By the time first grade came around, I had grown up from my elementary pranks, I was a real prankster and I could get anyone, at anytime, anywhere. My next victim had been briefed on me, how to “manage” me. Of course, all her attempts at subservience failed her and I remained glorious. Perhaps it was the time we drew animals in class and I commented on my friend Olivia’s cat, “that is not a cat, you can’t draw”. Of course, Olivia cried, who wouldn’t? I walked away pleased that I had been honest with my friend to have a sobbing Olivia and an angered teacher approach me minutes later. The teacher would ask if I insulted Olivia’s picture to which I would be honest again. She told me to apologize, that it just wasn’t nice. But what did she expect me to do? Lie to my friends? That in itself would just weaken my very existence. I promptly responded, “But I’m not sorry, her cat sucks.”
Or maybe it was when we were writing journals and I would only draw pictures on the top of the page instead of actually write. Perhaps I was remiss to the fact that you actually had to write words in a journal or I just didn’t care. Whichever it was happened to work fine for me until I started to write and then well, I just couldn’t stop enlightening the world with my poetic writing. I was a very vain child as you’ve probably noticed. This is not as I am now but then, it all revolved around me, it didn’t matter who you were unless of course, you were my mom.
My mom was always the person in power in my mind, I didn’t care who you were or for how long you were watching me, I listen to my mom. Now don’t get me wrong, I disobeyed her several times over and over but it never changed her status. Perhaps I deserved more severe punishments or parents but my parents are awesome. Trust me though; my mom had her own tactics when it came to my tricks. She always knew when I’d lie because she always told me that it was written across my face. On days when I would stare into the bathroom mirror for hours she knew. And together we both knew that my first grade teacher, well she was just straight up crazy. There were no lies, tricks or jokes about it.
It could have been the times every day when she would pull me out of class and say that she feared that I just wasn’t going to make it to second grade. What did I need to do? Make up some macaroni posters, a few cotton ball sheep? Possibly read a book with three words on each page for homework. Some simple addition maybe? How about taking shorter naps? What did she really expect me to do? What are you really learning in first grade? In kindergarten you learned your rules and your alphabet and were practically already reading. First grade was just where you wrote words and read books while drawing pictures of animals that did not look like cats.
I believe it all began in the month of March, when learning about St. Patrick’s Day. She explained to us that this day was sacred and special because if you lured tiny little men in green with red hair whom we would later in fifth grade come to call Irish, you would get a surprise. That if you successfully captured them that not only would they give you their pot of gold but grant you any wishes you wanted. And so began the Leprechaun traps. Mine was a giant box with many levels painted green with gold coins glued to the outside. Inside it was almost like a condo, it had two levels, and one had two rooms with a plastic cell door that would close if the rubber band was taken off its hook on the wall. Surprisingly enough, none of those doors were triggered. On the first floor, there was a door, and a small pot of plastic gold. The door was triggered to if slightly touched to slam shut and not open. Of course, things never work.
So in the end, the damn Leprechauns took my gold and left tiny sticker foot prints. I found later, searching through her desk drawers, all our pots of gold, and that she was the Leprechaun that got away. When she caught me, I looked up at her and said, “You will never make it as a Leprechaun” before walking away shaking my head as she had done every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment