Ms. Campbell

2nd grade is such a shift in reality for kids in general. Kindergarten is more like baby-sitting with daily goals. 2nd grade is wear the rubber starts to meet the road. Teachers start to assign classwork, things are graded, competition begins in almost every venue.
Ms. Campbell was my 2nd grade teacher. A single mother with a daughter one year younger than I. A rather serious woman with mousy brown hair and nondescript features hardly registering on anyone's dial, especially us kids. Her classroom was mostly bare walls and big windows. Not a lot of posters and fun learning artifacts to draw the imagination out. The windows were big but high up the wall as if the serious teacher instructed the builders to make sure no wandering eyes could stare off in to the world outside. Desks, books, and stacks of paper, that was Ms. Campbell's classroom.
Little did I know that fall day in the 80s when I walked in to her classroom at the end of the 2nd floor hall we both would be starting something memorable. This was the start of my career as a diabolical boy and Ms. Campbell was about to witness the butterfly being born from its wicked cocoon.
I was trouble and with little provocation I'd commit dirty deeds. For instance, one day while taking one of the many tests Ms.Campbell gave I decided to only do the first page and walk to the back of the room and grade my failing test (the teacher had decided that she would post the answer key for every test on the back wall heater and each student was responsible for grading their own work). I stood there looking at the answer key for the two page test. As I stood there with pencil in hand prepared to defeat myself it slowly dawned on me that what is and what should never be did not carry the same weight. I could fill in my answers from the key instead of writing terrible, red X's on each wrong question. I made the choice to kill "what is" and make "what should never be" my new standard.
I can't say it felt like a switch that was flipped and I moved forward without regret. No, I can't at all. Thoughts of my grandma telling me stories of growing up on the farm in Nebraska and how much struggle there was for every little thing she wanted. I worried that my crime wasn't only going to be discovered but that I would be a bad guy like Chris Noe (one of the many white trash Noe brothers bullying the town) or Darth Vader.
It made no difference. I turned around and faced the room with my completed test in one hand and the lying pencil in the other. I walked passed all the other kids who were still wracking their brains for traces of memory and logical paths that could bring them to an answer that they earned. I didn't feel the weight of their eyes on me. My guilt started to wane as I neared the teacher's desk and victory began to seep in.
I placed that test on Ms. Campbell's desk and walked back to my seat and waited. Waited for cops. Waited for Ms. Campbell to confront me and call me a liar. What happened instead was that I sat at my desk and thought about building a fort in the woods and what it would be like if I was the captain of a ship that hunted serpents of the deep.
When everyone finished, shortly after me, the day went on and I got on the bus and rode home with everyone screaming and causing a ruckus like they always did. I ate dinner and went outside to play with my friends. Sleep came just as easy as it did to any other 7 year old in America that night. Even the next day at school was without merit or memory. Only the following day when the class was given back their collective tests that what I did really hit home. I had gotten 83% on the test. I didn't fail. No one knew what I had done.
So, I did it again.
And again.
Not only did I cheat on tests but I taught other kids in the class how to cheat.
Ms. Campbell didn't catch me that year cheating, but she did catch me fighting, breaking her decorations, pretending to be sick and going to the Principal's office never to return, setting a fake flower on fire, running in the hallways, lying, making girls cry, and releasing her pet birds free in class while everyone was trying to learn about multiplication.
I was the worst student possible for many reasons. Sadly, for my 2nd grade teacher she only knew part of it.
On the last day of a very long school year Ms. Campbell sat on the edge of her desk and talked with each of the students about what they were going to do for summer. We were all just filling time until the final bell rang. Kids were talking about planned travels to zoos, other states, seeing grandparents, learning to be spacemen, and all the things seven year old boys and girls think about when asked what they are going to do by an adult. At last Ms. Campbell came to me, and I say at last because I was literally the last kid she called on in the room. Not that she was saving the best for last or avoiding me at all costs, but I was sitting in the corner most chair the farthest from her in the whole room. This was her way of keeping me away from the other kids and hopefully out of trouble.
Her question was the same for me as the other kids but her face was veiled. I could tell that just looking at me and interacting one on one in a room full of people made her uneasy. I had pushed her buttons for many months and now this was her final goodbye. She was going to be free of me and the problems I caused would be some other teachers next year.
When she asked me the obligatory question I replied back with a question of my own instead, "What would you do if I was in your class again next year Ms. Campbell?".
She didn't look down. She didn't pause.
Without any emotion she replied, "I would commit suicide."

I was happy at first that she knew I ruled her classroom. Then it hit me. My shame and hurt was more than I could bear. I had become a monster. Possibly an idiot that was made to pass the 2nd grade so she could move me out and on. I was smart enough to understand some of this but not altogether and not for many years.

I let the summer mute my worries and pain like in kid would. Games in the woods, hide and go seek, sleepovers, imagination, dreaming, forts, kissing a girl, finding snakes, and all that was green and wonderful filled me up to the brim in the sweet summer, country style.

About a month before school started a letter came to my parents from the school district. It contained information about a Parent Teacher Conference and a meet and greet two weeks before school. It also showed my 3rd grade class assignment.
Ms. Campbell.