First grade.


I went to a nice grade school. My first grade teacher was a wonderful small spinister teacher.I used to have a crush on three boys. Peter, David and Kurt. I thought they were great. Peter sat next to me. He wasn't very good in math. He asked if he could copy my answers. Of course I said yes. There was this other boy named Izzy. Izzy was a tattle tale. He told on anything and everything that he could. So of course when he saw Peter copying my answers, he raised his hand to let our teacher know what debauchery was going on. Our teacher came over and promptly took mine and Peter's math papers. Mine was done and Peter's was only partially finished. I felt that she could see that I knew how to do the math and I was simply helping a fellow classmate out. Far from that. She told both of us that we were going to have to stay after school and re-do the papers.

What?!! I couldn't stay after school. I had just gotten the privelege of being able to walk home alone. I didn't have to wait for mom and my brother to come and get me. I didn't have to hold anyone's hand crossing the streets. I was pratically grown up. I knew that if I didn't arrive at home exactly in the 7 minutes it took me to walk, there would be punishment. Big punishment. My father was strict. Very strict. If I caused my mother undo worry, I would get it. Which would be a spanking coupled with being sent to bed early and I bet I would also lose my right to walk home by myself. I couldn't stay after school.

Time passed slowly that afternoon. Finally the bell rang. My teacher passed out the math papers. I looked. Ahhhh. 36 problems. I was good in math but not good enough to complete 36 problems in 2 minutes. (I had figured that if I walked faster I could maybe save 2 minutes, maybe long enough to do the math paper.) I took a deep breath and then began to scribble numbers like mad under the addition line.

There. Finished. I handed my paper over to my teacher who started to say something but I had already flown out the door. I walked fast. (I couldn't run on sidewalks. Every time I would run on a sidewalk, I would invariably fall and scrape my knees up and make them all bloody. My father had instilled the fear of God himself if I was to ever run on sidewalks again. Which I didn't run on a sidewalk again until 7th grade and sure enough, I fell and got my knees all bloody again!) I made it home just as my mother and brother were starting to head towards the school. Whew. I told my mother that I had had to go to the bathroom which was why I was a bit late. She looked at me odd but didn't say anything.

That night I began to plan the revenge I would extract on Izzy for what I thought was getting me into this mess.

The next day, we got our papers back. An 'F' screamed back at me. Burning in red ink. My eyes began to tear. I had never gotten a bad grade before. I was actually fairly intelligent. This strengthened my resolve to get Izzy. I thought about it all morning. It was soon time for recess. That is when it hit me how I would get Izzy. We all lined up to go outside for recess. I snuck back into our classroom. I went to the teacher's desk. I slowly opened her middle drawer where our milk money was collected. I took the money and put it into Izzy's desk. I knew that when our teacher came back it would be time to take the milk money to the office. She would open the drawer and lo and behold, there would be no milk money. This would then require her to question our class as to who took the money or did anyone know who took it or what happened to it. I knew also that I wasn't going to say anything and for once Izzy wouldn't be able to say anything. I was doing this not only for myself but for the good of the class. Our teacher would then tell us to put our heads down and if someone knew anything they would simply stick their thumb up on their hand and she would take that person out of the class and talk to them in the hallway. Ha. I knew no one would stick their thumb up. Then would come the search. (Obviously back in the days where teachers had full carte blanche to do what they wanted and the parents would support the teacher). She would have us empty our pockets and search our desks. And then would come my glory.

Sure enough I was right. I almost giggled in glee thinking about how Izzy was going to react. He would be dumbfounded. He would deny, deny, deny. Our teacher wouldn't believe him. The evidence would be right there. Soon after having our heads down for what seemed forever, the search began.

"Izzy, what is this?"

"I, I, don't know" stammered Izzy.

"Now this money didn't appear here by magic. Did you really think you would get away with this?" our teacher would ask cleverly she believed.

Red faced, Izzy was led protesting his innocence out of our classroom to the principal's office.

Feeling quite accomplished, I joined in with the rest of the class expressing amazement and wonder at Izzy being the thief. I was not one to be crossed, I learned quite early.

Now that I am older, I am not proud of this. I have been told that I am such a nice person. I just smile and say that I am so nice now because I have many things to attone for...little do they know that the things I am attoning for began way back in first grade.