Day of Reckoning
Butterflies rebounded frantically in my stomach, In five minutes I'd be called into the school principal's office. I sat looking at my penny loafers, ill named with a nickel tucked in each shoe. The door opened. A lady left, leaving the door ajar.
He sat there, the principal, unsmiling, tall with an angular face. The secretary nodded and I knew it was my turn. Dry mouth and wobbly legs accompanied me across the floor.
I left the principal's office twenty minutes later, yet the more difficult part was still to come.
Ours was a small town. The high school gym, once an army barracks, was separate from the main school building. A long low structure with a wood floor that literally bounced during school dances, it sported two change rooms with toilets and at the far end, a small stage.
I'd never seen the boy's locker room but the girl's featured benches along two walls with soft brown panel board stretching up the first five or six feet of the wall. Above that, where white walls were once an attractive compliment to the room, dozens of scrawled remarks marred the look. The graffiti provided a testimony from those students who displayed little respect for property. That graffiti had been the topic of discussion in the principal's office.
Our school would soon host a basketball tournament and in my eyes those walls presented a problem. How could we stand tall, proud of our school and our team with that mess belying our pride? Since our principal had now approved the painting I was about to discover whether I would be teased, dropped or ignored by my friends and peers.
The old grade seven incident flashed to my mind. I recalled the annoyance of other students when I had done what I felt was fair and right then. Well in all fairness the girls were supportive for that incident, but the boys suffered a consequence because of my actions. Nope, I did not win a popularity contest!
Margaret had been the only grade seven girl who needed to wear a bra and she felt painfully aware of this new foreign foundation. A group of boys thought it would be funny to "flip her bra." This was quite disgusting as far as the girls went. Margaret was in tears over the infringement.
Later the boys called me tattle-tale but the words just rolled off. I told them I would not have had to report their actions if they had behaved decently. What babies!
Now, I stood wondering who had contributed to the graffiti walls. Will they feel that I am judging them to suggest we paint over the graffiti? I worried about the outcome of all this. I know that sometimes the repercussions of our actions, even though we feel we are right, can be painful.
The hour of reckoning fell at the end of our Physical Education class. While we were all changing I jumped in with both feet and blurted out the plan to paint. The noisy locker room felt tomb-like in the stillness. I tried swallowing and discovered my mouth was dry. I gagged a bit instead. Eyes turned on me, up to the walls and back on me. "Oh nuts, I've been stupid,"I thought, full of regret for opening my mouth.
Diane, class high jumper, broke the silence, "WOW, cool, can I help?" Soon it seemed that everyone wished to be involved, all clamoring around, excited with questions. I felt overwhelmed with relief and my knees experienced it too cause they seemed to buckle a bit. My tear ducts filled involuntarily. I turned my back on my friends as I brushed aside the teardrops and breathed in a huge gulp of air.
How could I have doubted my own friends? They were born painters!
Trying to get teenagers to help is sometimes a scary affair!
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