One Day When I Was a Senior

When coming up with ideas for this prompt, I thought of quite a few stories. Some were unfortunately too short to fit the word requirement, and some that I was afraid would make others embarrassed. Then I remembered something that I believe I only told a couple of people, one of whom was the Vice-Principal. So strap yourselves in, for congratulations you lucky reader, you are in for an interesting tale! Hopefully, I guess it would be up to you whether it is interesting or not.

In any case, I was a senior when this happened. And not just a senior, I was a mere week or so away from seeing the end of the school year. As one can imagine, finals and SOLs (the Virginia standardized tests) were everywhere, and my usual class schedule was turned upside down. I wasn’t worried though, I had been doing well in my classes and I made sure to study. And last, not definitely not least, thanks to being a senior (and maybe because of the classes I was taking), I had no SOLs to take. Just regular tests. Hallelujah.

Though, for my Physics class, there was no test. It was a project, and looking back, perhaps a somewhat strange project for a Physics class, but at the time I didn’t care. My classmates and I were supposed to write a children’s book about one of the things we learned that year, with colored pictures too. Since I wanted to be an author, I was actually excited about this project and after some deliberation, I decided to write about Newton’s second law of motion (for those who don’t know or perhaps have forgotten, it’s Force=Mass x Acceleration).

And while I don’t remember all the details of my book, I do know that it was about a soccer match of some kind (fictional). I doubt it took me long to write the story, nor super long to draw the pictures (the characters were stick figures after all). Soon, I just needed to color the pictures and my Physics project would be done.

But this is where my story actually begins.

Remember when I said that my usual class schedule was turned upside down? Well, thanks to most of the other students having SOLs or other exams, I ended up having study hall with a few other students. The teacher had put on The Secret Life of Bees, which I had already watched so I had no trouble coloring the pictures in my Physics project. There was only one girl (a freshman) watching the movie while the rest of the students (funnily enough, we all happened to be girls) were talking.

Now, the lights were off and for some reason, the girls talking wanted the lights on. The one girl watching the movie wanted them off. There was a lot of back and forth between the two opposing sides and the teacher chose to leave them off for the one girl’s sake. I wisely stayed quiet because I wanted no part of this.

However, I ended up not having a choice.

“Hey, what about Rebecca?” one of the girls who wanted the lights on suddenly asked. “She’s coloring!”

I instantly went still, feeling very much like a deer caught in the headlights.

The teacher then asked me if I wanted the lights on. I carefully gave the most neutral answer I could give, which went along the lines of, “I could use them but I don’t need them.”

She actually turned the lights on and for a short while, there was peace. But then the teacher turned them back off which caused the talking girls to complain again. Not long after that, the teacher gave all the talking girls detention and that was more or less the end of that.

Or so I thought. Not long after that, I was walking to band class. I was passing by the back door of the office when the Vice-Principal saw me and asked me to come in. Curious and maybe a bit confused, I walked up to her and once I did, she asked me what happened during that study hall.

I promptly told the Vice-Principal everything that happened, and when I was done, she said, “Well, that’s not right. Thank you, Rebecca.” I was then free to go.

To this day I don’t know what happened after that, but judging by the Vice-Principal’s reaction, I think she at least thought the talking girls got punished unfairly. In any case, I will always remember being trusted enough to be called as a witness to an...interesting event.