Chipped

In front of the altar, I was gazing at a stained glass painting portraying a man leading a flock of sheep in the direction of his pointed staff when I heard the gawky traction of aluminum foil behind me. Madeleine, who was sitting on her bottom on the ground in front of the first row of mahogany seating, had cheetle on her fingers.

“What are you doing?” I shook my head, and thrust my wrist toward her grim munch with my palm facing upward. I didn’t know what else to say. Our last conversation had caused three months of her silence. That was odd for her. For 10 ½ years, she’d always climbed over other students into the seat next to me at Youth Group, repeatedly ask my parents, to my father’s chagrin, if I could come out and play, and once we started attending the same high school, made a point of passing me by in the halls even when our classes were nowhere near each other. After years of experiencing her dedication, and then an abrupt drop in acknowledgment, she owed me at least one answer.

She sighed and glanced to her right in exasperation.

“Want a chip? They’re Swiss.” The sustenance had given her back some of her wry attitude.

“Maddie, what happened at DECA was wrong. I didn’t want to make a scene, but you made a mistake. The club officers from the other schools came to me, saying things like, ‘So much for being fair!’ How did you think you wouldn’t get caught for meddling in something--”

“I wasn’t meddling,” she muttered, placing emphasis on the second word with a snarl. “I moved my group’s slot to 3:30 pm after asking the judge if I could, and she agreed. Why should it matter to the other schools’ clubs? It’s not like anyone got moved up or moved down a session, and the first group gets judged easiest anyways.”

“Look, I’m DECA president. The actions of our school’s DECA members, people think I authorize those. Kids from the other schools thought you cheated, and they were mad. They were making it out to seem like I betrayed them after being all friendly at the opening meet-and-greet.” There was a world of drama in scholastic club politics. Even if there was a rift between us, I wanted her to see that how I acted was reasonable, given the tense atmosphere. From behind her back, Madeleine coaxed another bag of kiddie crackers. 

I left it at that, as children were already filing into the room for Sunday School. These were the children that we were both required to teach. Here, it was customary for senior students to instruct and guide the younger ones that were entering high school soon. We had both been assigned to be role models and mentors to these preteens, and this was our first time meeting them. I introduced myself, and she did the same.

“Rules will make our time together significantly easier. ‘Thou shalt not lie’,” I declared, as I wrote the commandment on the chalkboard behind me.

“How about ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor’?” Madeleine said, with a pointed glance at me. Some of the students looked gleefully between my face and hers, hoping for a fight that was more exciting than the subdued act of reviewing rules. I ignored her comment and continued to add other rules on the board. While I made sure that the screech of the chalk overpowered the silence in the room, she crinkled her foil so that it made ungainly interruptions in the chalk’s opera.

“Well, I brought crackers to motivate you all,” Madeleine joked. “Seriously, if you have a rule, I’ll give you a chip.” Though she could be dramatic, she had a decent idea, I’d grant her that. The kids, one-by-one, called out rules and retrieved morsels. Madeleine shook the bag encouragingly from time to time when the room quieted down too much.

By the end of the class, the additional rules covered the board at jarring angles as if they were part of a collage. I assigned homework, which was to memorize the agreed-upon rules for a quiz next week. When I dismissed class, it felt like a paperweight had been picked up off all of our shoulders. Madeleine delayed leaving to clean up crumbs, but I fast-walked to the downstairs basement where I could bow to the only vending machine at church. I now understood why many teachers did not allow eating during their classes.

I looked the columns of the machine up and down. None of the prices matched the spare contents of my wallet, until I spotted one modestly-priced packet. It was the same brand of chips that Madeleine had antagonized me with for an hour. My annoyance with her, however, was overcome by the mopes within my midsection. I shoved my hand through the rubber flap and took my meal upstairs.

Preschoolers were singing church hymns in the lobby when I walked by them. I walked along the church halls, past the kitchens, through the gardens, and as far away as possible from the paths plagued by church regulars. When I reached the parking lot, I found a piece of paper tucked under my windshield wiper. In underlined ink, it read Syllabus for Youth with a drawing of a child holding a candle above their head. The author had poured their soul out in bullet points meant to create model kids. A number of the ideas listed were realistic. Maybe I’d tell Madeleine that next time I saw her.

I almost paged past it, but Madeleine had written “P.S. We worked well together,” in a scrawl on the middle page of her handbook. I rested a chip against the inside of my cheek, mulling over the awkwardness of the day. If we could teach the same principles, then perhaps we just had different versions of the same ideals. Different bags of the same cheesy chip.