Early Years

I take a deep, shuddering breath. All eyes on me. Well, some eyes on me. A 5th grade class doesn't have the greatest attention span.


"James runs down the hallway, the bearded Australian chef hot in pursuit. James never thought the chopsticks he had once loved so much could suddenly be turned against him, now being used as weapons."

I glance up from my paper again, remembering the importance of "eye contact". The eyes that are staring at me are all stunned with penetrating disbelief. They want to know, just like I do. What am I doing up here?



Five Minutes Ago:

I approach her desk, no planning whatsoever.

“…Mrs. Graff?”

“Hi, Grant.”

“I was just wondering… I wrote this paper, at home… and I was hoping to read it to the class so that they can help me make it better?”

She gives me a strange look and I immediately stop kicking her desk.

“You wrote something… outside of class? Absolutely! I’ll make an announcement in three minutes, you should be up there in five.”



Seventh Grade:

This year, we read excerpts from The War of The Worlds, followed by a class project on how we would survive if aliens were to legitimately attack Earth. I think I’m ahead of the game.

I spend several hours laughing with my friends in the computer lab at the poetry we write. Ironically, this poetry is insightful enough that we are actually asked to read in front of the class.

The only other thing I remember is that we write on computers so old that the only way we can save our work is on floppy disks. I lose a great many papers. Did I mention this is an accelerated English class?



Eighth Grade, Just before I move out of my hometown forever:

Mrs. Goodman dies of cancer.



Who is Mrs. Goodman?

The teacher who asked us to read the poetry to her class.



Eighth Grade, New Town:

I try accelerated classes at my new school. Side note, why do they call them level four? That’s weird. Level four Algebra 1, Mr. Viator: “So if the spaceship is traveling around the earth at 450 miles per hour, and is accelerated by earth’s gravitational pull at a rate of 54.3%, how long will it take the spaceship to reach the sun? Do you know…Grant?”

I think I’ll walk across the hall. Nobody has checked on the level three class in a while.