The White Fence

When all the kids were gone, and Derek and I were left alone to pack up all the supplies and materials, Derek looked at me expectantly. “Well? Go ‘head. Let me hear it.” 
“Hear what?” I wondered, reaching for a stray crayon. 
“I know you’re dyin’ ta tell me off,” he declared. 
“No, I’m not. Actually…I was going to say that I thought your monster idea was a good one-” 
“Don' sound so surprised,” Derek instructed. 
“-I just wish you had told me about it before you did it, though.” 
“I did tell ya,” Derek replied. 
“You know what I mean.” 
“I didn’ know I had to clear my plans wit’ you.” 
I sighed. “You don’t have to clear your plans with me,” I corrected, “I’d just like it if we were on the same page. I’m your partner, you know. You don’t have to fight me all the time.” 
“I wasn' fightin’ you, Trace,” he responded, hotly, “but I knew that if I’da brought it up to ya, you’d put it down, tha way you did in tha car earliuh. This was tha only way I could do it; prove to you that I could so that you could see that I could. Otherwise you woulda thought it was stupid. I didn’ miss your reaction in tha car.” 
“You just kind of sprang it up on me.” 
“But you see it was uh really good idea.” 
“Yes, it was,” I agreed. “But do you honestly blame me for being skeptical about you? All you ever do in class is disrupt it, and well…you don’t exactly seem like you’re interested in any of this, you know? Every time I try to get your opinion, you don't ever offer anything.” 
“Because you don’ trust my opinions when I offuh them,” Derek returned. 
“That's because all you ever do is joke around.” 
“Maybe you should try it ‘stead uh bein’ so serious all tha time,” he returned. 
“I’m not serious all the time,” I declared. “I’m serious when it’s appropriate, and I have fun in the proper medium.” 
“In “the proper medium”,” he said, imitating the way I’d said it. “Geez, d’you evuh get uh listen at yourself, Trace? When do you have fun? If I left things solely to you, this would be like some French language boot camp: ‘Learn French or Die!’ These are 6 and 7 year olds here!” 
“And the remedy for that is not to act just like they do. Children need structure. There’s playtime, and there’s time to work. All you ever want to do is play…” 
“And all you evuh want to do is work! You act like there’s somethin’ wrong wit’ havin’ fun. Those kids’d like you uh lil more if you learned ta lighten up.” 
“Because of you, I can’t! You make it all about having fun. One of us has to be serious at some point, and you made sure it had to be me.” 
“Don’ try’n blame me for that! You were serious before you evuh met me! I bet you sit at home on Friday nights and do homework!” 
“And I’m sure you don’t!” 
“How much time d’you actually spend wit’ people your own age?” he demanded. 
“Who I spend my time with is none of your business, and different people have different concepts of fun.” 
“I bet anytime you find yourself enjoyin’ anythin’ too much you stop doin’ it.” 
“I don’t appreciate how you presume to know me so well. I actually enjoy studying! I like to read books, and I like learning new things. That is what I enjoy doing, and I enjoy the company of the people around me. Just because I don’t find you as funny as you find yourself, doesn’t mean that I don’t have fun! I don’t have to make a fool of myself to have fun.” 
His face was red. “No, you just get your pleasure in pretendin’ that you’re better’n everyone else, right?” 
His words stopped me up short. “What’re you talking about?” 
“Oh come on: you treat that desk of yours like it’s some type of throne, and you wait for tha rest of us to make idiots of ourselves before you give tha answuh you knew ten minutes ago, just to prove how much smartuh you are!” 
My jaw dropped, indignant with the falseness of that statement. “If I said the answer every time I knew it, I’d be accused of being a know-it-all, and if someone else knows the answer, I don’t see anything wrong with allowing them to answer the question first. Do you know how boring the class would be if no one participated? As you can see, it’s hard for a teacher to stand in front of a room at all, even harder when the students aren’t interested in learning.” 
I pointed my hand at him, which was still filled with spare crayons and Q-tips, the cleanup temporarily forgotten. “And don’t act as if you don’t think that you’re better than your classmates, or at least Mrs. Diece, because you do!” 
“How you figure?” 
“Penguin?” I reminded him. 
“Tha’s uh joke!” 
“That you made at her expense,” I remarked. 
“Well ‘scuse me for not bein’ as perfect as you,” Derek said, snidely. 
“I don’t pretend to be perfect,” I stated, “but I do try to treat the people around me the way that I would like to be treated, and I’m sure Mrs. Diece is well aware of the way she walks. She doesn’t need someone to tell her about it. So, yes, you do act like you’re better than your classmates because you do whatever it takes to interrupt her class, so you must think that what you have to say is more important than whatever she does. I’m not the only one in the class who wants to learn. Why do you have to tear someone down because of it?” 
“D’ya really think that knowin’ how ta say ‘ball’ in French is goinna change your life?” he jeered. 
“Maybe not,” I reasoned, “but knowing how to be open to new things will. And my Grandpa speaks French, so that’s something that we’d have to share, not to mention that if I work outside of this country, I’m going to need to know how to correspond with those that speak languages other than my own. When you learn another language, you also learn culture, and word origins, which will help me when I take my collage boards. 
“And Mrs. Diece is a very nice woman. At the least she deserves your respect because of what she does. So it does not matter if that class will or will not change my life, I have every right to get as much out of it as possible.” 
“You’re such uh goody-goody, you kno