Mischief
Katherine D. Bennett
(First published in the Lathrop News Thursday, October 24, 1996)
I really loved my second grade teacher, and I knew she loved us, too. Not just liked us. Loved us. We were her first class and she took us to her heart. She thought we were the smartest, cutest class of second graders that ever walked the planet. That’s not to say she didn’t get mad at us sometimes, or that she was always fair, but, even if she wasn’t perfect, she truly cared about us and we all knew it.
She had a friendly rivalry going with the sixth grade teacher—a man teacher. At first, we all thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend until our teacher told us she was engaged to a policeman. (That was very, way cool.) It was easy for us to assume they were sweet on each other ’cause why else would the sixth grade teacher send a student down to our room with his trash can full of trash to empty into our trash can? My teacher assured us that grown-ups didn’t do that when they were in love and we all went ooooo!
One day, my teacher called me up to her desk and said, “Kathy, I want you to help me with something.”
Of course, I was devoted to her and responded with enthusiasm.
“I would like for you to go to the sixth grade and sharpen your pencil. Don’t say anything to anyone, just sharpen your pencil.”
“Is that funny?”, I asked.
She laughed that great, huge laugh she had and said, “It will be to me.”
That was all I needed to know, that she would like it and she would look at me with happy secret eyes the rest of the day. I took my pencil and started to the sixth grade.
Up the first flight of stairs, leaving the familiar first floor with its cafeteria smalls and its safe small furniture. Past the second floor and the principal’s office, where that fearsome, huge man meted out justice. Uncaught, my heart pounding in my seven-year-old chest, I felt like a commando from Rat Patrol in unknown territory. My mission to the pencil sharpener was fraught with danger. Finally to the third floor, down the hallway to the closed door of the sixth grade. Should I knock? NO! Seize the moment. I gathered my courage and opened the door!
The pencil sharpener was just ahead, mounted on the end of the coat room divider. It was over my head. I said nothing, I just stood on my tip toes and sharpened like crazy. I felt like I would burst with embarrassed bravado. The sixth grade teacher had an astonished look on his face, and the giant sixth graders first stared then started laughing.
I turned on my heels and scampered out of the room, the sound of the sixth graders and their teacher’s laughter ringing out behind me. Down the hail, down the stairs, down the stairs, down the stairs, down the hail to my own room. Safe!
Thirty years have past, and yet this is still fresh.....
My teacher listened to my tale of bravado and sharp pencils with shared, happy mischief, and she loved me, and it was great fun.