Fiction by Bradley Sides
It’s unusually quiet as we gather in the cafeteria. We tell ourselves the reason why is because our families are with us and we don’t want to embarrass them, but deep down, we know the real reason.
Although our parents mingle, we don’t. Instead, we locate our marked tables and sit down.
When we look around, we find each other in places that are unfamiliar. Steve Lamb, our quarterback, shrinks in a corner. It’s the one that houses the pair of milk-stained trash cans — the same one where the overhead fluorescent bulbs constantly seize. Steve’s beside Marsha Lee, our worst majorette. She, at least, looks at home.
The lunchroom’s lights blink twice, and Mr. Gabriel, our principal, enters from the unlit hallway. His shoes stick to the newly waxed floor as he trudges to the front of the packed room in his commencement robe. Our parents quietly duck away from their conversations and join us for the official start of the night they’ve spoken of for so long.
Mr. Gabriel smiles and waves. Then he clears his throat. “Welcome, welcome,” he says, holding up his arms and waiting for the hum of silence to take over the cafeteria.
When it comes, he begins again. “While it’s been difficult to see such fine young men and women leave at the beginning of summer for the past twelve years, it’s an especially emotional graduation tonight. You all are our first class to make it all the way from kindergarten at our little academy. The way we’ve watched you all grow up — you kids seem just about like our own. With the education and love you’ve received from us, I know you all will have bright futures full of success and happiness. Things won’t be the same after your graduation, but for now, before we know who among you is the valedictorian, enjoy your last meal together. Your teachers and I have worked all day to make it perfect for you, so teachers, come on in, and let’s celebrate these graduates.”
Our teachers, wearing robes themselves, file in behind our principal. Once they are all in the cafeteria, Mr. Gabriel yells, “Follow me!”
In a straight line, the teachers do as they are told as they circle out and then march back in again through the adjacent wall’s set of double doors, still following their leader.
As they reenter, they have food. And lots of it.
Thanks to our parents’ insistence, most of us haven’t eaten today. Our eyes are locked on the location of the various foods. We can’t help but notice when Mr. Gabriel, who has one of his arms wrapped around a metal bowl that is as round as he is, pulls out a golden handsaw from under his robe. “I’m always getting ahead of myself,” he jokes at the edge of the first table where Alice Adams, our unopposed class president, sits with her family.
Once he recovers, he produces a pair of tongs instead. “Much better,” he says.
Alice and her father howl laughing and hold out their perfectly white plates.
Mr. Gabriel guides his utensil into his bowl, bringing back a helping of chopped lettuce, carrots, and radishes. He repeats the process as he works his way around the room.
Ms. Lane, our biology teacher who is usually so kind and happy, can barely manage a smile as she follows behind Mr. Gabriel. She offers each of us a choice of salad dressing.
Our art teacher, Mr. Demings, is everyone’s favorite, but he won’t make eye contact as he passes us. His hands shake as he gives us our napkins. We ask him if he’s okay, and he nods.
When our robotics teacher, Mr. Seth, closes out the parade with a tray carrying bowls of gold-flecked pomegranate and chocolate ice cream, our parents make jokes about our grades, searching for a nod, a smile, a laugh — anything that might give a hint about who it will be tonight. Although he carries all the answers, he offers none.
None of our teachers do. Not Ms. Smith, Mr. Leon, Ms. Appleton, Mrs. Kim, Mrs. Sheryl, or even Coach Boyton.
We almost don’t recognize them. For this, we try to not make them feel bad.
After all, they are the ones who have to help with what happens later.
A bell announces the end of the meal, and we are glad when the sound finally comes. The food has already been gone for nearly half an hour for most of us.
Since they helped with the initial planning of everything, our parents know the rules.
They stand and begin their goodbyes.
No matter what happens, they are grateful we are theirs.
They are proud of us.
They are proud of us.
They are proud of us.
When they tell us they love us, at last, they look past our eyes and into a space we aren’t sure we fully know.
We get one final embrace, and it lingers.
Then they leave and make their way to their reserved seats on the football field.
Mr. Gabriel goes back to the front of the cafeteria and asks us to line up as we did in rehearsals. The teachers split into two rows, and we find our places behind them in alphabetical order.
Poor Isaac Taylor. Thick glasses and dirty shoes. The ends of his pants look chewed. He can’t remember where he’s supposed to stand and keeps moving in and out of line. We know it won’t be him.
