By Guillaume:
Nope, I shouldn’t have done it.
Every now and then I ask myself what I should have done in a situation. I might be in the shower and suddenly think about the fact that I should’ve stood up for myself when this random guy, Jimmy, purposely or not purposely, pushed me and spilled milk over my clothes. I probably should have said, “Hey, you punk, say sorry, you dirty sack of unripe bananas! And get me some towels!” But instead I just said “Oh! I’m so sorry.”
This happens quite often to me because believe it or not I actually prefer staying neutral and being stepped on. That’s just me. It’s how I am. I have tried changing that, but no progress has been made.
Anyways, I am currently enrolled in a high school and take a variety of different classes. I love school (except Jimmy), I love my friends, I love my teachers, I love the building itself, I love learning, I love listening, I love playing sports, I love learning a new language, I love learning how to code on my computer, I love writing, I love reading, I love a lot of things and could probably go on like this for a long time but then I would bore you. But I have another, far more important list to present to you and it is drastically shorter. It’s the list of the things I don’t like. One name. Mrs. Samuel.
Of all the things I love in school, I love English the most. Literature, writing, there are many reasons why I love English. I have loved English through my entire life. But this year, my English teacher is terrible. That is an understatement. She is the most vicious, cruel, hateful, and mean person I have ever met. I hate hating someone, especially the lady who is supposed to teach my favorite subject in school. How is that even possible? How can a lady who teaches English be even slightly evil? My best guess is that she wasn’t supposed to be an English teacher, and was most definitely supposed to be a mathematician. All she does all day is play with numbers. And when I say numbers, I am talking about zeros. And when I am talking about zeros, I am talking about my English grades.
See, the first day of school when we participated in “ice breakers” (where you say something about yourself to try to interrupt the awkward climate of your classroom on the first day of school) I said that I wanted to become an English teacher. Since then, Mrs. Samuel has done everything within her power to make that dream impossible for me. By giving me zeros in English, no college is going to accept me in their literature program, and I understand them. The cherry on top of this unripe banana sundae was that everyone loves Mrs. Samuel. Everyone. Every single person in that room. And that is once again that’s something Mrs. Samuel is doing on purpose, because if nobody hates her apart from me, then I cannot complain about her since no one will agree. As you can see, I am facing a very tough situation.
Anyways, today I spoke with this beloved teacher to figure out a solution. What exactly does she want from me? So I went up to her and simply asked. She answered with exactly what I thought she would say: “ Nothing darling, you know I treat all my students the same way. I love teaching, and that means you too.” Something was wrong... why would she say that? Question answered: the principal was in the classroom right next to us and could hear our conversation. As soon as he left, I finally got what I wanted : “I will make your life miserable. You will not get into college to become an English teacher if your grade average in English is 0% your senior year.”
That was it for me, I needed nothing else. She had pushed me past my breaking point. Yes, my very, very solid breaking point (Jimmy hadn’t gone that far). I came home that day and knew what to do. No! ...Not murder, are you crazy? I just needed revenge and get rid of her for a week. With that idea in mind, I went down to the pantry and started my scavenger hunt. I needed to find something bad, I needed something very bad. Should I give her some sort of poison? Yes. But I’m not a chemist and I don’t know how to make poison. Instead I found a box of cookies. But not just any box of cookies. These cookies had gone bad, very bad. Expiration date, the 7th of September 2005. I emptied the box and put it on a plate. Over that I put a plastic film to make it seem as if I baked the cookies. The cookies were green. From now on they would be vegan, vegetable cookies.
I delivered the cookies one afternoon with a note: “You are right Mrs. Samuel, I will never be good enough to be an English teacher and thank you for making me realize that. You are really an honorable person that has changed my life forever. I have baked Vegan Vegetable cookies to help you accept my apologies for being the disgrace that I am.”
Well I hope she was going to be stupid enough to believe all that. I gave them to her in person. She gave me a dark, gloomy look, then read the note and smiled. She then told me I was “dismissed”. I left the room. I left school and headed home.
On the way back, I started regretting it. What if she died? I don’t want to go to prison. What if they catch me? What if she never comes back to school tomorrow? Oh no, I should have never done this. Screw you shower thoughts. No, no, no. What have I done? I went to bed and did not sleep. I stared at the wall the entire night. She has kids. I don’t want them to be motherless because of vegan cookies. Then, they’ll totally never be vegan. And the world needs vegans. Less meat equals less climate change. Man, am I contributing to the destruction of the world? I am sorry mother nature. I am sorry Mrs. Samuel. She had children! What did I do?!?!? I considered turning myself in to the police. Is the death penalty even legal in my state? And even if she wasn’t dead, she would be sick and she would know it was be my fault. That was only going to worsen my situation.
I woke up from not sleeping and went to school. She was absent. I was a murderer. I entered the classroom and there was a substitute. I sat down and he announced: “Mrs. Samuel is no longer your teacher this year.” I should turn myself in. “After getting milk spilled on her dress, she left the school after announcing she was moving to Hawaii to become a surfer.” YES, YES JIMMY YOU MILK SPILLING HEATHEN! THANK YOU! I was saved. No sign of the cookies but I was saved. I could become an English teacher after all. My dreams could come true.
I was walking to the cafeteria and the principal office’s door was open. I could see his desk. And I could see the plate of cookies. Specifically, I could see a half munched vegan cookie. I am sorry Mother Nature, it seems you'll have one less family of vegans after all.