By noon the temperature had fallen thirty degrees in twenty-four hours. The fitness test for the eighth-grade girls was always at the beginning of October. We stood there in our school shorts and tees, our legs covered with goose bumps, jumping up and down and slapping our hands against our bare arms. I hear that the test is at the start of the school year now, and heat stroke is sometimes a problem.

I never pushed myself in phys. ed., but I was so cold that day that I ran fast to keep warm. I beat all the other girls. They had a second heat -- strange word for a day that chilly -- of the best runners. I won that one, too. If I'd been thinking, I would have held back.

Mr. Thomasson, the biology teacher, coached track. I was in his class, the last period of the day. He asked me to stay after and sat at his desk grading papers until everyone had gone and the halls had quieted. He crossed to the wooden door with the frosted-glass window and closed it. I was sitting in a chair at the end of one of the lab benches, and he sat next to me, along the other edge. We were diagonally adjacent, across the corner of the lab bench.

"How do you like biology?" he asked. He leaned forward far enough that I smelled his breath, and thought he'd probably been holding his bowel movements. The stink was coming out the wrong end. Even without the halitosis, he was creepy. His skin was oily and his eyes were slightly exopthalmic and he had acne scars on his cheeks. His hair was glued to his skin and flecked with little bits of dandruff. I leaned back, wondering why I'd never noticed how repulsive he was, but then I'd never seen him close up before. I hoped I never had to again.

I mumbled something about the class being okay.

"I hope it's more than okay," he said. "You're a very bright girl. You could do very well if you applied yourself."

I looked at the cover of my textbook. I hated biology. I hated the wetness: the circulatory system, sweat glands, reproductive systems. Bags of meat. If I wanted something to remind me what we are, I could look at roadkill. The school administration put me in biology because Earth Sciences was full and that year my name fell in the last group of students to sign up for classes, the group that got the leftovers. I hated seeing how repulsive life is, when you look at the mechanisms. The dissections were worst: slimy things like earthworms and frogs. Slimy inside even more than outside.

"I'm pretty busy," I lied. "I have to help my mom after school."

"I can talk to her," he offered. "She wants you to be a good student. I'm sure she'll let you out of some chores so you can study under me."

"No! Please." My mother taught Spanish at the same school, only three blocks from our house. All the teachers talked to me about her, and to her about me. She'd stopped teaching biology when Mr. Thomasson came to the school, and I was glad. She had a Ph.D. in the subject. I'd looked at her dissertation, shelved at home with all the other books. It was something about native prairie grasses. I didn't understand any of the words that were more than three letters long. I wouldn't want to take a subject I hated from my Ph.D. mother in a school where everyone knew her and loved her, in a neighborhood where everyone knew her and loved her. It would have been worse than taking the class from Mr. Thomasson, although my opinion on that was about to change.

"Well?" he asked. "Would you spend some time with me? Learning the material?"

I couldn't believe he was coming on to me. He was repulsive and old. I wanted to throw my book so it broke his nose and run out of the room and never come back. How was I going to get through the semester if he kept acting like this? I was starting to sweat. I hate to sweat.

When I didn't answer he said, "Well, then, maybe she can help you. She knows the subject better than I do, at least the botany."

My mother was annoying. She was picky about getting all the details right, in every subject. I knew I could learn the material without any effort, so if the worst happened I wouldn't have to study with her. "Are my grades bad?" I asked. "Did I flunk the test?"

"No," he said. "You still have a B minus. But you can make an A without even trying. You're coasting."

Now I was mad. B's were fine, at least in the things I didn't care about. And this was a revolting class. Besides, he was starting to sound like my mother, always prodding me on the classes I "neglected".

Then he got really creepy. He scooted his chair closer and leaned toward me and put his hand on mine. "Clover, you should try harder. You have so many gifts, and you're wasting them."

"I'm not really that smart." I didn't expect him to buy this, but stalling was the only choice. Not that my brains were his business, anyway.

"No. You are. You only work at the things you like. Last year you came in near the back of the pack in the fitness test. This year you came in first. Why is that?"

"I, I grew?"

"No. You made an effort this time. Kids don't improve that much unless they've been running. Have you?"

"No." Maybe I should have said "yes". I wasn't sure.

"I'd like you to try out for the track team. I know it doesn't start until spring, but if you get ready over the winter. . . I can help you. If you train hard, you have the potential to go to the state finals." Then he stopped holding his hand over mine, and actually took my hand in his.

