It was the end of my freshman year in high school, and I had spent the entire year of algebra one goofing off in the back with a fellow trouble maker, Spens. We seldomly listened to a word the poor woman said all year. We didn’t even care to wonder what our grades were like. We cared more about who could crack the other one up more than just about anything for that last hour of our school day. On this particular day, a friend who had the same desk as me a few class periods earlier had hidden a note to me underneath the desk. I found it and drew pictures of inside jokes we shared. These included Quasimodo, of whom I had developed a stellar impersonation.
As I was reviewing my drawings with smug satisfaction, Spens snatched the note out of my hand and proceeded to taint my art with raunchy captions and perverted additions to the anatomy of Quasimodo. My face went red and giggled erupted out of me against my will. I suppose my apple red cheeks caught Mrs. Stevenson’s eye, because she immediately marched down my aisle and held her outstretched hand out for the note.
Now, one of our favorite jokes that year had to do with the fact that Mrs. Stevenson was losing her hair. To compensate for the loss, she teased her hair and sprayed it into a white woman’s afro. When she stood at the front of the classroom, writing on the overhead projector, her skull formed an opaque shadow crowned by a slightly transparent halo of hair and aquanet.
As she marched back to my seat, I could do nothing but fix my eyes on her suburban fro and wonder what the hell I was going to do with my sordid note. When she came to a stop, hand still outstretched, my arm cranked back, and the note flew straight for her transparent mat of hair.
I felt my eyes grow wide as hers did the same, and she laid ahold of my wrist. She snatched me out of my chair as I began spewing apologies and excuses. The class sat in shocked silence as she and I flew down to the principal’s office.
“Mrs. Stevenson, I am so sorry. I don’t know why I did that. It just happened. I don’t know what came over me. I really didn’t mean to!”
“Emily, I have been trying to teach you all year long, and you have done nothing to make my job any easier.”
That shut me up. The receptionist in Mr. Riefkhol’s office sat staring at us with a look of amusement and curiosity.
“May I have two discipline forms,” Mrs. Stevenson asked coolly. The receptionist hastily opened her drawer and handed her the forms, eyes still wide. I suspect she was trying not to laugh. We walked back to the classroom in silence. As we entered, a raucous room of kids fell into silence with a few stray snickers and I walked back to my seat, trying to hide a smirk. I had a feeling that I had given all thirty of them a damn good story to tell all of their friends that afternoon. I just knew I was going to be thrown into in school suspension for the last week of the school year. Luckily, it was the last class of the day and the last class day before finals, so I would only have to see Mrs. S. once more that year. Then she would have a whole summer to forget what I had done to her.
I found my brother at our meeting place. As soon as he saw me, his eyes narrowed and a sly grin spread across his face. “What did you do?” So I told him as he cracked up laughing. We got home, and he walked in the house before me, that sly grin still on his face. I came in after and my mom stood there with her hands on her hips. “What did you do?” I told her a slightly tamer version of the story and she stared at the ceiling, sighing and shaking her head. “Emily, when is this going to stop happening? It’s like you go crazy with spring fever at the end of every year and I have to wait and worry that you’ll come home and tell me a story like this. That’s it. We are going to see Dr.Cobb as soon as possible and you are going on medication for ADHD.”
She was right. I had a history of impulsive behavior that was completely unsuitable for the public school system. I think I was just bored. Teachers didn’t want to help me learn. Why would they try to make my life easier when I didn’t give them the same courtesy?
I came in and took the final without even looking Mrs. Stevenson in the eye. I left as quickly as I could. A few days later, on the last day of school, Mrs. Stevenson passed me in the lunchline.
“Emily,” she said cheerily, “you did really well on your final! I was very proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Stevenson. I did study this time.” I smiled, and she smiled back.
“Have a good summer, Emily.”
“You, too.” And that was it. I never got thrown into ISS. I never even got after school detention. I did go to the doctor, and I did get put on medication. But that’s a whole other story for another day.
