These stories were written during my student teaching experience, in the fall of 2003. Working with children on a daily basis definitely incurs the desire to write things down QUICK before you forget them…
1. Pillage And Burn With Santa’s Horde!
…so how bad could a buncha third graders screw a writing assignment UP, right?
Well, actually, pretty badly. Their spelling stinks. But that’s part of my job.
The assignment was simple. It was a Xeroxed page. The top half of the page was a coloring-book picture of Santa’s Workshop, right? In it, we see jolly old St. Nick, in his shirtsleeves, carrying some two-by-fours in the door while his happy elves merrily assemble skateboards, choo choo trains, and dollies, and furiously wrap presents, hither, thither, and yon, in preparation for the impending Christmas Trip.
So what did the kids have to do about it? They had to write five sentences describing what was going on in the picture. And then they could take their Crayolas to it and do it proud.
So how badly COULD they screw it up?
The first clue came when li’l Bobby asked me what he should write about. I said, “Write about the picture.”
“What should I write about the picture?”
“Well… what do you see in the picture?”
“San’a Clawz. An’ some elfs.”
“What are Santa and his elves doing?”
“San’a an’ his elfs make toys. And they wrap presen’s. And they d’liver ‘em all over the worl’.”
“And that’s three sentences, right there! Quick! Write 'em down, fast, before they get away!” I joked, and the kid laughed and began to write. Nothin’ to this el-ed business, right?
E-yeah.
Shortly thereafter, li’l Bobby handed me his paper. “Can I color the picture now?” he asked. “Did I write enough?”
Well, yes, he had written enough. More than enough. I goggled, and worked not to gag or burst out laughing.
Being a child, Bobby had, quite naturally, focused on the PRESENTS, the TOYS, in Santa’s workshop. After all, that’s what li’l kids like best about Christmas, right? And what were these elves DOING with the toys?
Well… most of them seemed to be wrapping them up, preparatory to loading the Big Sleigh.
Now think about it. I teach Special Ed. How many SPED third graders really understand how to spell the world “wrap?” And what word would they be familiar with that they would likely substitute?
The word is “rap,” of course. This in itself is no big deal, except when placed in the present continuous tense.
santas elfs make the toys. santas elfs are raping the toys for Cristmas. a elf rapes a choo choo trane. the other elf is raping his package tite. the elfs all rapes the toys and then they put them on santas sled.
I didn’t quite gag, and I managed not to laugh. Unfortunately, then, little Wendikins thrust HER literary concoction at me, and I made the mistake of reading part of it–
Santa and his evles are raping everyting. They are raping and raping and raping becos Chritmas is coming sooon.
I still didn’t quite gag, but I definitely did something, because I hurt my throat and my side was beginning to ache. I was NOT going to burst out cackling hysterically in the faces of all these innocent li’l children in the middle of a discussion about Santa Claus. Even if that evil little bastard who lives in the back of my head was snickering and whispering, “Gee, talk about the Island of Misfit Toys…”
“Are you okay, Sir?” said li’l Jenny. “Your face is looking kind of red. And your eyes are bugging out.”
*(…and where’s Mrs. Claus when all this is going on? * asked the rotten little sombitch in the back of my skull. After all, Chrit’mas is coming and coming soon, right?)
Quickly, I grabbed at another child’s proffered paper, like a drowning man might claw at a life raft. All the children looked at me, quite innocent and oblivious to the horrible double entendres their spelling had made.
I glanced at the paper in my hand.
Santa and his elves have to stay up raping all night because there is so much raping to do before Chrismus. They will be raping day and night to get the job done.
…and it was at that *exact moment * that little Jill glanced up from her paper and said, “Sir, how do you spell ‘would he’?”
Luckily, the bell rang only about a minute after that.
And I had until morning to explain why I rolled around on the floor, laughing and gagging and having what appeared to be an epileptic fit for the last sixty seconds of class that day…
2. The Look
Ever see that movie Village Of The Damned? It’s a British film from the mid-sixties, but they did a remake of it with Kirstie Alley and Christopher Reeve a few years back.
The film deals with a little village where some weird thing happens and sixteen women all become pregnant, simultaneously. They all give birth at the same time, and all the children vaguely resemble each other.
Later, we find that the children are telepathic… emotionless… and not necessarily too sympathetic towards their parents or kin. They operate as a group mind, and anyone or anything that threatens them tends to get killed, suddenly.
The creepiness of the movie comes from the emotionlessness and mercilessness of these cute little kiddies, right? The creepy stare that kills.
And now for something almost completely unrelated to this concept.
My favorite classroom disciplinary method is The Look. This is the equivalent of when a cop pulls you over and gives you a warning.
The Look is administered as follows:
- Suddenly stop talking. Freeze ALL action, immediately. Go DEAD still.
- Focus VERY intently on whoever is doing something wrong, acting out, daydreaming, or whatever.
- Slowly bring your chin in towards your adams’ apple while maintaining precise eye contact with your target. This has the effect of causing one’s glasses to slide down one’s nose, while simultaneously causing one to be staring at someone through one’s eyebrows.
