School Days Page 8

  Actually I had just mentioned it to Dad, and he said find out what it costs. This was so little money to us I knew he wouldn’t have a problem with me making a commitment.

  “That is very generous, may I make a suggestion?”

  “Certainly Sir,” I replied.

  “Let’s call it detention and voluntary study time. Students could stay and study without the stigma of detention.”

  “That would be good, what about the students actually having detention, they would say they are doing voluntary study.”

  “Rick, we don’t mean for detention to be a Scarlet Letter just a time out to think about why they are there.”

  First of all I was glad I had read The Scarlet Letter so I knew the reference.

  “I have never had detention so I didn’t know how it is supposed to work.”

  “If your parents agree; would you bring a check and a letter, the letter explaining the donation is for the detention fund, and only the detention fund. I am afraid the current school board sees our budget as fungible.”

  I must have looked confused at his statement.

  “Fungible means that they accept funds for one purpose, but can transfer it at will and use it for another. An example would be a program with a budget for a given amount. If voluntary donations cover the amount they don’t have to come up with the money. They then move the money to where they would rather have it.

  The voluntary donors never realize that their donation paid for the funding, rather than increased it. In this case the funded amount is zero, so your donation if specified would have to stay with this program.”

  “What would they want to use it for?”

  “Let’s just say they are very interested in paving the school parking lot.”

  The current lot was gravel covered and seemed to be just fine. Then it dawned on me, Mr. Stevens of Stevens General Construction and Paving was on the school board.

  “Oh, I see, I think.”

  “You probably do. This is a very good thing your family and you are doing. What would you like to see from this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well like an article in the Hi-Life the school newspaper, giving your family credit.”

  “Oh no, we want this done anonymously.”

  “Very well this is a bit of good news.”

  And it is time for you to get to class young man.”

  “Thanks Mr. Gordon one more question. May I ask how big the school paddle really is?”

  He grinned, “I like the seven foot long one with embedded nails.”

  He then got up and opened a closet door. He pulled out a two and half foot smooth paddle. It looked like it was made of oak and about a quarter inch thick.

  “I will trust your discretion,” he told me.

  I couldn’t get into doing any schoolwork in study hall. But I had stuck the Boy Scout catalog in my three ring notebook, so I looked at it.

  I found out that they had several grades of uniform. There was a definitely more expensive uniform shirt and pants made from a better fabric that held its creases.

  Since I was pretty certain that I had my growth, and only would be wearing the uniform for special occasions. My camping days of once a month were over. I decided to order the better material. I thought about the campaign hat but decided against it.

  While I was filling out the order form Mr. Hurley stopped at my desk. I thought I was in for it. We weren’t supposed to have magazines in school. He looked at the cover, nodded once and moved on.

  When I got home the first thing I did was corner Mum and Dad and tell them about the commitment I had made about paying for detention. They both took it well. They thought it would be much more.

  When I told them where all the “fungible” school money was going Dad about exploded.

  “That Stevens is just short of being a thief! I will write the letter this evening.”

  He asked Mum to write the school a check for the one hundred and eighty dollars.

  Dad had an interesting day. He had talked to one of the neighbors who lived next to “The Pit”. She had lived in the same house for almost forty years. She moved there in 1920 with her new husband right after World War I. They were still married and in good health.

  She remembered the police raiding the house one night. Why the bootleggers would think that digging a hole in the backyard to bury a secret room wouldn’t be known about in a small town was beyond her.

  The Bellefontaine Police were honest or hadn’t been offered enough money. They waited until the first shipment arrived and staged a raid.

  They caught the crew unloading the whiskey smuggled in from Canada, but the man who lived there took off in his car. He was a recluse when he first moved in, but later on was seen out and about. They thought he might have been recovering from some illness.

  He never was real friendly so people left him alone. The kids in the neighborhood called him, “Three fingers” because he was missing two fingers on his right hand. His name was Jack Hancock. At least that is what he told people.

