By David Lloyd

Miss Hughes had arranged us on three benches. She explained it was Show and Tell.

Joey volunteered to be first. He held up a jar of water with a screwed-on lid and a goldfish that circled around and around. Its belly looked about to burst. “They’re slimy,” Joey told us. “If you pick one up, it wiggles.”

“Can I touch it?” Jimmy asked.

“No,” Miss Hughes said.

Joey added these facts: “Goldfish eat brown powder. When they die, they float belly up. Then you flush them down the toilet.” 

The goldfish angled to the surface and gulped some air, then started circling again. Its eyes were tiny buttons stuck on its head.

“This is my fourth since my birthday,” Joey said. 

“Thank you,” Miss Hughes said. 

Joey sat down, setting the jar between his feet. 

Julia took a big shell from a shopping bag. She smoothed the pleats of her skirt. “It’s from New Jersey,” she said. “My sister found it. When you put the open part over your ear, you hear the ocean.”

Miss Hughes held the shell over an ear and closed her eyes. She smiled. “I hear waves on Nantucket in August,” she announced. She opened her eyes. “It’s a special memory. You might have one when you get older,” she told Julia. “Who would like to hear the ocean next?” She passed the shell to me. 

It felt cold on my ear. “It doesn’t work.” I said. 

“That’s because your ears are plugged,” Julia said.

“They are not.”

“Yes they are. Plugged with wax.”

“They are not.”

“That’s enough,” Miss Hughes said. “What a fascinating show and tell, Julia. Who’s next?”

Jeremiah said he brought a worm that lived in his backyard.

The girls groaned “Nooo!” but Miss Hughes said that nothing was wrong with worms. Worms help gardeners by putting air into soil.

Jeremiah pulled a wad of tissue from his front pocket. When he held it up, I saw that a reddish-brown blotch had seeped through. 

“They wiggle out of holes in the ground at night,” Jeremiah told us. “You stick a hook in them to fish. They bleed.” 

“Has that been in your pocket all day?” Jimmy asked.

When Jeremiah began unwrapping the worm, Miss Hughes made him stop. “Good enough,” she said.  “Put that away.” Jeremiah stuffed the tissue in his pocket.

Miss Hughes rubbed her forehead with a thumb and two fingers.  Then she called my name.  I stood, put my hands in my pockets and made fists.

“My Uncle Tony,” I told the class, “isn’t my uncle.”

Miss Hughes leaned forward. “Greg, do you have anything in your pockets to show us?” 

I took my hands out and looked at them.

“No.” 

I put my hands back in and cleared my throat like dad does before saying grace.  

“Uncle Tony and his friends play cards for money on Sunday nights.”

“But Greg.” Miss Hughes sounded annoyed.  “What did you bring?” 

“Uncle Tony.”

“Your uncle isn’t here.”

“I don’t want him to be.”  

I wanted to say that talking about Uncle Tony is better than seeing him.  Like talking about a goldfish is better than showing one in a jar.  Or hearing about a worm is better than a stained tissue.  

“The idea,” Miss Hughes said, smiling, “is to show something, and tell us about it. Did you forget?”  

A few kids giggled, and the loudest, I knew, was Julia.

“I didn’t forget,” I said, and sat down.  I was mad because I had rehearsed my Uncle Tony speech all the way to school.

“I‘m sure,” Miss Hughes said, “that your uncle is a nice person.”

Phil stood next.  His pants were streaked with dried mud, and ripped at one knee.  Kids said his parents didn’t know how to dress him because they lived on a broken-down farm.  He showed us a battered metal lunch box with a curved top.

“That’s … nice, Phil,” Miss Hughes said. “It looks vintage.”

Julie raised her hand. “What does ‘vintage’ mean?”

“It’s something your parents didn’t throw away.”

“In here,” Phil said, “is my pet frog.” He opened his lunch box. 

Julia made a face when Phil said “frog,” but I was interested. 

“I caught him by the pond. Frogs don’t give you warts,” Phil said. “I don’t have warts. Not on my hands anyways. They jump far.”

He set his frog on the floor.

“Jump!” Phil commanded. 

The frog didn’t. 

“Jump!” he commanded again, and jumped a little himself.

“Aren’t frogs supposed to be wet?” Jimmy asked. “That one’s totally dry.”

“Phil.” Miss Hughes stood. “I think ….”

“This morning he was jumping on my bed.”

Miss Hughes picked up the frog with a handkerchief from the sleeve of her sweater. She dropped it in Phil’s lunch pail and closed the lid. She folded her handkerchief so a green-brown smudge didn’t show, and set it in the trash basket.

“Thank you Phil,” she said. She looked like she was about to cry. “That’s all for ‘Show and Tell.’” 

“Hey” – it was Jimmy, who never bothered to raise a hand. “What about Grandpa’s watch? It’s mine since he passed from that blood cancer.”

“I’m sorry Jimmy, but ….” Miss Hughes turned to look out the window. I wondered if she was thinking about her special memory. But she had a sad look on her face.

Her eyes landed on me. 

“Greg – do you want to tell us about your uncle?”

I nodded but my feelings were still hurt.

“Is your uncle,” she paused, “still with us?” 

“Mom says he turns up like a bad penny,” I said.

“Then tell us about your uncle. Tell us about the nice things he does.”

I stood, put my hands in my front pockets again, made two fists, and told the class about how Uncle Tony likes to watch Bonanza with me on Sunday nights. That he eats White Tower cheeseburgers with mustard and ketchup mixed together. That once I found a full beer bottle under the backseat of his car. I told them Uncle Tony doesn’t have hair except over his ears. When he comes to our house he just walks in and yells “here I am!” Mom gives him a hug, and Dad shakes his hand.

Miss Hughes let me talk until I couldn’t think of anything else to say. So I said, “that’s all there is,” and took my seat on the bench.

                                                          *   *   *

David Lloyd is the author of eleven books, including three works of fiction: Boys: Stories and a Novella, Over the Line (a novel), and The Moving of the Water (stories). His stories have appeared in numerous magazines including Denver Quarterly and Virginia Quarterly Review. He directs the Creative Writing Program at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.