I was in Second grade. I was in Mrs. Boyer’s Class. She was a large matriarch of a woman who I admired very much. It was on a warm fall day, and the kids were lined up to go to lunch. As the tots filed out the door, Mrs. Boyer gently took me by the shoulder and sat me down at a small round table. I remember vividly that there were two classrooms separated by a folding wall. In one classroom the lights were half on. She led me in the second room where the lights were off. The dim, dramatic lighting makes the mood in my memory seem like a classic interrogation. The description is pretty accurate for what happened next.
Mrs. Boyer sat down at a table too small for her and looked at me with stern eyes. She began telling me how disappointed she was in me. Instantly, I panicked. I had done absolutely nothing wrong that I could think of. I was making up hypothetical crimes I might have committed just to be able to remotely understand what I could have done to disappoint her.
She went on to tell me in staggered fragments the story of a fifth grader who had ridden his bike to school and was harassed on the way by a boy named Tyler. Through out the next hour I would learn that “Trouble-kid Tyler” had apparently been shoving sticks in the tire spokes of his victim, taunting him and calling him names. I was being accused of a crime by another Tyler, and I had no defense.
I realized that crying at this point would have made me seem more guilty, so I held it together. In the best vocabulary a second grader could muster, I plead my innocence.
For whatever reason, I was not convincing Mrs. Boyer that I had not attacked this fifth grader. I wished I knew how to verbalize how impossible it was for me to have the slightest intimidation factor on anyone, let alone someone older than me. The Principal, Mrs. Thornhill appeared in the doorway. Mrs Thornhill was a small, slight woman with dark features and a smoky voice. She was adored by all, myself included. When she showed up and looked at me as if I had killed one of her probably many cats, I was that much more devastated.
After a second interrogation I was led down a long hallway into a side room where the bullied boy, his mother, and a man I assumed was a counselor greeted me with stares of hatred and disbelief. I looked at the kid. He was indeed years older than me and physically looked more like a teenager, where I looked like a toddler. The boy lifted his heavy, shamed head to meet my glance and started crying, probably because he was so embarrassed that the faculty thought that a second grader had beat him up.
He muttered “That’s not Him.” which were the only words spoken in that room before I was rushed out into the hallway. Sweet vindication! Out in the hallway, knowing my innocence had been proven, I began to cry as well.
There were broken apologies and sentence fragments like “must have been another …. is there…another Tyler… we are…so sorry”. They called my mom to tell her about the mix up and sent me off to lunch terribly late as if nothing had happened. Dazed, alone and confused, I ate my square pizza alone with dried tears I promised myself never to let authority wrongfully accuse me again. I realized seconds later that I had no control over that and just kept letting that cold pizza fill my emotional void. Food.
Now every time I encounter a situation where I am being reprimanded by an adult I feel like that 2nd grader. So full of hope and innocence. So defeated. So hungry. At least the teachers were a lot nicer to me afterward.
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