It isn’t often that District cancels school because of snow, but when it does, there are lots of pleased students and teachers. It’s not great for working parents, I’ll admit, but nothing’s perfect.

Capton Springs Middle School remains open, though -- “limited services,” we call it -- for kids who’d otherwise lack a safe place to spend the day. Teachers who can make it to work keep watch over the library for kids wanting to do something quiet and the gym for those with energy to burn.

Myself, I’d rather have gone skiing if someone with a vehicle better than mine would have thought to invite me, but that didn’t happen. Might as well spend the day at school and hope that Martin Conner, our principal, interprets it as professional attitude. I do have a professional attitude, of course, but that doesn’t mean I’d not rather have been on the slopes.

As it’s a snow day, though, I wear my ski sweater knitted by a co-op of Icelandic women.

Being without support staff -- nobody asks them to work for free -- it’s up to us volunteers to rustle the kids up something from the kitchen, so we make them hot dogs. Cindi Barton, my friend who teaches science, said to boil them for six minutes, but as they taste better crisp, I scorch them on the griddle. School kitchens have big ones. Lots of cocoa, it being a snow day.

I’m the one with afternoon library duty. Fine by me, time to catch up on some reading.

After lunch, though, the few diligent students who’d opted to do homework has dwindled to one, Tyler, whom I’d had last year and whom I’d not had a chance to catch up with since the end-of-school-year afternoon at Splash City. They “earned” it by good behavior in the halls -- or so they thought -- but it was scheduled before the year started.

He and I had been sitting on the steps of the wave tank, chatting about his summer plans. He looked forward to arrow shooting and building a signal tower at Scout camp. I told him I’d done leaf art at Camp Fire camp.

When they come to your desk to ask about an assignment, boys will peek down your collar. No different here, other than the top of my swimsuit’s loser, and Tyler saw more than most. Martin can suggest how we should dress to teach, of course, but principals never come to Splash City.

It hadn’t been my intent, of course, Tyler seeing what he saw, but then again, it was the end of the year.

Silly teacher girl, I told myself, leaning his way enough to make his peek worthwhile.

Boys get erections in class, of course -- we teachers have eyes -- but one in a swimsuit is more identifiable. He’d have darted off in a second, but I kept him by asking what he knew about lifesaving.

“I’m just starting on that merit badge,” using his hand to cover himself in what I supposed he hoped looked to be a casual manner.

“Good for you. Teachers should know something about it, too, just in case, for these end-of-year things.”

“I guess.”

. “There’s a pool where I live,” bending his way enough to show my other half. “Maybe you could swing by this summer and show me a few basics,” recalling the cross-chest carry I’d learned in Senior Lifesaving.

He never showed, though all that likely would have come of it would have been maybe me learning how to toss a life ring.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, the way I saw it. Kind of fun, actually, letting him.

Here in the library, Tyler’s working on something to do with amphibians -- not exactly my specialty -- but I offer to look over what he’s written. It’s not at all fair, Cindi getting to keep her class on the edge of their seats, learning about animal procreation, while I can’t assign a novel that includes the human aspect with any degree of directness.

“I’m getting more coffee,” I tell him. “Want a cocoa?” Refreshments aren’t allowed in the library, but this was a snow day.

“Sure.”.

Returning, I shut the door, as we’d not want a draft on a cold day, should he ask. As one of the heat vents is shooting cold air, we block it by stacking books. Probably the cold air just comes in via another, but for me, it’s really not about temperature. I needn’t be as close to him in building the stack, but when that’s how I get, his arm gets where I’d expected it to go.

I ask if he knows “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” Poetry doesn’t have to be as boring as we make it. I find the volume and he thinks it’s great, so we read it, trading lines.

That gets us discussing rescues, which leads him to mention the fireman’s carry, how you rescue someone from a burning house, something related to a merit badge.

“Care to show me?” which leads to him bearing me around the room, me sprawled over his back like a sack of potatoes. A sack of two potatoes, actually.

