Below are the responses to the Sage Challenge for April 2025.
Previous Challenge results were published in individual issues of the SouthWest Sage. Links to those issues (February 2023 to the present) are on the Sage News page. SWW Members have full access to the Newsletter Archives that begin in 2004. Go to the Sage Challenge page for details about the current Challenge open to SWW members.
THE APRIL SAGE WRITING CHALLENGE:
What Happened in Grade School…
The stories below feature up to 1000 words about something that happened during a SWW member’s primary school years. Fiction, non-fiction or poetry, this is a period in life rife with discovery, bad or good social interactions, interesting teachers and educational elements that may have changed over the years.
The stories and poems below are by SWW members:
- Gold Tip Gum by Carolyn Hardisty Ruiz
- School Days by Rachel Bate
- Spheres of Influence by Irene I. Blea, PhD
- The Pen Is Mightier Than The … by Mark Fleisher
- Everything I Really Needed to Know, I Learned in 3rd Grade (Sort of) By Dita Dow
- Halloween by Molly Houston
- Miss Gulley by Ed Johnson
- A Gift of Vision by Rose Marie Kern
- Lessons in and out of Elementary School by Eva Newman
Gold Tip Gum
by Carolyn Hardisty Ruiz
“No hay mal de que el bien no venga” Juan Ruiz de Alarcon (’There is no ill from which good does not come’)
A most important day was close at hand and I anticipated it with trepidation. We had made our Valentine ‘bags’ of white paper plates and red yarn a week ago and Mrs. Haynes said we could now bring valentines to put in friends’ ‘bags’. It was 1948, I was 10 years old, in the 5th grade and I was unprepared.
Those were days when one only bought valentines for one’s special friends. If you didn’t like someone or know someone very well you didn’t give them a valentine. It was a special event because we would have a small party and also we could tell who were the most ‘popular’ students in the room. They would be the ones that received the most valentines. I didn’t get the most or the least, but I secretly hoped to get the most one day, which would mean I was ‘popular’.
I had yet to buy any but I had mentioned to Mama a couple of times that I needed to get a few valentines for school. She’d responded with her usual, ‘We’ll see, maybe tomorrow.” And now tomorrow was the next day! I approached her while she was still lying on her bed with her feet propped up on the footboard, “Mama, tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day and I still don’t have any. Can we go to the store now?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. I’m really very tired but I think I can find a quarter and you can go to Woolworth by yourself can’t you?” The eight months preceding this day in 1948 had been the saddest and most difficult days in the life of our family so it’s not a surprise that important days slipped by my mother.
I clutched the quarter in my fist and set out on the dirt road toward Main Street where Woolworth was located. It was not a huge deal for me to walk this mile. Almost every Saturday I walked from our house to Main Street to go to the matinee. Until I was in Junior High Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were my idols and if their movies weren’t playing almost any other cowboy movie would do. This was the rural Southwest, New Mexico in the late 40’s before TV was a thought in almost anyone’s head.
Happy and relieved I entered the store hoping to find some good valentines and have enough money to buy them for my special friends. I was stunned when the clerk told me there were none left. She saw the look of horror on my face and said, “Well, we have some over here you might like.” The valentines were more for adults and a little bit suggestive, Betty Boop style but I was happy to get any! I bought a quarters’ worth and walked back home.
When I showed them to Mama she suddenly became energized. She got over her tiredness and we marched back to Woolworth, found the clerk and Mama let her know she thought it was inappropriate to sell adult items to young children and she was returning them. I was at a standstill. “Now what can we do? There’s no valentines for tomorrow,” I said, tears welling in my eyes.
“Well, maybe you can make some,” Mama suggested. “With what?” I asked. “Maybe you can get some red and white construction paper and lace doilies and make your own.”
“Okay,” I whimpered. Homemade valentines! What an embarrassment! Nobody, but Nobody gave out homemade valentines. We went to look at the construction paper and alas! There was no red paper nor any doilies left! I was devastated. I was just coming around to the idea of homemade valentines and now-no red paper or doilies!
“It looks like other people had the same idea,” said the clerk. The only colors left were dark gloomy blacks, browns, blues & greens and a few sheets of lighter colors.
“Oh, no!” I cried, “the only things left won’t work!”
Mama tried to placate me, “Well there’s pink and gold, those are pretty colors.”
“No, no! Those aren’t valentine colors and all the kids will know I made them. They’ll laugh at me! I wailed. It was the end of my world.
