Maragold in Sixth Part Five

CHAPTER  17

          Each night I waited in the hallway for Maragold to get into her pajamas, brush her teeth and do whatever she needed to do to get ready for bed.  When she was ready, she would mentally signal me and I would enter her bedroom and sit on the bed’s headboard—the kind that looks like a book shelf.

          Maragold liked to read before she went to sleep.  I liked it when she read books.  Since she let me read her thoughts, it was like she was reading the book to me.  She was almost done reading the book, Where the Red Fern Grows.  She thought it was the best book about dogs that she had ever read.  She was surprised that she had not read it in fourth or fifth grade, but she thought she knew why.  The title drew attention to a plant instead of to dogs.  That fact did not encourage elementary students to want to read it.  The title sounded like a book about “gardening.”  Maragold thought that it was a poor choice of titles for the book and wondered why the author, Wilson Rawls, gave it a name that did not let the reader know that it was a boy and his dogs book.  If a student just read or heard the title, without seeing the picture on the front cover, he would not be aware of what the book was really about.  Maragold and I highly recommend this book to you, dear reader.

          Maragold read a few pages, then turned off the light and slipped into dreamland as the gentle rain tapped lightly on the roof and window panes.  Her dream brought her to a lush, fragrant, forest with friendly, Disney-like animals.  All the animals were smiling at her as they shared her joy, listening to the splashing sounds of the waterfall and the gurgling of the creek water as it tumbled over and around rocks.

          I went to Mr. Shane’s magic room to sleep on the spare couch that was there.  As I drifted off to sleep, I suddenly found myself inside Maragold’s forest dream.  I was sitting on her shoulder as she walked down the flower-lined path, both of us listening to the relaxing, rhythm of noises made by the waterfall and creek.

          It was strange how once in a while our dreams would not only merge, but they would seem logical, as if we were awake and talking, just as two close friends would do.  It’s a wonderful feeling, but one that’s not easily put into words.

          I felt that it was a little like she was my dearest, kindest, very much loved sister, and that no person and no situation could alter or break our friendship connection.  It was the feeling of a strong bond that very few brothers and sisters ever have.  Like a planet and its moon, I felt as if Maragold and I were meant to be in each other’s lives.  That feeling made me sad since I knew that I had to leave soon, so, unfortunately, there was a situation that would divide us, but not separate or end our friendship.

          In our connected dream, Maragold changed into a beautiful bird and I changed into a cute rabbit.  From the branch of a maple tree, Maragold ruffled her feathers.  From the ground I saw her beak move as she talked and I understood her.  She wanted to know more about my life in Ireland.  That made me think that we have not talked, in great detail, about my life in Ireland and the community that I lived in.  Our talks were mostly about her, her friends, school, parents, books, and the Rochester, NY area.

          I jumped onto a fallen tree trunk by the gurgling creek, and heard other birds chirping.  My long ears stood erect.  A butterfly floated by and landed on my furry ear.  It tickled, but I did not scare it away.  Beauty should not be scared away.  I looked up at Maragold, the bird, and told her that I actually lived northwest of Cork, Ireland, across the Boggeragh Mountains, in County Kerry.  Actually, I told her, my whole country of Leprechaunia existed deep inside the Killarney National Park, where the chance of us being seen was very slight.  Sometimes, however, we’d take picnic-trips to the Lakes of Killarney and the Lee River because they are so beautiful and inspiring.  But these picnic trips were also dangerous.  I told her that once I had to use my magic wand to prevent a few hikers from capturing me and my friends.  As the hikers were rushing toward us, I made grape vines appears at their feet so that they all tripped and fell flat on their chests.  Their heavy backpacks made it difficult for them to get up quickly, but by then we were gone.  Maragold chirped, but it was really laughter.

          In the background of our dream, we could both hear Roy Orbison’s song, Only the Lonely.  The sound was coming from a rock that rose above the gurgling creek, as if the creek were alive and the rock was its mouth.  The song sadly reminded us that we would have to part soon, and feel lonely, and neither of us wanted that.

          The butterfly floated to my other ear as I told Maragold that I would have to leave her at the end of the school year.  Sadness surrounded the both of us as the rock began singing another song while the little rocks surrounding the big rock harmonized.  It was another Roy Orbison song called In Dreams.  Neither Maragold, nor I, knew who Roy Orbison was, but his songs spoke to us.  We both listened to the words of the song.  It was about friends not seeing each other any more; drifting apart, but not being able to do anything about it.  The friends would just walk together and talk together in their dreams.  I told Maragold that that is how we would still be together.  We would visit each other in our shared dreams.

          Suddenly a storm, with the loud rumble of thunder, flashed across our dream.  Maragold and I woke up to the rumbling sound, but it was actually her alarm clock.  The magic room was next to Maragold’s room so I could easily hear her alarm through the wall that separated her bedroom and the magic room.

          As Maragold sat up on the edge of her bed, she felt a vague memory of a sad dream about her and I, then, like most dreams, it vanished, leaving her with just the sad feeling.  I was both sad and happy; sad because we talked about parting, but happy because our mutual dream showed me that we could visit each other in our dreams.

          Maragold dressed, ate, then brushed her teeth.  As she looked into the bathroom mirror she saw her sad face.  She stopped brushing with a mouth full of toothpaste foam and stared into the mirror.  Her thoughts called me to her.  When I arrived, her eyes glistened with tears as she looked at me, knowing her world would never be the same, that it would never look or feel as pleasant to her after I was gone.  I felt the same about her.  We did not talk as tears streaked our cheeks.

          As a distraction from sadness, I informed Maragold that a famous Irishman once said, “The world is never what it looks like.  It’s your interpretation of what you see in it that counts most.”  It means to choose to see the good, the joyful, the friendships, the happy memories.  At least let those thoughts rule most of your thinking.  Then the world will still be a mostly wonderful place, and your future will be happy.

          “I like that thought, Bert.  Who was the guy that said it?” Maragold asked, as toothpaste ran down the corner of her mouth.

          “It’s a quote from long ago.  The man’s name was Sir Liam Shaheen.  He was an unusually kind king in Irish history.  He had a castle and servants, and his knights to protect his little kingdom,” I said to Maragold.

          Maragold looked stunned.  She spit out all the toothpaste, then rinsed her mouth hurriedly so she could talk without spraying me with foam.

          She closed the bathroom door so we wouldn’t be heard talking.  Excitedly, she said, “Shaheen?  Liam Shaheen?  Is that the name you said?  There’s a Sir Liam Shaheen in our Shane family tree.  My dad likes to dabble in researching family history.  He has bits and pieces of our family history all the way back to Ireland, in the fifteen hundreds.”

          “Wait … Wait a second,” I said.  “Your name is Shane.  What are you trying to tell me?”

          Mara stared at me as a smile spread across her face.  “When my great, grandfather came to America, there were hundreds of Irish immigrants and most of them faced violent prejudice.  They weren’t wanted or liked because there weren’t enough jobs for everyone.  So, when he was at Ellis Island, he said his name was Shane so his name didn’t sound Irish.  His family, my distant relatives, were all Shaheens!”

          Now it was my turn to be shocked.  Dear God and all the angels, I thought. Could Maragold and I be related?

          We stared at each other, first in shock, then startled, surprised, and disbelieving.  We were so excited that we went to her dad’s den.  On a bookshelf, there was a green, hard-cover book that looked somewhat like a thick diary.  It turned out to be a genealogical record of the Shaheen/Shane family history; a family tree.  Sure enough, in the back of the book, there was the name Sir Liam Shaheen written on a drawing of a tree.  And at the bottom of that back page there were some notes.  The notes indicated that the Irish people, long ago, believed that leprechauns lived beneath castle walls and that these leprechauns would take the name of the kings of the castle as their own last names.  It gave them an identity, indicated where they lived, and provided a shared history with the Irish humans, as well as with other leprechauns.  In return, the leprechauns would give the king early warning of an invasion, or trouble in the countryside, by throwing rocks at a special bell.  Sir Liam Shaheen had his servants leave food by the castle walls every night for the friendly leprechauns.

          Maragold grabbed a paper and pencil, then wrote this information so that I could confirm it with Elder O’Keefe.  My hands trembled with the excited possibility that we were historically connected by the friendship that existed between Sir Liam Shaheen and my distant Shaheen relatives who lived under the Shaheen castle walls.

          I wondered if Elder O’Keefe knew about this?  Was I really sent to America purposely to be with Maragold, instead of for learning skills that would help me be a good king to my people?  I thought that my trek to America was my own idea, my own adventure; but was it really?  Would Maragold be considered a kind of “cousin” of mine?  Naturally, a leprechaun and a human can’t really be genetically related.  Maragold and I could only be related by the mutual and friendly history of our relatives.  Yes, I thought, that was it.

          I had many questions for Elder O’Keefe, as well as some disappointment and anger to show him.  If this relationship is true, why had he kept it a secret and not told me?.  Had he ever planned to tell me?  Wait, I thought, I don’t even know if this is true, false or just an incredible coincidence.

          “Stop!” I told myself.  Many questions needed to be answered before I could evaluate this information and make a decision.  Anger has no place next to logic.  I’d wait and let the answers to my questions determine whether or not I should be angry, though it was hard to imagine being angry with Elder O’Keefe.  There had to be a very good, reasonable explanation for all of this … I hoped.

          Maragold and I went all day without talking about this shocking information, but it dominated our thoughts and controlled our imaginations.  What if this information was true?  Imagine how wonderful that would be.  But if it’s true, then why would I be angry at Elder O’Keefe.  Disappointment, not anger, would be more appropriate.

          One day Eric came to the classroom with really dirty hands.  He didn’t even bother to wash them in the boys’ bathroom.  When he raised his right hand to ask Mr. B. a question, Mr. B. looked at his hand and said, “Wow! Eric.  Your hand is filthy.”

          “Oh yeah,” Eric said.  “Yeah, … well I was crawling on the bus floor this morning, looking for my pen and—”

          “Yeah!  Right!  Joe interrupted.  “He was looking at girls’ legs.  That’s what he was really doing on the bus floor.

          Laughter burst into the classroom like the sound of a cannon.

          Eric blushed like no one had ever seen him blush before.  He didn’t dare to look at Grace.  If he had, he would have seen a scowl, then a look of disbelief.

          “OK,” Mr. B. responded quickly.  “Let’s not go any further with that topic.

          “Quiet, please,” Mr. B. stated, then paused.  Mr. B. returned to his statement about Eric’s dirty hands.  “Eric, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone come to school with such a filthy hand.  And you didn’t even bother to wash in the boy’s room.  I’ll bet you a cafeteria ice cream that there’s not a hand in this whole class that’s as dirty as that hand.”

          Eric looked around the room, gave a silent snarl to Joe, then smiled at Mr. B.

          Slowly Eric showed Mr. B. his other hand; his left hand.  It was just as dirty as his right hand, maybe more dirty because he was supporting his weight on that hand as he pretended to look for his phantom pen.

          Mr. B. looked shocked when he saw how dirty Eric’s left hand was.

          Eric stood up.  He had lost his embarrassed blush.  He grinned and his eyes sparkled with mischief.

          Mr. B. grimaced and said, “Go wash your hands … twice.”

          As Eric walked to the front of the room then passed him, Mr. B. picked up the yardstick that he kept on the chalk tray and gently smacked Eric on the butt, making Eric jump forward with surprise.  Quickly, Mr. B. switched the yardstick to his other hand, then hid the yardstick along the seam of his left pant leg.

          The classroom filled with laughter, again, and Eric’s face turned red, again.

          All eyes focused on Eric as he took another couple of steps towards the door, still rubbing his butt as if Mr. B. had really hurt him.  Eric turned around and flicked his eyebrows up and down in a comical manner.  Then he left the room laughing.

          While Eric was in the boy’s room, Mr. B. placed a quarter on Eric’s desk.  Then he walked back to the front of the room and said, jokingly, “I’ll bet there’s a lot of erosion happening over the boy’s bathroom sink right now.”

          When Mr. B. saw the puzzled looks on most faces, he said, “Come on!  You know what erosion is.  The wearing away or washing away of soil.  Well, Eric has enough dirt on his hands to plant a tree.  He’s washing all that dirt away, so it’s erosion.”

          Some grins appeared, a low chuckle or two followed, but mainly the room remained quiet.  Mr. B. thought, jokes having to do with the facts of science don’t work very well.  That joke sure bombed.

          When Eric returned to his desk, he saw the quarter and picked it up.  He looked suspiciously at Mr. B. as Mr. B. scowled at him, then grinned.  Eric figured it out and smiled back at Mr. B.—the quarter was for the cafeteria ice cream.  Mr. B. was acknowledging that he had lost the bet with Eric.

          The morning lessons went well and passed quickly.  Lunch time arrived and the students had their routine bathroom break.

          When the students lined up to go to lunch, Grace touched Eric’s forearm.  Many of their friends watched to see what would happen.

          “You were on the bus floor, looking at girl’s legs?  Hmm?  Is that what you were really doing?” Grace sternly asked.

          “No!  No!” Eric pleaded.  “I was trying to help so you would like me more.”

          Grace looked confused.  “Trying to help?  How is crawling on the bus floor, looking at girls’ legs,  going to help anyone?”

          Eric paused, eyes darting back and forth, thinking hard, almost in a panic.  “Oh!  Well, Grace, you know how you are always saying that I should think of myself less and help people more?  So, on the bus, I was looking to see if any of those poor, delicate, girls had a broken toe so I could help them.”

          “Yeah?  And just how would you have helped them, Eric?” Grace inquired in a sarcastic tone of voice.

          “Ah!  Well … of course I would have called a tow truck to help them with their injured toe.  What else could I do?  I ain’t no doctor, you know,” Eric replied, then closed his eyes as he realized that joking wouldn’t get him out of this jam.

          Suddenly there was a change in Grace’s eyes.  She was thinking of something tricky; Eric was her target.  “OK, Eric.  You’re always full of jokes.  But I don’t think you meant any real harm, so you’re forgiven.  Oh! I forgot to ask you.  Since I forgot my dessert money, I was wondering if you would loan me fifty cents.  But for now you can just give me a quarter and owe me the other quarter, OK?” Grace stated seriously.

          Eric looked confused, but considering the mess he’d just gotten out of, with Grace not being mad at him, he handed her the quarter that Mr. B. had given to him.

          “OK.  Now instead of giving me the quarter that you owe me, you can just keep it since I owe you a quarter.  That’ll make us even,” Grace stated.

          Eric got laughed at so loudly, by the Maragold gang, that the cafeteria monitor lady had to come to their table and ask them to be quiet.

          Grace got up and went to the cafeteria and bought another ice cream with the quarter that Eric gave her.  She returned to her table, but now she had a broad, satisfied smile as she thought, “Gottcha, Eric.  I can play tricks too.”  She was as content as a bee in clover as she ate all the ice cream while staring at Eric.

          Cheryl noticed that Mara was shaking her bowl of Jell-O and watching it quiver.

          “Yuck!” Maragold said as she looked disgustedly a the quivering Jell-O.

          “What’s the matter?” Cheryl asked.  “It’s not bad.  Strawberry.  Try a bite.”

          “Bite it?” Maragold said.  “Look at it move.  It’s not even dead yet!”

          “Well, then, I must have eaten mine while it was still alive,” Cheryl said.  Geez!   I thought all that red color was food-coloring, but it must be quivering, gelled blood!”

          “Oh, that’s really mouth-watering and yummy!” Maragold said as she bared her teeth, pretending to be Dracula.  Then she said, in her deepest voice, “I want blood …  human blood … I want to bite you’re neck … come closer my dear.”

          Laughter covered the table like a table cloth.  Then the joke session started.

          Maragold started by saying, “Some day I may disguise myself as a Chinese magician and I’d think up a very special, weird name.”

          “What name would you think of?” Matt asked, not knowing Maragold was getting ready to spring another joke on the group.

          “Oh, maybe O’Brian or Kowalski,” Maragold said without laughing.

          “What?  Those aren’t Chinese names,” Matt said, surprised.

          Maragold wrote a Chinese name on a napkin, then showed it to Matt, then the rest of the gang.  The writing on the napkin said:  Foo-Ling-Yoo.

          Matt said, “Foo-Ling-Yoo?  Why did you pick that name?”

          “Say the name faster, as if it was one long word,” Maragold stated.

          Matt said, “FooLingYoo quickly and everyone laughed because, when said fast, the Chinese name sounded just like the American words “fooling you.”

          “OK!  Real funny,” Matt said.  Then he stated, “Did you hear about the farmer who was fooled into buying a hundred boxes of Cheerios?  The crook told the farmer that he could get rich growing and selling bagels and that Cheerios were bagel seeds.”

          The laughter got louder as more student began to listen.

          “Yeah,” Cheryl said, “Now that you mentioned cereal, I’ll bet that farmer was so darned mad that he became a serial (cereal) killer.”

          Cheryl got a lot more groans than laugher, but there were some giggles.

