I wasn’t trying to pin the blame on another person, I dumped the evidence into the other kid’s pocket so I wouldn’t get the blame. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. When Sister Ninja Marie went into attack mode, we were all paralyzed with fear.
All you heard as our second grade class snaked down the fire stair at the end of the school day was the noise of dozens of feet. That is, until I took my cheap tin cricket noise maker that I probably got out of a Cracker Jack box out of my pocket. That sucker was loud, a bold move for a normally shy kid. And in competition with the ever present wooden nun’s clicker.! What was I thinking? As I said, I wasn’t. Ninja nun’s screaming, and thundering up the stairs. All I remember is thinking that I had to get rid of that cricket before Ninja nun spotted me so I dropped it into the open pocket of the kid next to me. And then? My memory stops there — after 63 years, I have no recollection of what happened next. But what if…
What if Ninja nun had been closer than I thought and saw me drop the cricket into my neighbor’s pocket? I can feel the outrage, see her face getting red as she explodes (my name explodes form her mouth), grabs both of us and yanks us out of line. My neighbor has innocently become part of her conspiracy. No matter that his pocket was nothing more than a convenient dumping ground for the incriminating evidence.
Would she have grabbed my ear? Who knows where she would have attacked first but you can be sure it would have gotten physical and fast. Now she’s on a roll, her destiny to bend young minds and bodies to her will or beat the crap out of said young bodies and minds.
Ninja Nun Warrior, fearless against the forces of seven year old evil children who were destined for eternal punishment in the fires of hell were it not for her timely intervention. What a culture this was because Sister Ninja Marie (who cares what her real name was) was only one example of a way of thinking, a way of life.
No wonder I was scared of my own shadow as a kid. The cricket incident must have been my way of fighting back, feeble as it was.
Suppose the kid next to me noticed me dropping the cricket in his pocket? No, he felt something different about his pocket, stuck his hand in and, to his surprise and eventual demise, pulled out the cricket just as Ninja nun’s evil eye landed on us. Aha! He became the guilty one and I was stunned to silence by her rage. I had opened my mouth and was about to proclaim his innocence when her look froze the words in my mouth. I was paralyzed with fear. My neighbor’s surprise turned to fear as Sister Ninja attacked. The poor kid had no chance, Ninja Nun had her man and no explanation, no confessions from me would change anything. She made her grab, caught the culprit, announced it to the world and no matter what happened next, would never admit to being wrong. God was infallible and she, as God’s minion (and wife because she had the ring) was always right. But she wasn’t right about me and I proved it at the end of the school year, But that’s another story.
Note: The ideas and raw text for this story were transcribed from morning pages 02/16/2013.
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