Chapter 14

I'd like to say that order was instant. I'd like to say that the class treated me like a teacher. I'd like to say that the moms and dad helped to restore and keep order.

I can't.

The vast majority were my siblings ... if they acted out like this in regular school ... I was all for sending them all to Catholic School and let the Nuns sort them out. I was Too, their snot nosed redheaded brat of a sister. Nobody paid any attention to Too.

Whoever heard of a teacher with the outlandish sobriquet of... Too... ? Nope ... seated behind that huge old oak desk was the same sister I'd always been ... Too. Nobody called me Wendy ... nobody called me Wendolyn ... the whole damn family called me Too.

'Not so, Gwen.'

'Mother. One more word... '

'Whatcha gonna do, Gwen?'

I exploded out of my seat, flew across the room and slapped my mothers knuckles with an ink pen ruler. I swear my feet never touched the floor. I was seated in my chair before mom reacted. She had a shocked expression on her face as she grabbed her injured hand ... the blood dripped.

For those of you who don't recall ... because you're young enough for ballpoints ... exactly what an ink pen ruler is ... I'm gonna tell you, pay attention lest I smack you with one.

In days of yore, before some some wise guy printed lines on school paper, students had to line their own paper for penmanship class ... and reports ... and writing punishment sentences to remind themselves of transgressions never to be repeated.

Ink pens have a handle similar to the old goose quill, without the feathers, that was the writing instrument of necessity back in the stone age... 1800. The French claim to have invented a steel nib and holder that saved countless naked geese from freezing to death. A nib ... the metal point ... is inserted into the pen holder and the resulting writing implement is dipped in ink. Now the writer has something with which to write. If a wooden ruler is placed on paper and the pen is used to draw straight lines the pen is absolutely going to hang up on the wood and splatter ink all over.

Again, some twisted and sadistic mind found that if a thin metal edge is inserted into a length-wise slot in the edge of the wooden ruler the metal pen will draw nice lines without the splots and splashes of wood to metal.

This metal edge is thin and very sharp when swung with force against the hand of a recalcitrant student. The fucker stings like mad and generally draws blood.

I was pissed and swung damn all hard. Back in my throne of authority, I looked her in the face and said, "Fifty lines, 'I will not sass the teacher, as she is quick of temper and may inflict great bodily harm upon my fundament, ' in BLOOD. Two extra lines for every failure to punctuate to my satisfaction and ten extra per misspelling. Now! Mrs. Austin."

I have never seen mother move so fast.

"Mr. Austin. Should you continue that glare you may write the same in ink ... one hundred lines, sir."

I looked out over the silent class, "My name is Miss Austin, you will remember that."

I removed from my seat and stalked to the chalkboard. Upon it I wrote in cursive: Miss Austin; General Education: 101. "Any and all homework will feature that salutation in the top margin ... left hand side." I turned back to the class and said, "On the right hand side of the page in the top margin you will write your name, the class, the subject and the date. I promise one thing and one thing only: I will be fair and I will reward researched originality."

Daddy put up his hand, I recognized him.

"Miss Austin ... there is a first aid kit in the top left hand drawer. May we use it?"

"Mr. Austin. How will Mrs. Austin write her lines if she stops the bleeding?"

That was the instant I made an enemy of my father.