Friday, April 11, 2008

In Trouble Again

I remember the first time I ever got Neve into trouble at school. I'm not sure what I did. Our afternoon recess got cancelled and we both got detention. Our teacher also made us write 50 lines of whatever it was.

I know Madame Mocrie was our teacher at the time, because Madame Fisher would never have given Neve a detention. She could have set off a bomb at school and Madame Fisher would have yelled at me, “M, detention!” Giving me a detention was fair game, but giving Neve a detention was against the rules. For this we nick named our teacher Macreep.

The teacher left the room and we sat alone writing lines. We had finished about five to ten of them. Then Neve turned to me and said, “Hey M, I have an idea of how we can write these faster.”

I was all for anything that made punishment go by faster.

“How?”

“Well instead of writing full sentences across the page we can just write the same word down the page.”

I was impressed when she said that. I could not believe that for all the times I got detention and for all the times I had to write lines, it never occurred to me to do them that way.

“That’s brilliant, Neve! This is going to make my life so much easier. I’m so glad I got you into trouble so that you could be here in detention with me.”

She beamed when I said that.

From that point on, we finished our lines by writing the same words in columns down the page. The problem with that of course, is that our handwriting was already bad enough at that age. When we wrote words in columns down the page they started to bend and shape. There would be big gaps between some words on some lines. The last few words of some sentences would have to be crammed in at the end. It was awkward, but we finished our lines before the end of recess.

When the teacher came back to the room, we went up to her desk and turned them in. She looked at them. Then she looked at us.

“Did you two write these out properly, or did you write the words in columns down the page?”

We both just stood there staring at the teacher. Neither one of us would answer.

After a long pause the teacher held the pages up in front of our faces so that we could look at them. It was so painfully obvious what we had done. The first five to ten lines were perfect. The rest of the page was a catastrophe. Neither one of us wanted to answer her, so we just stood there.

After another long pause the teacher took our pages and ripped them up right in front of us. Then she took some more foolscap off her desk.

She past us the paper and said, “Now then. You two are going to rewrite them. You are going to write them out properly this time. And instead of writing them 50 times, you’re going to write them 100 times.”

Then the teacher looked at the clock and said, “And recess is almost finished so there’s no time left to work on them. You two will have to take them home and do them as a homework assignment. Now take your seats.”

When we went to our desks, I sat in my chair. I folded my hands as if to pray. Then I looked heaven bound and said, “Dear God. I’m such a good little boy. I’m so well behaved. This girl is such a bad influence on me. Why do I hang around with her? Amen.”

The problem with me doing that of course is that Neve Campbell often failed to see the humor in things. She thought I was being serious when I did that. Not long after that she came up to me practically in tears. She kept apologizing.

“M, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“I got our punishment doubled and I feel terrible and I’m so sorry I suggested that.”

She was literally begging me to forgive her. I could not believe she was serious, but she obviously was.

“Neve! We would not have even had to do lines in the first place if it had not been for me getting you into trouble. If anyone should be apologizing here it’s me.”

“I know, but I should never have suggested we do that and now I’ve just made matters worse and I feel just terrible. I’m so sorry.”

It was classic of Neve. She was always so concerned for others. She always wanted to be on good terms with people. She just melted your heart.

When I went home that night I stashed my foolscap in a good hiding place. Another thing I was always getting in trouble for was not doing homework. I could not take the chance of getting caught doing lines at home. Fire and brimstone would have rained down on me if my dad heard that I got in trouble at school.

The next morning I wrote some lines before heading to school. There was never anyone at home when I woke up in the morning. I wrote more lines at the bus stop. I wrote a few more as I bounced along on the transit bus on the way to school. By the time I got to school I had most of them done.

When I got to class Neve came and asked, “Did you finish your lines?”

“No not yet, but I’m almost done. How about you?”

“Yes, I finished them.”

Of course she did. She was a good little girl.

That’s when our conversation turned weird.

She asked me, “So, what did your dad say?”

I looked at her confused.

“What did my dad say? What did he say about what?”

“About the trouble we got into.”

“Well I didn’t tell him! I can’t tell my dad anything. He’d take out his belt and start thrashing me.”

Then she said, “Oh” and looked at me completely surprised.

I looked at her and I was completely surprised that she would even ask such a thing. Then I got curious.

“Did you tell your dad?”

“Yes”

At that point I was completely floored. I don’t remember what it is we did. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad, but it was definitely bad enough that it terrified me to hear that her dad knew about it.

“I can’t believe you would tell him. Why would you do that?”

“I tell my dad everything.”

I was blown away. It was one thing to get into trouble at school, but I was very concerned that I was getting her into trouble at home too. I also had another reason to worry. I was scared Mr. Campbell was going to tell his daughter that I was a bad influence on her and that he didn’t want her hanging around with me anymore.

“What did he say when you told him?”

“He said it was a bad thing to do and that we shouldn’t do again.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah”

I was in complete disbelief hearing that. The Campbell household sounded like an oasis of sanity. Obviously our fathers were not reading from the same child rearing textbooks. I envied the relationship she had with her dad. It was one of the many times in my life when I can remember thinking, “I’m not getting the same upbringing as everyone else.”

I pondered that for a while, but I had to ask what was really on my mind. “Did your father tell you we couldn’t hang out anymore?”

She laughed when I said that. “NO! He would never do that. My dad loves you.”

Mr. Campbell loves me? I was embarrassed to hear her say that. It was pretty strong language considering I only ever saw him when I would wait for her to get picked up after school.

To be fair though, I did like her dad. Any time I saw him after school picking up his daughter, he would call me Oor Wullie. Whatever she was telling him about me at the dinner table must have been really good stuff.


Oor Wullie