Winter Is My Middle Name

Chapter 8

It was now September and Labor Day. That meant the county fair and school would be starting. I liked the fair, but I didn't like school. But it also meant that winter was not far away, and I couldn't wait for that.

I dreaded the first day of school. It always seemed as if I got the worst teachers. When I would tell my older friends who my teachers were they would always say, "Oh no, not her! She's a witch, you'll be sorry," or "That guy is the worst." It never failed, I always got the nastiest teachers.

I just hoped that Joe wasn't in any of my classes. So far I had been lucky and never had a class with him. He would get me into trouble somehow without even trying. I didn't need that; I could get into enough trouble without him.

I walked the mile and a half to school alone. I wasn't in the mood for company, I just wanted to get there and get it over with so I could get home and go up the hill and be in the cool woods. The school day was always the longest day, it took forever to be over. It seemed like it lasted much longer than seven hours.

First class was history, so boring, I didn't care what happened years ago. Second class was gym; that wasn't too bad. I liked climbing the ropes and doing stuff on the high bar and parallel bars that would be useful. Third class was penmanship. I hated this class, making all those circles and parallel lines with the old nib ink pen. That thing was like a weapon, it would be banned from schools nowadays. You could do some serious damage with one of those things. In fact, it did get me into trouble.

As luck would have it, Joe was in my penmanship class and he sat next to me. I tried to ignore him as much as possible, but it was hard. He kept talking to me and wanted me to put the pigtails of the girl sitting in front of me into the ink well. There was no way I was going to do that.

Our teacher was Miss Ball, also know as Paddle Happy Ball. She loved giving students a paddle. She had a special paddle with holes drilled into it to cut down on the air resistance so she cold get as much "ouch" out of the paddle as possible. I believe she also taught science and knew about this kind of stuff.

Since I would not dip the girl's pigtails into the ink well, Joe grabbed my pen and threw it as hard as he could into the wooden floor. It stuck in the wood, almost burying the entire point! Miss Ball was demonstrating how she wanted the parallel lines done on the chalkboard with her back turned to us. As soon as she heard the sound of the pen going into the floor, she turned around and saw me trying to pull it out of the floor.

"Daniel! Did you just throw your pen into the floor?" she screamed.

I couldn't squeal on Joe, it was an unwritten law that this just wasn't done. I had to think fast. "No, it just fell off of my desk as I was getting my tablet out," I answered.

"Don't you tell me that it just fell! I have been doing this longer than you have been on earth and I know the difference between a pen falling to the floor and one being thrown. Come out in the hall with me right now!" she yelled as she reached for the paddle hanging on the wall.

Oh no, not the paddle. This was no way to start the school year. I followed her out into the hall. I tried to explain that I did not throw the pen into the floor, but she would have none of it. "Bend over and hold on to the back of that chair."

I did as I was told and "whack, whack, whack." I lost count and just hoped it would soon end. It finally did. I returned to the classroom. All eyes were on me, except for Joe - he was looking out the window as if nothing happened.

I hoped my parents didn't find out about this, because it would be worse when I got home. I would get a good scolding and be grounded for a week. That would be much worse than the paddling I had received.