Middle School Class Clownery
It was the start of 7th-grade art class and our teacher, Mrs. Shelby, hadn’t yet arrived in the classroom. Somehow it had come to our attention—I think because a friend had come by asking for her—that Mrs. Shelby’s first name was Mildred. For some reason a few of us found this funny—we apparently never imagined teachers had first names or lives beyond the school walls. “Mildred? That’s her name?” Dustin said with a laugh.
Just before she walked in, Dustin went to the white board and in big letters wrote—Hello Millie. A few of us laughed hysterically. We waited with anticipation for Mrs. Shelby’s arrival.
She swept into the room and plopped a stack of copies on her desk before walking to the front of the class. Our stupid smiles suggested something was up. She looked at us curiously before turning to see Dustin’s handiwork on the white board. She didn’t seem especially angry, but neither did she suffer fools. She gave a half-smile and erased it, likely recognizing it was some form of insubordination, but probably thinking it would be better to ignore and get back to the lesson.
A few minutes into her explanation I raised my hand to ask a question. “Millie,” I said (I could hear Dustin choking) “when is this assignment due?”
“Tomorrow,” she said with a scowl. “And you should call me Mrs. Shelby.”
In the high stakes game of middle-school class clownery, my gambit with Mrs. Shelby was only a first move designed to illicit the real payoff—when Dustin would inevitably attempt to one-up me. Several minutes later, when Mrs. Shelby left the room momentarily, Dustin raced to the board and wrote, Hey Millie! in his distinctive penmanship. I was giddy with excitement, but many of our classmates seemed less impressed.
“Knock it off, Dustin!”
“She’s going to be really mad,” a few implored him.
They seemed genuinely offended and worried about where our stupidity might lead.
When Mrs. Shelby returned and saw the board, she faced the class, put her hand on her hip and stared at us angrily.
“OK, this is stupid and disrespectful,” she said, “Dustin, to the office now.” Dustin stood up and with a hint of a smile on his flushed face, walked out. Order was mostly restored.
A few days later Mrs. Shelby had the class take their desks outside. Spring weather had arrived, so our assignment would be making a pencil sketch of our surroundings. Kids dragged their desks up near the edge of the steep hillside and gathered their art supplies. Mrs. Shelby came and went, periodically checking on students’ work. Pretty quickly I lost interest in sketching and instead dared Dustin to drink from the muddy puddle of water alongside the school.
“I’ll do it for five dollars,” he countered.
Seconds later he was down on all fours like a dog, lapping at the filthy puddle with his tongue.
“Oh my God! That is so gross!” Shannon Barrett said, turning around in her desk to watch the spectacle.
“Tastes like chocolate milk,” Dustin added for effect.
I shook my head in delightful disgust and handed over the five dollars.
We hadn’t returned to our sketching for long when there arose a great clatter. I looked up just in time to see Darrin Benjamin—the floppy-haired straight A student—disappear over the edge of the hillside still seated in his tiny chair-desk combo.
We raced over to the precipice to see Darrin had come to rest some 15 feet down the hillside, still seated, upside down, wedged against the trunk of a tree. He was lucky to have found the one tree on the hillside—with nothing to arrest his fall he would have rolled, inside of his desk, for another 30 feet or more to the terraced landing below.
Darrin lie perfectly still, eyes closed—I could see weeds and leaves caught in his unkempt hair. Shannon Barrett screamed for Mrs. Shelby who ran to the edge and looked down in horror just as Dustin asked aloud, “Is he dead?”
Fortunately, other than a few bumps and bruises, Darrin was fine. Several of us hiked down with Mrs. Shelby and, like jaws of life, helped extricate him from his desk. Mrs. Shelby, whose face looked like she’d just seen her career flash before her eyes, instructed everyone firmly to move their desks well back from the edge. Then she turned to the two of us and said, “You two—be good!” Then she walked Darrin up to the office.
Dustin waited until she was at the edge of earshot before calling out, “Will do, Millie.”
Classic!!
Great!