The Leaner

"So are you going to just admit this thing's dead, or what?"

New Reporter is towering over my desk, on the corner of which stands a withered orange tree in a plastic pot.  A transferring senior who needs a credit in journalism to finish out his incomplete semester from another district, he hasn't spoken much so far.  I assigned him to "review something... anything" for the paper since he came in after our production cycle began, but other than that we've had little interaction.  I have been running at full sprint, in journalism and my ninth grade classes, since school resumed almost two weeks ago, and to my shame haven't been terribly hospitable to the seven new students who've mysteriously arrived in various classes since Christmas.

Now New Reporter stands at my desk, commenting on my dead plant, the tragic tree whose welfare I actually looked into before leaving for Europe.  "Oh, it'll be fine," the expressive botany teacher crowed.  "Just give it some water before you go, and it will be great."  The other plants were fine, as spry and green as I left them, but the orange tree--a favorite of mine and the journalists--was not.  Now its leaves, as dry as tissue paper, cling hopelessly to the four brittle limbs.  New Reporter leans forward to look at it.

"Don't make fun of it," I reply with a sigh. 

"So, I have good news and bad news," he opens, changes the subject.  His jacket catches a leaf, which clatters down to the desk.

"The bad news is you're knocking my tree apart."

"No.  The good news is that I figured out a song to review."

"A song?  Oh, right.  You're doing a song review.  So you have one.  What's the bad news?"

"I can't get to it at school.  It's blocked, or something, and I can't listen to it at home."

"It's blocked?  Should you be listening to it at school?  What is it?"

"Tupac.  'Trapped.'"

"Hmm.  Tupac's good.  Let's see if we can get it."

New Reporter and I make short work of the Internet filter, which doesn't forbid YouTube for teachers.  I print out the lyrics, scanning them for overt scandal before handing them over to him while the video plays quietly in the background.  Meanwhile, some editors discover the dead tree, begin playing with the fallen leaves which give off an intensely citric aroma.

"What are you going to do with it?" they ask.

"I don't know.  It looks pretty dead, right?  Should I just, you know, throw it out?"

They look stricken, and no more than I feel.  I can't explain, even now, why the demise of my favorite tree spells such doom in January.  I feel like Jonah, mourning the loss of the waxy foliage of September optimism.

"No.  Not yet," Student Life Editor answers firmly.  "Put it by the window.  Give it a week."

I pick up the pardoned plant, but before I can put it down an unfamiliar student walks into the classroom.  She is holding a plant.

"Ms. D?" she asks.

"That's me.  What's up?"

The journalists are staring at the plant in her hands, a sultry maroon and teal affair, whose single stalk lurches almost sideways out of the pot.

"This is a flower for you.  From sixth period botany."

"For me?"  She nods.  "Is this because my tree died?"

The student shakes her head.  "What tree?"

"My... never mind."

"Yeah, this is for you.  It's not blooming, but it's a flower," she insists.  "And it's not dead.  It's a leaner."

"A leaner?" Back Page Editor asks, clarifying.

"It's a leaner," Botanist repeats, turning and disappearing as quietly as she'd arrived.

"Thank you!" we call after her.

But she's already gone, leaving us alone with the strange flower.

The next day, five students will gaze in perplexity at my desk, wondering how their partner in daydreaming, a lithe orange tree, transformed overnight into this piscine flower that looks mostly asleep.

"What happened to the orange tree?" they'll ask.

"The orange tree went back to the greenhouse."

"Then what's this?  Is it dead?"

"No, it's not dead," I'll shrug.  "It's just a leaner."

Students will try to "fix" it all day, only to have it flop  back to its recumbent position.  And I'll find myself trusting in yet another thing, trusting blindly for now.  This flower will bloom.  This semester will end.  It will stop raining. 

Someday.