Writing Prompt #2

 

 After years mostly dormant, I am attempting to work myself into being a writer again. To that end, I did a simple Google search for "writing prompts" and chose the first link listed, which included a total of 20 prompts. My goal is to write from a new prompt each day, giving myself 10 minutes before calling "hands up, utensils down" (so to speak), and then posting the unedited result in this blog. The post below is today's entry.

 

"Recall an important memory from your childhood and tell it from the perspective of someone else who was present."

 

 

Well, score a point for the buck-toothed kid. Just when I thought I’d chosen the most talented and, frankly, most attractive sixth-grade kids to represent our school’s Orff music program at the county-wide program for Memphis in May, I’m going to have to uglify things a bit and include that smart-aleck.

 

Honestly, I don’t know how he found out. I made my selections yesterday and sent the list to the school board rep. Yeah, I made a joke in the teachers’ lounge afterward about finally getting my revenge on the kid with the big teeth. Did one of them rat me out?

 

Why did I want revenge? That kid has pissed me off several times this past school year. Back in the fall, I wrote out the lyrics to a short ditty on vegetables on a poster-sized sheet of paper for the class to learn and sing. That bastard had the nerve to raise his hand and, with a cocky grin, point out that lettace is not spelled l-e-t-t-a-c-e. I told him, no, I spelled it correctly, but he kept insisting I was wrong, so to get rid of him for a few minutes, I sent him to the library to check the big dictionary. He wasn’t gone even five minutes before he re-entered the classroom and, without saying a word, took a marker and scribbled a u in place of the a. The gall. This is also the same twerp who, when I was playing a tune on the recorder, stood up and did a mocking dance and dumb-show of my playing.

 

God made him cocky, but he also made him look like a beaver, which was a good enough reason to keep him off the Orff squad. Or so I thought, anyway, before he and a couple of his friends confronted me about why he was not chosen. I was completely blindsided, and in a moment of embarrassed panic, I told him I didn’t mean to omit him and of course he was part of the team. Jeez.

 

Was it that goody-goody Miss Russell who outed me? Gah.