Gryphon

by Charles Baxter

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Charles Baxter’s 1985 "Gryphon" is a short story set in the rural town of Five Oaks, Michigan, and narrated by Tommy, a boy in Mr. Hibler’s fourth-grade class. The story begins as Mr. Hibler coughs his way through a lecture on ancient Egypt; the class observes that he is getting sick and hope for a substitute the next day. As they predicted, Mr. Hibler is notably absent the following day. Instead, they have a substitute teacher. Much to the student's surprise, their substitute is not one of the four local women who usually appear. No, their substitute teacher is the visibly odd Miss Ferenczi, who takes her place at the head of the classroom.

From the instant she arrives in the classroom, Miss Ferenczi wields the students’ attention. She is unlike anything they have ever encountered, and they only become more confused as she begins to teach. When a student reminds her to lead the class in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, she observes that they must know it by now, so there is no need to do so. The absence of the pledge is only the first instance of her unconventional teaching style, which becomes quite evident as the school day progresses. While teaching an arithmetics lesson, she claims that six times eleven is sixty-eight because, according to higher-level mathematics, numbers are fluid. When pressed, she explains that six times eleven usually equals sixty-six, but when she is teaching, “substitute facts” are in effect, and the equation comes to sixty-eight. Miss Ferenczi has an equally fluid relationship with the truth; she tells the class fantastic stories that blend fact and fiction until they are incomprehensibly inseparable.

Later, she tells the class that in Eygpt, there was once an animal called a gryphon that was half-bird and half-lion. The story of the gryphon, at once half-truth and half-lie, draws on the dualistic nature of the creature to indicate the plasticity with which Miss Ferenczi treats reality. Things can be real and unreal, all at once, just as six times eleven can sometimes equal sixty-eight. At lunchtime, she sits with the children rather than the other teachers, and the children grow more intrigued and confused by their whimsical substitute. On the bus home, Carl, one of Tommy’s fellow students, claims: “She lies.” Tommy is affronted by this claim and feels the need to prove Miss Ferenczi right. At home, he recalls her description of the strange Egyptian creature; upon looking it up in the dictionary, he finds the correct definition listed under “gryphon.” This proves that perhaps Miss Ferenczi speaks the truth, and he is enamored by her seemingly magical understanding of the world. 

Mr. Hibler is still out sick the next day, so Miss Ferenczi returns to tell the class more “fabulous” stories of fantastic things. She asks the children if they prefer her stories to arithmetic, a question to which they readily agree, and she continues, speaking of trees that consume meat, magical diamonds, and exploding deep-sea fish. Before arithmetic, she tells them one last story, a secret she relays in a low voice just above a whisper: Death is not real, a truth revealed to her when God kissed her in a dream. At the end of the second day, Carl sheepishly concedes his earlier claim and corroborates Miss Ferenczi’s story; indeed, he says, some trees do eat meat. If that part of her story is real, the boys wonder what else she said was real. Had she seen angels on Venus? Was she kissed by God? 

The next day at school, Mr. Hibner is back. For a...

(This entire section contains 829 words.)

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while, all returns to normal, until in December, Mr. Hibner is out sick again, and Miss Ferenczi returns. On this occasion, she pulls out a tarot pack and begins to tell fortunes. Most are mundane, but one child, Wayne, pulls the Death card. She explains to him that this does not signify death but refers to change in general, but Wayne is nevertheless upset. He goes to the principal at lunchtime, and in the afternoon, Miss Ferenczi is sent away, with one of the more regular substitutes appearing to take her place.

Tommy is furious and accuses Wayne of being a "chicken" for having told. The two boys briefly fight, and Tommy “slugs” Wayne directly in the face, screaming at the boy that Miss Ferenczi was always right. She invited a sense of wonder into Tommy and the other students' lives, and as they emergency join another science class, with forty-five students crammed into one room, that sense of wonder lingers. They learn of bugs, their components, their life cycles, and their mating rituals. However, the lesson does not have Miss Ferenczi’s flare. Life returns to normal, and the children learn from and on only the information listed in their textbooks. The story ends with the promise of a test; order returns, and the wonder of Miss Ferenczi's teaching style fades into memory.

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