          Robby, who had quietly joined the group as he usually did, said, “Matt and I are so good and so tough in karate classes that we can now break boards with our casts.”

          More laughter at the thought of broken hands, in casts, breaking boards.

          As the laughter quieted, Mr. B. walked to the sixth grade tables to get his students.  The jokes session had to stop early.  Eric was very disappointed, but Grace didn’t mind.

          The class had their usual bathroom break, and while in the bathroom Eric told his joke to Matt and the other boys who were there.  Eric told them about being at a party.  His little, two year old cousin was there.  She was always falling, or bumping into things to get her dad’s attention.  She wanted her dad to “kiss the boo-boo.”  Dora, Eric’s cousin, came running into the living room calling her dad’s name and holding out her index finger.  Her dad picked her up, set her on his knee and kissed Dora’s hurt index finger, then said, “The boo-boo is all right now.”

          Everyone was watching them by now so everyone saw the father’s horrified face when Dora looked at her finger and exclaimed, “Booger gone!” then asked, “Daddy ate booger?”

          Matt and all the other boys laughed all the way back to their classroom.

          Mr. B. knew that his students had worked extra hard today, so instead of any homework, he gave them a free-time period.  It didn’t take his students long to divide up into small groups of close friends and start laughing.

          Mr. B. sat at his desk watching his students.  He wondered what their future would be like.  He wondered how many would have happy lives and how many would fall into crime or hard times.  He wondered how many of them would die of some tragedy.  How many would become teachers?  How many would remember him, and would the memories be mostly positive or negative?  He became lost in thoughts about his students’ futures.

          Then he thought about how much more difficult being a teacher is now than it was twenty-five years ago.  When he first started teaching, parents had a lot of children.  Now, children have a lot of parents: step-moms, step-dads, mom’s boyfriends, dad’s girlfriends, step-brothers and sisters and even grandparents who are raising their grand children because of divorce, tragedy, or serious family conflicts.

          It’s a much more difficult job now, Mr. B. thought.  Many parents aren’t helpful or even respectful.  They don’t have time for their own kids, but they expect the teachers to be perfect.  They think that whatever they can’t teach their kids, their teachers should teach to them.  Some want daily reports, some send emails or letters, or make phone calls.  The unnecessary stress is far greater now, and the rewards and appreciation are far less.  Mr. B. thought, “I’ll keep trying to do what’s best for my students, even if I get into trouble by being rude to a few arrogant parents.”

          He felt a touch on his shoulder.

          The Maragold gang stood on both sides of his desk looking at him.  Mara’s touch brought him out of his daydreaming daze.

          “We were wondering, Mr. B.  Why don’t you become a principal?”  Mr. Mason was a teacher here, then left to be a principal.  So did Mr. McCoy and Mr. Shaffer.  It seems like men teachers just teach for a little while, then become principals.  Why don’t you do that?” Maragold asked.

          Mr. B. saw that the Maragold gang must have all wanted to know the answer, so they asked Mara to ask him the question.

          “To be honest, it’s a very simple answer, for me.  I never wanted to be a principal.  I never saw being a teacher as a way to become a principal.  Ever since high school I’ve wanted to teach kids.  Actually, the truth is, I like being with kids more than most adults.  I like teaching kids, and between you and me”, Mr. B’s voice changed to a whisper, “I really don’t have patience with mouthy, disrespectful, demanding, arrogant and unappreciative parents.  Now, if I had a student like that, I’d do my best to help him, with patience and understanding, but a parent like that would be kicked out of my office in a heartbeat.  Then, of course, I’d lose my principal’s job.  So I do what I do best, teach, and leave the principal’s job to people with a lot of patience with kids as well as adults; people like Mrs. Plum.”

          “Now,” Mr. B. continued, “why on earth would you want to talk about that?  You’d hate me if I was your principal, right?”

          “Yep!” Eric answered without thinking.

          Grace stepped on Eric’s foot so he wouldn’t put it in his mouth again.

          “Ouch!” he said, looking at Grace.

          Mr. B. smiled at Eric and said, “What would you think of me if I were your principal, Eric?”

          “If you were the principal?  I’d think you were … Ouch!  Stop that!” Eric shouted at Grace.  Eric paused to think about the rude remark that he was going to say, then said, “You’d probably be OK.”

          “This conversation is getting boring isn’t it?” Mr. B. added.  “How about something funny.  Want to hear a funny story?”

          A chorus of “yeses” darted straight at Mr. B.

          “OK.  Well, there was a little boy who got a new watch and some cologne—that’s perfume for men—for his birthday.  The watch and the cologne were just like his dad’s and the boy is as proud and happy as a little boy with a hidden snake in his pocket.  He’s so excited to be just like his dad.  He sits at the dinner table with most of his family, who are busy talking.  He waits and waits for someone to notice his new watch and to smell his new cologne, but nobody does.  He waits a little longer, impatiently.  He really wants someone to notice his watch and cologne.  He ate all his food and still none of his family notices his watch even though he rested his arm on the table with the watch in plain sight.  So now he’s really frustrated.  He clears his throat rather loudly.  The talking stops and his family finally looks at him.  Then the boy proudly says, ‘If anybody hears something or smells something, it’s me!’  Then he smiled with satisfaction and wondered why his relatives all looked at him with stern expressions of disapproval.”

          Mr. B. and the Maragold gang laughed pleasantly.

          Then Eric raised his hand excitedly, his eyes pleading with Mr. B. to ask him what he wanted.

          Mr. B. sees Eric and thinks, “Oh no.  I bet I’m going to regret this.”  Then he said, “What’s up, Eric?”  It sounded more like a long sigh than a question.

          “The price of gas, for sure.  Speaking of gas, Mr. B., I have some fart questions.”

          The Maragold gang all looked at Eric as if he were crazy.  Cheryl even nudged him with her shoulder to try to stop him.  Grace grabbed Eric’s hand to try to distract him.  Matt and Maragold cleared their throats as a warning, but nothing worked.  Eric was like a run away train, gaining speed with every word.

          Mr. B. started to interrupt, but Eric quickly shrugged his shoulders, saying, “How come almost everyone gets so embarrassed at the mention of, or smell of a fart?” Eric asked seriously.

          Eric’s friends visibly shrank away from him due to his bold rudeness.  He embarrassed them, but he was so serious about his question.

          “Have you noticed, Eric, that many of your jokes either talk about or refer to body functions, especially gas, body waste; stuff like that?  Sounds pretty Freudian to me,” Mr. B. said to tease Eric.

          “Well, don’t believe everything you think.  Anyway, who’s that guy?  Some teacher?” Eric asked

          “Freud was a very famous psychiatrist in the early 1900s,” Mr. B. said.  “He’s before your time, but he was famous for studying people’s thoughts and behaviors, then explaining why they thought and acted a certain way.  He had some strange ideas, but many people of his day believed he was a genius at what he did.  He wrote a paper called Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.  Freud thought that humor was a way to see into someone’s unconscious thoughts.  He thought that jokes were a way for someone to say what he really felt while disguising that feeling in humor.  He thought that toilet humor was typical for adolescents who were searching for pleasure in the shock value of grossness, and the power to control someone’s reactions.  Adolescence was also a stage where it was natural to explore and explain natural body functions.  Toilet humor is a natural result.  Freud also thought toilet humor was a not-so-subtle form of rebellion against societies routine, but strict, standards and values.  It was a form of aggressive self-assertion used by adolescents and adults alike to relieve tension and stress.  Actually, Freud was quite the jokester himself.  Maybe that’s why he concluded that toilet humor was not usually harmful, or immature, nor was the person using it necessarily abnormal.  And that all makes sense when you realize that presidents, kings, queens, rich people, poor people, and people of any color, all tell body function jokes, especially fart jokes.”

          “What the heck’s all that mean to me,” Eric grumbled.

          “Just that you use it to seek power to control other’s reactions, that you’re rebellious, and that you find pleasure in weird and shocking jokes.  Because of your small size, you can’t use physical aggression so your aggression is in your jokes.  But you are not abnormal.

          “Actually, Freud should have just concentrated on the way his wife dressed.”

          “Why’s that,” Eric asked

          “Because she always had Freudian slips that he could have studied,” Mr. B. said with a chuckle.

          “What?  I don’t get it,” said Eric.

          “Sorry.  It’s a joke probably only understood by older adults,” said Mr. B.

          “OK.  So why did you ask your question about farts?” Mr. B. continued.

          “The ‘little boy joke’ that you just told us made me think of it,” said Eric.

          At the mention of the word fart, especially when Eric said it, small groups of friends became quiet and drifted toward Mr. B’s desk to listen.

          Mr. B. wasn’t pleased with himself.  He wished he hadn’t told that joke because once Eric started on something, he didn’t like to stop.

          “Eric, it’s just not considered polite or mannerly to talk about farting in public.  Most people think it’s very rude and it embarrasses them,” Mr. B. said while hoping that he could stop talking about it.

          “Well, didn’t that Freud guy ever fart?  Didn’t his wife ever fart?  Everybody farts.  Heck!  Timex has deadly farts.  What’s the big deal?  It’s just another function of our bodies.  It has it’s purpose, just like eating does,” Eric said.

          “I know what you mean, but it’s something most people grow up with; not talking about that body functions.  Also, don’t you think a lot of people find it embarrassing because of the place a fart comes from, and the other function of that place?  I grew up like that, so I’m uncomfortable with this topic, too,” said Mr. B. whose face was pink as his embarrassment grew.

          Eric replied, “Well my dad has a book at home that tells about one of America’s earliest, smartest, and famous persons.  That guy talks about farts to make people laugh, just like I do.”  Eric paused.

          Mr. B. said, “So who’s that famous American?”

          “Ben Franklin,” Eric replied.  “My dad says he was one of America’s earliest and best writers, scientists, philosophers, and inventors.  He was greatly respected, and he talked and wrote about farting to make people laugh.

          “You taught us about famous early Americans, and Ben Franklin was one of them.  Too bad our books don’t mention his sense of humor.  Anyway, Ben Franklin wrote about farting in his Poor Richard’s Almanac.  He even wrote a comical letter in 1781 to the Royal Science Academy at Brussels, Belgium, which was the most famous place for the most famous scientists and mathematicians at that time.  Franklin said, in that letter, that instead of giving prizes to scientists for coming up with ideas that hardly anyone can use, they should get busy trying to discover some drug that could be mixed with food so that farts would not stink, or that would make farts smell like perfume … Really!  I can bring the book in tomorrow if you don’t believe me.”

          Laughter erupted from the listeners.  Eric’s friends stood by, not believing that they were listening to this type of conversation, in school, and with a teacher.  Their lips puckered, like they had just sucked a lemon.

          “No! No!  Please don’t do that.  That’s all Mrs. Plum needs to hear.  Parents would call her office by the dozens.  Do not bring that book to school!  Do you understand?” Mr. B. said as he looked directly into Eric’s eye.  Eric could see that Mr. B. was very serious.

          Then to the amazement of everyone, Eric continued, “OK, I won’t bring it.  But something else that I read that’s interesting is that the ministers and preachers, who lived at the time of Ben Franklin, often told people, after church, to fart in the face of the devil.  But now people aren’t supposed to mention farts.”

          Grace’s face turned bright red.  She looked horrified and embarrassed.  Then Maragold’s and Cheryl’s faces did the same thing.  I noticed other kids’ faces turn so red they looked like they were in a tomato garden, ripening all at the same time.

          Then Eric said a poem that he wrote and memorized.  He said,

                             “A burp is wind that’s oral.

                             To some it is an art,

                             But although it’s not floral

                             I like a loud and stinky fart.”

          “OK.  OK, Eric.  I don’t know what to tell you … ah … other than it’s different now-a-days.  Farting just isn’t considered polite, so let’s get off the topic now,” Mr. B. said nervously.

          Eric responded with, “But Mr. B. I—”

          Mr. B. interrupted him, saying, “Stop right now, Eric!  I can’t debate you on this topic.  I’m sure you know much more about it than I do.  You could use your excellent reading and research skills to better advantage if you used them with school subjects.  Let me tell you something.  Sometimes before I get too frustrated, I use a simple rule.  The rule says that I can only please one person per day.  Today is not your day, Eric … and tomorrow doesn’t look very good for you either.  Case closed.”

          The students roared at Mr. B.’s embarrassment.  They seldom saw an embarrassed teacher and, to them, it was absolutely hilarious.

          After a pause, Mr. B. said, “OK.  I’ll tell one joke and then we have to get ready for home.  Listen.  Quiet, please.  This is another little boy joke.  Don’t talk, Eric.  This joke has nothing to do with your topic.  So, this little boy is in church and loudly he says to his mom, ‘I gotta pee—’”

          “Ha!  You like body-function jokes, too, Mr. B.” Eric said.

          “No more interruptions, Eric,” Mr. B. said, sternly.

          Mr. B. continued, “OK.  The little boy says to his mom, ‘I gotta pee.  Startled and really embarrassed, his mom whispers to him, ‘Don’t say pee … whisper.’

          “Late that same night, with a full bladder and needing to pee, the boy hurries to his parents bedroom.  He’s wiggling back and forth with the urgent need to pee.  He shakes his dad’s shoulder to wake him.  His dad wakes up very groggy and says in a sleepy voice, ‘Whadaya want?’  The boy said what his mother taught him in church.  He said, “I gotta whisper real bad, dad.’  OK, son, the dad says, you can whisper in daddy’s ear.”

          Mr. B. looked at the classroom clock, then hurriedly said, “OK people.  Get cleaned up and ready for home.”

          Some students were still laughing so hard that tears dropped from their eyes like gentle rain.  Other students didn’t get the joke and were asking the laughing kids to explain it.  The Maragold gang separated themselves from Eric, especially Grace who seemed the most embarrassed by his conversation with Mr. B.

          Eric walked to his desk with a smile.  Grace frowned at him.  Mr. B. shook his head back and forth, then whispered to himself, “Saved by the bell … until I or Mrs. Plum get a phone call from an angry and prudish parent.”

                                      BERT’S  QUESTIONS

          Doctors say that one out of ten people suffer from diarrhea.  Does that

          mean that the other nine enjoy it?

          Why is the alphabet in that order?  Is it because of that darned song?

                                      CHAPTER  18

          Report card conferences time arrived and Mr. B. felt lucky.  All but two of his students were doing well, and the two students that were performing at low-average ability were getting extra instruction and remedial attention.  Therefore, Mr. B. felt that, even with some weak areas, they would still pass to seventh grade if they continued to give good effort.

          One of the academically weaker student’s parents came to talk to Mr. B. about her son.  The mother had three other boys, and she was constantly busy attending to their needs, especially academically.  She was in good humor and satisfied with Mr. B.’s evaluation, recommendations, and with the extra attention that her son was getting.

          At the end of the conference they stood and shook hands.  Showing a very friendly smile, Mrs. Parker paused before leaving.  She said, “Mr. Bunnwell, I’d like to give you a gift for all your hard work with Peter.  He sure thinks you’re a great teacher, and just loves being in your classroom.”

          Mr. B. was surprised.  It certainly was rare for a parent to say that.  He said, “Oh, please, Mrs. Parker, a gift is not necessary.  I’m glad to help all I can.  My gift will be seeing Peter go to seventh grade.”

          “Oh, I understand that, Mr. Bunnlow,” Mrs. Parker said with a smile that hid her intent, “but I still want to give you a gift.  Which one of my boys would you like to have … to keep?”

          Soft laughter passed between teacher and parent.  It was a wonderful conclusion to a rewarding parent conference.

          Mr. B. was also very pleased with his conferences concerning Mara, Matt, Eric, Cheryl and Grace.

          Eric’s mom asked Mr. Bunnwell if he ever heard Eric calling kids assassins in school.  Mr. B. told her that he had never heard him say that word.  Mr. B. asked, “Why would he say something so extreme?”

          Eric’s mom saw Mr. Bunnwell’s confused and curious expression, so she explained.  “Eric calls some neighborhood kids ‘assassins’ if he doesn’t like them.  He’s tricky about it.  You see, by calling someone he dislikes, an ‘assassin,’ he can call them an ‘ass’ twice and still not get into trouble.  I hope he doesn’t say that in school.”

          “Well, if he does start using that word in school, I’ll request that he stop it immediately, especially since it might be heard by another teacher or staff member and be misinterpreted, and Eric thought of as a violent boy.” Mr. B. stated.

          When Eric’s mom left the room, Mr. B. said to himself, “What a puzzling character Eric is.”

          By mid-March I had decided to go back to Ireland during Maragold’s April spring break.  I wanted to talk to Elder O’Keefe about the “Shaheen” ancestry, especially to see if there is a connection between Maragold and I.  Of course we could not be blood relatives, but we could be related by a common history and by a royal name.  The name Liam Shaheen was on both of our family trees at the same time in the sixteen hundreds.  That fact delighted me, peeked my curiosity, and made me want to discover the truth.

