31 Days, 31 Memories - Day 12

[bironic]

12. Elementary School

Our first-grade teacher discovered that a book was missing from our classroom library. She tried offering rewards for its return and assured us that no-one would be punished for having borrowed it for so long. I sat there and must have wondered who would take the book and then not admit it. At the end of the year when we were cleaning out our things to take home, I found the book in the back of my desk.

Comments

[crazypalefreak.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, lol.

A vaguely similar story: When in Year 6 (aged 10-11) I came back from lunch one day and as a practical joke I hid my friend's rucksack under someone's coat. I figured she'd find it pretty quickly and so it would just be a silly little thing. Later on she came into the classroom and complained that she couldn't find her bag anywhere, and because she was a drama queen it became this huge deal. The teacher was asking everyone if they knew where it was, they were saying it was stolen and everything. I'm sitting there thinking, 'How can they not find it? It's right there! They can't be looking properly.' Anyway, it became more and more serious, so I got up and said, 'Uhhh. I think I saw it...' and pulled it out from under the coat. They probably realised it was me who hid it. But crikey, it wasn't that big of a deal.

Turned me off practical jokes for a long time.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I think most of school was about making and dealing with messes of things that shouldn't have been a big deal. Yours seems pretty harmless though.

So you were eventually turned back on to practical jokes, then? I expect there're lots more stories there. :)

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

10th grade
This was the year I spent at bording school. We did have a lot of fun a lot of the time :-) A few of my friends, most were guys as usual, were great practical jokers. One night they hid a vacuum-cleaner in the compartment under my bed and set a timer on it to start at 3am. My room-mate and I woke and were completely confused for a few seconds, but fortunately the guys had been having fun a few times with that timer-device, so we quickly caught on. It was still rather funny, though, at least a few days later ;-)

[pynelyf.livejournal.com]

This reminded me of your earlier post about the skylights memory and hit the same note of humor.

kindergarten: http://www.livejournal.com/users/pynelyf/25407.html

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yipes, that would have scared me half to death! I'm glad it quickly turned into something funny, though, and no-one got strangled. :)

My last year at school I had mice in my room from time to time. I lived on the top floor of an old brownstone and they would come up through a hole behind the radiator and skitter around underneath the couch. One night I woke to scurrying noises and a loud SQUEAK!. When I flipped on the light and turned away from the wall I saw two mice, frozen terrified in the middle of the carpet. Then they ran under the couch. I didn't see them again after that. They had to pass under my bed to get back to that hole, and I kept thinking they would climb up to where I lay. I left the light on all night. Even now in another state and a better-sealed home, if I hear paper rustling at night I jerk awake.

(Hm, maybe that should've been today's memory!)

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

I'll just throw in an extra memory as well then.
See those sounds of rustling always jerks me awake as well. My story's a bit different, though.
I had gerbils at a time, two nice black males called Byron and Arthur.
At the same time, a mouse lived in my wall for a few weeks, rustling about. And suddenly it stopped. Then, one night, I came home somewhat intoxicated and went to bed. I was kept awake by this rustling sound and thought that the mouse had to be back in the wall - and then I was wide awake. My mice. What about them! (I called them mice even though they weren't *S*) And sure enough, they'd broken out. It took me forever to capture them again, especially Arthur was a sneaky little thing - and I was rather drunk...
Nowadays I have a mouse, a hamster and four rats, so I am still alert to any break-outs.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

A gerbil named Byron! I knew I liked you. If you hadn't been, er, 'somewhat intoxicated' at the time, you might perhaps have been able to utter a battle cry of "Byron has escaped!"

Now I have a mental image of you stumbling around your room lunging after a gerbil that keeps skittering out of the way.

Maddy had a hamster before she moved to the UK that got out last year for what, a few days? And then if I'm not mistaken she kept a book over the cage.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

I would have! And I'm sure I thought it *G*

That mental image is not all wrong... Byron hid in a corner and was trapped, while Arthur ran under the bed and kept evading my atempts to catch him.

Our hamster escaped a few days ago, but was caught right away. I but a book on the gerbil cage after that night and now there's a huge roll on duct tape weighing down the door to the hamster cage.

I've had other literary pets, btw. My first rat was William (Shakespeare, Gibson and Blake) and there's been Poe as well. Then there's been characters, of course. Hyde, Nemo, Lazlo - and currently Leto. And a few musicians - Henry (Rollins) and (Peter) Murphy, both current. And assorted others too, like Stalin, Samson, Jack, Magni and Napoleon *S*
I guess the hamster gets the prize though, he's known as Enigma Puggle von Zeppelin.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Love it! A very big name for a hamster.