- Make sure your mouth is closed. Now, slowly open your jaws while keeping your mouth closed. This gives the odd impression that your face is slowly growing longer. Don’t do it too quickly, or the effect is spoiled.
- Bug the eyes slightly.
- Turn the corners of the mouth down, slowly, into an intense frown.
I’ve never had to add a Step Seven. I usually don’t even get to Step Five. When I do this, every kid who IS paying attention immediately drops dead silent and turns to stare at whoever The Teacher is “angry” with. Usually, the target realizes what’s going on within seconds… and immediately gets with the program… thus eliminating the need for me to actually DO anything with or to the child in question.
I’ve never regarded The Look as any big thing. My wife says it looks creepy as hell, and gives the impression that I am sloooowly becoming angry to the point of apoplexy.
I suppose that’s an advantage. It always seems to work, and it saves me having to chew them out or drag them to the principal’s office, so whatever works, right?
Today, Li’l Darryl was trying to color his Santa Claus cutout, right? And Li’l Bobby was goofin’ around, rolling crayons, and jostling the table, and being a general pain in the neck.
I was about to say something… when suddenly, Li’l Darryl gave Li’l Bobby The Look.
I goggled. It was fantastic. The kid was doing it EXACTLY the way I do. It was as if he were reading the list above, by the numbers. EXACTLY the way I do. And I do it through habit, not thinking. He was imitating me, PERFECTLY.
He wasn’t mocking me, either. He was attempting to get Bobby to shut the hell up and sit down and behave and quit bugging him.
The effect was galvanic. The entire table froze and stared at Darryl for a minute… and then turned to stare at Bobby.
Bobby noticed… and then BOBBY froze… and suddenly, Bobby sat down. He glanced at me, guiltily. He settled down and got back to what he was supposed to be doing.
…and only then did Li’l Darryl relax his facial features and calmly returned to coloring his Santa cutout.
It was creepy as all get-out. I’d never actually SEEN anyone ELSE do it. Suddenly, it became clear to me why the trick is so effective.
What’s worse, it was contagious. Darryl did it again an hour later, during math, when Li’l Susie wouldn’t shut up. By two o’clock, when Li’l Frankie was being a jerk because he didn’t wanna do something or other, THREE of my children turned around and gave Frankie The Look. Li’l Susie was one of them.
All Together. All At Once. Even I felt it, and they weren’t even looking at me. It was like I’d fallen into a remake of “Village Of The Damned,” or something.
Frankie reacted as if Clint Eastwood had appeared out of nowhere, slapped him hard, said, “Straighten up, you little punk,” and vanished in a puff of smoke. Frankie sat there, stunned… and then, he guiltily settled down, shut up, and got back to work.
Wow.
Well, at least now I know I’ve taught them SOMETHING…
3. Christmas Spiders
I am in my last week of student teaching. I’ll be certified, soon, to teach in our public schools… but I found another reason yesterday that I don’t wanna teach elementary school.
You see… there are four men in this particular school building, most school days. Me, an elderly math teacher, and two custodians. Note that I am only an intern, and will not be here, soon.
Yesterday, during my lunch hour, I’m settin’ up the next week’s materials, surfing CNN, and bitterly cursing the District Computer Nazi, who feels that access to message boards and outside email sources should be blocked, right?
And a woman I barely recognize bursts into the classroom, jabbering and gibbering. I vaguely remembered her from the last faculty meeting; she was a teacher there. She knew ME, though, as my own last name was the only thing she was saying that made any sense. It seemed extremely important that I should go with her, though.
As we hustled through the empty halls – all the children were at lunch – I wondered what could be so screwy as to drive this poor woman into hysteria. Fire? Terrorists? Bomb threats?
Hmmph. Shooda known.
We arrive at her gaily decorated classroom. Sitting in the large open area towards the front… maybe fifteen feet away from where I stood in the hall… was a large cardboard carton marked XMAS.
The woman, whom I will call “Mrs. Tulip,” became even more incoherent at this point, but pointed furiously at the box, and indicated that I should go and do something with or to the box.
I ambled into the room, glancing around for bombs or Alan Rickman with a machine gun, or something. Nothing was on fire. The box was open. I sidled up to it and glanced inside.
Ah. Christmas decorations. Atop it all were three large stuffed toys – a bear, a penguin, and Santa.
And perched atop the bear’s belly was a spider. A HUGE friggin’ spider.
Dawn broke over marble head. Ah. THIS is the emergency. But… something didn’t look quite right. The spider was posed rather oddly, legs bunched together, front and back, instead of legs spread around her, ready to leap or run. And… her abdomen. Spider that big should have a butt the size of my pinky tip… but… it looked… scooped out, somehow.
That’s when I realized that this was not a spider. This was a molt. The spider had shed its exoskeleton in the process of getting bigger… and was, possibly, still in the box somewhere. Furthermore, the only non-tarantula spiders in this hemisphere that get THAT big are female. A female spider in a cardboard box in someone’s shed or garage has only one reason for being there: it laid eggs. Spiders’ eggs hatch between September and late November. It was now December. There were potentially hundreds of spiders in there.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of saying all this out loud.