Mama was about done in when the clerk said, trying to be helpful and hoping I wouldn’t start bawling, “This gold is like the gold in Gold Tip Gum and here’s a nice pink that makes the gold show up more.”
Gold Tip Gum! Now I had an idea! “Mama, Mama can we get some Gold Tip Gum and I can make pink valentines with gold pockets and put a piece of Gold Tip Gum in them. I know my friends would like that.” Gold Tip was a very popular item among fifth graders. Ten small sticks of individually wrapped gum in a gold and dull red box-all that for 5 cents!
“Well, I guess. But you’ll have to get enough gum for everyone in your class because if you are going to give gum or food or something to drink to one person in your room you have to give to everyone. That’s the rule,” Mama said.
“A quarter will get three packs. That will be enough for everyone, right?.” I asked hopefully.
Mama purchased the evening cutting out big pink hearts and pasting little gold hearts on them, making a pocket. I inserted a stick of Gold Tip Gum in 23 valentines.
Next day when the teacher passed out the ‘bags’ to the students there were happy ohs and ahs in the classroom. I was happy, too, and with so much positive attention l felt like I was the most popular person in class that day!
****************
School Days
by Rachel Bate
Folded hands Feet flat on the floor Eyes simply fixated On the playground Yearning so much To scurry out the door Pigtails hanging Easy to pull Secret Doodles on my notepad Hocus Pocus All Eyes Focus It was not an easy task For a hyper little bugger Trying so hard to sit still Not really listening to the Teacher’s repeated drill Daydreaming and waiting For the recess bell to ring FINALLY OUTSIDE! I sprinted to the swing Flying Gliding So high in the sky Free as a bird! RING! RING! Line back up Oh, heavy sigh Then it was time To go back Inside *************
Spheres of Influence
Irene I. Blea, PhD
On an early summer day in the 1950s my family moved from northern New Mexico to southern Colorado. I was six years old and only spoke the language of my ancestors, Spanish. In September I began kindergarten with very little English skill, was a bit fearful, shy, and not very sure what I was supposed to do in school. In fact, I wished not to be seen or heard.
One day, the teacher gave us some foul-smelling gray stuff that felt like dough. My mother frequently gave me small orbs of masa and allowed me to make a tortilla which she would bake and allow me to eat with my meal.
I took the teachers dough-like matter in my petite hands, put it gingerly in my palm, and watched other children, with better English-speaking skill, make little balls about the size my mother gave us. I made three perfect masa orbs, then noticed the students made their spheres of different sizes. I looked at the teacher’s gray globes. They also differed in proportions. I took two of mine, changed their size, made them smooth, and wondered why we would bake three different sized gray tortillas with an abnormal smell.
The teacher positioned her large ball on the bottom and the medium-sized ball on top of the first. This was not the way to make tortillas. Nevertheless, I followed her lead and topped the second ball with the smaller ball. She then placed tiny bits of round gray masa on the smallest ball. I thought this was strange but heard a student say the word snowman. I translated the word into Spanish: hombre, nievé.
I watched what other students did as they talked loudly, moved around on their chairs, and laughed. I examined the teacher as she moved among the students, then return to the front of the room to complete her project. I studied what she did. She placed a hat on the smallest round clump.
Ah! I understood what she and my classmates were constructing. She fashioned a fat, gray masa-men! I looked around the room for a stove or an oven. There were none.
Although I came from a region with snowy winters, I did not know about hombres de nievé, snowmen. I don’t know why but I fashioned a hat with a flower on it, a lady snowperson wearing a broad-brimmed hat and toting a handbag.
The teacher moved about the room again and stopped where I sat. I kept my eyes on the table. She lifted my snow lady and walked away with it. I cringed. At the front of the room her eyes widened and then dropped.
I was going to cry. I was in trouble…
“Look!” she said to the class. “Look, class. See what Irene made.”
The room went quiet as the students gave her their attention. Then she smiled broadly. She was about to laugh at my lady. My nose broadened and my face navigated toward pouting.
The students reacted with smiles. Just as I was about to dart out of the room in fear of being chastised, laughed at, and punished, the teacher consigned my snow lady to the most sacred space in the room: the top of the piano.
I heard oohs and ahhs from the children. They smiled and I interpreted their smiles to mean good. I was timidly proud and remained in class, where my snow lady was on display. There it remained for the remainder of the day, when I got to take it home.
From that day forward, I enjoyed school, enjoyed the students, valued my teachers, and regretted when instruction ended at the end of the academic year. The incident taught me that school and learning were good things in which to engage, that teachers and students make a difference, and that some things are done not being sure how to do them, but that if I hung in there something good could happen.