I find some twine for him to teach me a few knots, of which he knows many,

We stand by the window, watching the snowflakes, as he demonstrates the bowline, the around-the-waist knot if you’re hanging off a cliff, he explains. To show me how if there are two of you, he stands behind and loops us both. I watch the flakes fall as his hands follow the undersides of my breasts while explaining where the end of the rope goes.

I fireman carry him back to his table, him having to partially walk because I’m not a fireman. While we started with me clenching his hands around my collarbone, by the time we’re halfway to safety, that’s not where they are.

Silly teacher girl, I tell myself, letting his hand roam over my sweater as I lug him around.

Silly teacher girl, I tell myself, taking the long route.

Maybe not that different from what might have happened in the pool if he’d stopped by to teach me lifesaving, but as I said, he hadn’t.

“How’d I do?” once I’d saved him.

“Great,” though I suspect he’s referring to having felt me up.

I suggest not mentioning this to others, as the library’s not really the place for rescue carries.

I should have worn a nicer bra, I suppose, but he’d not have been able to tell the difference.

As it’s not ceased snowing, I’m that confident about my car’s making it home, but while I’m scraping off my windshield, voilà!, along comes my solution -- my buddy Tyler.

“Hey, Tyler. Want a ride?”

“That’s OK. I’ll catch a bus.”

“Don’t know if they’re even running. How about letting me give you a lift and you can help push this thing if we get stuck. Pardon the junk in the back. I was going to go camping.”

“Snow camping? Totally awesome!”

As if freezing in the snow could be said to be partially awesome? There’s so much to teach them, and even if you did, they’d just go to something like “absolutely awesome.”

“Just car camping. It works if you diagonal in a hatchback.”

“We learned how to calculate a diagonal in math. It’s pretty easy if you have the right kind of calculator,” correctly assuming that I didn’t have that model. “Know how to build a fire with wet wood?” ready to pass along further wisdom.

“How about you write it out for me, as it usually rains when I try to light one,” all I can come up with. The secret of teaching English is to get them to write about what they’re into. “Or whatever you think I should know about something.”

“Robots? We made one, but it tipped over in the competition.”

“Well, there’s always next year, right? You could write about how they’ll change the future and everything.”

“Or maybe I could write something about first aid for hypothermia,” he wonders. “I learned how for my merit badge. Know what hypothermia is?”

“Is it about when you get too cold,” foregoing the chance to illustrate Greek roots.

“Exactly. What you do is to get in a sleeping bag with them.”

I doubt he learned that from a Scout leader, but maybe he heard it in a tent.

“Do some research on it and don’t forget to use the spell-check.” I despise the thing, but technology’s where the future is, even in English.

He’s weighing something additional, though.

“Sorry, Ms. Rennick, if there in the library I accidentally sort of.”

I cut him short. “That was so interesting about firefighters.”

I drop him off without getting stuck, thinking to offer, “If it’s a snow day again tomorrow, I’ll pick you up. Give me a call. Text me, I mean.” Texting draws from the dregs of language, but like spell-check, it’s where the language-arts action is.

“No problem,” another degradation of our language, but he meant well.

Silly teacher girl, I tell myself, hoping for more snow tomorrow.

That evening, I call Cindi, who has a number of suggestions.

Sure enough, next morning, there it is: “ms r ok ty.”

Hot dog! deciding to go no-bra, per Cindi’s advice. I’d one in my purse, though, in case I end up with gym duty. Not donning my coat on our drive to school made me have to crank up the heater, but this way he can tell what I wasn’t wearing.

“Googled it,” Tyler tells me as I negotiate the road -- him not that sly in his staring and me, hopefully more sly about not noticing his notice -- producing a printout of notes. Research without opening a book or using a pencil! Why even teach English to them?

“Emergency Treatment of Hypothermia,” he begins. “Found all sorts of stuff.”