Mrs. Tulip’s reaction was kind of interesting. She, like wriggled, and kind of looked like she wanted to turn herself inside out, then and there. She jabbered some more, and indicated that I should do something about it.
“What do you want ME to do about it?” I said.
<o:p></o:p>
*“Uggh,” * she replied. "Eeegh…yecch… you’re a MAN," she gagged. “Do SOMETHING!”
Yeah. Well. So much for reassignment of gender roles and equality, right?
I turned back to the box. Carefully, I fished Bear, Penguin and Santa out, one by one, and flicked them to the floor. They did not erupt in a seething mass of arachnoid horror. The dead molt fell to pieces with the impact. Mrs. Tulip wriggled and vibrated.
Beneath the stuffed toys was a mass of plastic pine needles. The rest of the box contained a disassembled artificial Christmas tree.
Ghod only knew what might be hiding in there.
Mrs. Tulip sat and stared at me, chewing her nails. I looked at her. She looked at me. I sighed and turned back to the box. I COULD simply refuse to do it. It wasn’t MY classroom, or my Christmas tree, or my problem. On the other hand, I’m still a student teacher, and I’m going to be DONE with this in a week. All I have to do to get my certification is not screw up or piss anyone off…
…and it occurred to me that as wacko as this woman was acting, there was no way she was setting foot in this room until all materials in this box had been examined for spiderlike presences… and, considering where my classroom was and where Mrs. Tulip’s was, she had probably gone rampaging all over the school looking for custodians before finally remembering that I existed.
It was noon. The custodians were across the street at Fatso’s Barbecue, having lunch. They wouldn’t be back any time soon. If I didn’t do something, this woman was going to be standing in the hall gibbering when her children returned from lunch. And how would my evaluation go if I went on record as saying, “Hell with you, lady, this ain’t my problem?”
Steeling myself, I fished one of the tree stand’s legs out… and carefully picked out one of the branches. I whacked the branch a few times with the tree stand leg. Three dead crickets fell out of it.
I did it again with another branch. Nothing happened.
I did it again.
And again.
And again.
I noticed that about every third or fourth branch had a dead cricket or two in it. Each seventh branch seemed to have a LIVE cricket in it, which always evoked a horrified ejaculation from Mrs. Tulip, still in the hallway.
…and the eighteenth branch had a live SPIDER in it, a good-sized specimen, who came scuttling up the branch to rip my hand off. I flicked him off the branch with the tree stand leg and stomped on him. Mrs. Tulip immediately did this… amazing… thing… with her whole body … that would have done any contortionist proud, except that Mrs. Tulip did it out of sheer horror.
I was not happy. That spider was nowhere near big enough to be the one who’d left that molt on top. That was one of the kids.
The twenty-ninth branch had ANOTHER molt on it. An even bigger one. How long had that mama spider been IN this box? And was she still HERE?
Mrs. Tulip wobbled and writhed and made weird noises some more, by way of assistance and moral support.
I kept plucking branches out. More dead crickets. A few live ones. Jeez, there’d been a whole ecosystem going on in this woman’s Christmas decorations…
And in time, I came to the bottom of the box. Well, almost. The only thing left was the top of the Christmas tree, a largish cone of stiff wire and fake plastic pine needles. There was no way in hell I was sticking my hands in THAT thing. I could beat it with the tree stand leg until the toads came home, and the entire Bolivian army could still be hiding in there.
Perhaps jostling it would provide some information. I carefully knocked the box over. The tree top rattled and rolled out.
And Mama Spider came out, erupting from between the branches like a little snake monster ripping through a spaceman’s sternum in a horror movie.
Now, in truth, that spider wasn’t THAT big. This is Texas, after all. I’ve certainly seen tarantulas that were bigger. On the other hand, I’ve also seen tarantulas that were SMALLER, which gives you some clue as to how fraggin’ BIG this thing was. I raised a foot to step on it, and hesitated. Man, this thing was BIG! What if it… didn’t… DIE? What if it grabbed my foot and threw me across the ROOM, or something?
And then, Mrs. Tulip screamed, a sound like a fire engine might make if it were giving birth to a Toyota.
I leaped on the spider with both feet.
Mrs. Tulip had very good lungs, though, and continued. The same scream, too. She only screamed once, but it went on for a while. I heard the patter of feet, as people came running to investigate.
Many of them were children. Fourth graders, as I recall.
…and abruptly, Mrs. Tulip snapped. It was amazing. One second, she is in the grip of total pantswetting hysteria, and the next, she’s perfectly calm, and herding children around. It was like someone had found and pressed her RESET button, right there in front of ghod and everybody.
I casually cleaned up the dead spiders and the scattering of cricket husks, and tossed 'em in the garbage. I then checked the tree top. It was clean. Not that anything alive would have willingly shared quarters with Mama Rachnid, anyway. Upon erasing the remnants of madness, I strolled away back to my classroom. Mrs. Tulip smiled and gave me a nod, still herding her students, as I passed.
And I betcha my certification won’t even have any mention of my heroism or my goin’ the extra mile, here…