The Pen Is Mightier Than The …
by Mark Fleisher
Miss O’Hora. My fourth-grade teacher at Public School 135 in Brooklyn, New York, circa 1954, Mary Brigid O’Hora to be exact. Her given names were that of revered saints though there was nothing about her to warrant beatification. I can imagine without fear of contradiction Miss O’Hora’s demeanor had she taken vows and become a teaching nun. She would have wielded a ruler, perhaps a yardstick, to inflict punishment on the ankles, knuckles or knees of students whom she thought miscreants. I cannot guess what Order she might have joined. Certainly not Sisters of Mercy.
She and I clashed early in the school year. My classmates and I were given a homework assignment to write an essay whose topic I do not recall. I suspect, however, we were to wax eloquent upon the time-honored “what we did on my summer vacation.”
Easy, I thought. A grade of 100 percent for sure. I lived three blocks from P.S. 135 so every summer day I would saunter down to the schoolyard with my buddies. Stickball, softball and basketball games often left us exhausted. Family adventures sent my parents, my brother Fred and I up the Hudson River visiting West Point and Bear Mountain State Park. My dad’s fried chicken and salmon croquettes provided nourishment. Ebbets Field, home of my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, was another destination. We brought the salmon croquettes, carefully placed within Arnold hamburger buns and wrapped in aluminum foil. Watching the Dodgers that summer was excruciating. They failed to secure the National League championship and we had to endure the hated New York Giants destroying the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) in the World Series.
Now let us return to Mary Brigid O’Hora and yours truly. I turned in my essay on the appointed day, fully expecting to receive a stellar grade. What could go wrong? I checked and double checked my spelling, my grammar and verb tenses.
Miss O’Hora spent two days grading our papers. “Most of you did a good job,” she announced to the class. Surely, I was among those who merited her praise. She began calling out student’s names and returned their essays to them. “Eric, Toni, Bruce, Eugenia…” It seemed she was saving me for last to heap praise upon me for writing the very best paper.
Finally, she called my name. Her Irish eyes were not smiling as she handed me the paper. My Polish-Russian eyes also were not smiling as I saw the grade. A circle…a zero…a goose egg. In the right-hand corner, she had written “you used a pencil to write your essay. I instructed everyone to use a pen. that is why you received a zero.”
Flabbergasted. Dumbfounded. Embarrassed. Did I mention damn mad?
“Miss O’Hora,” I blurted as I rose to my feet. “I did not use a pencil. I used a fountain pen. Black ink, not a pencil.” She did not budge. This woman, this teacher intent on ruining my life insisted a pencil was used.
Before I could further press my case, the bell rang. Three o’clock, the end of the school day. I gathered my belongings, gave O’Hora my version of the evil eye and walked home.
Dad saw the look on my face. It didn’t take long to figure out something had gone bad at school. “Okay,” he said. “What’s going on? You get in trouble?”
I recapped the day’s events and I could see the anger rising in my dad. He was normally a pretty mellow guy. Not this time. Dad had been working the four to midnight shift at the Grand Central Post Office in Manhattan. “I’m off tonight and tomorrow night and tomorrow morning I’m going to school with you,” he said. “We’ll get this straightened out.”
Dad walked over to a mahogany desk in our living room. He retrieved a Waterman fountain pen, a green and black marble model. It was the pen I used to write the essay. I knew it. My father knew it. And tomorrow morning Miss Mary Brigid O’Hara would know it.
I slept well that night. Dad and I would triumph in the morning. No question about it.
Dad and I walked to P.S. 135 the next day. I veered off and went to my classroom. My father went to the office, explained his mission and the principal himself escorted Dad to Room 212.
Edward Fleisher might have been a postal clerk. But that day you might have mistaken him for Clarence Darrow or Perry Mason. The school principal explained to Miss O’Hora why my father came to school. She looked ashen.
“I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your students,” Dad said softly. “I’m told there’s a small conference room down the hall we can use.” The principal stayed in the classroom and a school clerk joined Dad and Miss O’Hora.
“Miss O’Hora, you gave my son Mark a zero on his essay. You insisted he had written it with a pencil. Mark told you he did indeed use a pen.” At that point, Dad reached into his inside jacket pocket and produced the Waterman pen.
“I assure you this Waterman pen was used by my son to write his essay. He worked on that paper last Sunday. Mark sat at the kitchen table. I was in the room for virtually the whole time. Unless you can prove otherwise, I think you owe my son an apology. You also need to grade his paper fairly. I’ll be going now. Thank you for your time.”
