Reservation Pet Parade

I wrote a different version of this nearly 8 years ago when I worked as a rural market freelance journalist. On one assignment, I covered a story about a fourth grade dance troupe out in Worley, ID on the Coeur d' Alene reservation. I don’t remember anything about the dance troupe, but the day I was at the school was total chaos. The school principal had snuck off in the middle of the night and left the community. It was the second principal who’d broken a contract in less than three years. Driving home from the assignment, I passed by a personal residence that had buffalo, bobcats locked in a kennel, miniature horses, and pitbulls  caged in a kennel next to the bobcat.

All the kids my age on the reservation squabbled about which teacher lasted the longest. Some said it was Mr. Bicks, I thought is was Mrs. Nistle who I had in the first and third grade, but all of us agreed on the one thing: Miss Hansley was the one we ran off the quickest.

          Mrs. Hansley was sweet and naive and her smile screamed “White Christian.”  By the time I was 10 years old, two of my friends had been taken away by white Christian ladies so they could live with other nice, white Christian ladies. Nobody I knew really thought too highly of white Christian ladies--nice or not. Mrs. Hansley was nice and pretty and young, so we all knew she wouldn’t last long.

When I came home after my third day of fourth grade and told my mom how my teacher told us we could all bring pets to school she twisted around on the couch and said, “Good luck getting Crow on a leash.” Whenever our dog, Crow, was in heat my mom wouldn’t let her in the house on account of her bleeding.

            Getting Crow on a leash wasn’t too hard, and the next day she was the best behaved animal in class--her and Fawn’s iguana. Mrs Hansley said we could have a pet parade through the halls of the school to show off our pets, but she came from Chicago where people have cats and gerbils and maybe a dog. She brought a fish in a fishbowl to show off. When we all lined up at the front door, she twisted the thin golden strand with the cross on it she always wore around her neck as our cavalcade of beasts stood before her: Jack, Hanna, and Lee all brought pitbulls who just sat and stared and stunk--Jack’s was smeared in crusty brown crumbs; Lina brought in what everyone thought was a kitten until she said it was a newly born linx; Lolo brought in a full grown doe led around by a leash made out of bail wire attached to a harness, she said her dad trained it to not  run off to lure bucks--he kills the buck and if it all works out she said he’d eat the fawn as veal (at this Mrs. Hansley covered her mouth); a few kids brought cats, one kid did bring a dead gerbil, and Charlie--who’s the richest kids in school 'cause his dad owns the fireworks stand--thought it’d be funny to just put a leash on a mortar shell, drag it around all day and keep telling people, “She’s a nice pup, but don’t get too close 'cause she barks real loud!”
           The parade never happened. When Jack and Hanna’s dogs started fighting Miss Hansley went to grab Jack’s dog and recoiled as the dried dogshit crumbs flaked off on her hand. Then, Lee’s pitbull mounted Crow and all of us started to cheer as he waddled up behind Crow and began to pump away. Miss Hansley screamed from the sink, scrubbing her hands, “Don’t look” and at the dogs, “Stop it. Ssstop it.” Her es sounded like a person trying to imitate a snake and suddenly she didn’t seem so young, standing at the sink, yelling at the dogs in vain.
          One of the tribal elders was acting as principal that day and when he heard the commotion he sent us all home. Through the window, I saw Miss Hansely start to cry and lean up against the elder as he patted the shoulder of her white blouse.
          On the way back to my house, Lee and I talked about what we were going to name Crow’s pups and how many each of us would get. The next day Miss Hansley was gone. We scared her off in four days which is a record that stands to this day.