"Ask me a word in Osmanli," he whispered.

There was a shuffling and a shrugging of shoulders and birdlike exchange of nervous giggles.

"What's the word for sunflower?" asked Angela, who was brave.

"Moonflower," said the Substitute promptly, smiling with anticipation. He didn't have to look it up.

The class laughed, partly in relief that this was going to be fun, and partly from the pleasant strangeness of another language. It was like a mirror that reflected things backward.

"They pronounce it 'aychijayee,' " he said and turned and wrote it on the blackboard. "It's the Arabic alphabet," he explained.

They asked him the word for hen and the word for school. Dorothy Gael put up her hand.

"What's the word," she asked, shyly, "for home?"

The Substitute blinked and then his face went soft. Just answer the question, thought Dorothy.

"Ev," said the Substitute. "Ev means 'home.' "

"What's your name in Turkish?" asked Larry Johnson, grinning.

The Substitute smiled, spun smartly on his heel and wrote, without hesitation. Then he pronounced the word.

The class laughed in unison. "Ooze?" they asked.

He made a kind of embarrassed swallowing gesture. He pronounced it again. This time it sounded more like "Uz." "It means 'frank' in Turkish. And Frank's my name. It means a lot of other things as well. It means 'real and genuine.' It means 'pure and unadulterated.' It means 'kernel and cream,' and it means 'self.' It's the root word for 'yearning' and for 'homesickness' and for all the things that people want. It also happens to be the original name of the Turks. They were a tribe called the Uz, or the Uzbecks. Or the Oz, and they came out of the wilderness."

Dorothy was suddenly hauled out of herself by a gust of childish interest. "You mean like the Indians?" she blurted out, her voice loud and lacking in grace.

The class laughed until the Substitute, the full power of his smile trained on Dorothy, said, "Very like the Indians. They were desert nomads who lived in tents. They came out of the East and the North, they came out of the desert, and they conquered the Greeks and they conquered the Arabs. Turkey is a country where the Indians were the settlers. The Indians won."

He held up the book called Redhouse, like Red Indians, and he said, "And this is the Oz-English Dictionary."

The Substitute got bored just as quickly as the children did. The fire for Oz went out of his eyes, and he began to talk about other things. He told them the story of his play. He told them how it had run out of money, and how he was now "resting." They chuckled at his joke. "Mind you, actors are always resting. That is the attraction of the profession."

The class tested him. They mocked his New York accent. "I say, I am an actor from Noo Yawk."

He laughed. They waited. It wasn't a false laugh-that would have showed he was pretending to think it was funny so he wouldn't have to do anything about it. He didn't imitate them back, so he wasn't sarcastic or mean. And he didn't tell them it was wrong to make fun of people just because they were different, so he wasn't a pompous fool. Instead, he genuinely seemed to think it was funny.

He laughed and looked a bit mystified.

"Why," he asked, "is it that people laugh?" He asked it in wonder.

Was it a trick question? It seemed to be a pretty dumb one.

"Cause something's funny?" ventured one of the girls.

"Yes, but what do we mean by funny? I mean, what is funny?"

It was the sort of question a little kid about five would ask. Unanswerable. It was a real question, one the Substitute himself had no answer for.

Suddenly the Substitute was looking at Dorothy. He remembered her question about Indians, about home. It was as if he had recognized a kindred spirit. The look he gave her was questioning. He wanted a mystery solved, and he wanted to know more about her. The look, confiding and sincere, alarmed Dorothy. It was not unlike the look that Uncle Henry gave her.

"Dorothy," the Substitute asked. "Why do people laugh?"

"To show who's boss," said Dorothy Gael.

The smile of the Substitute slipped. "Yes, but for what other reason?"

Dorothy considered. "Sometimes it scares people."

"But your parents, why do they laugh?"

"My parents are dead," said Dorothy.

The nice squirrel looked stricken. "I'm so sorry."

"Why?" asked Dorothy. She was suddenly impatient with the Substitute. "I'm not sorry. Can't hardly even remember them. Nobody laughs around our place anyway."

"Nobody laughs?"

"Life's too hard," shrugged Dorothy. She wanted to shrug away her love of him. She hated his dazzle. The love hurt. "The hogs don't laugh, why should we?"

You stupid squirrel, Dorothy thought. You got a face like a pillow.

"That's a terrible thing," said the Substitute.

"Shut up," said Dorothy.

"Dorothy," said the Substitute, "that's very rude."

"Shut your squirrel's face up," said Dorothy. Is that rude enough for you to get my meaning?

The Substitute looked straight at her and looked sad and wise, and he smiled. "You're too old for this class, aren't you, Miss Gael?"

That made Dorothy afraid. The fear gathered strength and speed like a rockface slipping from a mountain. Dorothy was stricken with terror. No, she thought, I'm not old, I'm not too old.

The Substitute thought she was surprised at being treated with courtesy. He thought, quite rightly, that no one had ever been courteous to Dorothy before, but it was fear that made her go still. Dorothy was realizing that at nearly thirteen, she was almost an adult. At fifteen, two years from then, she would leave and go to work. As a child, she had power. She knew that as an adult, fat and ugly and slumped in dirty clothes, she would have none. Her childhood was almost over and she could not remember ever being happy.

"Could you do something for me, Miss Gael? Would you mind leaving the class?"

Dorothy began to grin a crooked grin. Oh, yes, you want to get rid of me that easily?

But he held up a hand. "I've got an idea for an assignment that I want you to work on. I want you to go into the bookroom and just sit quietly and write something. It doesn't have to be long. But it can be about anything you like. Anything at all."