Miss O’Hora spoke not a word to me that day or the next. I had given her the essay and she returned it with a grade of 98, deducting two points for a misspelled word. More importantly, from that day forward, Mary Brigid O’Hora knew not to mess with the father and son team of Edward and Mark Fleisher.
Everything I Really Needed to Know, I Learned in 3rd Grade (Sort of)
By Dita Dow
When you’re eight years old, you think you know a lot. I mean, I could tie my own shoes, write in cursive (sort of), and tell the difference between “their” and “there” at least 40% of the time. But truth be told, the real learning kicked in during third grade—somewhere between the smell of pencil shavings and the existential dread of air raid drills.
It all started with Mrs. Beckett.
Mrs. Beckett was the kind of teacher who wore sensible shoes and smelled like chalk and butterscotch—a sweet older lady with a voice as soft as mashed potatoes, unless you were caught passing notes. Then you got the death stare.
She was determined that we—her wide-eyed, shaggy-haired, bell-bottomed flock—would learn our multiplication tables. Not just the 1s through 5s like the slackers over in Room 8. No. We were going all the way to 12.
And what was the prize for this mathematical mountain climb? The prize closet.
Now, most days we had to settle for the tiny trinkets: scratch-n-sniff stickers, plastic dinosaurs, mini puzzles with missing pieces. But if—if—you made it through all the times tables, you were allowed to pick a BIG prize. And there it was, on the top shelf, practically glowing under the flickering fluorescent lights: a Kewpie doll lookalike.
Have you ever seen one of those dolls? A creepy little plastic cherub with a tiny swirl of molded hair and a face that hovers somewhere between angelic and possessed—but also strangely lovable. It resembles something you might find on a haunted shelf in an antique store—but back then? I needed her. I wanted her.
So I studied. I chanted. I wrote “7 x 8 = 56” in the margins of every notebook. I drilled myself during bubble baths and while brushing my teeth.
And then, one glorious day, I recited them all—flawless and fast—and earned my moment.
Mrs. Beckett handed me the key to the prize closet, and I retrieved my plastic glory. I named her Stacy and placed her on my desk like a trophy, where she silently judged my classmates with her fixed plastic grin.
And then came the air raid drill.
For the uninitiated, this meant the school’s loudspeaker would blare like a dying goose, and we had to run—run—to the front of the classroom and duck down, heads tucked against the wall, butts sticking up like we were trying to moon the apocalypse.
This was supposed to save us from some invisible bomb, but even at eight, I was skeptical. I remember thinking, “If a bomb hits, my skinny butt in the air isn’t saving anyone.”
Anyway, during one such drill, poor Stacy was knocked off my desk in the chaos. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard the sound of plastic hitting the linoleum—and then the horror—her head popped off.
In my despair, I actually remember thinking, “Honestly, just let the bomb take me.”
But in a twist of fate (and surprisingly solid 1970s toy construction), her head popped right back on. Crisis averted.
Thank you, Mrs. Beckett, for teaching me the first important lesson of third grade: When life knocks your head off, just pop it back on and keep going.
Lesson two came during snack time.
Every Friday, we were allowed to bring change to school and visit the sacred snack bar—a wheeled cart of salty and sugary salvation. That day, I proudly ordered my usual: a bag of popcorn and a cherry sucker. I reached into my pocket, and—nothing. I was short.
I looked behind me at my best friend, hoping for mercy.
She looked back at me like I’d just asked her to give up her puppy, her allowance, and her last piece of gum.
Let me tell you, nothing prepares you for adulthood like the moment you realize your best friend won’t spot you a quarter for a snack.
Lesson two: Always double-check your pockets—and never assume anyone’s covering your popcorn tab.
Now, lesson three… Oh, I definitely remember it.
Did you also think purple Ditto ink smelled heavenly? Every worksheet we got was freshly run through the Ditto machine, its violet letters still warm and just a little damp. And every time I lifted the page to my face to breathe in that weirdly magical scent? A little piece of my future SAT score disappeared.
Lesson three: The purple ink on Ditto copies may have been the gateway to learning, but I’m convinced it also explains at least a few of my missing brain cells.
But in all seriousness (or at least medium seriousness), third grade taught me more than math and disaster survival positions.
It taught me resilience. It taught me reward takes work. It taught me you can feel grief over a plastic doll’s decapitation and still bounce back strong. It taught me betrayal at the snack cart is real, and sometimes, you just have to eat your emotions (or lick them in the form of a shared sucker… don’t judge).
