The Day We Took No Notes

This is a true story.

It seemed like an ordinary day, and I suppose it was until late that afternoon. My students were taking notes on grammar. I was checking attendance. As I said before, ordinary day.

I read over the last few names on my attendance sheet, and I just so happened to look up in time to see a boy approaching me. He was struggling to say my name because his mouth was filled with a reddish-purple liquid. His teeth were stained by the liquid. My first thought: He's bitten his tongue off. Oh my goodness! I have no idea how to handle this. They don't train you for stuff like this in school. I can't believe he bit his tongue off.

I suppose I was in shock from what I thought had happened, so I directly asked the student, "Did you bite your tongue off?"

The student mumbled some more.

Oh no! Oh no! He really bit it off. What am I going to do?

"What is he saying? Did he bite his tongue off?" I nervously asked a nearby student, one who had been sitting in the same group as the ink-filled boy and who had quite possibly witnessed the whole thing.

The student quickly shook his head.

"No," he said. "His ink pen busted in his mouth. He was chewing on the end of it."

Relief flooded over me. I wouldn't have to deal with the trauma of a lost tongue after all.

"Go to the bathroom," I encouraged the ink-filled student. "Stop trying to talk. Go rinse your mouth out."

The student nodded, his cheeks on the verge of explosion from all the ink and accumulating saliva. He rushed out the door, and I called the front office, requesting that an administrator check on him. As soon as I hung up the phone, another student called my name. I looked toward him. His dark skin was pale as it could be.

"Ms. Shirley," he said, his eyes wide with sheer terror. "I think he's going to die."

If I'm being honest, all I could think was, Why do you care? You told me yesterday that you hated him. Of course, being a teacher, you can't say those kind of things out loud. Instead, I went with, "He's not going to die. An administrator is checking on him right now."

"No," said the kid, shaking his head. "You don't understand. There is poison in ink. He has that poison in his mouth. If he swallows any of it, he's going to die. Ms. Shirley, I don't like [insert student's name] one bit, but I don't want him to die. I'd rather hate him while he's still alive than have him die."

"He's not going to die," I repeated.

"Can we pray for him just in case?"

"Yes," I said. "If it would make you feel better, you can pray for him."

The student smiled and clasped his hands together.

"Everyone," he said, looking at his peers. "Put your hands together. Ms. Shirley is going to pray for him."

All of the students but one clasped their hands together and looked at me.

"No," said one of the girls, her hands clasped together. "Ms. Shirley can't pray for him. She'll get arrested."

"I won't get arrested," I assured her, "but you're right. It would be best if you prayed individually."

"Yeah, I'm not praying," said the student with the non-clasped hands. "I'm atheist."

"Okay, okay," I said, trying to calm the chaos. "How about this. Those of you who want to pray, pray silently. Those of you who don't want to pray, don't pray. Will that work?"

All of the students, the atheist included, nodded. I looked over at the student who had originally requested the prayer. He seemed fine with my suggestion and put his hands together once more. He looked up at the ceiling tiles, took a deep breath, and smiled.

"Hello!" he exclaimed, still looking up.

"Um, that was not silent," I said, trying not to laugh.

"Oops," he said, looking at me with a sheepish expression.

At this point, I could not help but laugh. The rest of the class followed in suit. Almost instantaneously, the student with the ink-filled mouth returned. The ink was gone, but his mouth was now filled with toilet tissue.

"Good news," he said, his voice barely audible through the toilet tissue. "The administrator said I'm going to live. The pen was non-toxic."

The whole class cheered. My non-silent prayer warrior nodded his head.

"I knew he was going to live," he said, confidently. "Jesus told me."

"Did he?" I asked. "You never even finished your prayer."

The class filled with laughter, including my non-silent prayer warrior. In the midst of the laughter, another student's hand shot up in the air.

"Ms. Shirley, can I get some water?" he asked. "I accidentally ate a piece of paper."

What in the world is going on? This is 7th grade, not kindergarten. What's with everyone eating school supplies?

"Yeah, go ahead," I said, having totally given up on taking notes for the day. "Does anyone want to eat a glue stick?"

The entire class erupted into laughter, and moments later, the bell rang to dismiss the craziest, funniest, most memorable class period of my life.