Michael

When I was in second grade I was a little… shall we say, promiscuous? I was a good girl, but every once in a while, I liked to do things that would shock people. I still do that. It’s not a lady like habit, but I can’t help it. I like attention. Anyway, there was a boy at school, Michael McClausen. He was the teacher’s pet. But how could he not be? His mom was the teacher.

One day we were walking to PE. Michael was complaining about how he would NEVER get kissed by a girl. Well… I was a flirt so I decided that I would kiss him. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Michael turned toward me and looked at me with this shocked expression on his face and then turned BRIGHT RED. Because he was so embarrassed, I got embarrassed. Hayley, the girl following directly behind me in line looked at both of us and then started whispering to Krissy and Shelley- the twins. Krissy looked at me and then back to Michael and then back to me again. “No she didn’t.” she said looking in disbelief at Michael’s red face and my sheepish smile. “Chelsy wouldn’t do something like that… I bet she just got smooshed up in the line.” I immediately saw that as my escape from the humiliating situation and jumped on it.

“Of course I got smooshed in the line. I would NEVER kiss a boy. Gross.” And we all laughed with the exception of Michael who just faced forward and continued walking. Luckily for us, his mom didn’t see. If she had I would have been in big trouble. I do think he told her about it later however, because the next day at school we had a spelling test.

I hated spelling tests. I would study so hard, but I felt like I could never get any of the words right. Well this time I was confident. Tree. T-R-E-E. Spring. S-P-R-I-N-G. Oak. O-A-… umm… C? K? I couldn’t remember! But my teacher always said- “Go with your first instinct. It’s usually right.” So C it was. Oak. O-A-C. Wrong.

When she graded my paper, she took it up to the front of the class room and pinned in on the board. “This is a student’s spelling test that I want to make an example of. I’m not going to tell you whose it is, because we wouldn’t want to embarrass anyone, would we?” Just then a girl walked in late to class. She raised her eyebrows at the class and raised her hand like a conductor. The whole class yelled out a chorus of “Better late than not at all!” Sure she didn’t want to embarrass anyone… The girl, red faced, walked to her seat and sat down.

Even with my bad vision, I could see my name scrawled in uneven handwriting across the top. Everyone knew who’s paper it was. I sunk a little lower in my seat. “This student spelled oak O-A-C.” Who can tell me why that’s wrong?” a student in the front shot her hand up.

“It’s supposed to be O-A-K.” She parroted turning to me.

“Right.” Said Mrs. McClausen looking right at me. “O-A-K.” I was convinced she wanted to see me dead. Needless to say, I never kissed much less talked to Michael McClausen again.