We sometimes talk about Isaac’s situation when he’s not around. We wonder why his family doesn’t send him to public school — why they pay for an education when they can’t even afford clothes. The only answer we come up with is that they believe that by going here he has a chance at something more. He doesn’t. But maybe they believe so.
Freckle-faced Terri Gillie is just about as lost as Isaac, but she figures it out, singing aloud as she asks us our last names. It won’t be her either.
There are others, too, who we don’t expect to be the one called tonight. Zane Carlisle. Sally Combs. Elijah Faust. Cheryl Tanner. Winston Wells. In class, we hated when they were asked to read. Most of us believe they couldn’t — can’t.
“Is everyone in place?” Mr. Gabriel asks, not expecting — or waiting for — an answer. “Let’s take our final hallway walk together. Think of all the memories you made here. Think of your teachers. Of your friends.”
We begin our final tour as soon as the last word leaves his lips.
As we pass by the open doors that house our empty desks, some of us cry. Some of us laugh. Some of us walk quietly with the pleasant company of ourselves.
We remember books we read and equations we solved. We think of conversations we wished we’d had and arguments we should’ve given up.
We pass posters we designed, words we penned, and baseboards we scuffed.
We remember, and we mourn.
Mr. Gabriel halts our memory march before we get to the door that opens outside to the football field, the door beside the wall that houses all of the official valedictorian portraits. “Remember, kids, it’s an honor to be the valedictorian. No other school in the world gives its top student the gift that we do.”
We nod and hang our heads.
All of us except Isaac Taylor. He, for the millionth time, asks Mr. Gabriel to explain how being valedictorian is an honor.
Mr. Demings steps out of line and puts his hand softly against Isaac’s back. “Don’t you worry about it, buddy,” he whispers. “I don’t think it’ll be you.”
“Okay.”
Mr. Demings smiles and squeezes the boy’s shoulder.
Mr. Gabriel goes to Mr. Demings and says something we can’t completely make out, but the end of the conversation is loud enough for all of us to catch. “It’s wrong is what it is,” Mr. Demings says.
“But not wrong enough for you to leave?”
“Alright now,” Mr. Gabriel says, turning to us again. “The music will begin any second, and when it does, walk to your seat just as we practiced. Slowly. Keep the same pace as me and your teachers. Your parents have paid a lot of money for your education — and your opportunity, and I’m sure they want pictures of you on your special night.”
We stand in silence for only a handful of seconds before the music kicks on. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” Mr. Gabriel says, waving his arms above his head and motioning forward with his whole body.
Before the stadium’s lights burn through the overhanging shadow of the school we walk from, he turns around. “Good luck,” he says. And he means it.
We march to our chairs and watch as our classmates go to theirs. Valerie Williams and Thomas Zaniski nearly run across the manicured field as they try to escape the gaze of the ready-to-be-seated audience. When Valerie and Thomas get to their respective destinations, they sit down and quickly stand again, realizing their mistake. Then, like the rest of us, they look around and smirk awkwardly, waiting for the music to stop.
When the speakers slowly begin to fade, Alice Adams goes to the podium and asks us to continue standing as she leads us through the pledge and a prayer.
The way she goes about it is pure Alice. It’s not at all surprising when we realize we still have our hands over our hearts by the time she lets out a breathless “Amen.”
She doesn’t move to her seat, though; instead, without any kind of warning, she starts singing. She’s halfway through before we even know what the song is. “Please join me in singing our alma mater!” she finally shouts.
Most of us don’t. We never took the time to learn the words. But our parents sing. Loudly, bursting with pride for the school they made — and continue to make — possible.
We notice when Alice carries the closing note too long. It’s the first time any of us feel like we see her as really being one of us. After all these years, it’s now that we (almost) don’t hate her.
She bows, and Mr. Gabriel approaches the podium. He fidgets with the microphone and taps its covering until the speakers squeal. “Testing, testing,” he laughs, knowing already the sound system works perfectly fine.
“It is such a beautiful evening for a commencement. I’m honored to be standing before you as principal of this incredible institution, celebrating yet another tremendous class of young people. Kids, like I told you at the feast, it’s been difficult these past few years to see such fine young men and women leave us, but I know each of you will have a bright future full of success and happiness. While I believe that to be true for every student who sits before me, I know it as the truth for one of you. We’ll find out who takes the honor as class valedictorian soon enough, but for now, let’s get you those diplomas.”
A steady applause sweeps across the field.
Mr. Seth, who sits to the side of the stage away from the rest of the teachers, rises from his seat and brings two tall cardboard boxes to the square table beside the podium. Once the boxes are in place, he reaches under his robe and brings out a golden butcher knife that’s as big as his forearm. He guides the blade along the taped crease of the first box’s cardboard lid.