          I decided, however, that I should not send thought-questions to Elder O’Keefe because my curiosity was not an emergency.  I also wanted to be right there with Elder O’Keefe when I questioned him about this surprising fact.  I would have to confront my dearest friend—next to Maragold—and my devoted mentor.  If this fact was true, then why was it hidden from me?  Or, I thought, maybe it wasn’t known before now.

          During the last week of March, Mr. B.’s students were eating lunch.  Robby came to their table with a smile on his face and a joke on his lips.  He said, “Hey guys … gals too.  I gotta good joke.  Did you hear about the cannibal that just got kicked out of our school for good?  Well, of course, you didn’t,” Robby said without waiting for a response. “Yep.  They caught him just in time, too, because he was buttering-up his teacher.  Funny, huh?”

          Robby got a good laugh from the kids at the table.

          Then Matt looked over at Charlie and said, “Hey Hercules!  What do old weight-lifters call weight lifting when they get real old?  It’s not called pumping iron.”

          Charlie had been pumping iron a lot more than Matt and Robby.  His body was not only losing most of the body fat that haunted him, but he was gaining strength rapidly.  He looked at Matt, grateful for his friendship and exercise advise; Robby’s too, and smiled.  He said, “Darned if I know.  What’s it called?”

          “Old weight lifters call it pumping rust,” Matt said with a laugh.

          Charlie and the gang shook their heads with disbelief, but laughed anyway.  It was the kind of joke that was so bad, that it was funny.

          Cheryl blurted, “Hey!  My grandma still believes in the Tooth Fairy.  Yeah.  She still puts her false teeth under the pillow at night and wishes for things like a new car.”

          The group seemed confused, but they grinned at Cheryl.

          Tanya said, “New cars are pretty expensive.”

          Cheryl responded, “Yeah, I know, but she puts the same false teeth under the pillow every night!  So now she has enough money to buy a new car.”

          Ripples of laughter spread over everybody.

          Maragold thought for a second, then slowly and thoughtfully said, “You know, I have two cats, Licorice and Apricot.  When someone has house cats, they also have to have a litter box.  It really irritates me when guests visit and see the litter box, then say, “Oh!  Do you have a cat?  Just once I’d like to say, ‘No! The box is for guests!”

          As the laughter died down, Eric spoke.  “Well, … are all of you done telling your almost funny jokes?”  Everyone knew Eric didn’t really intend to be mean.  He just wanted to make sure he had everyone’s attention.  “This one’s a rib buster,” he continued.  “Three bad boys skipped school and went to the zoo.  They went to the elephant cage first.  While there, one boy tells a joke.  He says to his friends, ‘What do you get when you cross an elephant with a kangaroo?’  His friends shrugged their shoulders and said nothing.  ‘Well, when you cross an elephant with a kangaroo, you get large holes all over Australia.’

          “The other two boys laughed, then started pushing each other, like boys will do sometimes.  They were fooling around, pushing each other and roaring with laughter when a policeman saw them and wondered why they weren’t in school.  The policeman walked over to them and asked the boys why they weren’t in school instead of fooling around by the elephant’s cage.  The first boy, Bob, was startled by the policeman.  So Bob said, ‘Oh! I was just wanted to throw peanuts to the elephants.’  The policeman stared at the second boy and asked him, ‘And what are you doing here?’  The second boy, Gary, looks at the policeman and said, ‘Officer, I also wanted to throw peanuts to the elephants.’  The policeman then stares at the third boy, Peter, who was the smallest of the three boys.  The policeman noticed that Peter was acting quite nervous and was sweating.  The officer asked Peter what he was doing at the zoo on a school day.  Peter looked into the policeman’s eyes as if pleading for help and said, ‘Uhm … My name is Peter … but … ah … kids just call me Peanuts!’

          “Poor Peanuts, huh?” Eric laughed, “and his friends are real nut cases.”

          Joyous laughter floated around the cafeteria table as if Eric were throwing one-hundred dollar bills to everyone.

          Eric sat proudly, believing that he had told the best joke of all the group.  He looked at Grace who was also looking at him and laughing.  Eric thought, I hope she’s not still mad at me about the fart stuff.

          Cheryl said to Eric, “Sounds like a joke that you know from personal experience, huh, Peanuts?”

          Eric scowled at her, then said, “Oh!  I forgot to mention that the elephant’s name is Cheryl.  Some coincidence, huh?”

          Hurriedly, before Mr. B. came to get them, Maragold said, with mischief in her eyes and a naughty smile, “Hey!  Look.  It’s only a couple of days until April Fool’s Day.  We need to plan some stuff to make school more interesting, you know?  Like some practical jokes to get people laughing.  Remember what Mr. B. says sometimes?  He says, ‘There are two types of people.  Those who only wish and hope for things, and those that do something to make their wishes and hopes come true.’  And me?  I’m wishing and hoping to make April Fools Day a very funny day.  How about you?”

          “Yeah!  Goody!” Cheryl said, excitedly.

          “OK then,” said Maragold, “write down your ideas when you have a chance to really think about some pranks.  Then collect the materials you’ll need to do the pranks.  We can get together and decide which ones to do, and who will do what pranks.  That way we’ll be organized and not do the same things.”

          “Oh!  I forgot!” Eric shouted.  “I made copies of a poem I wrote.  Cheryl’s professional poetry skills have inspired me.  Yeah!  Right!”  Eric looked at Cheryl and laughed teasingly as he pulled a folded pieces of paper from his back pocket.

          “Oh, no,” moaned Cheryl.  “Swallow hard so you don’t throw-up when he reads his poem.”

          Eric paid no attention to Cheryl’s sarcasm.  He unfolded the papers which were copies of his poem, and passed them out to his friends.

          After Eric read the poem, his friends were engulfed in belly laughter.

          Eric’s poem said:

                                      BROWN  FOG

                                      There’s nothing so fun

                                      As a hot chili fart.

                                      It warms my toes,

                                      And thrills my heart.

                                      The belly full of gas,

                                      Shoots out my assassin.

                                      Never would I have believed,

                                      That I would feel so relieved.

                                      Having belly gas in school,

                                      May stink, but it’s so cool.

                                      Ben Franklin farts proudly,

                                      Especially when done loudly.

                                      But maybe it’s no fun,

                                      Seeing my friends run,

                                      So I’m going to change,

                                      And get me some class.

                                      I’ll even get some Maalox,

                                      And Bean-O for my gas.

          “You?  Change?”  Matt said.  “Man!  If you ate colored jelly beans, you’d fart a rainbow and be delighted.  How’re you gonna change?”

          “Yeah!” Robby said.  “A rainbow that’s strong enough to knock the crap out of a stone statue.”

          “OK.  OK.  Guys, you both have good points, but do you realize that you could hide them if you parted your hair correctly,” Eric responded with perfectly timed sarcasm.

          The friends laughed.  When they saw Eric’s serious face,they laughed harder.

          The week went by slowly.  Perhaps it was the anticipation of wanting to talk about the planning of their pranks over the weekend.

          On Saturday, they met at the local Pizza Land, ate pizza and discussed their April Fools day jokes and pranks.

          Cheryl mentioned that next Friday night was parents/kids community night to use the school swimming pool.  Then Saturday night there was an evening book sale, money raiser.  They seemed like ideal times for having access to the school for setting up the pranks for the following Monday, which would be April Fools Day.

          The Maragold gang became so busy organizing who would do what, where and when that their hot pizza got cold and their cold drinks got warm.  But when they completed their task, they were smiling with grand satisfaction and didn’t mind at all that their pizza was cold, or that their drinks were warm.  After they ate nothing could interfere with their smiles as each them went home happy.

          But the biggest smiles belonged to Maragold and Matt, because I had offered to help with the pranks.  Perhaps it was foolish of me, but I’d been much too serious this year.  I had a lot on my mind, and needed to be with and help Maragold and Matt.  I needed to feel the closeness of our friendship and to lock it away in my memory vault so I could have it with me forever.

          I thought about how terribly difficult it will be to leave Maragold and Matt, especially Maragold.  My eyes grew misty as similar thoughts flashed in and out of my mind, like ghosts that appear and disappear in the dark rooms of a haunted house.

                                                BERT’S  QUESTIONS

                   If you try to fail, and you do fail, have you succeeded or failed?

                   Isn’t “room temperature” whatever temperature the room is?

                                                CHAPTER  19

          The last day of March fell on a Sunday.  It was a clear, cool, almost cloudless day.  The air was still and felt warmer than it really was.  Spring seemed to float in the air with a fresh scent that promised warmth and color.

          Maragold, with her mom and dad, went biking on this comfortably cool Sunday afternoon.  It was a thrill for me; I rode on Maragold’s bicycle handle bars.  The cool air brushed my face like the coolness of my own mother’s fingers on my cheeks in the early morning.  It was a wonderful reminder of home.

          The Shanes rode around Calford and visited friends who were sitting on porches or out for a walk.  In an hour or so, they returned home.

          After lunch, when Maragold assured her parents that her homework was done, they all went to a movie called SHREK.  I laughed so hard I had to go to the back of the audience so that Mr. and Mrs. Shane wouldn’t grow suspicious of my presence on Maragold’s shoulder.

          After arriving home, Mr. and Mrs. Shane helped each other get dinner ready.  After dinner Maragold helped clean-up and wash dishes.  Later, in the early evening, Mr. and Mrs. Shane went to the living room to relax, read and watch TV.  Maragold and I went to her bedroom to talk.

          Maragold sat at her white desk, put her hands in her lap and stared at them.  She said, “I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you so much this year.  I love you very much, but things have been going strangely fast for me.  I don’t mean to ignore you.”

          “I know,” I answered her, as I sat on her desk top.  “You’re just maturing, becoming a young woman, interested in boys and social activities with friends and classmates.  It’s part of growing up.  It’s very natural and you really shouldn’t feel guilty about it any more than Eric feels guilty when he ‘cuts-the-cheese.’”

          We both smiled, and as I stared at her my camera-brain snapped pictures of her lovely face.

          “May I ask you something?” I said with a mischievous grin.

          “Of course.  Spit it out,” she replied.

          “Well … ah …”—The funny question I wanted to ask her was like a coiled snake wrapped around my tongue and I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth.

          “Geez!  You red-headed runt.  Come on!  Spit it out!” Maragold teased.

          Then I jumped on her head and started to lightly tap dance and mess up her hair.

She tried to reach for me.  I was way too fast for her, as I hopped, skipped, jumped and danced all around on her head.

          When her hair was all messed up, and she was frustrated because she couldn’t catch me, she shouted, “I give!  I give up!  I’m sorry I called you that name.  And I apologize, too, if that will make you stop, Bert.”

          I stopped dancing on her hair, landed back on her desk and very politely said, “Apology accepted.  Oh, my!  Your hair’s a mess.  You may want to comb it.”

          As she combed her hair, she shyly said, “You know, a little while ago you mentioned that Eric doesn’t feel guilty when he cuts-the-cheese.  Your saying that reminded me of a time when my mom and dad were having guests at our house.

          “You know how, when you have guests, you offer them drinks and snacks.  Well, these people have been to our house before and I’ve never seen such cheese lovers in all my life.  Wow!  They could really put away the extra-sharp cheese and cracker snacks.

          “Anyway, after my mom and dad invited them, they made sure that we had plenty of cheese bricks in the refrigerator and crackers in the cupboard.  Before the guests came, they went to the kitchen to prepare a tray of cheese and crackers; dad arranged the crackers on the tray and mom cut the cheese.”

          I squinted suspiciously at her when she mentioned that her mom “cut-the-cheese.”  Now was my turn to tease her.  I interrupted her and said, with a disgusted expression, “Really?  Your mom really cut the cheese?  Right there in the kitchen?  Didn’t know she was so rude.  Yuck!  What’d your dad say?”

          Maragold said, “No!  I mean she really did cut the cheese.  You know?  The usual way, with a knife.”

          I said, “What other way is there to cut the cheese?  There’s only one way to do it, you know.  Did your mom let a stinky one out?  Was the cloud so thick that your dad could cut it with a knife?”  I teased.

          Maragold replied, “Stop kidding.  I’m being serious now.  My mom was cutting real cheese, not farting.”

          “Oh!  I see!  You mean the cheese smelled just like a fart?”

          With a red face, Maragold said, “No!  That’s not what I mean!  Mom was cutting real cheese.  She wasn’t farting … and I’ve never heard my mom fart anyway.  Maybe grown women don’t fart.  It could be just a guy thing.”

          “Females fart, too, you know.  You fart, right?  And you’re female.  Anyway, did your dad help your mom cut the cheese?”

          “Well, do Leprechauns fart?  I wanted to ask you that for two years.  Do they?”

          “Of course they do.  We may be tiny, but human and Leprechaun anatomy is very similar.  I didn’t realize that you did not know that.”  I laughed at her.  “Anyway.  You did not answer my question.  Did your dad help your mom cut the cheese?”

          Maragold lifted her eyebrows and decided to try and not pay attention to my teasing. “Of course.  He was trying to be helpful, so when mom did some other stuff, dad finished cutting the cheese.”

          “Wow!  Your kitchen must have really smelled with both your mom and dad cutting the cheese.  Must have been a dense fog in there, huh?  Made it hard to see what they were doing, I suppose.”

          Maragold squinted her eyes, trying to look mean and said, “Oh!  Stop that!  The kitchen smelled just fine.  I went in and asked if they needed help.  Mom needed my dad to help her with something, so I cut the cheese for them.”

          “My goodness!  All three of you cut-the-cheese in the kitchen?  A family affair, huh?  You must have had to open all the windows, if all of you took turns cutting the cheese before the guests came.  Yuck!  I can’t believe that all of you cut-the-cheese, then let your guests eat it!”

          Maragold saw me giggling. “Now, Bert.  You know exactly what I mean.  None of us cut-the-cheese, but all of us cut the real cheese.

          We laughed and joked for a while.  Then Maragold picked up her phone and called Matt, Cheryl, Eric and Grace.  I went into the living room and watched TV with Mr. and Mrs. Shane, although they had no idea that I was there.  Maragold joined us after her phone calls.  The remainder of the night passed quickly.

          It started to rain during the night and was still raining when Maragold and I got to school on April Fool’s Day.  For safety reasons the buses go to the back entrance of Kroy School because the front of the school is too close to a major highway that is regularly used by large, speedy, tractor-trailer trucks.

          Eric got off his bus and disappeared quickly into school holding a large white piece of rolled up construction paper and some tape.  Maragold, Cheryl and I noticed him, but few others paid any attention to him.  I knew what he was up to but I wanted to see him do it.  So I flew off of Maragold’s shoulder and darted through an open school entrance door.  When I caught up to Eric I settled on his shoulder.  It was a bumpy ride, though, because he was walking fast.

          Eric walked all the way to the front doors of the school, which hardly anyone uses any more, except parents and visitors.  It was deserted and quiet as Eric looked around to make sure he was alone.

          Then Eric unrolled the construction paper.  He taped it to the front window so it could be read from the outside.

          His April Fools Day poster said:

                             FOR SALE:  KROY SCHOOL

                FOR SALE BY TAX PAYERS.  Spacious two-story,

                   red brick building.  Plenty of windows to brighten most

                   rooms.  Multi-bathroom areas for guests.  Large theater

                   and entertainment room with large seating capacity.

                   Convenient intercom system in each room, plus newly

                   installed phones for staying in touch with friends and

                   relatives.  Added attractions include:  spacious swimming

                   pool, basketball and tennis courts for your enjoyment.

                   Price:  $23, 456,789 or BO (Best Offer, not body odor).

                   Contact Kory superintendent, Rusty Arms (ex-pitcher),

                   or Board of Education President, Tim Burr (forest ranger).

          Since it was April Fool’s Day, the school hallways were extra noisy with loud talk of pranks and tricks.

          Mr. B’s students walked into their classroom and started laughing immediately.  Mr. B. stood at the entrance with a big smile and a moustache that he had drawn on his upper lip with a black magic marker.  He pretended that it was real.  He even pretended to twist the ends of it.  He said he grew it fast over the weekend by going out into the woods and chasing a fast hare (large rabbit), which gave him “fast hair” for a fast growing moustache.  He talked seriously, making his students laugh even harder.

          The students laughed again when they read the sign taped to Mr. B.’s back.  It said:  I’M LOST.  I’M GOING TO GO LOOK FOR MYSELF.  IF I RETURN BEFORE I GET BACK, PLEASE ASK ME TO WAIT.

          Mr. B. grabbed his pointer stick and pointed at the upper right corner of his desk.  A large index card was taped there.  In large, bold black letters, it said: “ MR. E.”  When asked what it meant, he went to the chalkboard and picked up a piece of chalk.  He was surprised when he couldn’t pick up the chalk.

          Someone shouted, “April Fool!  The chalk is glued to the tray!”

          A chorus of laughter broke out.

          Mr. B. went to his desk drawer and pulled out a new piece of chalk.  He was grumbling under his breath to be funny and the students kept laughing.