When grown-up me looks back, I realize we don’t always remember what we learned—but we remember how it felt.
And if I can survive doll decapitation, Cold War anxiety, popcorn poverty, and recreational Ditto ink inhalation?
Then I can survive anything.
Thanks, Mrs. Beckett.
HALLOWEEN
By Molly Houston
It was nearly Halloween. As a fifth grader, I was determined to have the best costume in my room at school. Back in the day the store-bought costumes were pretty cheap-looking, so most of us made up our own. My mother and I discussed how I could dress up, and I decided I really wanted to be a sandman. That’s about the time “Mr. Sandman” was a popular song, so that probably influenced my decision.
Trying to decide how to come up with an appropriate costume was the next hurdle. Looking around, I thought my new navy knit pajamas with cuffs at the wrists and ankles would do. A big red handkerchief tied around my head sort of like a pirate would add something to the costume. Then I found a sturdy tan cloth bag in a closet to carry the sand in. My mother tried to convince me I should just fill it with wadded up paper, or something comparable instead of sand, but I wouldn’t have it. We had plenty of sand in our yard, so why not just use that? I went out and put about a half-gallon of sand in the bag, so it would look pretty full.
Halloween would be celebrated on Wednesday at school that year even though Halloween was on the weekend. On Thursday and Friday we were off from school because the state teachers’ convention was held in Albuquerque. A couple of my dad’s distant relatives were coming to stay with us as they were teachers in Clayton, New Mexico. They had two girls around my age and came every year. It was always fun to play with them.
The big day came. I usually rode my bicycle to school as it was about a mile from our house to the school. But there was a problem. I couldn’t carry the sand bag on my bicycle. It would make my bicycle out of balance, and it would be difficult to stay upright. So I had to walk, and luckily, it was good weather. Everything went well, until the sand kept getting heavier and heavier. Do you know how heavy dry sand is? It’s about twice the weight of water, so that’s pretty heavy. The more I walked, the heavier the sand seemed, and the harder it was to walk that mile. I finally made it, worn out and sweaty. I figured I could dump the sand somewhere on the school ground after everything was over.
When I walked into the classroom, my teacher Miss Luke looked at me askance, that told me pretty much what she was thinking. My sandbag was securely tied, so I carefully set it down next to my desk. School went along as usual, except for the excitement in the air for Halloween, our costumes, and the upcoming vacation from school.
After lunch we paraded around wearing our costumes. We just walked around in the school building to see everyone else and their costumes. There wasn’t a contest, but we had fun looking at everyone’s dress, especially our friends. Everything was going well, but the sand was still heavy.
The final bell rang, and my, “cousin,” Linda came bounding into my classroom while I was gathering my things. I was happy to see her, especially because she came in a car with some of the family, and that meant I wouldn’t have to walk home. She told me to hurry up because our mothers were waiting.
Just as I picked up my bag, the tie came undone, and sand spilled all over the floor! I was horrified, and embarrassed in front of Linda, and Miss Luke. All the other kids had run out as soon as the bell rang, so none of them saw my mortifying situation, luckily. Just Linda and I were left.
Miss Luke was quick to bring me a trash can, a broom, and a dustpan. So I probably spent about five minutes trying to sweep up the sand, but it seemed like an hour. I tried as well as I could, which probably didn’t do too great of a job.
I finally got to leave with Linda, and she couldn’t help but blab to our mothers as soon as we got in the car. Mine couldn’t help but laugh, as I’m sure she had thoroughly expected it.
That was one of my first lessons, certainly not the last, about not being hard-headed and refusing to take advice from those who knew better than me. Mother knows best.
Miss Gulley
By Ed Johnson
Miss Gulley dyed her hair red on St. Valentine’s Day and green on the day of St. Patrick. Normally her hair, which swirled high, was the color of vanilla ice cream. Her skin was blanched white and she wore sunglasses, even inside, to protect her eyes from the harsh glare of the world.
She was the steward of my second grade class at an elementary school in the Jemez mountains. She strode before us with poise, teaching us multiplication tables, phonics and how to be kind on the playground.
Our first week together she assigned us to write about our summer vacation. Some of my classmates had been to exotic places like California and Colorado. I had not. My father worked six days a week cutting timber at a sawmill and Sundays doctoring our comfy adobe home which he had built from the ground up. There were no vacations.
