While driving yesterday I had this memory:
My friend J.T. Holleman sits beside me in a desk during Mr. Settle's 5th grade science class. He sneezes and spit from the outburst lands right on the back of Sandy's shirt, on the back of her balck shirt. It lies there with pride, grinning right back at J.T. and me.
Something from inside me grows, it scares me, I can't stop it, it is coming. Quickly, I retreat to the surface of my desk and hide my face under my folded arms. The skin on my face is getting hot, I am biting down on my lip as hard as I can possibly stand it. If I let up on the pressure for one second there is no doubt that I will erupt in laughter that will not only cause all my classmates to look, but even worse, a non-laughing matter, Mr. Settle will make me set outside in the hallway.
As the feeling starts to subside I decide to peek out from under the refuge of my desk. J.T. directly beside me has his head buried in his arms and his entire body is convulsing and jolting. He laughs silently occasionally snorting and throwing Mr. Settle by immediately coughing....the breaking point.
Now, as I sit out in the hallway I feel it is important that no one underestimate the power of a 5th grader's laugh.
3 comments:
what happened to the snot? I mean this is a real funny story but I can't get passed the fate of the snot. Did JT remove it with his sleeve, did it just smile for the rest of the day? Did her hair become intertwined and dirpt the smile?
should read (disrupt the smile)
When Mr. Settle waddled to my desk to excort me out into the hallway he took note of the spittle on Sandy's shirt. Apparently, he saw in this mass of mucus and saliva, a reproduction of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. At the next bell, he used the first minute of his planning period to call the Wilkes Journal Patriot. A photographer arrived and Settle posed his pot-marked mug directly beside Sandy's left shoulder. Settle was happy that he was a Cingman celebrity, Sandy was relatively less upset at being spat upon, and I still remained on the cold, tile floor of the Ronda-Clingman Elementary hallway. Sandy never removed the spit, but as most miracles do, with time it evaporated.
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