Mr. Gabriel nods at him. “Glad you got some extra use out of that thing,” he says loud enough for the microphone to catch.
Mr. Seth chuckles and walks to the unlit edge of the field that houses the school’s robotics workshop.
“Let’s hear a round of applause for Mr. Seth. We couldn’t do commencement without him,” Mr. Gabriel says.
We follow suit. As Mr. Gabriel waits for us to settle, he reaches into the top box and retrieves the first diploma.
We look around at one another for a last glimpse. We know our parents believe what is to follow is an honor, but it doesn’t seem that way to us. When we hold meetings about it after school, our parents tell us we don’t understand — that we should be grateful for the education they’ve paid for us to have. More than that, they say, we should be appreciative of having the opportunity to be valedictorian. To be more than graduates — more than humans.
At the end of the day, we are their children. We listen. We nod. We owe it to them — to ourselves — to try our best. No matter what.
Mr. Gabriel’s voice interrupts our gazes. “Graduates, please stand. As I call your name, approach the stage. Alice Adams.”
Soft applause goes with Alice as she steps on the stage’s platform and receives her diploma. When the camera flashes, she smiles so brightly that it looks like she’s eaten a bucket of stars.
“Carlos Amos.”
“Cheyenne Barnes.”
“Zane Carlisle.”
“Sally Combs.”
“Donny Easton.”
“Laney Easton.”
Once Laney gets her first picture, Donny jumps back on stage. Donny, Laney, and Mr. Gabriel pose for a photo that that we know will decorate the Easton family’s living room through eternity.
Mr. Gabriel continues with our names, reading each one perfectly as if he knows us as well as he knows himself.
“Elijah Faust.”
“Terrie Gillie.”
A cacophony of airhorns and screamers ring from the reserved seating section, and Mr. Gabriel huffs. We all hear him, but that doesn’t stop the Gillies. They blow into their plastic toys until long after Terrie finds her way back to her seat. “T-er-rie! T-er-rie! T-er-rie!”
“Steve Lamb.”
“Marsha Lee.”
Mr. Gabriel tosses the first box behind the table and rips the tape off the next box. He rushes through a bunch of us.
“Isaac Taylor.”
Another series of airhorns unsettle the air. Isaac goes up the exit side of the stage, forgets to stand in place for the photographer, and exits through the entrance.
“Valerie Williams.”
Mr. Gabriel holds up one final diploma cover. “And our final graduate of the evening, Mr. Thomas Zaniski.”
Thomas runs across the stage and then back to his seat. Six foot, eight inches tall. Math team captain. A humble version of Alice Adams — and scared of his shadow. We wonder what will become of him out in the real world.
The same song that played during our procession begins over the sound system. At the first note, each of us takes a long, deep breath.
Mr. Seth marches from the workshop, and he’s not alone. He’s followed by the twelve valedictorians since our school began.
Our parents stand and cheer.
It’s obvious the Gillies and Taylors aren’t the only ones with airhorns.
We are all seated except for Alice. She’s jumping and squealing. Brandon Briarspeck, her ex-boyfriend, was last year’s valedictorian, and she hasn’t seen him since before he and his parents left for last year’s commencement feast. He’s first in line behind Mr. Seth. “Brandon! Brandon!” she cries, but he doesn’t acknowledge her.
The closer he gets, the quieter Alice grows. She stops bouncing, and she sits back down. Whether it’s his glowing eyes or his steel-tracked, wheeled feet that do her in, it’s impossible to say. Carlos puts his hand on her shoulder and squeezes her gently. “Maybe it will be you tonight,” he mouths.
Alice shakes her head. “I don’t want it!” she says loudly. “I don’t want it anymore!”
Seeing him in front of us, it’s clear Alice — finally — really speaks for all of us.
Mr. Seth marches to the edge of the commencement stage and lowers a ramp over the stairs.
The valedictorians roll up, one by one. Isaac Taylor, of all of us, jumps up and points, noticing it first. “Look at their legs! Their legs!”
Immediately, we see it, too. On all of them. Little flecks of cut, loose skin flap just below the hems of their golden robes, their own wheels working as imperfect scalpels.
We close our eyes, and we wait. It’s all we can do now.
Their parents and grandparents blindly cheer just as proudly as they surely did on the valedictorians’ own commencement nights.
Mr. Seth shakes Mr. Gabriel’s hand once the past valedictorians are in place, and the two men stand behind the microphone.
