When Tommy starts babbling, the kindergarten man is eye-level with the teacher’s breasts. “He can walk—it’s a miracle!” Tommy mindlessly repeats.

“Actually, Tommy, I could always walk—it’s not a miracle,” the kindergarten man tells the boy. “There was no restaurant fire, I’m not disabled—I’m not a kid, I’m a cop,” Paul Goode tells the kids.

“He’s not a kid, he’s a cop!” Henrietta shouts. It’s sometimes hard to tell with Henrietta; there’s a sameness to the sound of her voice in ecstasy and in protest. Yet the way the children follow Henrietta’s lead leaves no room for doubt. The chorus of the kids’ voices is ecstatic, even triumphant. The kindergartners are thrilled that Paul Goode is a cop. Only Tommy isn’t lending his jubilant voice to the chorus; Tommy wanted the transformation he witnessed and believed in the boys’ room to exist. When Tommy’s lips begin to move, the unspoken words he is mouthing to himself are not in sync with the words the other kindergartners are so joyfully saying.

As for the actual kindergarten man, he is trying to make himself heard over the din of the children’s chorus. Paul Goode is standing unnaturally close to Clara Swift, his face almost touching her breasts; she tilts her head down to him, her ear now near his mouth. “I’m wondering if you would go out with me, if I’m not too small for you—I hear that all the time, that I’m just not big enough,” the little kindergarten man tells the teacher.

When she turns her head, still bending over him, her lips are almost touching his ear. “You’re not too small for me—you’re just small enough,” the teacher tells him, quietly but clearly.

A close shot of Tommy, his lips stubbornly out of sync with the “He’s a cop!” crap. As the kids’ chanting fades out, the purity of Clara Swift’s singing fades in—until Tommy’s lips are perfectly in sync with her voice, singing Tommy’s song. The first time you see The Kindergarten Man, you think that’s the end of the movie—it could be. It should be.

But there’s a quick cut to Clara Swift in the shower, beautifully singing her unlikely one line. She is startled to see something, or someone, through the glass door; she stops singing, momentarily covering her breasts. Then she laughs. “You keep doing that—you just appear!” she says, to camera. The shower door opens, and the naked kindergarten man steps under the shower with her.

“I don’t like to interrupt you when you’re singing Tommy’s song,” Paul Goode tells her. She has started to shampoo his hair, the lather getting on his face and on her breasts; he closes his eyes.

“Well, you did interrupt me—I don’t mind,” she says.

“You know what I like,” he tells her shyly.

“What you like,” she says, as if she has no idea what he means—she’s teasing him.