does it. How he knows every single time. Is he psychic? Telepathic? Does have a way of seeing into the room from outside in the hallway? A mystery.

– except –

I know.

I sit here, over 10 years later, and I know. I know the secret to the key game. Even now, I’m not sure I should reveal it. Who knows? Maybe everyone found out before we left BCJHS. But then again, maybe there are still a few believers out there. And I was entrusted with this secret. I think I slipped up a few days after I learned it. I vaguely recall telling a girl who was only at school one class period a day, thinking she wouldn’t have a chance to tell anyone. I have no way of knowing if she ever did.

A decade later, I still feel inclined to keep the secret; it’s not mine to share.

That’s what you get for being the nerdy girl with her giant Harry Potter or Christy novel tucked under her desk during lecture, reading with the book balanced on your knees. For stopping in the middle of the basketball game to tell the referee that you traveled and he should take the ball to give to the other team. For having to sit next to the weirdest kid in 6^th grade because you were “mature enough” and your classmates weren’t, so you suffer through a year of him studying the hair growing on your arms and calling you the Jolly Green Giant.

And one day, after the bell rings, Mr. Fitz asks you about the book you’re reading. He walks with you down the hall a little ways and then stops. He looks straight into your eyes, something teachers hardly ever do unless you’re in trouble, and he says, “Sarah, I have something I would like you to help me with, but it will only work if you keep it a secret.”