Aunt Bessie's Final Visit

Written by Steve Brügge

The door to the Boeing 737 closed with a dull thud and sealed the passengers in like mummies in an Egyptian tomb. The flight attendants went through their usual safety pantomime at the front of the plane while the passengers settled in for the flight from Sioux City to Albuquerque. There was, however, one passenger who sat on the edge of her seat and listened with rapt attention.

"I do hope my seat is all the way in the upright position," Aunt Bessie said in a rather concerned voice to the man seated next to her.

He looked at her and said, "Lady, your seat is fine. You act as though this is the first time you've flown."

"It is my first time," Aunt Bessie said. "I am going to see my nephew in Albuquerque. It's a surprise. He doesn't know I'm coming. He's a sixth-grade teacher."

The man slowly rolled his eyes to the back of his head and let out a sigh like a tire losing air. He had hoped for a nice quiet flight without screaming children and talkative old ladies.

Aunt Bessie was no fool and she could take a hint, so she pulled out her knitting and soon the needles sounded like a small dog scratching at the door. The man had closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking," a solid voice boomed over the plane's speaker system. "We have now reached a cruising altitude of 27,000 feet, and if you will look out to the right side of the plane you will see a solid black line. That is the boundary between Iowa and Nebraska."

Aunt Bessie dropped her knitting needles in her lap and peered around her not-so-asleep seatmate, but was not able to see any black line at all. A gentle breeze of laughter went up and down the plane, and poor Aunt Bessie once again felt as though a joke had been played on her because she had no idea why the other passengers were laughing.

The plane arrived in Albuquerque without incident, and Aunt Bessie decided to take a taxi and go directly to see her nephew.

"Where to?" asked the driver as Aunt Bessie settled her considerable bulk into the rear seat of the cab.

"I need to go to General Eisenhower School," she replied.

The driver paused for just a second as his brain translated Bessie's somewhat garbled instructions. He flipped the meter on and hit the gas so quickly that Aunt Bessie felt herself pressed against the seat. She was so frightened by the driver's speed and wild turns that Aunt Bessie did not even have a chance to tell him about her wonderful nephew.

"Here we are," said the driver as he whipped into the parking lot in front of Eisenhower just missing the rear bumper of Ms. Eubanks's car. "That will be twenty-five dollars even."

She paid with great reluctance. People in Iowa didn't drive like this, but she knew it was all worth it because she was just a few steps away from her favorite nephew.

Aunt Bessie found her way to the office and was pointed in the direction of Room 12-A. She walked up the hall with tears in her eyes as she thought about how wonderful it would be to see her nephew after all these years.

She paused outside the door for just a moment to dry her eyes and catch her breath. She was closer to her nephew than she ever imagined. Mr. Brügge stood less than a foot away on the other side of the door.

"Don't run on your way to lunch," Mr. Brügge said in a joking voice as he opened the door to let the students out for passing period.

The door did not open all the way. At its midway point it stopped with a loud crack. It sounded like a baseball being hit for a home run.

Mr. Brügge peered around the door only to see a large woman in a gingham dress lying face down in the hail. The contents of her equally large purse were playing chase with each other as they rolled toward the office.

"Oh no!" Mr. Brügge yelled as he rushed out into the hall. As he slowly turned her over, a look of anguish covered his face as he realized that this was not any woman lying in the hall--it was his Aunt Bessie.

She did not move. She did not breathe. Mr. Brügge had killed Aunt Bessie. The force of the door opening had knocked her down, and one of her knitting needles had been driven like a large nail directly into her heart.

The school was in an uproar for the rest of the day. The paramedics came. The police also came but found no reason to charge Mr. Brügge with a crime. He had, after all, just opened a door.

The next day during announcements Ms. Eubanks said, "Mr. Brügge has taken a couple of days off to recover from yesterday's tragic occurrence. And please don't step on the freshly shampooed carpet in front of Room 12-A.

After two days Mr. Brügge did return and he said, "There is a good side to all of this. I had planned a lab in which we were going to look at animal cells under the microscope, and now we have a wonderful source for our cell samples."

The students were silent as they slowly realized Mr. Brügge's evil intentions.

"For everything there is a season, and for everything there is a purpose under the sun," said Mr. Brügge. "And Aunt Bessie will finally serve a useful purpose in the name of science."

That day in lab was awful. The ventilation system was not working, and there was a strange death-like smell that hung over the room.

Mr. Brügge had each of the eleven lab stations set up with prepared wet-mount slides.

"Each student will need to make a sketch on his or her data sheet at each of the stations," said Mr. Brügge as the class silently listened.

"Let's do some review," Mr. Brügge continued. "Ryan, tell the class the difference between prokaryotic cells and eukaryotic cells."

Ryan snapped his head up and said, "Prokaryotic cells don't have a true nucleus while eukaryotic cells have a nucleus with a membrane around it."

"Good," Mr. Brügge replied. "I'm glad to see that someone has learned something."

The students were sent to make sketches of each station's slide. Much to the horror--but not surprise--of the class, each station had a sample of one of the major tissue groups found in the human body.

Lab was especially quiet that day. Poor Aunt Bessie was on the minds of the students.

"If you'll look here, Shannon, you can see the mitochondria on this liver tissue sample," said Mr. Brügge as he adjusted the fine focus on the microscope. "The mitochondria are organelles where food molecules are broken down and energy is released."

"Yes, I can see them," Shannon said but her voice was not convincing.

"Look," Mr. Brügge exclaimed to the class, "you can see the red blood cells beautifully over here. They look so fresh."

The class sketched in silence as Mr. Brügge bounced from microscope to microscope. He looked very pleased with himself.

Seventh period the students cleaned up the lab stations and returned to their seats and waited for the bell to ring. Mr. Brügge did not even need to ask a single student to be quiet.

Kevin took a deep breath and broke the silence by asking, "Mr. Brügge, where did you get those slides we used in lab today?"

Without hesitation Mr. Brügge said, "The slides were ordered from a scientific school supply company last year. You didn't really think I had used Aunt Bessie, did you?"

"No," Kevin said with a sigh of relief.

"Remember there will be a science quiz tomorrow. And I guarantee that you need to know that cytoplasm is the gel-like material inside the cell membrane."

At that instant the three o'clock bell rang and Mr. Brügge let a much-relieved group of sixth graders go home.

As the last student left the room, Ms. Eubanks walked in the door and said, "I'm glad I caught you, Mr. Brügge. Those prepared tissue slides you ordered last year have finally arrived. They're down in the main office."