For the Love of Truth

From the writing prompt, “Careful, I’ve heard they can sense fear.”  (Saul is a new addition to the Springfield cast of characters, but I quite like him.)

“Alright, everyone! It’s time to go home!” Saul Poplar clapped his hands enthusiastically. The sound was mostly lost in the ruckus cheering of eighteen second-graders who’d just been told their weekend was in sight. In the ensuing rush of packing up, Saul made his way across the classroom to take his customary station by the back door.

He waited patiently until all eighteen students were lined up, more or less in single-file, all watching him expectantly. Timothy Green was practically standing on his teacher’s toes. The boy bounced a few times until Saul put a hand on his head and firmly anchored him to the ground. “Let’s say thank you one more time to Mr. Cramer for taking a whole day off to come tell us about being a TV personality!”

As one, the students looked over their shoulders to wave enthusiastically at their guest speaker of the day and chorused “Thank you!”

Carson Cramer waved back and beamed at them. “Thank you all for having me! And remember, no matter what Mr. Poplar tells you, being a news anchor is hard work!”

“Because news never stops!” several kids piped in, quite proud that they remembered his catch phrase.

Carson winked at them, which caused several of the girls to giggle, and then turned to start packing up the things he’d brought along to help with his demonstration.

Saul rolled his eyes affectionately, and then he reached for the coats. This had become something of a ritual for him; his empathic sense let him get a bit of a read on each kid’s mood through their possessions, at least since lunchtime when they’d last put their things on. And since the items had been sitting for a few hours, the vibes were mellowed enough that he didn’t get a headache from running across someone’s bad day, either.

He reached out and grabbed Timothy’s hat from its peg. He was completely unsurprised by the pang of sadness that echoed somewhere deep inside his chest as he pulled the hat all the way down to cover the boy’s eyes. Saul put one hand on Timothy’s shoulder for a second and re-straightened the hat with the other. “You did great today, Timothy. You were a big help to Mr. Cramer. I bet your parents would be proud of you.”

Timothy looked up at him and smiled, mind clearly on getting out of the classroom to do all the fun non-school things he had planned. “Thanks, Mr. P.” Saul knew full well that the words wouldn’t make up for Timothy’s need for the parental affection he got so rarely from his often-absent parents. But he felt the boy’s mood lift a little through the hat he still touched. It was something, anyway. Hat now properly adjusted, Timothy dashed off to his weekend.

Saul smiled after him, and then turned to the next student in line. Penny Dabbs looked up at him expectantly, and he smiled. “Hi, Penny. Have a good weekend! Eat a donut for me, alright?” He felt the brown-eyed girl’s pride in being picked as hall-monitor today still lingering in the purple wool of her scarf. Saul bent to be eye-level with her as he tied the scarf into place around her neck. His brow creased with worry; the happy emotions otherwise present were dulled, as they were so often lately, by Penny’s chronic tiredness. He spoke a little softer as he looked her in the eye. “Do your parents know you didn’t sleep very well this week?”

Penny shook her head, unusually silent. Saul nodded in understanding. “Maybe you should tell them.”

“Thanks, Mr. Poplar.” Her smile was small, but genuine. She took her purple hat as he handed it to her and put it on without her usual vigor as she left the classroom.

And so the line went, as Mr. Poplar spent a moment of time with each of his kids on their way out the door. The occasional word of encouragement or gentle reprimand, always spoken at the right time in the right tone, had a marked effect on each student as they left the room. At long last, all the second-graders were gone, the classroom empty except for its teacher and its guest speaker.

With a long sigh, Saul popped his neck and then crossed the room to Carson, pausing to straighten chairs and pick up trash along the way.

His friend watched him with a thoughtful expression, and the Scot’s blue eyes twinkled with something like admiration. “You’re right brilliant with the little ones, Saul. I’ve never seen a herd of seven year olds love someone like they love you. How d’you put up with ‘em every day? I’d go mad if I had your job.”

