by Megan Risley

Created on: March 12, 2009

"Mom! Guess what!" We were on our way home from school. She had to pick me up because they don't drive the buses on Thursdays. "Today, I got five checks by my name! That's more than anyone in the whole class! That's more than yesterday, too!" My mother sighed. She had some explaining to do...again.

Those check marks are actually bad things. Apparently, they indicate when someone does something wrong and it is supposed to be a deterrent for trouble since the chalkboard is in the front of the classroom for all to see...I had honed in on the "all to see" part and the goal was to get more checks than the other students who had gotten their names written on the board. I found that talking in class was the easiest and fastest way to accumulate check marks and so began sharing the stories I was writing with fellow, nearby classmates.

I told of gerbils escaping their cages to fly across the sea in their mini planes, wild horses able to jump rainbows and rivers that could talk and play with you. But, my favorite story was of James Richard and my button dress.

"My first day of school here I wore a pink buh-in dress. This dress had fluffy sleeves and really big, different colored buh-ins on it, and I got to pick out dark pink tights to wear with it. I was playing on the blacktop with two other girls and even though they had dresses on, my buh-in dress was the best one. There was this bully, though. James Richard. He's in a different class than mine, but all the kindergarterns play together at recess. And when I was running because we were playing tag, James Richard stuck out his big foot and tripped me, and it was on purpose, too. I don't think he liked my buh-in dress. I fell down on the black top and scraped a big hole in my pink tights and ripped the end of my buh-in dress, and I got blood on it, too. James Rickard started laughing at me when I was crying and the recess supervisor saw what happened. She called both our mommies and when I told them that James Richard ruined my new buh-in dress, James' mommy went to buy me a new dress. This new dress was even better than my buh-in dress because this new dress was purple and ruffly and twirly. So, even though my buh-in dress is ruined, and James Richard is still a bully, I got my favoritest dress now!"

James Richard got more than check marks by his name for that. And telling that story was worth all the check marks I got, even once I did understand the function of them.

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