          On the chalkboard, in yellow chalk, he wrote:  MR. E. =  MYSTERY.  Then he turned around and said, in a funny voice, “I am Mr. E, the man of mystery.”  After saying that, he pretended to twist both ends of his fake moustache, then made an evil noise which just made everyone laugh louder.

          After announcements and attendance checking, Mr. B. walked to the bulletin board where there was a loose corner on one of the notices.  He asked Eric to bring him the stapler from his desk.  Eric got up, hurried to Mr. B.’s desk and grabbed the stapler.  He pulled up and his hand slipped off the stapler.  He stared at it, then grabbed it again, pulled, but it wouldn’t move; it was stuck to the desk.  Mr. B. asked Eric to bring other items from his desk: plastic calendar, a bell and a pencil holder.  They were all stuck to the desk, too.

          Mr. B. was smiling weirdly at Eric and the class caught on to the joke.  They roared with laughter at Eric and Mr. B., wondering if Mr. B. actually glued his own things to his desk.

          Mr. B. suddenly stopped smiling and looked sternly at Eric, saying, accusingly, “Eric!  What do you know about all those things glued to my desk?”

          Eric was caught off guard.  He stuttered as he fought for words to say.  “I swear on the Holy Bible,” he yelled, “I had nothing to do with that, Mr. B.  Really, I didn’t.”

          “Can’t have the Bible in school, Eric.  Remember?  You’re the one that keeps mentioning the separation of church and state.”  Then Mr. B. growled and asked, “Are you sure you had nothing to do with gluing my stuff to the desk?  The time to be honest is right now, when I’m in a forgiving mood, Eric.  What’s your answer now?”

          Eric’s face looked like it was on fire.  His hands were held out horizontally, palms up and his eyes looked like they’d pop out at any second.  He pleaded, “Ah … no, sir.  I had nothing to do with that prank.  I’m being totally honest with you.”

          Then Mr. B’s face and tone of voice became very pleasant, as if nothing had happened.  He smiled at Eric and stated, “Oh, good, Eric.  You’re a good guy.  But it was a good prank, whoever did it.  I was just pretending to be mad, Eric.”

          “Yeah!  Could have fooled me.  You did fool me!  That was mean, Mr. B.  You know that?” Eric said, with the fear still in his voice.

          “Ha.  That wasn’t mean.  It was just a degree short of being cruel, perhaps.” Mr. B. said, then laughed at his own twisted joke.

          Eric mumbled under his breath, “What’s the darned difference?  You scared the crap out of me.”

          “So,” Mr. B. added, “Anybody want to admit to that prank; gluing my stuff to the desk?  Huh?  I promise not to be angry, OK?”

          The students all looked at each other, but no one raised their hand.  Then a hand did slowly rise.  It was Cheryl’s.  Mr. B. looked shocked and would have never suspected that she had done it.

          “Yes, Cheryl,” he said.  “Did you glue my stuff to my desk?  The glue is completely dry.  How could you do it?”

          “Oh.  No.  I didn’t glue any of your stuff to your desk.  I had something else to tell you.  Something funny,” Cheryl said.

          “Oh.  OK.  Go ahead.”

          Cheryl said, “I saw Mrs. Plum in the hallway this morning.  Her hair was all wet.  She said that she forgot to bring her umbrella home Friday afternoon, after school so she got soaked coming in from the parking lot this morning.  She sure looks funny with her hair plastered down.  Mother Nature did an April Fools trick on her.”

          There was mild laughter as Mr. B. said, “Thanks for sharing that with the class, Cheryl.  It’s certainly not often that you get to see the principal’s or a teacher’s hair soaking wet like that.  I bet that was a funny sight.”

          Before anyone could respond, yelling started in the hallway.  A boy was yelling that he went number two in the bathroom, but it landed on something that looked like yellow Jell-O.  Maragold smiled at Matt, then quickly covered it up with her hand.

          Then a girl rushed out of the girls’ bathroom, rubbing her rear end over her wet clothes.  In the middle of the hallway she loudly told her teacher that the toilet seats, in the girls’ room, have something slippery on them and she slid off a seat.  Matt gave Maragold a hidden smile.

          There were loud voices all up and down the hallway.  Apparently the same prank was played in the boys’ and girls’ bathrooms the entire length of the long hallway.

          Teachers were looking out the doors and into the hallway.  Students were asking, “What’s happening?” and “What’s going on?”  The teachers were near panic trying to get the curious kids settled down and back to their seats.

          When the hallway and classrooms got quiet Mr. B. called the office to get a custodian to check the bathrooms, then he started his reading class.  He let his daily special helpers use the computers during his reading class as a reward for jobs and errands that they would perform during the day.

          But soon those helpers were standing next to him, telling him that the computer arrows didn’t work on their computer screens.  Everyone was supposed to be reading, but heads started turning, looking to the back of the classroom at the computers.

          Mr. B. went to the computers, wiggled the mouse at each one and saw that the arrows were frozen on both screens.

          Mr. B. didn’t mean to distract the reading students, but suddenly he said, “What the heck!”  Everyone looked back at him, standing by the computers, rubbing his chin.

          Mr. B. looked at the back of the computers, pulled out wires, then reconnected them.  Still the mouse arrows were frozen.  Then he got suspicious and looked around the classroom.  Everyone was looking at him and smiling.  He was looking for a guilty expression on someone’s face.  It was April Fools Day and someone, he thought, was playing tricks.

          Mr. B. looked directly at Eric, but Eric just smiled innocently, like he was one of the best behaved angels in the whole universe—yeah, right!

          Mr. B. picked up one mouse, turned it over and saw the clear tape covering the mouse hole so that the ball inside the mouse would not roll and the arrow would not move.  He removed the tape from each mouse and the mouse arrows worked properly.

          The rest of the morning went by without interruptions.

          After he took his students to lunch, Mr. B. went to the office.  He found out that pranks and tricks were being played all over the school, especially the high school.

          The head custodian walked into the office and told Mr. B. that there really was yellow Jell-O in the boys’ toilets.  Someone had poured a couple packages of Jell-O into the toilet.  It had hardened into a quivering, semi-hard gel.

          He also told Mr. B. that a lady custodian checked the girls’ bathrooms and there was a clear, very slippery liquid on the white toilet seats.  It was hardly noticeable.  She thought it was mineral oil, but was not positive.

          “Mara’s group,” Mr. B. thought, then shook his head and smiled.  “But how?  When could they have had time to do it?  Jell-O needs hours to thicken,” he thought as he thanked the custodian and walked out of the office.

          At lunch time, Robby came to the table.  He had a hidden, small tube of black food coloring.  The Maragold gang leaned around him so no one would see what he was doing.  He poured a couple drops into the groups white milk, making it turn gray.  Then when someone turned their head or got up from the table someone in the group would switch their milk carton with the unsuspecting person.  When those kids noticed that they were drinking gray milk, some of them almost puked because they thought it was spoiled.  Some gray milk ran down their chins and one boy spit his out on the floor.  It looked like very spoiled milk, or dirty milk.  They were making such ugly, sick faces that Maragold and her friends had to tell them, quickly, that it was just white milk with black food coloring and that it was harmless.  To prove it, the group traded milk cartons with the tricked students and drank the ugly, gray milk.  Then the laughing started as Maragold handed the fooled boy a bunch of napkins to wipe up the milk that he had spit out before it was noticed and they got into trouble.

          After eating, Cheryl took out a small bag of Oreo cookies, which were her favorite cookies.  She brought them regularly.  She ate one and make sounds that indicated how good the cookie was.  She said they were the new “double-stuffed” cookies as she smacked her lips, slid her tongue over her lips to get all the frosting, and gave a deep sigh of satisfaction.  She did all this to get Robby, Eric’s and Matt’s attention.  Maragold and Grace already knew what was going to happen.

          Cheryl said, “Oh!  Excuse me.  Here.  Have a cookie .”  She passed cookies to Robby, Matt, and Eric.

          When she offered a cookie to Maragold and Grace, they turned it down, saying that they were too full.

          The boys bit into the Oreo cookies, chewing them and smiling.  But the smiling ended quickly.  All three of them made ugly faces as they stared at Cheryl.  Then they all spit out the cookie as the three girls laughed at them.

          “What the heck’s in this cookie ?” Matt said, as he wiped off his tongue with a napkin, then drank the remainder of his milk.

          Eric and Robby did the same thing as Matt, and waited for a reply from Cheryl.

          “Well … my cookie tastes really good.  Oh!  I know what happened.  You see, some of these cookie s had the frosting accidentally taken out, then replaced with a mixture of white toothpaste, garlic powder and pickle juice.  Gee, sorry guys.  I guess you must have gotten the ones with the toothpaste in them,” Cheryl blurted, spraying wet chunks of chewed Oreo cookie into her hand as she tried to cover her mouth.

          Cheryl, Grace and Maragold slapped the table with joy, congratulating each other for the excellent prank that they played on the boys.  They laughed hard, pointed fingers at the boys, then wiped the tears from their eyes.

          Cheryl forgot that she had wet bits of Oreo cookies sprayed on her hand so when she wiped tears from her right eye with her right hand, she got chocolate cookie color around her right eye.  The laughter grew.

          Then Maragold and Grace pointed to where Cheryl had slapped the table and left a gooey palm print and all three girls laughed even harder.

          The boys scowled at them.  They had not expected the prank and getting caught totally off guard embarrassed them.

          Eric wiped off his mouth, licked his lips with a grimace, then drank some milk and wiped his lips again.  He smiled and said, “That was really excellent, Cheryl.  A great trick like that deserves congratulations.  I wish I’d thought of it.”

          The girls looked at each other, disbelieving what they just heard, then turned very suspicious.

          “Here’s a peace offering, Cheryl.  I know you like ham and cheese sandwiches so you can have half of mine.  Here,” Eric said, as he took a bite of his half of the sandwich then passed the other half to Cheryl.

          “Right!” Cheryl said, with a clear tone of distrust.

          “Oh!  I love Eric’s ham and cheese sandwiches, with mustard and mayonnaise.  I’ll have it,” Grace said as she took the sandwich.

          Eric’s heart stopped, his eyes opened widely and he nearly spit-out the food that he was chewing.

          Before he could warn Grace, she took a bite, then pulled the rest of the sandwich away from her mouth.  But she couldn’t.  A tough, elastic piece of ham was holding the part of the sandwich that was in her mouth to the part that was in her hand.  She bit harder and pulled harder, then was shocked as the heavy layer of mustard, mayonnaise and cheese, from the inside of the sandwich, snapped out towards her and sprayed over her face, hair and blouse.

          Hanging out of her mouth were two strips of long, wide rubber bands.  Eric’s sandwich was really made of ham, cheese, mustard and mayo, but the half he gave away also had hidden rubber bands in it.

          Eric was horrified as he stared at Grace and pleaded, “The sandwich wasn’t for you.  Why’d you take it?”

          “Maybe because I trusted you,” Grace said with false anger.  “Guess I was wrong about you, right?” Grace added to make Eric feel super guilty.

          Eric buried his embarrassed face in his hands as Grace wiped off the bits of mustard, mayonnaise and cheese from her face and out of her hair.  Her pale, blue blouse looked like it had streaks of yellow and white dots after she wiped off the mustard and mayonnaise.  She pointed at Eric and silently laughed at him.

          Eric saw none of this because his hands still covered his face.

          When he heard laughing, Eric looked up.  His friends were laughing at him, especially Grace, who winked at him to let him know that she was not really angry because she knew him and knew it had to be a trick.  But, she said, she didn’t know that it would make such a mess.  She was sure that her mom could clean it easily.

          Then other students asked about the toilet pranks.  They wanted to know if the toilet really had Jell-O in it, and how it could be cleaned out.

          The gang looked at Maragold, so she explained.  “Oh.  There’s no need to get it out of the toilet.  You just get a stick and push it into the Jell-O, stir it around until the Jell-O is all mushy, then flush the toilet.  Nothing gets damaged.  That makes it a really good trick, except for the smell of the number one or number two on top of the Jell-O.  If the Jell-O is peed on, then there’s a lot of splashing, so that’s kind of a mess to clean up, but nothing serious.  Jell-O’s ninety-eight percent water.  Not much can get damaged by Jell-O.”

          Eric pretended to cough, sneeze and spit out more of the Oreo cookie .  It was loud enough to easily get the attention of most people at the table.  Again he coughed, then sneezed into his hand.  When he opened his hand, there was a quarter-sized lump of very disgusting green snot sitting on his palm.

          Everyone who saw it was completely disgusted.  The girls turned their heads away so they couldn’t see it any longer.  Some boys did the same.  But soon everyone looked back at Eric again.  That’s what he was waiting for.  When he saw everyone looking at him, he raised his palm to his mouth and very slowly licked off the snot, held it on his tongue for all to see, pulled his tongue back into his mouth slowly and swallowed.  He said, “Ahhhh,” licked his lips and smiled happily.

          Various noises were made to show feelings of disgust and faces were twisted into ugly, repulsive expressions until Eric explained what he had done.

          “You see,” Eric said, happy to have the attention focused on him.  “it’s not really snot.  Of course it’s not snot.  Nor is it a snot knot. Of course snot.  But it is a dot of fake snot.  Anyway, to make it, you need about half a teaspoon of green Jell-O mixed up with very tiny bits of the greenest part of an outer lettuce leaf.  When mixed together you get something that looks pretty much like a gob of snot, only it’s really green Jell-O and lettuce.  Neat, huh?”

          A few kids said, “Hey!  I’m going to try that on my mom and dad,”

          Some said they’d try it on other family members and friends.  It seemed like being “disgusting” was fun all of a sudden.  Eric always knew it was.

          As the group was talking about their pranks, an announcement came over the cafeteria speakers.  The office secretary, Mrs. Connie McEvoy—a wonderful, friendly lady—said, “May I have your attention please.  Would Eric Kretz please report to the office.  Eric Kretz, please report to the office.  Thank you.”

          “Uh-oh,” Eric stated with a shocked look.  “Oh.  The SCHOOL FOR SALE sign must have been found.”

          Eric got up to go to the office.

          Grace smiled up at him and said, “Have fun.”

          “Yeah!  Right!” Eric responded into the smiles of his friends.

          As Eric entered the office, he spotted a shiny quarter on the floor, but hesitated to pick it up.  He was nervous.

          The secretary got up as soon as she saw him enter the office.  She picked up something red and briskly walked to the counter top where Eric stood.

          “Are you the funny guy who snuck into the office and put this Whoopie Cushion on my chair?” Mrs. McEvoy asked.

          Eric’s eyes opened wide.  He said, “Gosh!  No ma’am!  I didn’t do that.”  Then he settled down and said, “How come I’m being blamed for it?”

          “Well, then, young man,” she whispered.  “Don’t you worry about it.  I have a good sense of humor.  When I was looking at some papers, I sat down on it.  It made the most awful noise.  It was like I was driving a fart-mobile that was back-firing.”

          “A fart-mobile?  What’s that?” Eric giggled.

          “Oh!  It’s my husband’s humor actually.  He says a fart-mobile has no brakes, but it’s got plenty of gas,” Mrs. McEvoy added, continuing her low whisper.

          They both chuckled and smiled at each other.

          Mrs. McEvoy leaned over the counter to get closer to Eric.  She whispered, “Just tell Mrs. Plum the truth about the sign and I think you’ll be OK.”

          At that moment Mrs. Plum appeared at her office doorway, not smiling.  Eric’s smile vanished as Mrs. Plum said sternly, “Come in, please.”

          Eric hesitantly entered her office and sat at the chair that she pointed to.  The SCHOOL FOR SALE sign was leaning against the wall directly in front of him.

          Very sternly, Mrs. Plum said, “This sign has caused quite a mess, Eric.  Parents are calling all three offices, wanting to know what’s going on.

          “Parents have spread the news to other parents.  The community is almost panicked.  The Board of Education members and superintendent are getting swamped with phone calls.  Even newspapers are calling the school to check on the school sale.

          “Someone saw you walking down the front door hallway.  The close association between that fact and the sudden appearance of the ‘for sale sign’ prompted me to want to talk to you.  Do you know anything about this ‘for sale sign,’ Eric?”  Mrs. Plum pointed at the sign.

          “Ah … yes ma’am, I do,” Eric said nervously; drops of sweat forming on his forehead.

          “What do you know about it?”

          “Everything.  I made it and I taped it to the front entrance window as an April Fool’s Day joke,” Eric replied.

          Mrs. Plum stared at Eric, but said nothing for a few seconds.

          The beads of sweat grew larger on Eric’s brow.

          “I appreciate your honesty, Eric.  All the phone calls, however, have caused Mrs. McEvoy, the high school secretary and the superintendent’s secretary, to waste a lot of time.  I’ll have to call your mom and dad about this prank.  I don’t think you knew how much trouble it would cause, but you’ll have to face the consequences.  Do you understand?”

          “Yes ma’am,” Eric stated with a  dry mouth, wishing he could run out of Mrs. Plum’s office.

