Karma Redirected: How Did They Let You Become a Teacher by Mike Morris

Author:Mike Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2019-11-19T13:48:28+00:00

35

It Gets Nasty

A recent study had reported that Hellincrest led the nation in juvenile delinquency. My heart filled with pride because I knew I had played a role in that statistic. When we were warned that Ms. Fountainbleau was strict and in her music class we would never get away with the things we were used to getting away with, we took that as a challenge. It was war; an unfair war – about 25 to one – but it was war!

I can remember a few incidents that contributed to Ms. Fountainbleau’s defeat and her eventually walking out on us and never coming back. Surely, she was distraught at the ever-increasing number of hand-tossed pencils that hung from her soft tile, drop ceiling. After instructing Jackie Latchfoot to sit in his seat, she must have been frightened and frustrated when he suddenly sprang into the air, screaming like a wounded animal. He refused to explain to her that he had just sat on the metal compass held point up over his chair seat by yours truly. We had a code; one didn’t rat on a fellow student even if he had just punctured your butt with a compass point.

It wasn’t safe for me to possess any kind of object that could be dangerous. After discovering a lighter in my pocket, I felt obligated to find some meaningful use for it. While my hands held the lighter in front of me, very close to the back of Carl Wooten’s wiry-haired head, I had an inspiration. How long would it take Carl to feel the heat from a lit lighter a half inch from his head? I moved the lighter within the appropriate distance and lit it. Poof! In an instant the back of his hair sizzled, smoked, and turned into white ash.

“Ow!” Carl yelped and grabbed the back of his smoking, singed head. He spun around and the fear in his eyes was intense. His friend had just set him on fire. “What did you do? Did you burn my hair? You did. You burned my hair!”

I was speechless; Carl appeared insane. I don’t know if I was smiling, laughing, or just staring.

Carl threatened, “I’m gonna getchu back, sucker!”

Ms. Fountainbleau interrupted, “Carl, is there a problem? What’s going on back there? What’s that smell? Is something burning?”

Carl turned to the front and reassured her, “Oh, nothing. I was just daydreaming and had a nightmare.”

The class laughed and Ms. Fountainbleau looked like she was going to cry. I wondered what Carl was going to do to me. All year I worried, but he never got me back. He probably questioned the wisdom of having any contact with a person who sets his friends ablaze.

Ms. Fountainbleau often had us climb onto the risers to sing. She made the innocent mistake of having us file behind her desk while she remained in her seat, marking something in her grade book. Beautiful, long, auburn hair, piled in a foot high, beehive hair-do offered a target we couldn’t refuse.

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