seat before returning to her slouched position and shooting menacing glances at the kids who were still watching her. A Sarah Kervick stare is very effective at making students turn around.
“Thanks for nothin’,” she hissed as Miss Mathews began her speech on the ninety-eight toxic chemicals in secondhand smoke.
CHAPTER TWO
The Remains of the Tray
Lunch at Pelican View Middle School was a very busy time for me. It may come as a surprise that this had nothing to do with eating. A great deal of my lunchroom time was devoted to what I call “blending.” Caring about what others thought was a completely new sensation for me, but in middle school I quickly discovered that fitting in with my peers was as important to health promotion and risk avoidance as washing one’s hands regularly and obeying the WALK indicators at busy intersections.
Why? Because sitting alone in the lunchroom marks you as easy prey. Tommy Williams, who was quickly developing a reputation as
the
practical joker of the sixth grade, routinely snatched the chairs out from underneath students who sat alone. A student on her own was also far more likely to have her lunch scavenged by a roving athlete.
Where were the caring adults who prevented these incidents? Except for Mr. Fiegel, our social studies teacher, they were closeted away in the teachers’ lounge, enjoying adult conversation, filtered spring water from the office cooler, and the use of private bathroom facilities. That’s where.
But Mr. Fiegel, it was rumored, had his eye on the assistant principal’s job, so he volunteered to “maintain order” in the lunchroom. At the beginning of the lunch period, he pulled a stool up next to the condiment table. Tall and thin, with an Adam’s apple that rivaled Ichabod Crane’s, Mr. Fiegel perched on his stool and used a bullhorn to keep misbehaving students in line.
When a student broke a rule, Mr. Fiegel would flick on his bullhorn with a screech and bark into it: “Williams” or “Norton” or even “the gentleman in the soiled red T-shirt.” If there was any doubt about the perpetrator of the crime, Mr. Fiegel would mark him with the ray of his infrared pointer pen, an instrument more commonly found in executive board-rooms during PowerPoint presentations. He would then refer to a cryptic list of lunchroom rules, such as: “only two cheeks to a seat,” “no roving allowed,” or “backpacks must be stowed securely.”
I have repeatedly requested a written list of these lunchroom rules so that I might follow them. Every time I do this, I am told by Miss Rhonda, the school secretary, that they are in the process of being typed up. I am beginning to think Mr. Fiegel is flying by the seat of his pants, as my mother would say, with regard to these lunchroom rules. The clear lack of instructions, plus the fact that there was only one adult supervising almost two hundred sixth graders, added up to this: every boy for himself (or girl as the case may be).
So each time I entered the lunchroom, my primary goal was to band together with the only two students I knew who might be willing to shield me with a lunch tray during a food fight. The first was Bernie Lepner. Bernie was my next-door neighbor. Up until last year, Bernie was in the grade below me; but due to a battery of intelligence tests he took in the spring, he had been encouraged to skip fifth grade entirely. My mother calls Bernie dreamy. Absentminded seems a more appropriate description. Bernie’s mind is always on the characters he reads about in books or the epic medieval fantasy he is creating for future serialization. If you ask him about it, he will suddenly come alive and recall for you a recent battle or plot of murderous revenge, describing in detail the next chapter in his “quatrillionology.”
Since we pack our lunches, Bernie and I usually meet at the entrance to the cafetorium, which is how everyone refers to our lunchroom since it also doubles as our auditorium.
“Thanks for nothin’,” she hissed as Miss Mathews began her speech on the ninety-eight toxic chemicals in secondhand smoke.
CHAPTER TWO
The Remains of the Tray
Lunch at Pelican View Middle School was a very busy time for me. It may come as a surprise that this had nothing to do with eating. A great deal of my lunchroom time was devoted to what I call “blending.” Caring about what others thought was a completely new sensation for me, but in middle school I quickly discovered that fitting in with my peers was as important to health promotion and risk avoidance as washing one’s hands regularly and obeying the WALK indicators at busy intersections.
Why? Because sitting alone in the lunchroom marks you as easy prey. Tommy Williams, who was quickly developing a reputation as
the
practical joker of the sixth grade, routinely snatched the chairs out from underneath students who sat alone. A student on her own was also far more likely to have her lunch scavenged by a roving athlete.
Where were the caring adults who prevented these incidents? Except for Mr. Fiegel, our social studies teacher, they were closeted away in the teachers’ lounge, enjoying adult conversation, filtered spring water from the office cooler, and the use of private bathroom facilities. That’s where.
But Mr. Fiegel, it was rumored, had his eye on the assistant principal’s job, so he volunteered to “maintain order” in the lunchroom. At the beginning of the lunch period, he pulled a stool up next to the condiment table. Tall and thin, with an Adam’s apple that rivaled Ichabod Crane’s, Mr. Fiegel perched on his stool and used a bullhorn to keep misbehaving students in line.
When a student broke a rule, Mr. Fiegel would flick on his bullhorn with a screech and bark into it: “Williams” or “Norton” or even “the gentleman in the soiled red T-shirt.” If there was any doubt about the perpetrator of the crime, Mr. Fiegel would mark him with the ray of his infrared pointer pen, an instrument more commonly found in executive board-rooms during PowerPoint presentations. He would then refer to a cryptic list of lunchroom rules, such as: “only two cheeks to a seat,” “no roving allowed,” or “backpacks must be stowed securely.”
I have repeatedly requested a written list of these lunchroom rules so that I might follow them. Every time I do this, I am told by Miss Rhonda, the school secretary, that they are in the process of being typed up. I am beginning to think Mr. Fiegel is flying by the seat of his pants, as my mother would say, with regard to these lunchroom rules. The clear lack of instructions, plus the fact that there was only one adult supervising almost two hundred sixth graders, added up to this: every boy for himself (or girl as the case may be).
So each time I entered the lunchroom, my primary goal was to band together with the only two students I knew who might be willing to shield me with a lunch tray during a food fight. The first was Bernie Lepner. Bernie was my next-door neighbor. Up until last year, Bernie was in the grade below me; but due to a battery of intelligence tests he took in the spring, he had been encouraged to skip fifth grade entirely. My mother calls Bernie dreamy. Absentminded seems a more appropriate description. Bernie’s mind is always on the characters he reads about in books or the epic medieval fantasy he is creating for future serialization. If you ask him about it, he will suddenly come alive and recall for you a recent battle or plot of murderous revenge, describing in detail the next chapter in his “quatrillionology.”
Since we pack our lunches, Bernie and I usually meet at the entrance to the cafetorium, which is how everyone refers to our lunchroom since it also doubles as our auditorium.
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