So one day, I was at school, sitting at my desk and staring out the window at the color of the new spring leaves. I loved that color. I was supposed to be doing subtraction problems, a whole page of them, but I was daydreaming instead. Mrs. Voightchild's grating voice said, "You have five minutes, children." Now, Mrs. Voightchild didn't like me. I knew it. I think it was the time she multiplied 8 X 3 and came up with 28 and I corrected her. After that, I couldn't do anything right. And she made me nervous. I didn't like to get too close to her either. She had really foul breath and I imagined it was mustard gas and I'd blister my lungs if I came within five feet of her. She liked it that way, I was sure.
So I was worried what Mrs. Voightchild would say if I only had half a page of problems done when everyone else was finishing. I always got butterflies in my stomach when she called on me and somehow suspected she wasn't normal. Thinking about her hovering over my math sheet, I jiggled my knee under my desk. My stomach wrenched, and sweat dripped off my nose onto my paper.
I looked over to my left. Suzie had just finished her last problem. On my right, Corky had two more problems to go. I knew they were both pretty smart, so I copied four numbers from Suzie for row number five and I copied four more numbers from Corky for row number six. I went back and forth, cheating quickly and, I thought, without being noticed.
Suddenly, there was a ripping sound and I looked up. Mrs. Voightchild's head was bloating. Everyone looked up and stared. Some kids got under their desks as if it was a tornado drill. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was hideous! Her face split down the middle and green goo dripped from where her chin used to be. Each side of her peeled down like a banana. Six eyes on swaying stalks peered at me out of the green glop. Then tentacles reached out from where her shoulders used to be. They were green with rows of pink suckers.
If you ever got stuck with octopus sushi, you know what I mean. If your brother pulled it off the conveyor when your mom wasn't looking and put it in front of you, you know what I mean. "You pick it. You eat it," my mother always said when we went there. I didn't actually like sushi. I just liked taking the plates off the conveyor. But I didn't even like looking at octopus.
When Mrs. Voightchild's tentacles reached past the kids in the first and second rows, I knew I was in trouble. I was in the third row. It was a slow motion nightmare the way they waved and dripped over my head for a second before they gripped me one by one, around my waist, around my arms, and around my ankles. I could feel the suction. I screamed inside my head, wishing I'd hid under my desk too. It felt like accidentally stepping on a big slug, only with the suction and they slithered around me, like snakes. I was going to throw up. I just knew it.
The tentacles raised me into the air and rolled me up like a burrito. I could still breathe, but I couldn't get away. I didn't try. The almighty squishiness had me squeezing my eyes shut as my stomach lurched. My red sequined slipper fell off and I could feel the green goo dripping down behind my knee. I think I also had some goo in my ear because I could only hear the screaming from one side. I might not have been breathing at all. I wanted to faint but I couldn't. My stomach twisted again and my mouth tasted sour.
Finally, I gave up. My peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chocolate milk came up and spewed all over the tentacles holding me. Suddenly, I could hear them sizzling and bubbling. They dropped me right across Jimmy Chan's desk. He grabbed me to keep me from rolling onto the floor. I started to cry.
The tentacles drew back, still smoking, into where Mrs. Voightchild's shoulders had been. The six eyes retracted into the goo and her face folded back up and glued itself together. The green goo on the floor slithered and flowed toward her feet, and up and over her tan orthopedic shoes and into her legs, fattening her ankles. Only her slightly frumpled hair showed anything different though it just looked like she'd forgotten to brush it after getting out of bed. Nothing in the room showed that there had been a complete alien transformation.
I scrambled back to my desk and sat as if a straight back and eyes forward might erase that queasy feeling I still had. Some of the other kids were crying, but a couple of boys and Corky were saying things like "Whoa! Did you see that? That was amazing! Do it again!" They hadn't had to endure being touched by those tentacles.
Suddenly two police officers crashed into the room with Principal Espinosa and the janitor. The janitor poured some green cat litter onto the vomit next to my desk and left the classroom. The principal's booming voice yelled, "Who called the police?"
Just then, everybody stopped looking at me and turned to see Jessica , folded into her cubby like a sardine with her cell phone in one hand. Principal Espinosa took her by the shoulder and escorted her out the door followed by the two officers. Later, she said they called her father at work and he had to come down to pick her up. No one believed her story. Mrs. Voightchild told the police that everything was going just fine during her subtraction drill. No children were interviewed. Jessica's mom wanted to take her to see a doctor and her father wanted to put her into another school if they could find one that would take her. She finally lied, she said, and told them she'd made the whole thing up so she wouldn't have to do any more subtraction problems.
Jessica and I were best friends after that. She had tried to save my life, all of our lives. It was good too, because some of the kids pretended it had never happened and avoided us on the playground, the bus, and in the halls. They kept it up all through grade school, middle school, and high school.
