Please please lemme tell you a story this is my favorite memory from elementary school
When I was in 6th grade I was a really passionate reader. Like, “check out 8-10 books from the library and finish them all by the end of the week” passionate. I had a bookbag the size of a walrus. I used to stack 3-5 books on my night table and read lovingly out of each of them every night. It was amazing.
Anyway, I remember during class I put that week’s cluster of library books in my desk so that they wouldn’t be crowding my bag. My teacher was teaching something my pompous 6th grader brain insisted I didn’t need to learn about so I pulled one of my books out and started to read it in my lap. My teacher caught me, called me out in front of class, took the book and continued the lesson.
That didn’t stop me. I pulled another book out of my desk and read out of that one instead.
My teacher caught me again, called me out, and took that book too. I bet he thought that was all I had. In the school library we’re only allowed to check out two books each, so for all he knew that was my last one. Little did he know I was an avid visitor of the public library. I practically lived there.
So I pulled out another book. I got a good few chapters into it just because he wasn’t expecting me to have it. When he caught me, he was visibly surprised and even annoyed. He came and took that book too. By now he had three young adult novels stacked on his desk, and it was an impressive little tower to have taken from a quiet, timid 6th grader in the span of like 20 minutes.
Little did he know she had plenty more where that came from. When he went back to the front of the class, I pulled out another book.
Looking back on it I can’t help but laugh and feel a little bad. This poor teacher is just trying to do his job, and I’m here actively ignoring him in favor of hardcover stories of dragons and elves. Was he Sisyphus and my endless supply of books the boulder he pushed up the hill??
In any case he took that one too.
I’ll bet you know what happened next.