Dixon Ticonderoga

The dark blue coffee mug slowly moved away from her lips. In the back of the room, Mike started snickering. "Dude, she's drinking it," he whispered. I laid my head on the desk and covered my mouth to make my laughter less apparent. I watched Miss Davis as she set the mug of hot coffee on her desk. It was easy to see that she loved her daily dosage of caffeine, regardless of what foreign objects students dropped in it.

A minute later, Mary raised her hand. "Miss Davis, someone stole two of my crayons." A burst of laughter came from the whole back section. Mike fell out of his chair and rolled on the floor, howling with amusement.

"Michael Rogers, you get off that floor this minute!" the distraught substitute screamed.

He sat back in his desk and the uproar slowly faded. Nearly everybody had tears in their eyes from the outrageous episode. Mike muttered "what colors do you think they stole, periwinkle and coffee?"

After the substitute reassured Mary that the crayons were probably misplaced and they would turn up later, history continued. With the oversized teacher's edition of "history fit for fifth graders" in hand, Miss Davis began writing historical events on the chalkboard, along with specific dates. Mike reached in his desk and grabbed a rubber band and a broken piece of pencil from the stockpile of munitions in his desk. He placed the rubber band on two fingers and fashioned a makeshift slingshot. In one graceful motion, he pulled back the pencil and let it fly. As the yellow number two flew through the air, the rubber band slingshot was thrown back into the desk. Miss Davis turned around, angry about her newly acquired moving target status. "Michael, I've had it with your stupid pranks!"

"What stupid pranks? Why must you assume that if anything goes wrong, I am the problem? I mean, I'm flattered that you're thinking of me, but really, I must protest."

"Oh come off it. I'm not an idiot. Who else would be so rude as to throw things at me?"

"Miss Davis, could it be that your eyesight is faltering as time goes on and you feel the need to take out the frustration over your shortcomings on weaker individuals like myself?"

"You think you're so smart and funny. You won't be so smart in detention now, will you?"

"Oh, I think my intelligence will persevere through any change in venue."

"One more smart remark or little prank and you will have a change in venue."

After she regained her composure and started writing more extremely important historical facts and dates on the board, Mike tossed me a short pencil piece with the letters EROGA printed on it. "Dude, shoot this at her."

"No way man, she's pissed. If anyone gets caught, she'll kick 'em out."

"She's blind dude. There's no way she'll catch you."

I tried to convince him that firing objects at the substitute teacher might be a bad idea at this point, especially after her outburst a minute ago, but he wouldn't listen. "Don't be a chicken. She'll blame it on me anyway," he said.

I took a rubber band from my desk and the ammunition supplied by my encouragement. I pulled back and let the graphite filled wood fly. As it sailed through the air, I tossed the evidence back into my desk. In the same instant, Miss Davis turned around as if to tell us about some grossly important historical event. Suddenly she gave a loud cry as the broken pencil hit her in the eye. The oversized historical fact ridden book dropped to the floor as she stumbled back against the chalkboard. She grabbed the pencil from her eye and dropped it on the floor. The whole class stood up, trying to see what had actually transpired. Miss Davis crouched in the front of the class with her hands covering her eye. As I stood immobilized, I noticed a red line creeping down from her hands. "Go get the nurse!" she cried. "And the principal!"

Four students ran out of the classroom, honoring her request. Why couldn't she have glasses like Mrs. Wilson, I thought.

"Dude, you killed her!" Mike accusingly screamed.

"Shut up! I didn't mean to hit her! You told me to!" I yelled back. It was pointless to argue; Mike wasn't listening. The whole class was taken with the crying substitute teacher crouched against the chalkboard whom I had blinded with a Ticonderoga.

Miss Davis cried in pain while the students tried to figure out what to do. Loud stomps came from the hall as the principal, nurse and various other staff members sprinted to the rescue. Other classrooms heard the commotion and strayed into the hall to find out what was happening. A few moments later, sirens sounded and I looked out the windows. As the ambulances raced toward the school, I couldn't help but wish I was a chicken.