"I have to go." I picked up my books.

I walked as fast as I could. When I was a block away, I looked back. He was watching me from the window.

At home I ignored my mother's greeting, and ran upstairs to my room. I closed the door and threw myself on the bed.

There was a knock on the door. "Clover? Is something wrong?"

"No."

She opened the door and closed it behind her and sat on the bed. Lying down was too exposed, too intimate. I swung my legs to the floor so I was sitting next to her, but not close. I put my elbows on my knees.

"Did something happen at school?"

I shook my head.

"Mr. Thomasson said he was going to talk to you about the track team."

"He's creepy."

"He's a nice man. He loves teaching. He cares about his students. He tries to help them. He wants to help you. He said he thinks you can be a 'star'."

"Why do you talk to the other teachers about me?"

"I'm sorry. They talk to me. I can't very well tell them to stop. That would be rude, don't you think?"

"I don't care. I don't have any privacy. Everywhere I go, it's your-mother this and your-mother that. I don't have a life, it's like I'm a little piece of you."

"I'm sorry." She touched my shoulder, and I moved farther away. She said, "Is there some way I can help? Something I can do?"

"Send me to a different school."

"It's too late for that. You're almost halfway through the semester."

"Then let me drop biology." You had to have permission from your parents to drop a class.

"You need the science credit. Lawrence High won't take you without it."

"I don't care. He's weird. Maybe I can quiz out."

"No. You'd probably have to take it in addition to your other classes next year."

I didn't want to, but she was forcing me to bring out my ace. "He made a pass at me."

"I think you must have misunderstood."

"No I didn't. He sat real close to me and held my hand."

"What did he say?"

"He wanted to help me. Coach me. But it was more like, spend time alone together."

"I'm sure he was talking about track."

"No. He was talking about a lot of things. He wants to be around me. He wants to -- you know."

"Clover, I think you misunderstood."

"No I didn't."

"Lower your voice, please."

"I didn't misunderstand," I hissed. "He's a dirty old man. He wants to have sex with me."

"Just be patient. I'm sure this will clear up, and you'll see that you're wrong."

"I'm going to report him to the principal."

My mother sighed and looked at the wall. Her eyes didn't move. She was looking for something, without looking at the wall. Finally she said, "Clover, what I am about to tell you you must never repeat to another living soul. Will you promise me that?"

"No."

She stood. "Then you're simply going to have to take my word for it. He's a nice man. He wouldn't do that sort of thing."

Now I was curious. "All right. I promise."

"This is important. I mean it. You have to keep this secret."

"I promise, okay?" What did she want, a sworn statement?

"Mr. Thomasson doesn't like girls."

"Well he likes me."

"No, I mean -- " she took a breath -- "he doesn't like girls that way." When I didn't respond she said, "He's homosexual."

"Oh my God. He's queer?"

"Please don't use that word." She sat next to me again. "I didn't want to tell you. Now you can't make a fuss about this. He's a good man and he tries to help his students. He loves the smart ones, like you. He wants to help them."

"He's disgusting. Sex with boys. He's a pervert."

"Stop that now." She almost never raised her voice, but she was speaking sharply. "He doesn't do that with boys."

"Men. Whatever. God. How gross."

"Clover, this is one of those times when you have a chance to grow up a bit. You can accept him. If you don't do that, then you close -- "

"Stop. Stop. Not another lecture."

"Listen to me -- "

"No. This is too gross. How did you know, anyway?" None of the kids knew. There wasn't any talk. He must have been very careful to hide it. I'd heard he was dating one of the other teachers, a woman who was a little younger than him, divorced with two sons in the high school. Mr. Thomasson even used to be married.

"We're friends. He talks to me. He trusts me not to tell anyone. That's why it's very important you keep this secret. He would lose his job. He loves teaching. It's the most important thing in his life. He's a good teacher, and a good man." Her eyes were watery and she sniffed. "Don't betray him."

She was such a loser. So weak. But I knew that if I let out his secret, she'd make my life hell. Not deliberately, but by being who she was: showing her disappointment, and giving me more lectures, and making questioning references when the time came to trust me on something. She wouldn't trust me again, because this was too important to her. I knew I could find a way to use the secret without the news getting back to her. Or at least without exposing him.

