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Nostalgia March 2013

Jottings

The Story of Bailey Elementary’s Own Bonnie and Clyde

By Millie Moss

The principal delivered a harsh lecture while the sister held Mike by the scruff of his neck and my mother continued to weep. Out of the goodness of her heart, said the principal, she would spare the rod this time but if anything remotely resembling this particular breach ever occurred again, we would not be so lucky. We were sent home in disgrace.

Believe it or not, I have a criminal record. The unfortunate event happened when I was 6 years old, and the principal, Mrs. Owen, indicated the dastardly event would be fully documented in my permanent record. It was the maximum sentence for the school system’s convicted transgressors.

I was not alone in my wickedness. My partner in crime was named Mike. I was Bonnie to his Clyde. I first met him at school when we were both in the first grade at Bailey Elementary. Every morning, Mike waited for me in the cloakroom before classes started. There were lots of new schools with lockers by this time, but our school was built before the turn of the century.

Our parents went to Bailey when it was new, and boys were strictly separated from girls at all times. The word, “girls” was chiseled above one entrance door and “boys” on the other. We enjoyed many a giggle about this old-fashioned nonsense.

Our teacher, Miss Ruth, was not all that modern, however. She insisted we refer to the long, dark closet at the far end of our classroom as the "cloakroom," even though we didn't wear cloaks and weren't even sure what they were.

Anyway, every morning when I arrived at school and went to the cloakroom to hang up my coat, there was Mike standing beneath my appointed coat hook. Sometimes he just stared at me as he sidled down the wall to allow me enough space to hang up my coat. We never spoke to each other.

On other occasions, without saying a word he would give me a present. He handed it to me and ran from the cloakroom. It was always a piece of costume jewelry or some dime-store cologne.

One time, shortly after Christmas, he gave me a large blue bottle of "Evening in Paris" toilet water. It had a beautiful blue and silver tassel on the stopper.

The gift giving went on for several months. I knew my mother would make me give them back if she knew about the presents, so I never told her. I stuffed them into my pockets and wore the newest jewel as I walked home from school. I was careful to put it in my pocket before I reached our front door.

My pockets were getting alarmingly lumpy when one day the principal called both Mike and me into her office. Feeling apprehensive, we walked shyly into the office to find a stern-looking young woman seated in front of the equally stern-looking principal's desk. Both of them glared at us, As soon as he saw the two of them together, Mike's face went white. I had no idea what was happening and was totally bewildered. But confusion turned swiftly to horror as it was revealed that the young woman was Mike's older sister.

It seems my 6-year-old Lothario had been raiding her dressing table in the morning after she went to work and bringing the loot to me. I stood accused of receiving stolen property. In no time at all my mother was called, and I was dispatched to the cloakroom under armed guard (a sixth grader) from where I retrieved the ridiculously heavy coat. I found myself dumping the booty out on the principal's desk in front of Mike's furious sister and my newly-arrived mother, who stood there sobbing into her handkerchief.

Pulling myself together, I quickly sized up the situation. On a shelf behind her desk lay the principal's infamous paddle, with which she meted out punishment to the criminals designated as felons. In those blissfully unenlightened days before equal rights, I knew I was fairly safe from the paddle's wallop. Girls seldom received ten o' the best from the stout wooden weapon. But Mike was probably for it; at least I hoped so.

The principal delivered a harsh lecture while the sister held Mike by the scruff of his neck and my mother continued to weep. Out of the goodness of her heart, said the principal, she would spare the rod this time but if anything remotely resembling this particular breach ever occurred again, we would not be so lucky. We were sent home in disgrace.

The next morning when I hung up a considerably lighter coat in the cloakroom, Mike was not in his accustomed place. He was already in his seat in the classroom. I glanced at him as I went to my desk. He didn't look up and he never spoke to me again.

Come to think of it, he never spoke to me at all, neither before nor since. Wonder whatever happened to him? I have so far escaped the fate of the real Bonnie. I just hope Mike didn't end up like Clyde.

 

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