Snow Fort
It was going on 7:50am when my mother entered
my room to see why I hadn’t responded to her previous calls to get out of bed
and get ready for school. “Honey, time
for school- haven’t you been hearing me calling for you to wake up?” She said as she opened my door and entered. She was not surprised to find me still in
bed, but she was startled to see me wide awake staring up at the ceiling.
“What’s wrong my love?” Having such a serious expression on my 10 year-old face
clearly tipped her off that something was wrong.
“I’m not going to school today.” I responded
quietly and then turned away and faced the wall.
“Why not? Aren’t you feeling well?” She said as
she approached the bed. “What’s going on
Honey?” She then added, “Please look at
me when I’m talking to you.“
I turned and sat up, “Something happened
yesterday after school and now everyone wants to beat me up. I can’t go to school today.”
“Beat you up? What’re you talking about? What happened?”
“Well, after we got out of school yesterday and
I was walking home, I passed the playground and saw Matt and Ryan running
around in the snow by the cafeteria. So,
I went over to see what they were doing.
When I got there, they were kicking down a snow fort all the kids from
my class built during lunch. I started
doing it with them and when I did, some kids from my class saw me. They told everyone I destroyed the fort and now
the whole class is going to kill me.” I
was getting flustered and animated, moving my hands up and down while my face
went from a pale white to a light red.
“Slow down Honey, why did you do such a thing
if you knew the other kids would be upset?”
“I don’t know Mom. They were already destroying it and they were
having so much fun. I only kicked in a
few walls, but when I did, Anthony Miller and some others saw me and they yelled
that they were going to tell everyone on me and that I would “pay”. They were really angry.”
“Oh Honey, you shouldn’t do these things if
they are going to cause you such trouble. You need to remember that Matt and Ryan are
older than you and sometimes you shouldn’t follow them without thinking for
yourself,” She said, before adding, “But either way, get up- you’re going to
school today.”
“I CAN’T, THEY’RE GOING TO KILL ME!” I screamed
in a panic and then plopped back down on my pillow and pulled the covers over my
head.
“You have to go to school, but don’t worry,
I’ll make it better.” She said in a
lighter and more affectionate voice realizing that this was not just a ploy to
miss school and that I was going through a major life crisis over the
destruction of a snow fort.
“How are you
going to make this better?” I said from
under the covers.
“Well, get out of bed and I’ll call the boys
and tell them you’re sorry and everything we be fine.”
“That is not going to work Mom,” I said as I emerged
from the covers again.
“Get out of bed right now and come downstairs. We’re going to deal with this. Don’t worry my love. I’ll fix it.”
After a short time, we were both in the
kitchen. Mom opened the drawer next to
the wall phone and pulled out the school directly. “Ok, tell me who’s angry with you.”
“Everyone!
My whole class spent all of lunch break building the stupid fort!”
“Calm down.
Just tell me the names of the main kids you can remember. I’m sure we can make this better. Who were the kids most active in building the
fort and who will be most angry? That’s
the best place to start.”
“Anthony Miller of course. Bill Sharpe.
Brian Shore. Doug Johnson…” my
voice trailed off as I thought who would be the most dangerous to my personal well
being. By the time I added “Justin
Landers” to the list, Mom was already dialing Anthony’s home.
“Hello, is this Anthony?” I could only stare at
her with a strange mixture of dread and disbelief. It didn’t even occur to me to be embarrassed. “Hi Honey, this is Michael’s mother. I’m calling because I heard what happened with
the snow fort after school yesterday and I’d like you to know that Michel is
very sorry about what happened and I don’t want you or anyone else doing
anything to him at school today. Is that
OK?…Yes, I understand, but he knows he made a mistake following the older boys…Ok,
thank you Anthony.”
Mom volunteered as a cashier twice a month in
the cafeteria lunch line, so was familiar with many of the kids and many knew
her as well. After hanging up, she
looked at me. “See, that wasn’t so hard
was it?” She said. I was just staring at her as if I was
watching the second coming of Christ.
She then said, “Who’s next?”
Mom then went on to make six or seven more
phone calls of almost the exact same speech over a span of 15 minutes or so and
once done with the last call, she looked me, who had since taken a seat at the
kitchen table next to her and said, “Ok, now see, we dealt with it and it wasn’t
so difficult. Everything will be
fine. Hurry, go up, get dressed and get
your things or you’ll be late.”
I obeyed and within 15 minutes was walking out
the door and off to school. It was only
a five-minute walk, but with my nerves still frayed, it was dreadful, cold and I
couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom.
Soon, I entered school. I went to my locker to take my off my coat
and winter clothes and get my things for first period. I then went to homeroom. I was surprised to find nothing out of the
ordinary unfolding before my eyes. No
sneak attacks or even second looks as I passed my classmates in the hall. I started breathing a bit easier. No one even mentioned anything about the snow
fort. “Could it not have been such a big
deal as I thought?” I said to myself.
I got to homeroom and took my usual seat toward
the back next to Mike Wasserman who immediately leaned over, “I hear your mother called around to
everybody to get you off the hook for ruining the snow fort-”
I just shook my head and shrugged giving off a
“what can I say” look. Wassy knew me
since kindergarten and we had always been friends. Neither of us were popular kids. He didn’t get a call directly because I knew
he didn’t need one. Scrawny loners
weren’t the ones to fear, it was the popular kids who led the class. They never liked me, so they maintained the
top spots on my mother’s call list. After a few minutes, the bell rang and school
officially began with my homeroom teacher calling attendance and making the
daily announcements. The destruction of
the snow fort was not on his announcement list.
After homeroom I was on my way to first period
math when Lisa Stein asked me about a history class she missed in the hall. I told her I would give her my notes to
copy. I always thought Lisa was cute,
but was too shy to do or say anything about it.
Everything was following a normal path and the snow fort debacle continued
to recede deeper and deeper into the recess of my mind. First period passed with nothing happening. Second period was English and by the time I finished
class, again with nothing out of the ordinary occurring, I was back to my
usual, quiet and calm self. The sense of
being in a dramatic existential crisis had pretty much dissipated. Mom did it!
No one from class or in the halls were angry or even mentioning the snow
fort.
After English, I started making my way to gym
class and all appeared to be back to normal.
I had the spring back in my step as I went down the hall, past the
library and started down the stairs to the locker room when I saw Sam Shapiro,
who immediately grabbed me by my shoulder.
He wasn’t on my call list.
“What the hell did you do to the snow fort? I
heard your mother called around this morning to make sure no one would kick
your ass?”
“Yeah,” I replied, finally finding embarrassment
instead of fear over the whole thing, “I made a mistake. I never should have joined in with what those
6th graders were doing. I
didn’t even do much of the damage.” I
forced out.
“I don’t care about the stupid fort, but I just
got out of science and Tyler was talking about you and he’s still really angry. He told me that he isn’t going to forget
about it and it doesn’t matter who your mother called- no one called him and
he’s looking for you. You better watch
out. He said he was going to beat you up
when he sees you.”
It was then that I realized an unfortunate and
bitter truth for the first time in my life: no matter how much my Mom wanted to
or tried, she would never be able to completely protect me from my life’s foibles
and, thus, life was never so carefree again.
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