“Friends,” Mr. Gabriel says. “It’s that time. It’s no secret that we keep our students’ grades hidden until commencement night. As we all know — and decided upon back in those not-so-long-ago foundational meetings — it’s a pass or a fail through the years, and that’s it. We keep the exact grades hidden away on a file maintained by myself and Mr. Seth. We want our valedictorians to have a normal existence until the moment they become something greater, which your generous financial contributions certainly allow. Tonight — now — we reveal the one who is the top of the class. That student will join the other valedictorians and live among them thanks to Mr. Seth and his Legacy Robotics Technology. Brain preserved. Heart removed. He or she will, in a way the rest of us will not, live forever. It’s an incredible, beautiful, beautiful thing that you’ve all made possible.”
An airhorn shoots through the breeze. “We love you, Terrie Gillie!”
Not to be outdone, another follows. “Good luck, Isaac Taylor!”
“T-er-rie! T-er-rie! T-er-rie!”
“I-I-saac! I-I-saac! I-I-saac!”
“T-er-rie! T-er-rie! T-er-rie!”
“I-I-saac! I-I-saac! I-I-saac!”
“T-er-rie! T-er-rie! T-er-rie!”
“I-I-saac! I-I-saac! I-I-saac!”
The battle continues until Mr. Gabriel finally interrupts. “Please,” he says harshly. He clears his throat. “Please,” he corrects himself, “hold your celebrations until the announcement.”
Mr. Seth eyes Mr. Gabriel and bites his lip as he steps to the center of the podium.
“Brandon, come forward,” Mr. Seth says into the microphone. Brandon does as he’s told, rolling slowly to his place at the front. “Show us the heart.”
Brandon unclasps his hands and unveils the tiny golden computer that will go into the new valedictorian’s chest — our valedictorian’s chest — and hands it off to Mr. Seth.
“Thank you,” our robotics teacher says.
Our parents “ooh” and “aah,” and Mr. Seth and Brandon wave to the crowd, indicating that their part is over.
“Wow,” Mr. Gabriel says, reclaiming his spot at the microphone. “That is something. Thank you both. And thank you to all of our past valedictorians. It is an honor to be among you tonight.”
Our bodies squirm in our seats, and we try not to look about. We know how it works. Our parents told us. Our teachers did. Our textbooks detailed the whole process. We know everything.
“Teachers, will you come to the front as I make this year’s announcement?”
They do as they are told.
Most of us are crying.
It’s an honor, we tell ourselves.
It’s what we’ve worked for, we say.
It’s what our parents paid so much for.
It’s an honor. It’s an honor. It’s an honor.
Mr. Demings won’t look up from the grass. He reaches out to Ms. Lane and squeezes her free hand. She brushes at her cheek with her other one.
Mr. Gabriel moves his lips so they are against the microphone’s covering. “The honor of valedictorian goes to,” he says, pausing and drumming his hands against the top of the podium. When he stops, he yells the name into the fragile silence: “Mr. Thomas Zaniski!”
Our teachers run toward us, circling Thomas’ seat. Those of us around him leap out of the way.
“You’ve made your parents proud,” we say.
“Congratulations,” we tell him.
Thomas tries to escape, but there’s no use. Coach Boyton grabs him by the legs and drags him away from his chair. Thomas reaches for it and then at all the others, but it’s no use.
“It’s an honor, Thomas,” we mumble to him as he passes by. “It’s an honor. It’s an honor.”
“No!” he yells to us. “I don’t want it! No! No!”
“Being valedictorian is an honor,” Coach Boyton assures him. “I hope my son gets it next year.”
Thomas cries; he begs us to help him.
He flails about as he’s carried away to the workshop.
The other valedictorians slowly roll off the stage behind Mr. Seth. They follow behind Thomas and our teachers.
“Congratulations, graduates,” Mr. Gabriel says. “And goodnight.”
He already has his golden handsaw out again before he’s clear of the podium.
He runs to the reserved seats and gets Thomas’ parents, who are glowing under the stadium’s lights. The other parents are giving them high fives and patting them on their backs.
Mr. Gabriel pulls them away, and they rush to catch up with the others as they head deeper into the workshop’s shadow.
Alice takes off her graduation cap, and we follow her lead. Her voice is barely detectable as she rattles off a quick “one,” “two,” and “three.”
As we toss our hats into the air, all we can think about is facing our parents. We wonder if they really are still proud of us now that it’s not their last name that will live on forever. We’ve tried so hard not to disappoint them.