Mrs. Voightchild never transformed in front of us again, but Jessica heard a rumor that she did it when Jimmy Smith threw a stink bomb into the girl's bathroom. Neither of us really knew, but I'll tell you one thing is for certain - I never ever ever cheated at math again.
Thank you for listening, jb
So I was worried what Mrs. Voightchild would say if I only had half a page of problems done when everyone else was finishing. I always got butterflies in my stomach when she called on me and somehow suspected she wasn't normal. Thinking about her hovering over my math sheet, I jiggled my knee under my desk. My stomach wrenched, and sweat dripped off my nose onto my paper.
I looked over to my left. Suzie had just finished her last problem. On my right, Corky had two more problems to go. I knew they were both pretty smart, so I copied four numbers from Suzie for row number five and I copied four more numbers from Corky for row number six. I went back and forth, cheating quickly and, I thought, without being noticed.
Suddenly, there was a ripping sound and I looked up. Mrs. Voightchild's head was bloating. Everyone looked up and stared. Some kids got under their desks as if it was a tornado drill. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She was hideous! Her face split down the middle and green goo dripped from where her chin used to be. Each side of her peeled down like a banana. Six eyes on swaying stalks peered at me out of the green glop. Then tentacles reached out from where her shoulders used to be. They were green with rows of pink suckers.
If you ever got stuck with octopus sushi, you know what I mean. If your brother pulled it off the conveyor when your mom wasn't looking and put it in front of you, you know what I mean. "You pick it. You eat it," my mother always said when we went there. I didn't actually like sushi. I just liked taking the plates off the conveyor. But I didn't even like looking at octopus.
When Mrs. Voightchild's tentacles reached past the kids in the first and second rows, I knew I was in trouble. I was in the third row. It was a slow motion nightmare the way they waved and dripped over my head for a second before they gripped me one by one, around my waist, around my arms, and around my ankles. I could feel the suction. I screamed inside my head, wishing I'd hid under my desk too. It felt like accidentally stepping on a big slug, only with the suction and they slithered around me, like snakes. I was going to throw up. I just knew it.
The tentacles raised me into the air and rolled me up like a burrito. I could still breathe, but I couldn't get away. I didn't try. The almighty squishiness had me squeezing my eyes shut as my stomach lurched. My red sequined slipper fell off and I could feel the green goo dripping down behind my knee. I think I also had some goo in my ear because I could only hear the screaming from one side. I might not have been breathing at all. I wanted to faint but I couldn't. My stomach twisted again and my mouth tasted sour.
Finally, I gave up. My peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chocolate milk came up and spewed all over the tentacles holding me. Suddenly, I could hear them sizzling and bubbling. They dropped me right across Jimmy Chan's desk. He grabbed me to keep me from rolling onto the floor. I started to cry.
The tentacles drew back, still smoking, into where Mrs. Voightchild's shoulders had been. The six eyes retracted into the goo and her face folded back up and glued itself together. The green goo on the floor slithered and flowed toward her feet, and up and over her tan orthopedic shoes and into her legs, fattening her ankles. Only her slightly frumpled hair showed anything different though it just looked like she'd forgotten to brush it after getting out of bed. Nothing in the room showed that there had been a complete alien transformation.
I scrambled back to my desk and sat as if a straight back and eyes forward might erase that queasy feeling I still had. Some of the other kids were crying, but a couple of boys and Corky were saying things like "Whoa! Did you see that? That was amazing! Do it again!" They hadn't had to endure being touched by those tentacles.
Suddenly two police officers crashed into the room with Principal Espinosa and the janitor. The janitor poured some green cat litter onto the vomit next to my desk and left the classroom. The principal's booming voice yelled, "Who called the police?"
Just then, everybody stopped looking at me and turned to see Jessica , folded into her cubby like a sardine with her cell phone in one hand. Principal Espinosa took her by the shoulder and escorted her out the door followed by the two officers. Later, she said they called her father at work and he had to come down to pick her up. No one believed her story. Mrs. Voightchild told the police that everything was going just fine during her subtraction drill. No children were interviewed. Jessica's mom wanted to take her to see a doctor and her father wanted to put her into another school if they could find one that would take her. She finally lied, she said, and told them she'd made the whole thing up so she wouldn't have to do any more subtraction problems.
Jessica and I were best friends after that. She had tried to save my life, all of our lives. It was good too, because some of the kids pretended it had never happened and avoided us on the playground, the bus, and in the halls. They kept it up all through grade school, middle school, and high school.
Mrs. Voightchild never transformed in front of us again, but Jessica heard a rumor that she did it when Jimmy Smith threw a stink bomb into the girl's bathroom. Neither of us really knew, but I'll tell you one thing is for certain - I never ever ever cheated at math again.
Thank you for listening, jb
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