He stood at the front before anyone arrived. Before the desks were filled, before the chalk dust, before the year had named itself or found its theme,
he was already there in his red C, the jacket borrowed from some other context, the hat tipped at an angle no one chose
but which became his own by standing. The sword sleeps in his chest. It has to sleep — a classroom is a peaceful place, mostly.
Mostly there are equations and wrong answers and someone in the back who doesn't want to be there, someone at the front who does,
and Boney watches all of them equally with the patience of a thing that has no preference, that registers nothing and therefore misses nothing.
The sword comes out when something is at stake. The children know this. They know it the way they know what the teacher's silence means,
the way they know a good day from a bad one before the door has fully opened — by a quality in the air, a temperature.
Boney has no air. No temperature. No year that ends and is replaced by another year. He just waits at the front with the sword in his chest
and the hat on at an angle and the jacket with its red C facing forward, and next September he'll still be there
when the new ones arrive and see him and ask and someone has to explain that this is Boney, this is just Boney,
and the sword comes out when things get serious, and no, he doesn't move on his own, and yes, he has been here longer than any of you.