          “Also, do you know anything about the quarter that’s glued to the floor in the outer office doorway?  Someone planned that trick just right, Eric.  When the door is closed, it can’t be seen because it’s directly under the door.  When the door is open the quarter is easily seen because it’s very shiny and attracts attention.  Unfortunately almost everyone who enters the office bends over and tries to pick it up.  That causes a blockage of the doorway, especially when someone bent over and another person, who’s reading or talking to someone else, crashes into the bent over person.”

          Eric desperately tried not to laugh at the image that formed in his head.

          “Well?  Do you know anything about that quarter, Eric?” Mrs. Plum asked.

          “Yes ma’am.  I do,” Eric responded.

          “And what do you know about that quarter, Eric?”

          “Ah … the most important thing I know about it is that I did not put it there.”

          “Do you know who did?”

          “Yes.”

          “Please tell me.”

          “No disrespect intended, Mrs. Plum, but I can’t tell you that,” Eric said.

          “You know who put it there, but you won’t tell me.  Is that correct?”

          “Yes ma’am,” Eric said while wiping a rolling drop of sweat from his brow.

          “Why won’t you tell me?” Mrs. Plum asked.

          “Well, if it was harmful or had caused injury, I would tell you, but it’s just a harmless prank and I won’t tell on the person who did it.  I mean no disrespect, but I just feel that it would be wrong for me to tell you.  I’ll take responsibility for what I did, but I won’t tattle on someone else.”

          “Was it one of your close friends?” Mrs. Plum tried again.

          “I’m sorry to say that I can not answer that question,” Eric repeated.

          “Can’t or won’t answer it?”

          Eric thought for a second.  “Both, I guess,” he stated seriously, his face empty of all humor, his mind empty of all attempts at humor.

          “I may have to assign you to after school detention for making that sign, and because you won’t give me the information that I need,” said Mrs. Plum.

          “OK,” Eric stated, his face showing signs of worry.

          Mrs. Plum looked at Eric and thought, “He’s small, but so bright.  Kind of tough in a non-physical way.  A tough nut to crack.  Maybe he’s right about not tattling on a friends.  Kids think that way.  Really, no serious damage has been done and the panic can be corrected, though not easily.  No reason to get too upset at him, I guess.”

          Mrs. Plum said, “Were you at lunch before you came here?”

          “Yes ma’am.”

          “You may return to the cafeteria.  If Mr. B. has picked up your class, then go straight to your classroom,” Mrs. Plum stated, then added, “And I’d like you to start washing with Windex from now on.”

          “Windex?  You mean for cleaning windows?  Why would you want me to do that?” Eric asked, feeling confused.

          “Because you’re getting to be a big pane and you need to clean up your act.

          Eric paused.  Then, “Oh!  I get it.  A pane of glass.  That’s a good one.”

          Then Eric thought, “Clean up my act?  Not likely, Honey,” as he got up and walked toward the doorway.

          Eric was so glad to leave Mrs. Plum’s office that he let out a big sigh, as if he had been holding his breath the whole time.  As he entered the outer office, he saw Mrs. McEvoy looking at him.  She held the Whoopee Cushion in her left hand and pointed to it with her right hand.  She seemed to be asking, “You sure this isn’t yours?”  Then she winked at Eric.

          Eric shook his head back and forth to indicate, “No,” then departed hurriedly.

          Eric saw that his class was gone, so he went to his classroom.  Everybody stared at him when he entered, even Mr. B.  But Eric acted cool, as if nothing bothered him and nothing had happened.

          Later in the afternoon, Mr. B.’s class went to the library.  It amazed me just how many kids did not like books, did not like to read for pleasure.  It was hard to understand, but when you can read thoughts, like I can, you can read a kid’s total honesty.  Their thoughts don’t have to be guarded so adults won’t scold them.

          Mr. B. would very often say that a house without books is like a body without a heart.  But that had little affect on the non-readers.

          Anyway, books were not the best part of library class.  Mrs. Skoob, the librarian, was wearing tight pants; she almost always wore tight pants, like she thought she was slimmer than she really was.  From the back, her rear-end looked like it was a sack that had two bull dogs dancing in it.

          Well, the prank today worked like a charm.  Cheryl had a piece of easily torn cotton cloth.  She placed a book on the floor where the librarian came out from behind the counter and where her desk and computer were.  The rest of the gang told their classmates not to pick up the book.  When the librarian bent over to pick up the book, Cheryl ripped the piece of cotton that she had been hiding.  The librarian jumped up and grabbed her butt feeling for the tear.  She looked like she was massaging both butt buns which caused the students to roar with laughter.

          Mrs. Skoob was so embarrassed, her face so red, when she realized it was an April Fool’s Day joke, that she stood by the counter, face frozen in embarrassed anger, and stared at the students.

          When Mr. B. picked up his students, he noticed the angry look on Mrs. Skoob’s face and wondered what had happened.  He asked about it when the class was settled in their classroom seats.

          Cheryl explained, and to her surprise Mr. B. laughed loudly and said, “Oh, heck.  That’s nothing.  I did that to people when I was a kid too.”

          Cheryl was thinking, that when Mr. B. was a kid people didn’t even know how to make pants.  They must have lived in caves and used animal skins for clothes.

          The students had their homework time, then got ready for home.  After clean-up, some kids wanted to wash their hands.  But after Silvia turned on the water, she walked to Mr. B. and said, “Mr. B., the soap won’t suds.”

          “What?” he questioned her.

          “The soap.  It won’t make suds,” Silvia repeated.

          Mr. B. walked to the sink, as his students were putting their chairs up, and picked up the soap.  He held it under the running water and rubbed it in his hands.  Sure enough, the soap did not make suds.  He examined the soap closely.  He scraped it with a fingernail.  He found that it had a clear layer of something hard and waterproof on it.  He could smell something familiar.  He thought it smelled like clear varnish which had dried hard on the soap surface and was now waterproof.  He turned around fast and caught several people laughing, mostly Maragold’s group.  He smiled, reached under the sink for an extra bar of soap and gave it to Silvia.

          Mr. B. said, “Hmm.  This soap smells good enough to eat.  Who wants the first bite?”  He suddenly started chasing kids around the room.  There was screaming and squealing as they tried to get away from Mr. B.  He then set the soap on his desk, turned serious and told the students to hurry so they wouldn’t be late.

          It was still raining at the end of the school day.  The ground had gotten a slow, thorough soaking and the rain looked like it wasn’t going to stop.

          Long after the students, secretaries and most teachers went home, Mrs. Plum finished her paper work.  She wanted to get home to her husband and children, so she hurriedly put on her coat and grabbed her umbrella.  When she got to the side door, that led to the parking lot, she opened her umbrella over her head and was showered with a blizzard of white confetti.  The confetti went all over her hair and coat.  Some went down the back of her coat and blouse.  The remainder floated gently to the floor, like a windless snowstorm.

          She mumbled to herself, then stomped through the rain puddles to her car.  She thought of Eric, but then she didn’t know how he could have put confetti in her umbrella, which was in her locked office overnight.  As she drove home she was wondering who could have done it.  Then she grew calm.

          The rain fell hard against her windshield and blurred her view of the parking lot.  She put the key in the ignition slot and turned it.  The sound of a loud popping noise surprised her.  Thinking that she just got a flat tire, she shouted, “Darn!”.  She stepped back out into the rain and looked at the back tires, where the noise seemed to have come from.  She did not use the umbrella and her hair quickly became drenched and flattened to her head, with white confetti-dots all over it.  She saw no flat tire, but did see many pieces of a raw potato lying all around the back of her car.  Then she noticed a stringy piece of potato hanging from her exhaust pipe and knew immediately what had happened.  She knew because one April Fool’s Day, long ago, she and her brother had done the same thing to a neighbor.  They had stuck a large, raw potato up his car’s exhaust pipe so that when the car started the exhaust pressure blew up the potato.

          Water was running down the back of her hair and flowing down her neck, then slowly trickling down her back like wet snakes.  The cool rain gave her a chill and she shivered.  But she smiled despite the chill of the rain when she thought about that big, raw potato explosively blowing out of her neighbor’s car’s exhaust pipe.  She remembered seeing it through the living room window, and that she and her older brother had danced joyously around the living room when the neighbor started his car and the large potato burst out of the tail pipe in chunky, shattered pieces, after making a loud bang sound, as if a tire had blown.

          She vividly remembered that cool, sunny, early spring Saturday on O’Dell Avenue, the north side of Endicott, New York.  She also remembered the guilt she had felt when she saw Saint Anthony’s church in the background, as the neighbor walked slowly around his car talking angrily to himself, and shrugging his shoulders as he looked curiously at the shattered pieces of potato, wondering who put the potato there.

          She didn’t know how long she stood in the rain thinking about her childhood, but when she snapped back to reality, she thought of one person only.  Eric.  Then she said, “Little devil!”

          That day, when we got home from school, Maragold and I settled in the living room.  We sat on the couch, opposite the picture window, listening to, and watching the rain.  We enjoyed the relaxing sounds of the rain tap-dancing on the window.  We watched the worm-like trails that the drops made as they crawled down the window pane like see-through snails.

          We didn’t need to talk.  We could read each other’s thoughts.

          Maragold was thinking that rain is like billions of clear, liquid strings falling off a gray cliff of clouds, forming a vast, misty waterfall.

          I was thinking about the rain tap-dancing on the roof and dripping off the two, tall pine tries that grew in the front lawn.  The pine needles sparkled like green glass, the falling rain making the needles jump and wriggle as if they were alive.

          The pine needles seemed to be talking in the breeze as the wind and rain twisted them, making fluttering sounds.

          The rain pimpled the puddles that grew on the driveway, then gave the driveway a bath, carrying dirt away.

          A half hour later, the rain slowed.  In another hour it stopped as the dark clouds sailed away on a moving ocean of air.

          Much later, just before bedtime, we stepped outside, on the lawn, to look up at the night sky.

          Maragold was thinking about the stars; about how they shone so brightly, like distant candles in a gentle breeze that made them flicker and twinkle.  It was hard to imagine, she thought, that the stars are really giant suns, much bigger and brighter than our own sun.  Those stars were so big and burned with such vast fires that they could still be seen from trillions of miles away, compared to the Earth’s sun which was less than one-hundred million miles away.

          That same evening Mrs. Plum called Mr. and Mrs. Kretz, Eric’s dad and mom.  Mrs. Plum explained what Eric had done with the SCHOOL FOR SALE sign and, also, that he would not give her information about other pranksters.  Mrs. Plum said that she would leave disciplinary action to them; whatever they think is a just punishment.

          Eric got grounded for two weeks: no outside the home activities plus no TV, no use of the phone, and, he had to write a letter of apology to Mrs. Plum.  But the most horrible punishment of all was that he had to wash the dinner dishes every night for those two weeks.  He had disgusting “prune skin” each evening for two weeks.

          After talking with his mom and dad, Eric realized that certain actions cause harm and not always just physical harm.  He thought that maybe he went too far with the sign, even though it was funny.  But he still didn’t think the sign wall all that damaging.  Geez, it wasn’t as if he was digging tunnels in the local cemetery.  Now there’s a really “grave” offense, he thought, with a big smile.

          After he finished typing his letter of apology, and showed it to his mom and dad, he attached two handwritten Post-It notes that humorously informed Mrs. Plum that he forgave her for getting him into so much trouble.  He said that she was a nice person and a good principal and he realized that she had no other choice but to “rat him out” to his mom and dad—he smiled at the “rat” part.  But, he added, “Maybe you can help me understand some things about adults.”  He wrote:

          1.  When kids take a long time doing something, they’re slow.

               When adults do the same thing, they’re being careful or thorough.

          2.  When kids don’t do something on time, they’re just plain lazy.

               When adults do the same thing, they’re lives are very busy.

          3.  When kids do something without being told, they’re trying to show off.

               When adults do the same thing, they’re showing responsibility.

          4.  When kids please their parents or teachers, they’re “kissing butt.”

               When adults do that to their bosses, they’re good team members.

          5.  When kids do something good, parents and teachers don’t remember.

               When kids do something bad, parents and teachers never forget.

          When Mrs. Plum read the letter of apology, she was satisfied.  So were the superintendent and the Board of Education.  But Mrs. Plum did not show the handwritten, humorous notes that Eric included with the letter of apology.  She read the notes a few times and two words always flashed in her mind: “incorrigible joker.”

          The day after April Fool’s Day, Mr. B. changed the morning schedule.  Instead of reading class, he brought the student’s attention back to the sign on his desk.  Everyone had forgotten all about it.  It was the sign that said:  “MR. E.”

          Mr. B. thought it would be “ting” to try to solve this puzzle and see if it had a connection to the items that were glued to his desktop by an unknown person.

          “The sign was already there when I came into the room yesterday morning, so I doubt any of you could have put it there.  But you may be able to help me figure out who did,” Mr. B. told his students.  “I suspect that whoever glued these things to my desk top, also put the sign on my desk as a challenge to figure out who they are.  Who do you think it could have been?” he asked.

          “Did you put it there yourself?” Charlie asked.

          “No, Charlie.  I didn’t put the sign there, and I didn’t glue my things to my desk..  And I certainly did not glue the chalk to the chalk tray.  That made a real mess when I tried to get the chalk off the tray.  So, then, if I didn’t do it, and none of you did it …I’m assuming that none of you did it … then who could have done it?” Mr. B. asked again.  “Charlie.  I’m curious.  What made you think that I may have done it myself?”

          “It’s just that the sign says Mr., and mister means a man.  Not many men in the elementary school.  I thought that you might be trying to trick us,” Charlie replied.

          “Good thinking, Charlie, but it wasn’t me.  That’s the truth.  Also, if the mister made you think of a man, then what about the men high school teachers, or the man high school principal, or even the men custodians?”

          Cheryl raised her hand and was called on to speak.  “I doubt any high school men teachers did it, and definitely not the high school principal.  You hardly ever see a high school teacher here.  In three years of being at Kroy School, I’ve never seen the high school principal in this part of the elementary classroom area.”

          “So nobody would ever expect that it was a high school teacher that did it because they are rarely seen in this part of the building, right?  Sounds like a good way to fool people who would never suspect them to be in the elementary school.  What do you think?”

          “Yeah.  Maybe,” Cheryl said.

          “That was very good thinking, Cheryl.  You may be absolutely correct,” Mr. B. said, encouragingly.

          “Let’s not forget the men custodians.  They have keys to the classrooms, plus they are here every morning before the teachers,” Mr. B. added.

          Mr. B. saw Maragold’s hand raised.  “Mara?  Can you help?”

          “Well … I doubt that any custodian would do it.  They are already too busy with all the work they have to do around the school.”

          Mr. B. said, “It wouldn’t take very long at all to glue these things, then leave and let the glue dry overnight.  Doesn’t take much time to do that … especially if you have the room key.”

          “Yeah, but I’ll bet that you will probably want to call a custodian to get those things unglued, right?  So if I was a custodian, I doubt that I would do it because it’s just making extra work for myself … you know … one of them would have to work to unglue those things, then clean off the desk and clean off the glue that’s stuck to those things.  So, if you’re a custodian, then why make extra work for yourself or another custodian?” Maragold stated.

          “Excellent point, Mara.  Thank you,” Mr. B. said with a big smile.

          “Well,” Mr. B. said, “that seems to have eliminated all the men from doing it.  That’s a problem, isn’t it?  Maybe it wasn’t a man who did it?  Any thoughts on that possibility?”

          Mr. B. looked at Matt, who looked confused.  “Matt, what are you thinking?  Can you help solve this mystery?  The rest of you should be thinking about this, too.  I may call you next.”

          “Mr. Robertson and Mr. Willis are serious teachers.  They don’t joke around much.  Maybe the ‘MR. E’ doesn’t mean mister at all.  What if it simply means the word ‘mystery?’  Then it could have been a lady who did it,” Matt said.

          “Excellent thinking, Matt, but that still leaves us with no suspects and three times as many people to choose from because the elementary school is mostly women teachers, ” Mr. B. responded to Matt.

          Eric was frustrated because he didn’t care who the mystery person was.  His frustration escaped in a rush when he said, “Solving the mystery isn’t all that important, is it?  Couldn’t we use the time better by doing our reading and working on our reading assignments?”

          Mr. B. was surprised by Eric’s impatience.  Mr. B. thought that this would be a fun activity.  He still wanted to keep this mystery solving activity fun, so he humorously said, “Eric, you have two good points there, but, you know, if you comb your hair just right, no one will see them.”

          Eric didn’t smile.  He said, “I’ve already used that joke.”

          Mr. B. said, “Come on, Eric.  This has got to be better than reading class assignments, right?  Solving a mystery can be fun.”

          “Yeah.  You’ve got a point there, Mr. B., but if you part your hair just right, you can cover it up,” Eric said, teasingly.  Then he and Mr. B. laughed at each other.

          “Wait a second,” Maragold yelled, “Sure it could be a woman who did it.  If you look at the ‘MR. E’ sign a little differently.”  Maragold paused to concentrate.

