Word of the Day Challenge: Gorgeous

Paul Klee

Mrs. Lee was my second grade teacher- and it’s a good thing she was a teacher back in the early 1970’s because now days Mrs. Lee would have found herself at the receiving end of a lawsuit or two.

She had anger issues. Plus she was quick to dole out pinches and hair pulling to her less then favored students.

Guess which one I was?

One day I was talking in class ( because I was 7 and kids that little are a little squirrely ) and everyone was talking and ignoring Mrs Lee when she told us to shut up.

Frustrated out of her mind,  she stormed from the back of the class and head up our chattering row of unruly students and she stopped at my desk.  I heard her yell again and then she grabbed a handful of hair from the back of my head and banged my face into my desk.

That did the trick.

You could have heard a penny drop for the rest of the day.

When I got home my Mom asked me what happened at school because the front of my shirt was covered with blood  and my lips were a little swollen and I said, ” I fell off of the monkey bars ”

HA! I thought. No way was I going to tell my Mom I got into trouble for talking in class. Getting busted once a day was enough for me.

Not to long after the face plant incident, we had art day and our project was to draw the person sitting next to us.

The boy sitting next to me looked at me and then he put his face over his paper and he dug in. He was like a little drawing machine. He grabbed crayon after crayon and filled in every square inch of paper.

When he was done he held it up and to my horror he had made me look like a pig. He had drawn big round circles for breasts  and a  huge smiling pink half moon circle extending from between my legs. I’m not kidding you. I was horrified. ” Look Anita! I drew you like a pig! You have a dick and boobs! And look you’re peeing too!”

I started to cry. It was an awful dirty picture and he had even written my name under the pig.

Mrs. Lee flew across the room and wanted to know why I was making so much noise and I pointed at Raymond’s picture. ” He made me into a pig! ” I couldn’t point out the body parts or the pee. It was to embarrassing.

She looked at it and said. ” Oh. It does not look like a pig. It’s a nice drawing. The colors are gorgeous and look at that nice smile! Where’s your picture Anita? Can you draw something as nice as that?”

No. No. I didn’t. I spent the rest of the day with my head down on my folded arms and I stayed that way until the bell rang.

It was a long time after Mrs. Lee hung that picture up on the art wall  that I didn’t see that pig’s face looking back at me from the mirror.

I suppose sometimes I still do see it.