Miss Laidlaw was my Grade 5 homeroom
teacher. That's when it happened. Our classes rotated from homeroom to other
classrooms for different subjects. It puzzled me then and puzzles me still, why
adults could not take this into consideration when assessing blame for the
spitballs that appeared one day on the wall of my homeroom. The spitballs were
conspicuously stuck around the large wall clock in our homeroom. Miss Laidlaw
fancied herself a super sloth, a Sherlock Holmes I surmise because when no one
admitted to the deed, she required all of us to remove papers from our homeroom
desks. She removed one spitball from the wall, unfolded the spitball and now
came to each student's desk with this torn piece of paper. To my horror, upon
removing papers from my desk drawer, a page had a corner ripped away. At my desk
Miss Laidlaw matched her spitball to my paper. I stalwartly claimed innocence
for an inordinately long period of public interrogation. Other students sat at
my desk during the day I protested. We were all sent home for lunch but I was
told that upon return I must confess my guilt and make an apology to my class
for wasting their time. Over the lunch hour I struggled with this allegation and
that afternoon to my everlasting regret I yielded to the pressure and complied
with Miss Laidlaw’s demands, though I am still innocent to this day, scarred,
needing therapy that will surely come too late.
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