Getting the Teachers Attention

Getting the Teacher's Attention

by Cleve

Douglas and I were friends. As an adult I discovered that he was almost a year and a half older than me which as an adult means nothing, but as a six or seven year old is more pronounced. His parents basically red-shirted him by starting him in school at age seven instead of at age six as was expected. This, as they hoped and as had happened with his much older brother, gave him a slight edge in athletics as he would always be competing with younger, less mature boys. I doubt if he needed an edge, because he was a superb athlete making All State in football as a senior in high school and earning a football scholarship to LSU.

In first grade at lunch we would sit in the school auditorium and share the sandwich and orange in his lunch bag and then run from the school to my house, which was only three blocks away, and share the butter beans and cornbread my mother had prepared for my lunch. Knowing that Douglas would be with me, she always had extra. Over the years we had many classes and adventures together, but one my mind dredges up more often concerns Mrs. F_ in chemistry class.

On my first day of chemistry class Mrs.. F_ called roll, going down the list of students for the first time. When she reached my name she stopped, looked up from the list, and called my name. When I answered "Here," she asked, " Are you related to L__ and C__?"

"Yes Ma'am. They are my brothers."

She was old, probably in her early fifties, short, slightly pudgy, yet stern looking with her almost gray hair and bookish eyeglasses. She looked straight at me and said, "You fail."

This didn't bother me, although I was the only student singled out for comment, because I knew some of the grief my brothers had given her during the prior two years when they each had their turn in her class.

My oldest brother, having been advised by older friends, put a copper penny in an acid which produced fumes that caused her to lose her voice for a whole period. My other brother, while she was engaged with other students, on multiple occasions climbed out the window and down the fire escape after answering a roll call.

I actually liked her and was impressed that the local police called on her to compare fingerprints for them and occasionally test suspicious substances. Nevertheless, I had the family reputation to uphold.

One day Douglas and I were reviewing the things my brothers had done in her class when I had an inspiration. Douglas had some three inch red firecrackers that we used to light under tin cans to see how high they would go when we set off the firecrackers. We had even made a mortar by driving a pipe into the ground, dropping a lit firecracker into the pipe followed by a ball bearing to see how many pages of folded newspaper the ball bearing would penetrate.

The point is, that we felt very comfortable handling fireworks.

I took one of Douglas's three inch firecrackers, removed the fuse, and emptied it of all powder. I then reinserted the fuse.

The next day in chemistry class, sitting on the back row where I always sat because they seated us alphabetically, I pulled the firecracker from my pocket and started tossing it into the air and catching it.

As expected, I got a "Bring whatever you are playing with up here and put it on my desk."

"Yes Ma'am," I said loudly and marched up to her desk. I stood the firecracker on end with the fuse up, reached in my pocket, pulled out a kitchen match, ignited the match by striking it on the wooden floor, and lit the fuse on the firecracker.

I heard a shriek and have a memory of the teacher atop a chair as if she were a cartoon character reacting to a mouse.

The fuse quickly fizzled out and did no harm.

Much to my surprise, the teacher quickly regained her composure and just sent me back to my desk. She didn't even send me to the principal's office or send a note home to my parents. Instead, she started talking to the class about explosions and what caused them.

I never acted up in her class again, and she never mentioned my brothers again.