The Notebook

My 5th grade homeroom and math teacher was Mrs. Sambula, a large African-American woman who had long hair, tinted glasses and always dressed nicely for school.  I was one of her pets and was allowed many privileges in her classroom.  I got to grade papers and put the grades in her grade book.  I snickered to myself at the kids who made bad grades week after week.  I always made As.  One time Mrs. Sambula picked another girl and me to go on a special field trip to a planetarium.  She told us not to say anything to the other students but I did.  I told Jennifer, who cried, and she ended up getting to go on the field trip too.  Mrs. Sambula also let me create a bulletin board for her classroom.  I had it made in Mrs. Sambula's class--until the notebook.

At some point, my best friend Meredith decided that she hated Mrs. Sambula.  I always thought Meredith's ideas were better than my own so I decided to hate Mrs. Sambula too--even though I secretly didn't.  In order for Meredith to think I truly hated Mrs. Sambula, I made a list in my spiral notebook, which was covered with metallic red wrapping paper with little gold Christmas trees on it.  I titled my list "Reasons to Hate Mrs. Sambula."  I described her as mean, bossy, having gross moles on her face and worst of all, that she wore dark glasses because her husband probably beat her.  

At school the next day, I stacked my notebook proudly on my binder.  I couldn't wait for Meredith to read my list.  During homeroom, all the students in my class were milling around, talking and laughing.  It was close to Christmas break and we were excited at the prospect of no school for two weeks.  I was turned around in my desk talking to a friend when I decided she needed to read my list.  I turned to get my notebook but it was gone.  A wave of heat and fear poured over me as I scanned the area around my desk for the shiny red cover.  Nothing.  I looked under my desk but the notebook wasn't there.  "Where could it be?" I frantically thought.

Then I saw it--in Mrs. Sambula's hand.  Her desk was at the back of the classroom and I sat near the front.  I rushed back to her desk in slow motion as she flipped through it and got to the offending page.  I tried to snatch the notebook out of her hand but she held it out of my reach.  "Please!  Give it back!" I begged but she told me she was going to go make a copy for her files.  Tears pouring down my face, I tried to block her way out of the classroom but I knew better than to put my hands on a teacher.  My tears bordering on hysteria, I slumped in my desk and waited for her return.  What would happen to me? I wondered.  Would I be paddled?  Would she call my parents?  Would I be suspended?

She returned to the classroom with my notebook and gave it back to me.  She never said a word.  The final bell rang and we were dismissed for the day.  I was crying so hard on my way out of school that I almost fell down the stairs.

Later that night, I laid on the living room couch with my feet in my dad's lap.  We decided that I would write a letter of apology to Mrs. Sambula.   I did, with a request for her never to mention it to me or anyone else.  I never felt comfortable in Mrs. Sambula's class again.