          “Explain yourself, Mara.  Tell us what you’re thinking,” Mr. B. said, excitedly.

          A couple sarcastic giggles floated in the air.

          Mr. B. said, “If you have no ideas, then you should not be laughing at the person who does.  Please don’t be rude to your friends.  Give Mara a chance.”

          The giggling stopped immediately.

          Maragold said, “Well, when I read the sign originally, it said, ‘MR. E,’ so I thought of ‘Mister E.’  A man with the initial ‘E’ for his first or last name.  Then we thought it simply meant the word ‘mystery.’  But we all thought about that and couldn’t think of anyone.  Then it was suggested that, maybe, it was a woman, which did seem wrong.  But what if you looked at the sign that says: ‘MR. E.’ and you don’t think ‘Mister E.’ or ‘mystery’?  What if you look at ‘MR. E.’ and see ‘Miss Tree’?  The ‘Miss’ would be an unmarried woman.  So a woman could have glued all those things.”

          “Terrific, Mara!  But if it’s an unmarried woman, then we have only a few suspects in the elementary school.  Most of the teachers are married.  And what about the ‘tree’ part of it?  What does ‘tree’ have to do with it?”

          “Oh!” Cheryl burst with excitement, “Maybe her first or last name is the name of a tree.”

          “Do we know any teacher that has a ‘tree’ name?” Mr. B. asked.

          A whole chorus of noise filled the room as three-fourths of the students raised their hands, thinking the answer was Mrs. Plum.

          “You think it might be Mrs. Plum?” Mr. B. repeated.  “Hmm … Isn’t there a problem there?  Plum and plum tree are excellent thoughts, but Mara said, ‘Miss Tree.’  She didn’t say, ‘Mrs. Tree.’  Mrs. Plum is not a ‘Miss.’  She’s married, so she’s a ‘Mrs.’  See what I mean?”

          Disappointed sounds and movements dominated the students responses.

          “Oh!  Geez.  I thought Mara and Cheryl had it,” Grace said disappointedly.

          “Any more ideas?” Mr. B. asked.

          The room grew silent but I could see that everyone was thinking hard, even Eric.

          “Gee, that’s more interesting than I thought.  Now I really am curious,” added Eric, as others agreed with him by shaking their heads up an down.

          The room grew quiet.

          “Well then,” Mr. B. said.  “You did a lot of very good thinking and almost came up with an answer.  What now?  Any more ideas?”

          Eric said, “If it’s pronounced ‘Miss Tree,’ then it would be an unmarried teacher, right?”

          “Almost,” Mr. B. corrected.  “It would be an unmarried woman.  And not necessarily a teacher, either.  Could be a staff member, right?”

          “OK,” Eric said.  “Who are the single women in our school who have the name of a tree for a last name?”

          Dead silence controlled the classroom.  No responses.  No ideas.  Nothing.

          After a couple of minutes, Mr. B. said, “OK.  Nice try, but it seems that we have run into a dead end, with no place to go.  So, use the remainder of the reading time to work on your reading assignments.  Get started, please.”

          Mr. B. was still curious about who glued the objects to his desk.

          Too bad he couldn’t read my mind.  I knew who did it.

          Later that week I took a trip to the Kroy High School just for something different to do.  Plus, Mr. B. was teaching a boring lesson.

          I secretly listened to groups of students talking and found out that the high school April Fool’s Day pranksters were much more severe than the elementary school pranksters.  I know that that’s what should be expected, but some of the pranks, I thought, were borderline hurtful and mean.

          Deep-Heat and Icy-Hot lotions were spread on the girls’ and guys’ toilet seats.  Talk about being on “the hot seat.”

          One of the girl’s bathrooms even had Orajel on the toilet seats.  Orajel is normally used to numb the pain of a toothache.  There must have been a few girls with “numb butts” walking around the high school.

          That wasn’t all that happened.  Some person or persons had spread itching powder on the bathroom rolls of toilet paper and in the boys’ and girls’ paper towel dispensers.  Just thinking about that makes me want to scratch.  Not a nice trick at all.  I wondered why the girls were the ones mostly affected by this kind of prank.  But I’ve learned that in America, meanness is an equal opportunity destroyer; especially in the learning institutions, where bullies, gangs and cliques sometimes rule.

          The high school teachers were angry about their coffee cups, in the teachers’ room, being Super-glued to the counter top.

          Luckily, one very observant teacher noticed that there was a laxative wrapper in the garbage can.  She put that knowledge together with the already made coffee, then warned the other teachers, just in time, as she poured the fresh, laxative enhanced coffee down the sink drain,  Then she washed the coffee equipment and made a fresh pot of coffee for the caffeine addicted teachers who did not want to drink cold Coke or Pepsi.  Styrofoam cups had to be used for the coffee.

          The custodians came to the rescue of the teachers, once more, as happens quite often to these under appreciated staff members.  The custodians had the coffee cups free from the super glue and the mess all cleaned up before lunch time.

          When the high school principal got in his sporty car after school, on April Fool’s Day, his ears were bombarded by the metallic banging noises of the gravel that had been put inside all of his car’s hub caps.  He had to listen to that banging, scratching, irritating noise all the way home.

          In my opinion, dear reader, the best high school prank was when a highly creative student, or students, made a new tape for the school’s automatic phone answering service and “leave a message” machine.  It was the talk of the entire high school: students, teachers, principal, superintendent and staff members.  Somehow this clever prankster got hold of the school’s answering machine cassette tape and replaced it with his or her own message.  The switched, re-recorded message said, in a very polite female voice:

          “Hello.  You have reached the automated answering service for

Kroy Central School.  In order to help you reach the correct person, please

listen carefully to all your options before you make a selection.  Thank you.

          To lie about why your child is absent, please press 1.

          To make excuses for why your child did not do his homework, press 2.

          To complain routinely about what we do here at school, please press 3.

          To swear at an over-worked and under-paid teacher, please press 4.

          To ask why you did not get the information that was clearly stated in the

               last mailed newsletter, plus several flyers sent home with your child,

               please press 5.

          To demand that we raise your child for you, please press 6.

          To reach out and touch, slap or hit some one, any one, please press 7.

          To request a certain teacher for your child next year, when it has been

               clearly stated that school policy doesn’t allow such a request, or to

               request that your child be removed from the teacher they have this

               year because your foolishness isn’t taken seriously, please press 8.

          To rant about bus schedules, over-worked bus drivers, secretaries, or

               custodians, please press 9.

          To complain about cafeteria food or cafeteria personnel, please press 0.

          However, if you have finally figured out that you live in the real world,

               and that you and your child must be accountable and responsible

               for his or her own behaviors, class work, homework and tests, and that it’s

               not the teacher’s fault for your child’s consistent lack of effort, poor

               attitudes and behaviors, plus lack of motivation, maturity and sense of

               responsibility for his or her actions, then don’t press any buttons.  Just

               hang up and try to have a nice day!”

          Dear reader, does this wonderful prank seem too sophisticated for a high school student to have done?  Would a student(s) go out of his way, to take this big of a risk for something that so thoroughly supports the people who work in Kroy School.  Would a student do that?  Not the ordinary student, right?  Maybe the clever son or daughter of a member of the school staff?  Or maybe not a student at all?  Could an adult member of the Kroy staff have done it?

          Can you keep a secret, dear reader?  I know who did it, and I’m keeping the name a secret.  So, my dear friends, please keep it a secret that I know who did that prank, OK?  Sorry to tease you so much, but it’s fun.

          Spring time is a time of renewal, a rebirth of nature.  Spring is like the magician that suddenly produces bouquets of flowers, seemingly from nowhere.  Presto!  You don’t see them, but now, suddenly, you do.  Abracadabra!  The winter world without much color, suddenly turn green and colorful.  The magic of nature.

          Basically, April went by quickly, once April Fool’s Day was over.  There are few school days more memorable than a very prankish April Fool’s Day.

          In the middle of April the school had a short spring break.  Maragold and her classmates—actually, just about every student—looked forward to these breaks.  It relieved the stress from tests, report cards, homework and fear of getting into trouble.

          Teachers looked forward to these breaks, too; not just to have those days where they didn’t have to go to work, but because they realized that short breaks from the stress of school, for students and teachers, re-energized the mind as well as the body.  It prepared the students and teachers for more academic challenges—and for more laughter in Mr. B’s classroom.  But by the end of the school year, short breaks were not enough.  The summer vacations were a wonderful, lazy, relaxed time for most students—though seldom for many teachers who had to go to summer school for an advanced degree, or work through the summer, or both.

          To me, personally, the spring break was a wonderful event.  Yes, I did see Nurse Sandra every day and that was great.  But, guess what?  My questions to Elder O’Keefe concerning the Shaheen/Shane connection were answered.  And to my superb joy, our connection is true.  Maragold and I are related by the same history of our ancestors.  And my disappointment with Elder O’Keefe dissolved like a sugar-cube in water when Elder O’Keefe apologized for not telling me this important fact.

          It turned out that Elder O’Keefe, the Committee of Elders, plus my mom and dad knew this information, but withheld it from me because they were all afraid that my actions, duties and responsibilities may be biased and altered because of my historical and ancestral relationship with Maragold.  And, Elder O’Keefe assured me that he, or one of the other Elders, or my parents, would have informed me of this fact when I returned to Ireland.  He also apologized for asking my parents to keep the secret until I returned home for good.

          You can’t imagine how happy I was to find out that Maragold and I were connected by our historical ancestors.  Wow!  I was dizzy with joyfulness.

          Dear reader, I am grateful to have spent so much time in two of American’s public school systems at Kroy Central School, mostly, and at the Nova Central School where I visited occasionally.  Both are wonderful schools with many very talented teachers and principals.  I learned much by carefully observing gifted teachers in both schools.  I will be bringing this knowledge of the American public school system to my leprechaun community.  It will be a valuable aid for improving our own schools.

                                      BERT’S  QUESTIONS

          Did you know that the word “uncopyrightable” is the only fifteen letter word

          that can be spelled without repeating a letter?

          How come the word “noel” (no L) has the letter “l” in it?

                                                CHAPTER  20

          It was early May, about two o’clock in the morning.  All was quiet and dark.  I sat on the magic room window sill and worried about leaving Maragold.

          I stared out at the night sky with its bright, smiling, crescent moon.  The moon, like a bull’s horns, seemed to be playfully poking at passing clusters of clouds that sailed slowly by.

          A few hours later I could hear Maragold’s alarm clock ringing.  I stayed seated on the window sill.  I was attracted to the pink sky on the horizon.  The sun rose like an arm waving good-morning to the earth, while pushing the darkness away.

          I lost track of time and an hour passed by while I watched the beginning of a bright, beautiful spring day.  The trees, bushes and grass dressed themselves in new green clothes; showing them off as if spring was a fashion show.

          My thoughts focused on the beauty of spring time.  It’s the time when the earth is born again.  It’s the beginning of the time when the sun and rain are in abundance, and the vegetation blooms.  Trees decorate themselves in glorious emerald cloaks.  Flowers burst into so many different colors that a hundred rainbows could not compete with their beauty.

          In spring, the earth buzzes with energy.  Children frolic in the sunshine; running, shouting and laughing as children should.  Newly born animals cling to their mothers as they’re shown their bright new world.  Insects come alive as they perform duties assigned by Mother Nature.

          Spring is such a good name for the time when the life on earth “springs” into action after a winter of sleep.  I was hypnotized by these pleasant thoughts, wonderful feelings and beautiful sights.

          That same spring day, Eric entered the classroom looking angry.  Maragold, Matt, Cheryl and Grace crowded around him.

          Grace said, “What’s the matter?  You look really mad about something.”

          “You bet I am,” Eric growled.  “Have any of you heard the weather forecast?  Probably not, huh?” Eric said without waiting for a response.  He seemed intent on talking himself out.

          “Well, there’s a wind advisory out for this morning.  You know, a warning about high winds coming later this morning.  Things could get broken due to it’s strength,” Eric continued, then paused for a breath.

          “So what,” Cheryl stated.  Then, “You’re not afraid of wind, are you?”

          “We’re safe in school.  Why worry so much?” Grace added.

          “Don’t you guys get it?” Eric said; his voice a low rumble of anger.  “Those weather people are all slandering me.  They’re trying to embarrass me by giving that ‘wind advisory warning’ because they somehow found out that I had a second helping of chili last night!”

          Suddenly Eric burst out in laughter that he’d been holding back so the joke would have a good effect on his friends.  He was laughing so hard that his friends heard a couple of popping noises.  Those familiar noises caused them to slowly back away, leaving him standing alone like a statue in a park.

          “What?  What’s wrong?” Eric said, pretending to be innocent.

          That afternoon, Mr. B. informed his students that they would be taking a field trip to Lockport, New York to learn more about and ride in a boat on the Erie Canal.

          He added, “And I don’t want any truculent or indolent behaviors.”

          Then Mr. B. smiled broadly at his students.  He seemed to be in a good mood and was only teasing his students about not wanting any trouble on the field trip.  Actually he had a good class and did not expect any problems.  He wanted to see the comical effect of big words on his students.

          Eric raised his hand and when he was called on to speak, he said, “Mr. B., you shouldn’t use college words on us.  We’re only sixth graders.  That truck-sounding word and the indent word don’t mean nothing to us.”

          Mr. B. responded, “They don’t mean anything, you mean.

          “Yeah.  I just said that,” Eric said.

          “No.  You said the big words don’t mean ‘nothing’ when you should have said that they don’t mean ‘anything’ to you,” Mr. B. corrected Eric.

          “Oh.  Yeah.  Sure,” Eric stated as his peers laughed.  Then Eric added, “Please don’t use such big words.”  Then Eric started to hear different words than the big words that Mr. B. started using.  The words he was hearing sounded very similar to Mr. B.’s words, but Eric’s comical brain broke them up into smaller sizes and twisted them a little.  Eric smiled to himself.  He’d have fun with Mr. B.’s words.

          “Are you kidding me?” asked Mr. B.  “I never, ever use big, mystifying  (Miss stiff eyeing?) or multi-syllable (multiply silly bull?) words with my students.  As a teacher of urchins (your chins) I know that it’s best to use a lucid lexicon so they don’t feel distress (feel this dress?).

          “I’m just an unadorned mentor of pubescent bairns (barns?)who are in dire need of an educational upgrading.

          “You are novices (no vices?) that I’m trying to enlighten.  I am especially adept at communicating lucidly and placidly because I posses an innate and adroit ability to incite (in sight), inspire and provide incentives to my pre-teen acolytes (a cool tyke?).

          “That, of course, is the predominant reason that you’ll never hear me using big, fancy and pretentious words.  It would be fatuous (fat you us?) of me to do so.

          “I know I must use simple words because I want you all to comprehend the fact that you can not just ogle your textbooks or your learning will only be tenuous (ten you us?).  I hope that I’m being cogent with you.  I surely … When I say ‘surely’ I don’t mean ‘Shirley’ the girl, OK.  Surely you understand.  I’m sure you do.  Heck, I would only sound supercilious (super silly us) if I used words that you don’t understand.  That’s why I’m offering these statements as my apologia (Apollo’s what?) if you misinterpreted (Miss interrupted?) my speech (peach?) and thought that I was purposely using big words.

          “Furthermore,” Mr. B. continued, “when you perambulate on the asphalt (ass fault?) path of higher education, you will assuage (ass sewage?) the work that you will face as an adult.  If you are to reach the zenith (a TV?)of your potential and avoid a nadir in your life, you must fathom (fat thumb?) the idea that only an academic charlatan would cast you off on the pursuit (cat suit?) of academic cognizance if you have just departed (come apart?) an educational wasteland (school?) that was dominated by words that weren’t cogent to you.  A deceitful (the seat full?) deed like that would only procrastinate your educational refinement (confinement?).  If you don’t discern that now, you will by the time you trek (Star Trek?) to high school.  If you don’t, then you’re in (urine?) trouble.  I hope you ken (Ken who?) this point.

          “Wow!” I thought.  “Mr. B. was on a speeding train of thoughts and words.  He won’t be derailed by the raised hands and confused looks of his students.”

          Mr. B.’s tongue flicked out and licked his dry lips.  Quickly he said, “I’ll answer questions when I’m done, in just a minute.

          “Surely (Shirley who?) you see that it would be impossible for me to use erudite words since that would hinder my proficiency as your mentor.  Can you imagine a European (you’re a peein’) immigrant, trying to learn English from a teacher who’s using words that even his own students don’t understand (under what stand?)?

          “I’m not a fabulist.  Nor am I omniscient or omnipotent.  That’s why you’re cooperation is needed for me to make full use of my pedagogic (pedal logic?) skills.

          “And let me remind (rewind?) all of you that this is not a superficial (super fish L?) endeavor.  You should perceive (what a cat sees?) the idea that only receiving a smattering of knowledge will have many negative ramifications (where a ram lives?), each of which could prevent you from becoming a superb person instead of a truant (true ant?) adult.