My summer was spent spinning my bike along dirt roads, catching tadpoles in a meager creek, eating the fruit of my grandfather’s cherry tree, running through arroyos where rattlesnakes occasionally shed their skins, and climbing a large cottonwood in our front yard, hoping for a breeze that would stir the kelly green leaves on a warm day. Satisfying, yes, but hardly the stuff of a school paper. Hardly worth Miss Gulley’s time.
“Ten minutes,” she said as I stared at the lined blank page of my Big Chief tablet. And I panicked. I scribbled something about a bunny who had strayed from home, became lost and tried to find his way back. I handed Miss Gulley the story knowing I had failed the assignment.
The next day, she approached my desk and I could not look at her. She set my story down and I searched my young mind for an excuse, but nothing came.
“It wasn’t what I asked for,” she said, “but I liked it.”
She had marked an A-plus on the page.
Autumn came, then winter break and finally spring with the end of the school year. Miss Gulley had prodded and encouraged, and most of us had responded. But a couple did not and she decided rather than passing them on to the third grade, they would spend another year with her.
But this had never been done. Not here. Not in this school.
Some parents were outraged. Others, like my mother, stood by Miss Gulley. There were hearings and board meetings and she appeared before them with the same dignity she had when teaching her class. Ultimately, the students were held back, but the rancor toward Miss Gulley only grew.
When summer arrived, the teacher I have remembered most was gone, never to return.
I have been scribbling stories ever since.
A Gift of Vision
Rose Marie Kern
As a kid, I always sat at the front of the classroom because I could see the blackboard from there just by squinting a bit.
In seventh grade math, the teacher, Sister Margaret, decided to re-arrange her class and put the slow learners up front – which meant that I was moved to the back row. She wrote a problem on the blackboard and called me for the answer. I told her I couldn’t see it.
She made me walk up to the front of the class. I did, looked at the problem and gave the correct answer.
That night my parents got a phone call. The next week I went to see Dr. Jane. She told my Dad I should have been in glasses years ago. Mind you, I was very good at adapting to my limitation, and they themselves had perfect vision, so they never noticed my problem.
A week later, I was playing in the front yard with my sisters when our brown station wagon rolled up to the front of the house. I ran down the hill and Dad handed me a small case through the window.
Quickly I put the new glasses on…then stopped dead.
For the first time in my life I saw individual blades of grass while standing up. Then I looked up – and saw leaves on the trees on the other side of the NEIGHBOR’S yard.
For a few more moments I just stood and looked, at the blue sky and clouds, at the houses down the street, at my Dad’s face grinning back at me. That night, for the first time, I saw stars.
I have never felt embarrassment at being a “four eyes” and I still think of Sister Margaret and the day my world came into focus.
Lessons in and Out of Elementary School
by Eva Newman
In second grade I grabbed Alex Gup in the cloak room and kissed him. I don’t remember why, I just did it. And he was furious. He shoved me away and promised, “I’m going to beat you up after school.”
All day I agonized over my plight. Should I be the first to leave school and run? Or should I wait until the end and hope he’d be gone?
Events decided things. Children stampeded from school through a single exit door and I was pushed to the rear, the last to leave. It didn’t matter, no Alex Gup. Either he forgot, or maybe remembered he shouldn’t beat up little girls. Then I realized that he might be afraid of me! Anyway, I learned to not grab boys in the cloak room.
I’m not sure schools still have cloak rooms. They were long closets where children hung their coats in winter. They were dimly lit and smelled of damp coats and chalk.
Of course, much later the boys started grabbing me, which I didn’t mind. I sure didn’t threaten to beat them up.
*****
Christmas season was a special time for six year olds. The grumpy lady who lived in a big mansion down our street had the prettiest holly bush in her front yard; with prickly green leaves and red shiny berries so perfect they looked artificial. Passing this bush one school day I thought, We could make a wreath like on Christmas cards!
My brother and I took sprigs home and made a wreath. It was not perfect but pleased us. When we gave it to our mother, she asked sternly, “Where did you get the holly?” We replied innocently, “Mrs. James front yard.”
“Well, you march down there and return her holly and apologize.”
“Why?”
“You stole it.” That struck us like a slap in the face.
“We did not!” my brother insisted, red in the face.
I sobbed in despair while Mom followed with a lecture about taking items belonging to others. She phoned the neighbor to say we’d be coming to apologize. That was the longest block I have walked in my life.
Mrs. James acted stern with us, but a smile probably lurked behind her words. That was the year Christmas lost its excitement for me. It has never been the same since. On that holiday I worry a dreadful mistake might happen.
(edited by Sam Moorman)