Chapter 4
The Kindergarten Visit
The boys finally pulled up to Prestwick Elementary. It was your typical elementary school, two story brick building, 15 foot maple trees neatly line the front of the building with steps leading up to the entrance at the center of the school. The two hopped out of the car.
“Thanks for the ride dad. See you later.”
“You boys have a good day at school.” Gary’s dad replied as he sped off to work at the steel mill. They both had difficulty walking. Nardell had never worn high heels before and nearly twisted his ankle with every step. Gary had a noticeable limp since he was only wearing one shoe.
Luckily the boys’ class was on the first floor. As the bell rang they shot through the door. All the students in the class were sitting and erupted with laughter as Nardell walked in. Nardell loved the attention and decided to put on a little show in the front of the room with his dance that he had been practicing early on. He didn’t mind that Mrs. Coy, his teacher, was also watching. He went right ahead and stuck his fluffy pink booty right in the kids’ faces in the front row.
“Alright now Nardell, that is enough. Please have a seat.” Mrs. Coy sternly said.
Mrs. Coy had been teaching for 43 years and this was her last. She said that school just isn’t what it used to be.
“They just don’t let the kids be kids anymore.” She would say. She loved her class and felt that the kids kept her young, but many felt it was time for her to go. One day she was alone at her desk eating lunch and fell asleep on her tray and nearly drown in her apple sauce. There was also another time when she slipped in the bathroom and went headfirst into the toilet. To make matters worse, she accidentally grabbed the handle of the toilet on the way down and nearly flushed herself. She did have a great sense of humor and was able to laugh at things like that and keep moving on.
“No need to worry about the past. Today is a gift. That is why they call it the present day.” She would always say.
She called the students to have a seat in the front of the room to go over the calendar.
“Can anyone tell me what the date is today?"
Nearly all of the students had their hands anxiously waving in the air. Mikey, a thin, blonde haired kid with braces was called on.
“Halloween!” he yelled and then gave an evil laugh to go along with his skeleton costume.
“Yes, Michael, it is Halloween, but that is not the date.”
She noticed Braxton, a boy that rarely had his hand up, waving his hand in the air so hard that it looked like he was going to pass out.
“Yes Braxton?”
“I see Nardell’s underwear!” Braxton yelled out.
Nardell looked down and noticed that he was sitting Indian style, which one should not do while wearing a dress.
“Nardell, since you have a dress on, you may sit in a chair.” Mrs. Coy said wearing a little smile. Nardell was a little embarrassed. It even looked like he may have been blushing a bit. It was difficult to tell with his dark skin.
“Yep, I saw them! They were white.” Braxton felt the need to give more detail about the underwear.
“Ok Braxton, we get it!” Nardell yelled.
“Hey everyone, I’m wearing tighty whities!” Nardell shouted as the class roared with laughter.
“Stop the fussing!” Mrs. Coy yelled.
She always said that when it got too loud in the class. The kids just thought that it was something that all old people would say when kids talked too much.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. It was Mr. Shivers the principal of the school.
“Good Morning Mrs. Coy. Mr. Beaker will be a little late getting to work today. Would you mind watching his kids until he gets here?”
“Is everything okay” Mrs. Coy asked with concern.
“I think so. Apparently he was in his chicken costume for Halloween when he stepped out of his house and headed for his car. Well, his dog had mistaken him for a stranger and bit him right on the rear end. When he went into the house screaming in pain, he woke his wife up. The first thing she saw was a six foot chicken standing in the doorway with a dog hanging from his butt. She ran and grabbed a steel pan from the kitchen and chased him back out of the house. While he was running for his life, he managed to get tangled up in his lawn decorations. Luckily the dog then grabbed his beak and ripped his mask off before his wife beat him senseless.”
“Oh my goodness, that sounds like quite a morning!” Mrs. Coy said in disbelief.
“Sure does” Mr. Shivers said.
“Oh, by the way, Brian Dawson’s mother called and said he may not be in today. His father had painted his face to look like a zombie and when he saw his reflection in the bus window, he scared himself and ran straight into a telephone pole.”
Without another word, Mr. Shivers was heading back to his office. Sixteen kindergartners were staring at Mrs. Coy waiting for instruction.
“Okay boys and girls, come on in.” she calmly welcomed them into her room.
As the students filed in, they were all dressed as different things.
“Please have a seat on the floor.” Mrs. Coy instructed the little ones. She didn’t like the idea of watching kindergartners. She had began her career as a kindergarten teacher and almost left her profession. The kids get off task very easily and they have the attention span of a goldfish. Today was going to be very difficult considering it was Halloween and most of the kids had already eaten a considerable amount of candy.