I smiled at her. "Don't worry. I won't tell. But I'm not going out for track. And I'm not going for tutoring."

"Will you at least study harder?"

"No."

"Clover -- "

"No. I won't tell anyone. But I'm not going to study harder."

The next day he asked me to stay after class again. When the other students left, he closed the door, just the way he'd done the day before. This time, he sat on the high stool behind his desk. I stood on the other side of the desk, holding my books against my chest.

"Your mother said she talked to you."

"I'm not going out for track."

"She said that. I wanted to discuss something else," he said. "She told me she was afraid you were going to complain to the principal. She said she had to tell you about me." He waited, but I didn't say anything. "Clover, I have been a teacher for more years than you have been alive. Your mother and I are a lot alike. We both get joy from seeing young minds grow. This is the most rewarding job there is. I want to help my students. I don't want to take advantage of them. I have never, ever done anything improper."

"You touched me."

"Yes, well, maybe that was unwise. But it wasn't what you thought. I wouldn't try that, I wouldn't try to, not you, even if I . . . " He stopped.

"I don't care. You're disgusting and I want you to stay away from me."

"We still have to work together. You're my student."

"I want out of the labs. They make me sick."

"Everyone who takes this class has to do the lab work."

"I don't care. I hate it. I want out of the labs. If you let me out of the labs I won't tell on you, and I'll work hard enough to get an A. I'll even do the extra-credit questions on the homework."

"How can? . . ." He stopped and thought for a moment. "I know a doctor who will write you an excuse. He'll say you have a formaldehyde allergy."

"So I don't have to do the lab tomorrow?"

"I'm -- seeing him -- tonight. I'll get it from him then."

"What if he doesn't?"

"He will. When I explain the situation, he'll do it. I'll bring you the slip, and you turn it in to the principal's office."

"Good."

"Can I trust you?"

"Yes, if you . . . "

"Keep my part of the deal?"

I nodded.

"I will," he said. "I'll get you the excuse, and I won't work with you any more closely than the minimum."

"Good, because you're disgusting. Doing things with other men. What is wrong with you?"

He looked blank for a moment and then his face closed. "No," he said. "I'm not the disgusting one. You are. You're as different from your mother as it's possible to be. Get out."

"We have a deal," I said.

"Yes. We have a deal. Now we're through here, and it's time for you to go."

Of course my mother heard that I wasn't in the labs any more. It got back to her through a boy who told his dad, and his dad mentioned it to my mother during a parent-teacher conference. That was almost a month later, and there wasn't anything she could do by then. I'd missed too much work to make it up, or catch up with the experiment they were doing.

We had an argument about it, in my room, where we had most of our arguments. She kept lowering her voice in the middle of her sentences, the way she always did: every time she started to yell, she caught herself and lowered her voice again. I was always trying to make her lose her temper and shout, but I almost never could.

Wyatt came upstairs and opened the door and tried to mediate, but when I glared at him and mother turned her back on him he shrugged and said, "Your problem," and left.

We got complicated after that. She decided that keeping Mr. Thomasson's secret was more important than me being in the labs. She never lied. She hated dishonesty and deception on every principle, general or specific, that you could name. How it must have irked her, having to conceal and collude in this lie. But she was too simple to con me, and too realistic not to realize that the time had passed to change the situation. I gloated over her discomfort more than getting out of the labs.

I kept the deal, getting the highest grades in the class and doing all the extra-credit work. It was worth it, not to have to do the labs. I didn't tell on him until a couple of years later, when I was getting high with a friend and playing Truth or Dare, and she dared me to tell a secret no one knew. At the end of that school year Mr. Thomasson quit and left town, and I thought maybe my friend had spread the news.

Our dishwasher broke about a week later, and until we got it fixed I helped mother do the dishes. One day when she was washing and I was drying and she was in a talkative mood seemed like the right time. I asked her, "Why did Mr. Thomasson move away?"

"His friend has a new job in Saint Louis," she said.

Friend, I thought. She always found the kind euphemisms about people and their peculiarities. "Good," I said. "I hope he's happy."

She stopped washing and looked at me. She started to touch me on the shoulder, but her yellow rubber glove dripped suds when she raised her hand, and she lowered her hand to the edge of the sink so the glove wouldn't get my blouse wet. "Yes," she said. "So do I. He deserves to be happy. We all do. I hope some day you see that you do, too."