May, a month of MADAM Mayhem 7 ! ! !

Monday “Memorial Day” May 26th 3:45 pm

Stephen and Jarred were at the Gruberville town picnic talking about the Friday before. They had escaped disaster twice since they saved Fast Freddy that one-day. The first time was when Suzanne tripped Stephen while he was carrying a large bucket of pond water for the teacher’s fish tank. Suzanne was hoping he would fall and spill the water all over Mrs. Stintenhutt. She would then claim that Stephen had “tossed” the water at the teacher. But instead, Stephen fell like an A-1 stunt man, dropping only a few cups worth on the floor. Mrs. Stinkybutt just turned and told him to be more careful. (I know, it’s rude to call people names…but I’m sure I smelled something awful coming from her direction while she stood out on the front lawn of the school monitoring the children heading home after classes.) And Suzanne had turned back around so quickly, there was no evidence of her attempt. The other incident was not so quickly apparent. The only witness was a 3rd grader and he was much too afraid to talk. It happened on Friday the 23rd first thing in the morning. Suzanne wanted to get the boys in trouble something fierce. I still don’t know why. My only conclusion was that maybe she was the spawn of some crazed escaped lunatic “horror circus” clown. Most of those clowns scare me. And as much as I would like to offer proof of my theory, there just isn’t any.

Suzanne was just leaving the girls rest room, when she could hear Jarred and Stephen talking in the boy’s room. She gave a quick thought to running into the boys room and then screaming, running back out and then claiming that the boys had dragged her in there. However, that thought gave way to her paranoia of how disgusting boys bathrooms are. Then as she exited the girl’s room, Suzanne could hear the principle talking to Mrs. Jones the 3rd grade teacher around the corner and down the hall. His voice always traveled well down the halls, so he got a bit louder as he slowly approached the intersection of halls. Suzanne could hear the boys washing their hands. (Isn’t it just great? These must be the only hygienically conscience boys on the planet. Or they were just trying to splash each other’s jeans to make it look like the other guy had wet himself peeing. Yea, I kind of lean toward the latter too.) She knew it would only be seconds before they came out of the boy’s room. In mere microseconds a light bulb went off, and she had developed an idea and poised her self, ready to take action. Not even the speed of a strobe light could have kept up with this one. Suzanne reached into her purse, pulled out a tube of Deep Crimson lipstick, and covered her lips accurately quick. As Suzy Moo Chews luck would have it, Mr. Fricklemier hit the corner and was distracted by another student who was running in the hall. As the boys started out of the wash room, rest room, bath room, boys room (just how many names do you humans have for the place you go pee? I just call it outside.) and all inside of 4 seconds Suzanne leaned in, grabbed both boys by the shirt, and made lipstick coated lip to lip contact with Stephen and Jarred. She then pushed herself away from them, dramatically falling to the floor shouting, “What are you doing? Stop it Stephen. No Jarred!” Oh now somebody has got to say it…’What a low down,, dirty rotten, Witch.’ Mr. Fricklemier released his runner as he heard Suzanne holler. He ran over and reached out a hand to help her up. “Are you okay?” he asked. Suzanne started to shed a few fake tears, and then mumbled something unintelligible. Picklebuyer looked at the lip evidence on the boys and offered his sympathy. “You just go on back to class, I’ll take care of these two. Grabbing one boy in each hand, he led them down to his office. The boys tried to explain the truth, but their crimson lips spoke of another story. “That third grader.” Stephen said. “Yea, Jeenky, Heenky something.” Jarred added “Yea, he saw the whole thing.” The boys began to exchange offers of info. “He was following us out of the…” “Where’d he go?” “You gotta ask him!” “He knows what happened, HE KNOWS!” Mr. Fricklemier interrupted “All right, all right. That’ll be enough. You two sit right here.” The boys sat down in the “Bench of Forthcoming Doom”. That’s what the kids called the bench you sat on to await your turn with the board of education. The flat wooded board of education. The principle left the office and headed back toward Mrs. Jones room. 4 minutes later he returned, gave the boys a hall pass to get back to their classroom, and told them to return to his office after school.

It took all day, many promises of protection, and a hand full of hard candy from the secretaries candy dish, to get the Hinky boy to talk. The BOB must have gotten to him earlier. But when he finally talked the truth was revealed. The boys were vindicated, and little miss Suzanne was now the one in the hot seat. Mr. Fricklemier knew the boys were still at that stage of thinking that girls were both cute and weird, so it was unlikely that they would have kissed Suzanne. Pushed her down maybe, but not kiss her. Since it took nearly all day Friday to get to the truth, Suzanne’s punishment would have to wait until Tuesday. “Boy, oh boy. I hope she gets the chair.” Jarred said. (The chair was ‘In School Suspension’. You had to sit in a very large uncomfortable wooden chair, facing the back wall in the small converted closet next to the principles office. There was a window on the door that all the other kids could see you through as they were going to recess, gym, or art class. You could only get up to go to the bathroom twice a day, and once to get your lunch from the lunch lady at the counter in the office. The rules were strict, and enforced. You were not allowed to speak to anyone. You were not allowed to turn around and look out the window. Just sit and do all the work assignments that your teacher provided. Each and every violation resulted in another day. It was like solitaire confinement.) “Yea, but even that would be getting off easy for her.” Stephen finished.

The boys went off and played some volleyball with the other boys. They ate, and got a little sunburn. The day wound down to a kind of chintzy fireworks display, but then the Independence Day fireworks were always much better.

Henry the Dog