Jaclyn Saik
Ms. Tompkins
World Literature Honors
April 23, 2015
Thirty-Two Sheets of Paper
At recess we called Ms. Mclaughlin "Ms. Hitler". The name caught on the first time she found a melted crayon on the floor, her squeaky-sweet voice transformed into a roar that echoed along the rows of cowering students as she slammed her flabby arm on her podium like a giant, round, pink and polka-dotted dictator. We would poke fun at her size too, but her mass was too frightening to tease. The excess bulk seemed to accentuate her authority.
She ran a ship tighter than the shiny bun she had pinned up on the back of her head like a third eye. We were slaves to that nasally voice, our backs rim rod straight and our hair combed out of our faces, speedwalking from our desks, to the crayon table, to our desks. “Obedience builds your character!” she would shriek.
It was the afternoon, and today’s art class seemed particularly totalitarian. Her rules bore down on us like the bold, unforgiving lines in a coloring book.
“Class, remember: we are drawing two birds. These lovely ladies”—and with that she pointed to the gamble of volunteer art docents bunched in the front corner as they giggled and waved— “are here to draw out the birds for you, and then you can color them in.” Ms. Mclaughlin liked to sugar-up the art docents. She would call her classroom a “gentle chaos” —and then laugh airily as they charmingly assure her, “These students are better behaved than soldiers!” We always smiled politely.
“Oh, and please remember! We are only using blue, green and yellow-orange today. Only. The best ones will be hung on the wall. ” Ms. Mclaughlin added in her overly-sweet voice. She started to patrol the rows of desks, each clock of her Mary Jane heels the tick of a metronome in the thick air.
With a quiet sigh and five-finger grip on my yellow-orange, I started the mind-numbing artwork. Two little birds stared up at me with black eyes. The best ones will be hung on the wall. I pressed harder. My crayon stuttered across the paper. The best ones. I shaded between the art docent’s clean Sharpie lines. We are only using three colors today. The tentative scratching of soft wax on thirty-two sheets of paper was almost deafening.
I was finishing the first bird when a sudden spark of color caught the corner of my eye. A bright lavender crayon, naked without its wrapper, had rolled onto my desk. My eyes widened and my cheeks suddenly felt hot. A gloriously rebellious object, an outlawed gift from heaven, where did it come from? It’s divergence was enthralling; I sat transfixed on the sweet, contrasting hue.
We are only using three colors today. But my second bird would love a purple wing. We are only using three colors today. Do I have what it takes to do it? Purple sure was a taunting color. Can I break prison rules? The crayon was leaned up against my pencil box, indifferent to the moral battle waging inside my head.
I’m going for it.
Just as my tentative hand creeped toward it, a dream-shattering voice sprang from behind my left ear. “You’re not s’posed to do that.” A pink-clad girl with braced, buck-teeth glared at me from her seat. “You can’t take that crayon. It’s against the rules.”
“Ssh! No one will notice!” I urged, looking around.
“It’s against the rules!” Buck-teeth repeated.
“Leave me alone!” I shot back, whispering as loud as I possible could.
In a sudden and jolting movement, Buck-teeth tipped her chin to the ceiling, popped her skinny arms out in a defiant stance and screamed through the hand I tried to shove over her mouth, “MS. MCLAUGHLIN!”
“Dear?” The teacher feigned a look that said what a shocking but manageable disruption! Her syrupy, squeaky tone dominated the air around us. “What have I told the class about speaking out of turn? Class, must we remind her?” She strolled toward the front of the class, her great mass bouncing and her pointing stick obediently at her side.
I was stuck frozen, lavender in fist, while the rest of the class slowly looked up.
“All together now, class: We raise our hands to speak, we work quietly in our seats.”
The class chimed in like subjects in a communist regime, “We raise our hands to speak, we work quietly in our seats.”
“Very good, dears!” Ms. Mclaughlin gave a tiny clap and shot a smile at the art docents in the corner. “Now girls, please do not disrupt the class again.” She looked at us with a cheery smile, but her eyes told us otherwise. Her voice dropped lower as she added a bone-chilling “I mean it.”
I turned back to my artwork like a programmed machine, the lavender crayon slipping down to the floor. That stupid girl! I could’ve used purple! I thought. But I was shell-shocked from the teacher’s reprimand, and I obediently colored in my blue-green bird.
The period waned. Ms. Mclaughlin soon walked to the front of the room and announced through a plastered-on smile, “Everyone, please place your drawings in a neat pile up here.” The squeak of sneakers on tile ensued as we marched forward.
I turned to walk back to my seat when a plushy hand grabbed my shoulder. “Dear, please check that you put your name on your artwork.” Ms. Mclaughlin had pulled me aside. I cringed. A set of breasts bigger than your head and above eye-level looks pretty scary to a fourth grader. “You often forget, you know,” said reminded. It was degrading. I sorted through the pile.
“Ms. Mclaughlin?”
“Dear?”
“I can’t tell which one is mine. They all look the same”
The poster on the front wall of the classroom read Everyone is Unique in bold red letters. But even with that nasty third-eye bun, I don’t think Ms. Mclaughlin ever saw it.
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