          “I do not say these words with asperity (no comment) either.  A good education will provide you with a protective canopy (can of pee?  Yuck!), so you must be able to understand your teacher’s (tea chair’s?) words.  That’s why my vocabulary needs to be, and is, very simple.

          “Surely (Shirley must be nice because he keeps talking about her.), you can’t believe I would ever use big (pig?  Oink!) words.  I am a smart teacher and I’d rather masticate worms than use big words.  How could I stand (then sit down) here, dressed in mufti, arms akimbo, and smile in the face of my own nescience?  After all, I’ve practiced for years using simple words and correct sentence syntax (sentences have sins? and pay taxes?) to make myself coherent.  You would be correct to be irate (I know that I rate.) if I acted any other way

          “I don’t want to be thought of as a pissant (no comment).  I am an academician (Is that like a custodian with a college degree?) and, thus, could never abdicate my responsibilities to all of you.  The path of higher education, for you, is not paved.  It is a path with many rocks, ruts and holes that can trip you up and throw you off your course.  You must travel that delicate (deli cat? Yummy!) path carefully like an Indian wearing moccasins (sinful shoes?) so you can feel the rocks and step over them, feel the ruts and holes and avoid them.  You not only must think your way down this path, you must also feel your way (I’m lost already.  I can’t keep up with this nutty guy).

          “Now, I look at all of you and I do not see one ignoramus (ignore anus?) in the whole group.  And I don’t have to be mean to you to get you to learn.  I can be a fun guy (fungi=mushroom?) and still be an excellent instructor, just as you can laugh and joke, but still be excellent students.  We can talk more on (who’s a moron?) this later.

          “Most teachers, starting right from kindergarten (kidney garden?) realize that they must use very simple words when instructing elementary students.  If they didn’t and it was done intentionally, then that would condemn them to the stature of a reprobate with only a paucity (pa’s city) of etiquette or ethics.  You know what I mean?  Surely you do (Shirley again?  Must be some pretty girl from his past.).

          “Any teacher who uses words you don’t understand is an abomination (bomb a nation?) to the teaching profession.  Their chicanery and aberrant behavior, as well as their demeaning, grotesque (goat test?)and fallacious use of their pedagogic (Is he choking?) skills, make them the opposite of a sagacious teacher.  You know … like I am for all of you.”

          Mr. B. paused to catch his breath while trying hard not to laugh.

          Eric was getting tired and bored with the word game.  It looked like his classmates were being tortured, too.  Eric hoped the speech would stop now.

          But Mr. B. kept talking.  “Why, such despicable behavior would be tantamount to a felony (fell on knee?).  So, it’s of paramount (pair of mountains?) importance that you remember that such behavior by any teacher would put them on the same plain (airplane? Where’re they going?) as a neophyte (Neal fight?  Who’s Neal?) instructor.  They could never be a pioneer (pie in ear?) at their chosen profession, only copycat (the one with nine lives?) taskmasters.

          “So always remember this.  Such an abysmal (a small bee?) teacher would basically be your nemesis.  You should eschew such teachers (chew teachers?), if possible.  If you are successful at avoiding such teachers, you will ultimately feel euphoric (you for Rick?).  A phlegmatic (automatic phlegm?) teacher is your talisman (man with a tail?), your amulet for obtaining a solid educational foundation (found a nation?).

          “Finally,” with this word said, Mr. B. heard most of the students take a deep breath and sigh with great relief.  “I wish to repudiate (pu he ate) my own oratory (oral story?  Hey!  that makes sense) and jocular palaver because I don’t want to obfuscate all of you with a long tutelage (long what?) about why I would never think of using big words in this class.  I certainly hope that I am a strong Paladin for you.  A Paladin without an Achilles heel, for the remainder of this school year.

          “So, … Eric.  Was all this enlightened information lucid for you?  If not, I can repeat it, then have a dialog with you,” Mr. B. said seriously, but laughing inside.

          Eric looked at Mr. B. the same way the entire class of students did; stunned by a shocking disbelief about whatever it was that Mr. B. was trying to tell them.

          After an uncomfortable pause, Eric said, “Understandable!  Understand-some-bull is more like it.  I’ve heard a lot of bull before, but none of it compares to that thick layer of long-winded bull that you just tossed at us. … Ah … no disrespect intended, Mr. B., but bull crap is bull crap and there’s no putting frosting on it.”

          The students laughed at Eric’s responses, then grimaced at the image of putting frosting on a bull’s “do-do.”

          Eric expected to get reprimanded for using the words bull crap, but he knew that those words would be much less offensive that using the words that are symbolized by the letters BS.

          “Hmm,” Mr. B. said, then paused and looked thoughtfully at Eric.  “Absolutely right, Eric.  I was just teasing y’all.  It was all premeditated on my part.  I was being the jocular perpetrator of a funny hoax.”

          “No!  Please!” Eric begged.  “Don’t start doing it again.  It’s time for lunch.”

          “Oh!  Darn!  Such a shame.  I guess we better get ready for lunch then.  Remember that we have a geometry review after lunch.  Well, actually, after lunch we’re going outside for a while, but when we return we will have the review lesson,” Mr. B. said, then added, with a surprised expression, “See what fun school is!  It’s just like paradise (pair of dice, Eric thought).  So, do I have your approbation or was my speech too soporific for all of you?”

          The room became cloudy with groans, grimaces.  But that changed to smiles when Mr. B. shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said, “Go to your lockers and the bathroom, if you need to, then get ready for lunch as quickly as you can.  I’m hungry from all that talking and explaining that y’all made me do-do.”

          There was whispering, then giggling, then louder laughter as everyone got into one snake-like line as they prepared to go to lunch.

          The school cafeteria seemed extra noisy today; students talking loudly, joking, shouting to friends at other tables.  I felt my ears thumping as if a hammer was banging on each of my eardrums.

          But the cafeteria monitors were understanding.  They knew that the cafeteria was an area where the students let loose, relaxed and shed their nervous stress and worries.

          Eric said, “Listen to this joke.  A man goes to his doctor and tells the doctor that he can’t stop biting his nails.  The doctor says that it’s not a serious problem and he’ll give the man something that tastes really bad to put on his fingernails.  The man says, ‘No!  No!  Doc, this is really serious.  I’m a carpenter.’  So.  How was that joke, Cheryl?  Please be sincere, even if you have to fake it, OK?”

          Cheryl shook her head, her eyes and lips showing boredom, but she said nothing.

          Robby came to the sixth grade table, and when no one started telling another joke, he said, “I’ve got a joke.”

          Cheryl looked at Robby and said, “ It’s got to be funnier that Eric’s.”

          Eric stared evilly at Cheryl, but her bored expression remained.

          Robby said, “My dad told me that I’ll get married some day and I needed to know the secret of a happy marriage—”

          Eric interrupted, saying, “Listen carefully, Cheryl.”

          Cheryl gave Eric a threatening look, but Eric laughed at her.

          Robby continued, “My dad said the secret to a happy marriage is that the husband should always listen to the voices in his wife’s head.”

          All three girls nodded their heads in agreement, then laughed at the boys.

          Cheryl said, “I’ve got a joke.  What do you call a cow with no legs?”  Pause.  “Ground beef.”

          Eric responded, “And you said my joke was bad.”

          Cheryl stated, “OK, smart arse, here’s another one.  You don’t suffer from insanity, Eric.  You actually enjoy every second of it.”

          Eric grinned sarcastically, as the laughter was directed at him.

          Maragold interrupted Cheryl and Eric, saying, “Speaking of insanity.  My mom says that insanity is hereditary.  Parents and teachers get it from their children.  I’d say my mom is crazy, but that would be supporting her theory.”

          Laughter rang up and down the cafeteria table as if some one was running their fingers up and down a piano’s keys.

          “I also read about a guy that was so skinny that he had to run around in the shower just to get wet,” Maragold stated with a big smile.

          Eric shouted, “So now you’re thinking about guys in showers, huh?  I bet—”

          The girl’s and boy’s faces turned red with obvious embarrassment, except for Eric.  He was going to say something else, but Grace leaned over his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “You’re going to embarrass everyone, so be quiet.”

          Eric thought about what she said and what he was about to say, then thought that Grace was right.  “Sorry about that,” he said to his friends.

          Maragold shrugged and said, “I guess I should have just changed the joke to say it was a skinny girl in the shower, then maybe, your dirty minds wouldn’t go crazy.

          Matt, Eric, and Robby looked at each other, then stared at the girls with huge, silly grins, but said nothing.  They were thinking of a skinny girl in the shower.

          Maragold saw their expressions and said, “You guys are worse than bad.  Now you’re being disgusting.  Get your minds out of the gutter and think about this riddle.  My dad told it to me.  OK.  Pretend that you are driving a city bus.  Fourteen people get on, then three get off.  Then eight people get on and ten people get off.  Then six more people get on as two people get off.  So, tell me, What color are the bus driver’s eyes?”

          This time everyone stared at Maragold and silently opened their mouths to form circles, as if to say, “What?”

          Matt said, “I thought we had to figure out a math problem.”

          “Me too,” the other friends said.

          Eric said, “That riddle makes no sense at all.”

          “None of you know what color the bus drivers eyes are?  Come on.  I gave you an easy clue,” Maragold teased.

          “How could we know the color of the bus driver’s eyes,” Matt asked.

          “Easy,” Maragold said, with a giggle, “I said that you should pretend that you are driving a city bus.  Since you are the bus driver, then the color of the bus driver eyes are the color of your eyes … Duh!”

          “OK,” Matt said, “I have a riddle too.  Ready?  A man leaves home running.  He runs a little ways, then turns left,  He runs a little more and turns left again.  He’s getting tired, but he runs a little ways more and turns left one more time.  He gets home out of breath and sees two masked men staring at him.  Who are those two men?”

          Eric shouted, “Oh!  I’ve heard that one before, but I won’t say anything.”

          After everyone else gives-up, Matt says, “Those two men are the catcher and the home plate umpire.  It’s a baseball game.”

          Groans, then laughter surrounded them.

          No one spoke, but slowly everyone’s head turned toward Grace.  Grace had gotten used to these humor sessions at lunch time, but she usually was in no hurry to tell a joke.  She just waited until the others were done.

          “Well, I don’t know any riddles, but I can tell you some reasons that show that computers must be male,” Grace stated with a naughty grin at the boys.

          “You never told me those before,” Eric said.

          Grace replied, “Nope.  I never did.  Was saving them for lunch time.”

          Eric responded, “Let’s hear ‘em.”

          Grace continued.  “Well, computers must be male because they think they know everything, but they’re really clueless.  And computers must be male because a better model is just around the corner, and computers must be male because they look nice and shiny until you get them home, then—”

          “Hey!  That’s not nice … but it is funny.  Go on,” Eric stated with a grin.

          “Well, another reason that computers must be male,” Grace continued, “is that even the best of them are not reliable and not secure.”

          “Oh!  Man!  You are bad and I’m loving it,” Cheryl said to Grace while Maragold patted Grace on the back to show agreement.

          “Another reason that computers must be male is that they almost never live up to the claims made for them, and in spite of all the years of evolution that they’ve gone through, they still can’t think for themselves.”

          “Oh, yeah!  You are bad!  Very, very bad!” Eric said with a surprising smile.  Then he thought, “Wow!  What a girl.  The girl of my dreams.  Yeah!”

          Other students at the table were listening, laughing at and enjoying the jokes, but it was the girls who where having the best time.  They laughed at the boys and teased them, then pointed fingers at them and laughed even harder.

          “There’s one more reason why computers must be male,” Grace stated, grinning.

          “Oh, no!  Get it over with,” Robby said with a grimace.

          “OK.  Computers must be males because they’ll do anything you say, if you push the right buttons … Duh!  I’m glad I’m not male,” Grace said as she could barely be heard over the roar of the others girls’ laughter.

          Eric whispered to Matt and Robby, “What about ‘turning us on?’  If computers are male, don’t the girls have to turn us on?”  Then Eric gave a naughty grin as he slapped the table in self satisfaction.

          But Eric didn’t whisper low enough.  His smile disappeared and was replaced with a look of surprise when he saw the girls looking at him very sternly.

          Then the three boys scowled at the three girls to show them they were not going to be intimidated.  No one said anything for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.

          Mr. B. broke the tension.  “OK, class.  Stand, empty your trays and line-up so we can go outside for a few minutes.  Do it quickly and quietly, please.”

          A few nights later, after Maragold went to bed, I flew outside the house to get some fresh air.  I felt a refreshing, cool breeze; Nature’s form of air conditioning.

          I sat on the limb of one of the huge pine trees that stand like military guards in the front lawn.  I saw the moon playing hide and seek with the clouds.

          As I stared up at the sky, I thought of Maragold.  Her face appeared very clearly in my mind.  Her eyes were so friendly, attractive, and seemed to draw friends into them like a warm, pleasing whirlpool.  Her lips were as appealing as Mandarin orange slices, and her teeth were as white as a rain-free cloud.  Her teeth looked like two strings of perfect pearls.  Her chin was well-rounded and strong, serving as a pedestal for her beautiful, smile.  Her skin was as soft as bunny fur, clean and fragrant.  I thought, some day, a lucky man will see all that and be grateful for her love.

          The air turned chilly so I went inside and slept in Mr. Shane’s and Maragold’s magic room, just as I have done for almost three years.  A pillow was my king size bed, with the pillow cover acting as the top sheet.

          As I laid on my bed, I thought about my stay in America.  I knew that I would miss everything.  It had become my second home, though, like a strong magnet, I felt an invisible force pulling me back to Ireland, my own Emerald Isle.  I must admit to being lonely for Ireland and my clan of relatives and friends.  I thought I wanted to get away from all of them, and my country, but three years has taught me that I miss my heritage, culture, traditions, friends and relatives much more than I thought I would.

          I missed Elder O’Keefe’s confident guidance and faith in me … and I missed Nurse Sandy.  I may look like a wee lad, but, in leprechaun life, I’m a young adult.  Leprechauns marry much earlier than Americans, too.  Marry?  I could hardly believe that I was thinking about marriage.  Wow!  I don’t know if I’m ready for that … yet.

          I miss my mom and dad, also, of course.  Then, out of no where, I had a rude “Eric type” of thought about my parent’s age.  I think they’re so old now that they must fart dust.  Oh, wow!  Who would have believed that I’d start thinking like Eric?

          The next day the whole sixth grade class went to Lockport, NY to learn about the Erie Canal and how important it was to the rapid development of New York State into the most prosperous state in America in the early 1800s.

          Until our buses arrived, we listened to the school announcements and worked on spelling.

          Recently Mrs. Plum had started letting students read the announcements and do the Pledge of Allegiance over the school intercom.  It was easy to tell that the chosen students were nervous by their squeaky, hesitant, and stuttering voices.

          This morning was no different and it caused a student to make a slight error, but a very funny one.

          The student, a girl, said, “Please get ready for a moment of silence and medication”—the word was supposed to be meditation.

          The students broke out into a riot of laughter, especially when the girl’s laughter rang out in every classroom because she left the microphone on.

          Mr. B. got back to the spelling lesson and heard mumblings of displeasure from some grumpy students.

          Hearing the mumblings, Mr. B. said, “People!  Spelling is very important.  You will always need to communicate your ideas to some one.  Some times you will even have to do it in handwriting or typing.  Not knowing how to spell not only gives a bad impression of you, but often causes mistakes with understanding your meaning.

          “For example,” Mr. B. said, “I taught eighth grade American History a few times when I was a substitute teacher, before I came to work here at Kroy School.

          “I remember one time when I taught part of a unit about the early American colonies.  At one point the students and I discussed William Penn and Pennsylvania … By the way, sylvan comes from the Latin language.  It means the woods or forest.  The king of England gave William Penn an incredibly huge amount of land.  It is now the state of Pennsylvania which, of course, means Penn’s woods or Penn’s forest.

          “Anyway, getting back to the early American colonies, I assigned homework to the eighth grade students.  The students had to write a two-page essay explaining what they had learned about early American colonization.  The next day the students handed in their essays.  I brought them home and read them that night.

          “A few students, even one of the best students, wrote about how the early American settlers were looking for religious freedom in William Penn’s colon.  There’s a mighty big difference in meaning between colony and colon.  I did, however, laugh a lot that night.

          Many hands shot up into the air, all of them belonging to curious students who wanted to know what a colon was.

          Mr. B. quickly said, “Put your hands down please.  Don’t ask me what a colon is.  There’s just no way to explain it without making a mistake and causing a lot of laughter and embarrassment, especially for your poor teacher.  About all I can say, without having a bunch of parents complaining about me, is that a colon is the end of your large intestine … ah … there’s a little more to it than that.  If you want to know the meaning, and I can tell by all the laughing that many of you already know, then use a dictionary to find out.

          “I can’t say any more about that.  Anyway that example shows how misspelled words can change the entire meaning of your written communication.”

          Cheryl’s hand shot into the air.

          “Yes, Cheryl,” Mr. B. responded.

