My daughter got a call from her son’s teacher. Nothing unusual about that because she’d had quite a few since her first-born Kieran started school this year. However, she was expecting it a few days earlier after being baled up by the principal in the school pick up area.
A few days earlier
She could see him, Mr Strawberllerry, making a bee line towards her as she waited for Kieran to come bounding out of his classroom.
He cleared his throat as he got closer and gave a perfunctory wave so there was no mistaking which parent he was going to approach. Mr Strawberllerry then put on his sternest voice and spoke in a monotone obviously trying to keep a straight face.
‘Kieran was in my office today at lunch time– uninvited. He was there when I got back from lunch duty just sitting in my chair. I asked why he was in there. He didn’t have an answer. When I asked him to go to his classroom, he dropped his head and turned towards the door. and took his time walking out”.
“I’ll be speaking to him more about this tomorrow”.
As a smile started to take shape on Mr Strawberllerry’s face, he added, “I’d like you to follow this up at home with Kieran this evening.”
But just like the set of steak knives, there was more
Mr Strawberllerry paused before continuing. By now the smile on his face had changed to one of those fully plastered on types.
“There was another incident this morning involving Kieran and his buddy Stanley”.
Apparently, Stanley had a nosebleed at the start of the day that left his nostrils a bit red and crusty. When the children were moving to the outdoor play area for recess, Kieran was lined up behind Stanley. Stanley thought it would be funny to turn and push his face right into Kieran’s face. Kieran freaked out, and by his actions, he had obviously disconnected the crusty nostrils from Stanley, the whole child.
How not to deal with the grotesque
At the age of five Kieran had not developed a lot of coping strategies to deal anything as grotesque as crusty nostrils. So he immediately turned away from Stanley, lowered his school trousers and flashed his peachy pink naked butt up close to his tormentor. Then both little boys ran away in opposite directions screaming.
As a grandmother, one thing became clear to me. The reason Kieran would have gone into Mr Strawberllerry’s office was because that’s what he thought he had to do. It was his punishment. After all, he had been sent there on other occasions for a stern talk with the principal about what to do and what not to do at school.
By now, Kieran had already clocked up almost as many school (mis)adventures as Nicolas, had done in the book series Le Petit Nicolas. And I’m talking about all 16 books here. But just like the fictional character Nicolas, Kieran is a sensitive loving little boy and never devious. He has good values even though he may not know the meaning of the word.
The expected phone call … finally
Hannah finally got the long-expected phone call from Kieran’s teacher when she was at my place this afternoon.
“Hello Sharon.”
“Yes Sharon”.
“So, no punishment for Kieran.”
“I understand. Thanks so much”.
“Bye”.
The teacher said …….
Mr Strawberllerry dealt with Kieran in his office about being in his office the day before! Poor Kieran probably thought he had done his punishment the day before when he took it upon himself to go to the office after the K/S affair.
There was no punishment for the K/S incident for either boy.
It reminds me of the Edgar Allan Poe story – The Tell-Tale Heart
Coincidentally, I began studying the short story called The Tell-Tale Heart written in 1843 the same day I became aware of Kieran’s latest pranks. There are some similarities between the story and the K/S incident. In The Tell-Tale Heart, a man (also the narrator) is so freaked out by seeing something that is grotesque to him. In this case, he believed his landlord possessed an ‘evil eye’ which was really just a milky white glass eye.
Unfortunately, this story ended very badly unlike the K/S story.
Say thanks ?
Thanks so much to Agence Olloweb for the cover image of this blog post.
