The Other Way Around Read Free Page B

unflappable bun. “You can take your smart mouth directly to the principal’s office, young man.”
    I remember the heat that rose up instantly in my face and the way everyone else dropped their eyes to their desks, as if disobedience might be contagious. It wasn’t like junior high, when kids were sent to the principal’s office all the time and everyone just kind shrugged in a too-bad-for-you kind of way. This was elementary school. The principal was a mythic figure who appeared only during holiday assemblies and national emergencies. This was serious.
    As I slowly walked down the polished stairs, my sweaty palm gripping the banister for support, it occurred to me that if anyone had been smart-mouthing, it was Matt Hider. I guess it wasn’t as easy to send the kid with the retarded sister to the principal’s office.
    The secretary looked up from her teddy bear catalog long enough to give me a shaming look and direct me to the wooden bench outside the principal’s door. I sat there and watched the office comings and goings for about twenty minutes beforeanyone else spoke to me. I could hear the muffled tones of Mr. McGinty on the phone inside his office. I watched as a third-grader’s mother came to sign her out for a dentist appointment. Two kids, only one who actually looked sick, came down to go to the nurse’s office. Mrs. Bolduc, the school nurse, came out at one point and smiled at me until she realized why I was sitting where I was sitting. She exchanged her smile for a troubled look and went back in her office.
    Finally Mr. McGinty came out and kneeled next to me so that his head was at my eye level and I could see his yellowing teeth and smell the Scope on his breath. “I suppose you know why you’re here,” he said.
    â€œI was rude to the teachers,” I offered, hoping for a brief moment this might be as easy as confession—which I had only seen in movies, since Mom’s family thinks too much religion is tacky and Dad describes himself as a recovering Jew.
    Mr. McGinty nodded. “I’ve called your mother, and she’s on her way in. She’s trying to get ahold of your father so he can be here too.” My blood froze. They were calling my parents? Over this? My face grew hot again, and a few fat, embarrassing tears began to well up in my eyes. Mr. McGinty seemed satisfied with this response. He stood up with some difficulty and spoke to the school secretary. “He can wait in the conference room. Why don’t you set him up with something to do until everyone gets here?”
    I was ushered into the conference room next to the principal’s office, a stale, windowless room with a table, five chairs, and a tower of extra folding chairs stacked in one corner. Month-at-a-glance calendars detailing the schoolwide events and planned field trips covered the walls. I was given a coloringbook and some crayons. Once I grew tired of staring at the calendars, I turned my attention to the coloring book, which turned out to be a series of cautionary tales about a misbehaving frog who makes bad choices. The book had clearly been used before, and I halfheartedly enjoyed whoever had given the frog a yellow Mohawk and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth on each page. I turned to a blank page and began to color the frog purple.
    The buildup to the meeting was worse than the meeting itself. By the time my parents got there, school was over and Mrs. Wilcox could attend, along with Mrs. Richards, the school social worker. I was asked a few times if I understood why I what I had said was wrong and inappropriate, and I was able to get away with answering by head nod and sorrowful expression. What I remember most about the meeting were my parents. My mom seemed to actually enjoy the meeting and suggested several times that we might need to reconvene if there wasn’t any progress in my behavior or attitude. She mentioned several times that I might have