You're Grounded

You're Grounded

My fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Sands. She was about sixty in 1962, so I guess today she'd be about 104 or dead. Anyway, she had short gray hair with a little bun in the back and a plain figure. She always wore flowered dresses, and she had a hearing aid built into her horned rim glasses. Her teaching style was simple and she believed in discipline.

Picture the classroom. The chalk boards were on the front wall with Mrs. Sands desk a few feet away facing the class. The thirty student desks were arranged in five rows of six facing the chalk boards. The left wall was all windows looking out on the quiet suburban street in front of the Whittier Elementary School. The back wall was all closets, where we stowed our coats, hats, lunches, and other stuff. The only door to the room was at the back of the right wall by the closets. A few seats from the door up the right wall toward the front was the Airport.

The Airport was a bulletin board covered in construction paper. The sky was a beautiful powder blue with cut out white fluffy clouds. The ground was brown and in the right corner was a building we called the hangar. Each student had a little airplane with their name on it thumb-tacked to the board. When you would arrive in the classroom the first thing you had to do is move your plane from the ground to the sky and when school was over several hours later you would move the plane from the sky to the ground. At least, that is what would happen if all went well during the day.

When a student did something bad like pulling a girl's hair or shooting spitballs and Mrs. Sands caught them, they were "grounded." The child would be required to go to the airport and put their plane on the ground. Class would continue. If that same person made another transgression, they would have to put their plane in the hangar. That meant that they would have to stay after class. It served Mrs. Sands well because she couldn't remember who had been bad by the end of the day anyway.

Well, there was this kid named Jack. He was bad every day. He would hide all the chalk. He would talk in strange voices. He would just start singing right in the middle of Mrs. Sands lessons; original words and music; often disgustingly funny. Now that I think about it he sounded a lot like Pee Wee Herman. Once he even put a thumbtack on Mrs. Sands chair. He applauded her shrieks of pain and laughed at how she jumped out of her chair.

This one week he was in the hangar Monday through Wednesday. Mrs. Sands had had enough. She wanted to believe that she could handle this unruly kid without taking it higher up so she gave Jack an ultimatum. If Jack did not behave, she would have no choice but to send him to the principal and have his parents come and get him. He might even be thrown out of school. I have never forgotten the words "juvenile delinquent" and "detention center" because that was the first time I ever remember hearing them and Mrs. Sands said them with such emotion; disdain and loathing. It seemed to work. Jack was a good boy on Thursday.

It was Friday. Mrs. Sands sometimes gave us in class work to do after lunch. She would unplug her hearing aid tubes that came down from her glasses and then remove her glasses and place them in front of her on the desk. She would close her eyes and rest her head on her arms on the desk. During that time we would do our work but we would also talk a lot in low voices while keeping our eyes out for her to look up. We did not want her to ground us.

Jack had a plan. He carefully went up to her desk and picked up her glasses removing the batteries. We had all finished our work and were deep in conversation. Mrs. Sands woke up and put her glasses back on. She was startled and upset by the fact that she couldn't hear anything. She took the glasses off and shook them. She played with the volume control. Then she saw Jack. He was holding out his hand and shaking the batteries around in his cupped palm. Mrs. Sands was furious. She said, "Jack give me those batteries!" He walked up to her and put them on the desk. She pointed to the Airport and said in a very stern voice, "You're grounded!"

Jack's head dropped and he started walking down the aisle. He reached the Airport and removed his plane from the sky. Then he dropped it on the floor and sprinted out the door. Richard, who sat in the last seat in the row right beside the door, was the biggest and fastest boy in our class. He jumped up and chased after him. At first we all just sat there but when Mrs. Sands actually ran out the door closely behind Richard, the whole class followed. Our classroom was on the second floor. Thinking Jack would head for home, I figured he would go out the back door. I led the way to the big windows across the hall that looked out on the expanse of grass behind the school. We all just stared as Jack ran as fast as he could. Then came Richard. (Some kids thought he had been held back a few grades because he seemed too mature for fourth grade.) He was a natural runner, too fast for Jack, about fifty pounds heavier, and a foot taller.

Just as they were crossing the dirt of the baseball diamond, "Wham!" Richard hit Jack like a ton of bricks tackling him to the ground. Everybody sighed, "Ooooo!" The red dust flew as Jack struggled to get away but Richard's grip was sure. Richard dragged Jack back into the building kicking and cussing. We all moved into the classroom and stood in a herd near the back. Richard returned Jack who fought back futilely until Richard slammed Jack into his front row seat. Jack just sat there, still. He didn't even move to straighten his rumpled clothes or dust himself off.

As Mrs. Sands returned to her position at the front of the class, we all hurried to retake our seats. My seat was between the door and the Airport just in front of Richard. In front of me was Roy, my best friend. We were the biggest boys in the class and were made to sit in the back so we wouldn't block the view for the smaller kids.

Mrs. Sands was very calm and she told Jack the consequences of his actions. She was going to call the principal on the intercom to come and take Jack away. And Jack would probably be taken away to the Juvenile Detention Center. Jack jumped up again and started running for the door. Roy, me, and Richard all stuck our legs out at the same time tripping Jack who went tumbling in out of control cartwheels slamming hard and fast into the closet doors. Richard got up deliberately and pinned Jack to the floor with one knee. Mrs. Sands called the principal. The principal and the gym teacher arrived to take Jack away and we never saw him again.

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