          “Mr. B., most of the time, maybe ninety per cent of the time, anyone can figure out what the misspelled word is without any problems.  Only ten per cent of the time will it be a problem.  So why do we always need the exact spelling?”

          “I don’t know if your ninety and ten percent figures are correct, Cheryl.  But let’s say they are, just so we can proceed.  It would be that ten per cent that can cause unfortunate, embarrassing, and sometimes even tragic communication problems, especially when sensitive and important information is being written.  Also, it’s our American language.  Why not be proud of it.  Spell your language correctly.  Many people, especially employers, won’t hire someone who can’t even spell basic words correctly.  It makes you look as if you are poorly educated.  Imagine that you’re in town”—Eric translated ‘you’re in town’ as ‘Urinetown,’ then asked himself, ‘Where’s that?  I wouldn’t take a job there, anyway.’—for an important interview, but before the interview, you have to fill-out a questionnaire and answer some questions.  Poor spelling is one of the things that may prevent you from getting that job.

          “Well, I see that we aren’t going to get a spelling lesson done because of this discussion.  Curiosity’s a good thing.”

          Then Mr. B. turned around and printed on the chalkboard.  He wrote:

                             Huked  on  Fonix  reely  wurkt  fer  mee.

          “Raise your hand if you can read this,”  Mr. B. said.

          A couple of hands rose very slowly, then more and more hands raised, but there were some confused expressions also.

          “If you had to write an essay about helping a company sell phonics materials and supplies, do you think you’d get hired if you actually wrote like that?” Mr. B. asked, with a satisfied smile.  He could tell by the student’s expressions that they understood.  “I’m glad that you can see my point,” he added.

          Then Mr. B. went to his file cabinet and took out a bunch of papers.  He passed them out quickly and said, “Please read what’s on this paper.  It’s funny how your mind really works, but I’m still sure that you would not be hired if you wrote like this.”

          The papers all said the same thing, which was:

          “It deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny

          iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

          The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a

          porbelm.  Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey

          lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.  Amzanig, huh?  Yaeh

          and teahcres awlyas tnihk slpeling is so ipmorantt.”

          As the sixth grades approached Lockport in their school buses, one of Mr. B.’s students saw a police officer and said, “When I grow up I want to be a cop.”

          I thought “cop” was a strange word and mentally asked Maragold what it meant.  She thought, “A cop is another name for a police officer, a uniformed person who makes sure that people obey the laws.”

          “But why is a police officer called a cop?  Isn’t that a nonsense word?  I never heard it before,” I said to Maragold.

          “I don’t know how police officers got that name.  I’ll ask Mr. B.,” Maragold thought so that no one would think she was talking to herself.

          Mr. B. was sitting in the back of the bus where he could watch all the students.  Maragold and her friends were sitting toward the back of the bus, also, so she turned around and got Mr. B’s attention.

          “Mr. B., a police officer is sometimes called a cop.  Why?” Maragold asked.

          Mr. B. smiled.  He knew the answer; a bit of trivia that he’d read some where.

          “Well, Mara,” he said, “when cities were first starting to build a police force, the first thing they gave the police officers was a badge, not a uniform.  Those badges were made of copper so they wouldn’t rust.  So then people started calling the police officers, copper.  Then the name got shortened to cop, and that’s why a police officer is still sometimes called a copper, or a cop.”

          The buses arrived at the canal and the tour began.  The sixth graders listened to the tour guides who gave them a lot of very interesting information, including the facts that Lockport, NY was a very important town when the Erie Canal was built not only for it’s transportation of people west, but also for the transportation of goods and the businesses that sold those goods.  The canal is still being used today, but to a much lesser degree, as it helps transport pleasure boats to Lake Erie.

          The part of the tour that the students liked the best was being on a boat, inside the “lock,” then seeing and feeling thousands of gallons of water flood the lock and lift the entire boat smoothly upward so that it could again continue on it’s journey toward Buffalo, NY and Lake Erie.

          That night I thought about my mother because the next day was Mother’s Day, in America.  I thought about what a wonderful, devoted and loving mother I had.  I thought about all our good memories as a family.  Dad was a very loving and caring leprechaun, too.  They both gave me the most wonderful memories of a fascinating and happy childhood.

          I know now that happy memories are too important to erase.  Maragold and Matt were absolutely right to be angry with my suggestion to erase memories.  There was no doubt about that now.  And even if I wanted to erase their memories, I could not do it without their consent.

          Then my thoughts switched to my coming to America.  I thought it was my secret to take an adventure and come to America, but I found out that they knew about my desire to leave Ireland.  They knew about the “Shane-Shaheen,” historical connection.  They knew about Elder O’Keefe’s plans for me.  They had had long discussions with Elder O’Keefe that I was not aware of.  They used my desire to go to America to guide me to Maragold.  They knew that doing this would force me to mature quickly, to use reason, to think of others’ welfare, and to increase my leadership skills.  And I was not aware of any of this until the beginning of this third year with Maragold.

          Mom, Dad and Elder O’Keefe knew, also, that I may not have permanently returned to Ireland.  That final decision was mine to make, but they all loved me enough to let me go.  I took all those memories of my happy life with me.  All those memories … comforting memories.  Memories of friends, relatives, Nurse Sandy … memories. Memories that I would hate to lose, that were part of me; part of my happiness.  Memories of experiences and relationships that have made me who I am and will influence who I will become in the future.  I would hate to lose my precious memories, and I was very wrong to think that I should erase memories of me from Maragold and Matt.

          I asked myself, “What if Elder O’Keefe wanted to erase my memories of Maragold, Matt, Cheryl, Eric, Grace, Robby, Mr. B., the students, Kroy School, Nova School, and America?  What if he suggested that he erase all those memories so they  would not interfere with my leadership duties in Ireland, when the time came?”  That thought saddened me very much.  Then I thought, “Would I be happy if my memories of Elder O’Keefe or Nurse Sandy were erased?”

          Would I protest memory erasing suggestions?  Certainly, I would!  I’d protest vigorously, perhaps harshly … like Maragold did.  So, then, why would I even consider erasing Maragold’s and Matt’s memories of me if they protested the same way that I would protest?  I shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t.  Problem solved!  Decision made!

          That night I had the most peaceful, happy night’s sleep that I had had in months.  I woke up refreshed, energetic, relaxed, and happy.  It was as if a friendly giant had removed a mountain from my shoulders.

          Mother’s Day was special in America.  It wasn’t even a special day in Leprechaunia, but it should be, and it will be, as soon as I became president.  I’ll also do the same for Father’s Day.  I sent my wonderful mom a card and flowers, of course, but I also included, in the card, a long letter telling her how much I love her,  I told her how much she means to me, how I appreciate all the effort and love she gave me when I was growing up.  I told her I had a very happy childhood because of her love and devotion to me, because she encouraged me to be curious, to learn as much as I could, and to share it with others, for their benefit, not mine.  She made a happy home for me and I thanked her.

          Maragold gave her mom a wonderfully sentimental card, plus a loving letter.  She also cooked a simple dinner for her family, cleaned up after dinner and washed the dishes so that Mrs. Shane could relax.  Mrs. Shane was very pleased with Mara’s thoughtfulness because, to her, thoughtfulness was one way to show deep love for someone.

          The following week was awful for the students.  They had to take New York State achievement tests and the usual classroom tests as well.

          Stress and bad moods gathered in the classroom like dark clouds before a storm.

          Mr. B. encouraged each student to do their best.  He even tried a joke that did not have it usual happy effect.  He asked, “What do you get when you cross a teacher with a vampire?”  Pause.  No responses.  “You get a lot of blood tests.”  He saw all the bored looks on disinterested faces.  Mr. B. felt bad for his students, but the testing was necessary.

          He prepared the students for the testing by checking to see if they had the correct tests, with their name on it, and had all the supplies that they would need.  He repeated that they should try hard to do their best even though they disliked being tested.  He went over the directions with the students, then told them that he would be walking around the classroom during the testing so he could quickly answer any questions that they may have, and to give them cheerful encouragement.

          Basically, he already knew that his whole class would pass to the seventh grade because no one was having great difficulty with any subject.  It had been an ideal class for him.  That was unusual, and he was extremely grateful.

          The only thing that was on his mind—by now I could read his mind easily—was that he feared that an unusually bad performance, especially on a state achievement test, by a slightly low-average student, may make someone higher in authority than himself, question the wisdom of promoting such a student.  It was not a likely occurrence, but he knew that it had happened before.

          It appeared to Mr. B., however, that all the students did well enough, in his classroom, to be sent to seventh grade.  It made him feel happy because his fourth grade class, two years ago, and his current sixth grade—which had many of the same students—were two of the best, most fun classes that he’d ever had.

          When the students were about to take the essay part of their test, Mr. B. stopped and gave them a bathroom break.  They also needed to get a drink and to stretch their cramped muscles from sitting for so long.

          When the students were ready for the essay portion of the test, Mr. B. became very serious.  With genuine concern in his voice he said, “Listen to me.  I have faith in all of you.  I’ve been your teacher all year and I know you can write a passing essay … all of you.  I want all of you to think of yourselves as artists; skilled painters.  Words are your colors; paper is your canvas.  You are the brush.  You are the painter of words.  Start painting.”

          One morning, during the last week of May, I woke early and flew outside to wait as Maragold was getting ready for school.  I breathed the fresh, cool air as I watched the sun rise like a fiery balloon waking from its eastern morning bed and beginning it’s long, arching journey across the clear sky until it tired and fell into its western, night time bed, below the horizon.

          But the cool morning turned into a hot day.  The classroom was like an oven baking the students.  Mr. B. decided to start taking his students outside, after lunch, for extended periods of time.  When their afternoon, academic work was completed, he would also take them out for shorter periods of time just before school ended.  He had time to do that because he had stopped giving homework.

          His students were extremely grateful for the increased, outdoor playtime.  They enjoyed themselves, like all kids do when they played in the sunshine, and it showed.  The students got hot, sweaty and tired, but enjoyed every second of it.  Their skin turned red as the sun spread its marks on their faces, arms and legs.  They were getting a taste of summer vacation and they did not want to return to their classroom.

          Some days Mr. B. played Frisbee with some of his students.  He had six Frisbees that he would launch to his group of students, one after the other.  His students would chase them all over the playground.  On other days Mr. B. played football with students until he got too hot and sweaty, and tired and thirsty.  Then he would take a break from playing and sit under the huge oak tree where there was a green painted bench in the shade.  That’s when Mr. B. would comically say to his sweaty students: “Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.”

          Mr. B. sat there, to rest and think.  He was thinking that there was less than four weeks of school left before the summer break.  He was proud knowing how far his students had come, what their accomplishments were and how they’d matured.  He watched them running, playing, laughing, jumping and felt excited for them.  They were cheerful, excited, full of energy and spirit, and he smiled wishing that he had one-tenth of the energy that they were displaying.

          Every day wasn’t a sunny day, however, and a couple of days later the dark clouds moved in slowly and took everyone by surprise.  The weather reports were all positive: sunny and clear, or sunny, partially cloudy with little chance of rain.  But by midmorning the dark clouds, like bandits, placed a black mask over the sky and the rain came at first like a mist, then changed to droplets.  Then the sky opened and it poured so hard that the watery curtain distorted visibility.  It rained so hard and fast that the playground, especially the ruts under the swings, the driveway and the tennis courts all flooded, looking like rippling miniature ponds.

          The students knew they would not be going outside and they were disappointed.  Their moods reflected that disappointment.  Their cheerfulness dropped as quickly as the rain had dropped.

          Mr. B. attempted to cheer them up by telling them that weather persons were basically highly qualified guessers who will know, tomorrow, why the things they predicted, yesterday, did not happen today.  But that was too much for the students to think about, so the joke fell flat.  Even the Maragold gang didn’t care about it.

          On bad weather days, when Mr. B. could not take his class outside, he gave them a break in the classroom, after lunch.  He did that today, but still the students were not as cheerful as they would have been if they could have gotten outside.  Some people, including Mr. B., needed sunshine to keep them cheerful.  Some had SAD - Seasonal Affected Disorder—and living near Rochester, close to the Great Lakes was a problem.  The Great Lakes area, due to the very large bodies of water, produced a lot of clouds and rainy weather, thus blocking out the sun more often than places farther from the huge lakes.

          When the after-lunch recess was over, Mr. B. decided to tell jokes.  He pretended that he hurt his arm and said that his arm felt like “pins and noodles” were jabbing it—mild laughter.

          Then he asked, “If athletes get athlete’s feet, do astronauts get missile-toe?”—groans.

          He asked, “Is saltwater taffy a seafood?”—confused looks.

          “Trust me,” he said, “When you grow up, don’t ever go out on a blind date.  It’s usually awful!  I’d rather go on a date with a perfect stranger than go on a blind date.”—more groans, some giggles.

          Mr. B. saw that many of the students were too young to really know what a “blind date,” was.  They took it literally; a date with a blind person.

          Mr. B. said, teasing everyone, “What?  Quit looking at me as if I were crazy!  I don’t need to go to a head doctor.  Besides, anybody who goes to visit a psychologist, needs to have their head examined,”—a few bug-eyed giggles.

          “Adults,” he continued, even though his jokes were not doing well, “are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up.  Is that because those adults think the kids are smarter than they are and those adults are searching for ideas?”  Loud laughter.  Mr. B. thought, “Ah, I finally hit a funny spot.”

          “Now look at me.  I’m a really smart and friendly adult.  I was so smart and friendly in school that one teacher stayed in my class for three years.”  Mild laughter occurred.  Mr. B.’s smile grew.  He thought he was improving and didn’t want to stop.  He always thought that the sound of children laughing was one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.

          “Hey!  I’m serious now.  If you don’t pass sixth grade, you’ll be risking certain failure!”  Oops.  Back to the groans.

          “Oh!  Oh!  Listen.  I’ve got a really good one for you.  Did you know that the very best sign that there is intelligent life, you know, smart aliens, in the universe is that they have not tried to contact us?  Whoopee!  Funny, huh?” Mr. B. yelled and jumped with excitement.

          The joke was just average, but the students laughed loudly because Mr. B. started jumping up and down like he was a kid, then twisted his face into goofy expressions.

          Then Mr. B. said, “So.  Who can tell me what they want to be when they grow up?  Anybody?”

          James shot his hand up quickly.  His father owned a fish market which imported and sold many kinds of fish.

          “OK, James.  Go ahead,” Mr. B. said.

          “When I grow up I’m going to sell fish?” James blurted happily.

          The two words sell fish struck Mr. B.’s funny bone, so he replied, “When you grown up you are going to be selfish?  Why do you want to be selfish, James?”

          “Gee!  I didn’t say I wanted to be selfish.  I said I want to sell fish.  Understand?” James replied.

          “No.  Won’t you lose a lot of customers if you are selfish?” Mr. B. asked, trying hard not to laugh.

          “I’m not going to be selfish when I sell fish.  I’m just trying to tell you that I

want to sell fish,” James stated.

          “Oh!  Sure.  In your fish store, you also want to sell fish, even shell fish, right?  Is that what you’re saying?”

          The students started laughing.  They didn’t know that Mr. B. was teasing James because Mr. B. wasn’t even smiling.

          “Geez! Mr. B., “you’re getting things all mixed up.  I didn’t say anything about being selfish or selling shell fish.  I just want to help my dad sell fish.”

          “Oh, no!  You want to be selfish, just like your dad?  That’s not a good idea.  You’ll lose all your customers and go out of business,” Mr. B. said.

          “Oh.  man!  This conversation is so mixed up, it stinks,” James said in frustration.

          “Stinks!  Is that what you meant?  You want to smell fish when you grow up?  Your job would be to smell the fish to see which ones are good and which ones are spoiled?  Now I get it, James.  You’re right.  That’s certainly not selfish when you are helping your dad smell fish so he can sell fish and shell fish.  Wow!  That’s great, James.  Maybe when you grow up you should sell fish.  Think about it.”

          James grabbed his head and shook it back and forth as if he was going crazy.

          Then Mr. B. and the entire class of students went crazy with laughter.

          Then Eric spoke. “Mr. B. you are good with words.  I know you.  You just twist words into pretzels to get people confused.  You are the most confusing, most frustrating teacher I ever met.  You … you’re a … Ah, no comment!”

          All the students, including James, laughed in a chorus of rhythmic laughter.

          The remainder of the day passed with shortened versions of the regular lessons.  In some cases it was mostly review lessons.  It was a good day for the students.  It ended pleasantly.  No embarrassment, no hurt feelings and a thick layer of happiness.

          Mr. B. wished it could always be like that.  He felt lucky today.

          Over the long Memorial Day weekend, the month of May would change to June.

          Summer vacation was quickly approaching.  Mr. B. was happy for his students … and for himself.  Most teachers looked forward to and needed the summer break to rest and recharge their academic batteries so they could return to school, in September rested, relaxed, motivated and optimistic.

                                      BERT’S  QUESTIONS

          If crime doesn’t pay, does that mean that teachers are criminals?

          If God sneezed, what would you say to Her?