Saul gave an easy shrug as he reached the other man’s side. The truest answer–that he could read people’s emotions through inanimate objects and thus correctly gage their mood—wasn’t really a viable response. To buy time, he spun on his heel and tossed a wadded ball of construction paper in a perfect three-point shot to the trash can in the far corner of the room. “Ah, they’re great kids. Besides, Career Week gets them all excited. They always behave better when they have speakers to impress.” He reached out his hand. “Thanks again for coming in, Carson. I know you’ve got a million things to do.”

Carson clasped the teacher’s hand with a strong grip and a smile. “Ach, it was the least I could do. Besides, this was the easy lot. I have to show a bunch of misbehaving high schoolers around the set on Monday as a reward for some science fair.”

Saul snorted at that mental image. “Careful, I’ve heard they can sense fear.”

The TV anchor shook his head a little as he snapped the final microphone case shut. “In this town, I wouldn’t doubt it. It’d be a right handy skill, though, in my business.” He chuckled to himself. “And probably in yours too, come to think of it.”

There was really no way for Saul to answer that but with a very honest, “Yeah, it really would.” He went over to collect the last two jackets on the pegs. He put on his own jacket and scarf before scooping up Carson’s long gray coat.

He actually had to close his eyes and lean against the wall for a second as a muddled ball of confusion, exhaustion and maybe a little bit of fear expanded from the center of his chest and spread out to leave his fingers tingling. His head hurt for a moment from the echoes of what must have been the killer tension headache Carson had been fighting when he donned his coat this morning.

Saul shook his head firmly and the emotions faded to a dull unease. It all took less than a few seconds, and when he turned and handed Carson his coat, his expression was clear of the emotions he now knew his friend had been feeling all day.

He handed Carson the garmet silently. The other man accepted it with a smile. “Thanks, lad.” He put his cases on a nearby desk to slip it on.

Saul watched him with new attention. Now that he looked for them, he could just see the lines around the other man’s mouth and eyes that told of his suffering through a monster headache that would have made the average person stay home from work. He could see the tiredness in Carson’s frame now, too, a slump to his normally straight shoulders that Saul felt guilty for not noticing before now.

If Saul hadn’t felt the maelstrom of unpleasantness from Carson himself, he would never believe that someone could be in that much turmoil inside and barely show a trace of it to the outside world. How the man managed to pull it off was a mystery. Impulsively, he reached out to straighten Carson’s jacket collar where it stuck up on one side. He took the opportunity to look his friend squarely in the eye. “Hey. You doing okay?”

Carson blinked, genuinely surprised by the worry in Saul’s voice. “Aye, ‘course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

When he only received a raised eyebrow in response, he sighed, and his shoulders slumped a little more under Saul’s hand. “I’m alright, really. Just haven’t been sleepin’ well, is all. You know how it is. Doctor says it’s just stress, I’ll come through it eventually.” He gave a wry grin and shook his head. “Never can fool you, can I?”

Saul let go of him to button up his own jacket. “Someone’s got to keep you on the straight and narrow. You’re too good at acting for your own good, but I could practically feel that headache from across the room.”

Carson’s mouth twitched into another smile as they headed for the door. “Are you sure you can’t sense things a wee bit after all? Because I could use you as a news story. Saul Poplar, the Sensational Second-Grade Teacher!”

“You must be having a slow news week. You’ll have to try harder than that, my friend.” He let Carson precede him through the door and paused for a second to look over the rows of desks, each one still radiating with the emotions of their occupants. To Saul, it was almost as if his class was still in the room.

The Sensational Second-Grade Teacher. Well, maybe he was. But it wasn’t only because he just happened to be able to feel his student’s emotions through their hats. The thought was a comforting one. With one last look around the room, Mr. Poplar turned off the lights and went to walk Carson to his car.

The classroom stilled, warm and empty, and though he didn’t know it, a vague outline of Saul’s compassion lingered in the doorway long after he was gone.