Chapter 9: SCHOOL
God's Little Drop of Water
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The next day was Sunday, the first day of the week. Taliya stood in the doorway of her classroom. She surveyed the scene. All the little robots sat in their seats, waiting for Gal to make them even more stupid.
Taliya took a seat in the back beside a boy named Yarden. There were two students to a desk. Taliya set her backpack on the floor and sat with folded arms, waiting for Gal to begin teaching her things she already knew.
Yarden said hello and asked where she’d been. Taliya didn’t answer him. Yarden was from Argentina and seemed to be perpetually under the weather. As if on cue, he wiped runny snot from his nose.
Horrified, Tali immediately produced a pencil from her backpack. She carefully drew a long vertical line down the center of her desk, illustrating clearly to Yarden just where their respective territory lay.
Gal began teaching. Taliya waited for Gal to say hello to her, to call on her, to ask her a question. But Gal never did. It was as though Taliya were invisible. This glaring oversight only served to reinforce Taliya’s prior opinion of the woman’s teaching ability.
Gal droned on and the other students answered her professorial inquiries incorrectly, demonstrating not only their own stupidity but also their apparent illiteracy. All of the material Gal was putting on the blackboard was in the textbook. Taliya distinctly recalled having read it.
Taliya soon surmised that there was no way she could endure this.
As Gal droned on, Taliya began plotting her method of escape.
♦♦♦
That evening, with the family gathered in the tiny kitchen, Ima served the remainder of the liver and onions.
Taliya was aghast.
Not only had she been forced to endure wasting an entire day sitting in class listening to Gal’s approximation of teaching, but now she was being forced to stare at the pile of steaming flesh upon her dinner plate. The aroma alone was enough to cause severe gastric distress.
Liver. Ke-ved.
It sat upon her plate. Staring up at her. A grey lump. Not even meat. An organ.
“Tali, eat!” Ima commanded. Ima smiled and put a morsel of liver into her mouth, chewing it up, demonstrating how delicious it was.
Ima then waited, watching Taliya.
Waiting and watching.
Taliya realized she had little alternative. She took up her fork and cut a piece of the liver. It was very squishy. Taliya put the liver in her mouth. It was salty and bore an odd flavor, unlike meatballs or chicken. An abnormal flavor.
“Ta-eem, na-hone?” Ima asked.
Tali nodded, feigning enthusiasm, for the liver was most certainly not delicious.
Once Ima had been distracted by cutting Yaroni’s liver for him, Tali grabbed all the meat off of her dinner plate. She slid casually from her stool and strolled to the sherutim, where she immediately spat the liver into her hand and tossed it into the toilet with the rest, and flushed it down. She quickly washed her hands thoroughly with plenty of soap and water. She did not want the liver smell to infest her bed later.
♦♦♦
The next morning, Taliya sat down to breakfast, joining her father in the kitchen as he prepared sandwiches for their lunch.
Yair was in his bedroom, still fast asleep. In the other room, Ima and Yaroni were debating the suitability of pairing stripes with checkers, a fashion faux pas to which Yaroni objected at great volume.
Taliya dug into her bowl of oatmeal, plunging her spoon to the deepest depths, hoping to strike chocolate.
Success!
Abba had remembered.
Taliya began to eat heartily. Soon, her mouth was covered with delicious melted chocolate.
Taliya heard her father chuckle. “How was school yesterday?”
“Boring.”
Abba chuckled again. “Why?”
“I already know everything.”
“You need to study hard and be a good girl for the teacher,” said Abba.
“I don’t want to. The teacher is stupid and the boy who sits next to me is always sick.”
Ima strode through the room, her blouse only half-tucked in, a hairbrush in one hand and a shoe in the other. “Don’t let the sick boy infect you!” Ima returned to her fashion debate with Yaroni.
“You must be respectful of your teachers,” Abba commanded.
♦♦♦
Taliya slouched in her desk, arms crossed in open defiance, waiting for day two of the boredom to commence. Yarden sat beside her, sniffing and sneezing and wiping his wet nose with his fingers. When he left to go blow his nose, Taliya seized the opportunity. She erased the pencil line she had drawn the day before. She quickly re-drew it, moving it several centimeters closer to Yarden’s side of the desk. Perhaps doing so would keep the snot at bay.
♦♦♦
That evening, Taliya was downstairs with her brothers, sitting in the grass beneath the mango tree, waiting for Abba to arrive home from work.
Before long, they spotted him walking toward them on the sidewalk. In his arms was a large box.
The children leaped to their feet and ran to him, hugging him. They inspected the box, to discover that it was a new television.
A color-television!
They had only ever watched TV in black-and-white.
The children were very excited.
Upstairs, they watched as Abba carefully unboxed the television. Ima was at her desk, glancing up occasionally from the schoolwork she was grading.
The body of the television was red. Taliya liked it very much.
Abba explained that the programming was now being created in color. But certain entities within the government wished that it remain in black-and-white. The signal was thus scrambled, spoiling the color. But this new television was accompanied by a switching device which could restore the original color. To Taliya, this all seemed overly complicated. Of course the picture should be seen in color!
Once Abba had moved the old TV and replaced it with the new one and had plugged it in, the children gathered round. Little House on the Prairie was beginning. Taliya was shocked to see the beloved opening sequence, with the three adorable little girls running through the grass, which was now bright green and full of beautiful wildflowers.
It was like actually being there in the Old West!
Yair and Yaroni agreed it was something.
The children settled in to enjoy the program. Ima took a break from grading papers and joined Abba in the kitchen preparing dinner.
A few minutes later, the program reverted to a black-and-white picture.
“Abba! Abba!” the children cried.
Abba showed them the switch attached to the television. He flipped it up and down and the picture became color once more.
A few minutes later, it happened again.
Yair went to the TV and flipped the switch, bringing back the color.
Ten minutes later, it happened again.
Yaroni went to the TV this time, flipped the switch, and the color picture was restored.
Ten minutes later, it was Taliya’s turn.
The children soon surmised that this task was a nuisance. Still, they agreed, seeing the picture in color was glorious, and they were excited to watch other programs in color as well.
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