Yesternight by Cat Winters

her hips and exhaled a breath that jostled the curls. “It’s awfully squished in here though, isn’t it?”
    â€œI’ve worked in much tighter spaces, I assure you. Ideally, we should be giving these examinations in a private office, but that’s simply not possible in most of the towns that I visit.”
    â€œIf you’re sure it’s all right . . .”
    â€œIt’s just fine.” I removed my coat.
    She scooted the backmost chair farther away from the wall. “Is there a particular order you’d prefer for testing the children?”
    â€œI usually start with the youngest and work my way up to the oldest.”
    â€œWe have twenty-five students total, although some of them attend only sporadically.”
    â€œWhat I can’t finish this week, I’ll finish next week.” I slipped off my gloves.
    Miss Simpkin stood up straight and brushed her palms across the sides of her gray skirt. “Janie isn’t one of the very youngest.”
    I blinked, almost having forgotten little Janie after my anxiousness of getting situated in yet another new schoolhouse. “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œIf you’re especially eager to speak with her . . .” She nodded, as if hoping she need not say anything further.
    â€œI would like to speak with her as soon as possible, yes.” I hung my coat on one of the curved brass hooks. “But I can wait until I’ve finished with the five- and six-year-olds. I prefer examining the children from youngest to oldest.”
    â€œI hope Mr. O’Daire isn’t being too charming.” She smiled—or grimaced—as though she’d just swallowed a spoonful of castor oil.
    â€œI actually haven’t seen Mr. O’Daire since he drove me home yesterday afternoon. I holed myself up in my room for the rest of the day and then walked over here before he could offer to drive me.”
    â€œSmart girl.”
    Before I could respond, our first pupils pushed their way through the door—two tow-headed boys in overalls, possibly twins, most certainly brothers, both loud and springy and bubbling over with laughter. The type of children who would need a firm dose of coaxing and guidance to keep them seated for a forty- to fifty-minute examination.
    I firmed up my shoulders and shoved aside my growing curiosity over the O’Daires. It was time to turn myself into Mighty Miss Lind, No-Nonsense Test Taker and Wrangler of Children.
    M ISS S IMPKIN INTRODUCED ME to the twenty-one children who swarmed inside the schoolhouse that morning, including Janie, who arrived without her father walking her inside.
    â€œMiss Lind will take each of you, one at a time, to the table and chairs you saw sitting in the cloakroom,” said Miss Simpkin in a voice far more animated and musical than the one she used with me. She even moved her hands about with the grace of an orchestra conductor. “She’ll then give you a test that’s meant to find out what you know and how well you know it. Do your best, but do not be worried. Much of the time it will feel like playing a game.”
    The first child I received back in my makeshift office was a five-year-old boy with chestnut-brown hair and a runny nose that required a bit of plugging with my handkerchief. As my training taught me, I spent the first several minutes establishing rapport with the child, asking him about his pets (a cat named William and a turtle named Slowpoke), his toys (his favorite was a hand car he drove with the push and pull of a handle), and his family (a mother, a father, two older brothers who were at that very school, and Myrtle Ann, a noisy, gassy baby sister). When I asked him, “What is the name of that color?” and pointed to papers mounted on white cardboard, he identified red, yellow, blue, and green without any struggle. When I asked, “Which of these two pictures is the prettiest?” and showed him drawings of two