“Okay boys and girls, What things remind us of Halloween?”
Several students raised their hands.
“How about the little boy in the back.” Mrs. Coy pointed to the child that appeared to be dressed like a pickle.
“ Can I use the restroom?” The child asked.
“Yes go ahead.” Mrs. Coy replied.
Immediately 15 tiny hands shot up in the air. This wasn’t anything new to Mrs. Coy. She knew that once one child did something, everyone had to do the same thing.
“Now class, we all can’t use the restroom. Let’s get back to the question.”
Mariel raised her hand. “A pumpkin of course” she said with a smile.
Mrs. Coy decided to pick a couple of third graders to answer the question to get the little minds going. She called on another student.
“A black cat”
“Yes of course!” Mrs. Coy said with delight.
She gained confidence and decided to call on another kindergartner. A little boy dressed and an ant said, “My dad has a lot of armpit hair.”
Mrs. Coy’s jaw dropped in disbelief.
“Okay……what does your father’s armpit hair have to do with Halloween?” She asked with confusion.
“Well when he was watching T.V., I thought that he was holding our cat under his arm. Turns out it was just his armpit hair.”
"This is not a good start." Mrs. Coy whispered. The kids had absolutely no focus at all. They just had a haze in their eyes as they wiggled on their bottoms on the floor.
“They look like fish out of the water” Mrs. Coy thought to herself. She wasn’t planned for this surprise and glanced at the clock. Thankfully she had only ten minutes until she took the kids to gym class. This was the break that she would need to plan for the class when they returned.
Just as she was about to start, the class got quiet. They heard a singing coming from somewhere. It eventually got so quiet that you could hear the rustling of the kids on the floor. The sound was coming from the bathroom. Mrs. Coy slowly walked over to the door and leaned her ear towards it.
“Big boys go potty on the pot-pot. Going poo poo in your pants you should not-not. Sorry toilet that’s all I got-got. FIRE IN THE HOLE!” The student shouted as he flushed the toilet.
“Adios poopos!” the voice shouted before the sound of the toilet seat slamming echoed around the room.
A few seconds later, the boy came out of the bathroom and looked up to Mrs. Coy.
“It’s all yours!” he said as he walked to the floor with toilet paper dragging from the back part of his costume.
“Okay boys and girls, time to line up for gym class!” Mrs. Coy said with great relief. “How about the kindergartners in the front of the line and the bigger kids in the back. I trust that the older kids will be well behaved since I won’t be able to keep a close eye on you.”
The kids all cheered and rushed to get in line. They all loved gym class. As the kids wiggled their way into a nice single file line, they noticed Billy Pancake, a third grader, squirming on the floor trying to get up. He was having tremendous difficulty and the reason was that he was wearing the same turtle costume that he had in kindergarten and it was incredibly tight. He tried to pull himself off of the floor by using a desk, but his hand slipped and he fell on his back. He began to cry for help as he wiggled his arms and legs in the air, similar to a real turtle on it’s back. A couple of kids ran over to assist him by grabbing his arms and pulling him to his feet.
Billy was embarrassed. He wished he could just crawl into his shell and hide. He was a heavy set kid wearing a costume that was way too small. He turned away from the class so they wouldn’t see his belly hanging out and quickly pulled his shirt down. Next he bent over to pull his pant legs down because they came up to his knees in his struggle on the floor. While he was doing this he heard a loud long tearing sound coming from his backside. The sound was followed by several laughs from the kids in line. Billy had just split his pants right down the middle. To make matters worse, he was wearing his sister’s pink Zelia the Princess undies covered in silver sparkles. When his pants split, the face of Zelia seemed to pop out of the hole in his pants.
“Class be polite!” Mrs. Coy said sternly. “How would you feel if this happened to you? You need to be respectful and mind your manners!”
The class quickly came to silence.
“This is the best day of my life!” Braxton yelled with his hands in the air. “I love underwear. I don’t know why, but I do!”
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Mrs. Coy shouted. “Braxton, if you say another word about underwear, you will not be allowed to participate in any activities today!”
“Yes Maa’m” Braxton replied.
Gary decided to break the uneasy feeling in the room and go over to comfort Billy. He put his arm around him.
“Mrs. Coy, I can run him to the nurse if you would like.”
Nardell ran over, “I’ll go with them.”
“Well that is very nice of you boys. Go ahead.” Mrs. Coy said proudly.