“How”s it goin”, Bob?” A woman asked.
“Pretty good. Just resisting the urge to choke children.”
Mrs. Gregory chuckled at the gruff bus driver”s response, knowing all too well that it was just one of those days at Grace Elementary School. She”d already sent two snippy second graders to the office and revoked the entire sixth grade”s recess privileges – and it wasn”t even lunch yet.
Nicole Moeckli
Rawr
Mrs. Gregory had been a grade school librarian for 27 years – Bob a bus driver for 30 – and neither had seen such hellions at Grace Elementary in all that time. From the office came the ever-present melody of whining troublemakers, while the playground had become an every-Kindergartener-for-himself jail yard.
The school had the small town of Grace wondering what it had done wrong.
On this particular Wednesday in March, Mrs. Gregory and Bob sat in the small library looking out the sunny windows while the school lay silent. Mrs. Gregory pondered how to get little Mikey Granger to do his required reading, while Bob considered the likelihood of jail time should he kick little Mikey in the seat of his little brown Carhartts. That was when the ruckus began.
It started as any of the other daily tizzy-fits had. A textbook thrown into the hallway, the thud followed by a teacher”s stern remark of disdain – this time, the young Miss Campbell of fifth grade – and then silence.
The silence is what made Mrs. Gregory and Bob exchange a glance. Silence in Grace Elementary? Unheard of.
Mrs. Gregory later described what ensued to her therapist as “alarming” while Bob told the bartender it was “the goddamn devil-spawn apocalypse.” Either interpretation could be considered accurate, as the Grace Daily News” headline read “Local elementary school closed following tike-led coup.”
The first thrown book must have been the signal. Soon the rhythm of hardbound book after book met the hallway carpet, spewed from all classrooms at both ends of the school”s single hallway. Mrs. Gregory, her library”s entrance situated squarely in the middle, contemplated running for the hills (quite literally) but instead looked on in horror.
Miss Campbell fled from her colorful classroom, curly hair full of paper wads and silly string.
“They”ve lost it!” she shouted down the hall between breathless huffs as she dodged the flying books, just as two other teachers emerged with chairs held like shields against the steady stream of pencils and dioramas being thrust their way.
That”s when Mikey made his appearance. Barely four feet tall with perpetually muddy boots and bleach blonde, spike-tipped hair – the perpetrator and mastermind behind this uprising, no doubt.
Children then flooded the hallway. Small girls in flowered dresses and little boys in baseball jerseys all shouted and toted chalk-coated erasers and sharped-edged binders, following Mikey”s lead with wild eyes.
Passing the library, Mrs. Gregory heard a kindergartener named Tommy Wilks ask Mikey if they were going to get in trouble.
“They can”t catch us if we all go,” Mikey sneered. And they were out the door.
The teachers stood in a staggered line atop the hill on which Grace Elementary sat as five dozen children, age”s 6-12 – the entirety of the student body – ran, strutted and skipped down the road toward town. The hooting and hollering faded as the children rounded the bend. None of the teachers spoke, let alone moved.
“Do we call their parents? The authorities?” Mrs. Gregory thought. “How does this even happen?” It took Bob the bus driver”s monotone voice to break anyone”s eyes from the childless blacktop.
“I guess I can go home – actually, to the bar,” Bob said. “No need for the bus today.”
Lyndsie Kiebert can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @lyndsie_kiebert