  When the raid was taking place out back Hancock ran out the front door and took off in his car. The Police chased him and he crashed into a power line pole.

  The car was mangled and he died by electrocution. It was a horrible way to go. His screams could be heard, but no one could get near the car until the power company disconnected the power. I wondered what anyone could have done to deserve such a fate.

  In spite of that grim story we had fun in Spanish class. It was really neat having the teacher come to our house for the lesson. It was a noisy class as we spent all our time talking to each other. As long as it was in Spanish Mrs. Hernandez didn’t care what we talked about.

  Tonight we had a tea party with Mary and Teddy completely in Spanish. Osito de peluche had also recovered from the measles. He didn’t fare as well as Mary. He had lost a few chunks of fur when his spots came off.

  Later in my room I started a new story. It was about a young man born in India, people thought he was an Indian but he wasn’t. He agreed to be a Lama’s guide on the Grand Trunk Road where they had several adventures.

  It was strange the Russians were the enemies in the Great Game. Have Russians always been the enemy?

  Chapter 15

  It was still raining on Tuesday, but not as bad as yesterday. I ran again. My running shoes were still wet from yesterday. Even though I had dry socks on the wet started coming through. Once the socks were damp they started to chafe, so I cut my run in half to avoid blisters. Luckily I was doing a loop that took me by the house twice.

  I would have to buy a second pair of shoes to given them time to dry out. It was about time I bought new ones anyway. My feet must still be growing because these are getting tight.

  At school I went straight to Mr. Gordon’s office. The student in charge of the front desk Gail Innis must have wondered what trouble I had got into. She let Mr. Gordon know I was there. She lingered at the door but Mr. Gordon asked me to close it behind me. I handed him the letter and check.

  He read the letter and smiled, “I will be sending your parents a thank you letter, but I know you were the driving force behind this. You are growing up to be a fine person Ricky Jackson”

  I left his office feeling ten feet tall.

  During homeroom the morning announcements were made. When it was announced that detention had been reinstituted along with an after school study hall which any student could attend at their discretion there were groans throughout the school. Unfortunately I started laughing, laughing loud.

  Miss Bales came to my desk, “Since Mr. Jackson thinks detention is so funny he can spend two days there.”

  She then wrote out a detention slip that I would have to have signed by the detention teacher and returned to her.

  Life is not fair!

  On the way to my first class I ran into Gail Innis.

  She stopped me, “That was a good thing your family has done. I had to get the check ready for deposit
.”

  I just held up my detention slip. She looked at it and started to get red in the face. She couldn’t hold it any longer she burst out laughing. She turned around and took off. I chased after her.

  “Where are you going,” I asked as she kept moving.

  “To tell Mr. Gordon he will love this.”

  I stopped and gave up.

  I remembered reading, “No good deed goes unpunished.” But so quick!

  Before the school day was over the word was out. It was too good of a story not to share. I wasn’t even upset, I did see the irony.

  I don’t know how many kids said, “Heard you got detention tonight Rick.”

  Then the twerps would laugh.

  It was all worth it when I entered the study hall after school to serve my time. Steve Simmons and several other boys and girls were sitting as a group. As I came into the room they burst into a round of applause. Even Mr. Hurley joined in.

  I spent my time writing Judy a letter telling her how I got into detention. The more I wrote the better I felt. Yeah I had taken a little grief but I felt really good about helping those kids out.

  Then a reporter, Sam Clemens of the Hi-Life, caught me as I was leaving the building. Like everyone else in school he had heard that my family had paid for the detention program to be revitalized and that I was the first student to get nailed.

  He wanted to know why we did it.

  At this point there was no reason not to so I shared the whole story with him leaving out Steve Simmons name. I asked him if he knew where the school board was directing the money they had diverted from the program.

  He had no idea. I told him to read the proposed budget and see what capital improvements were there and who might benefit from them.

  Sam promised me he would. I didn’t doubt him. Yes his name is really Sam Clemens I don’t make stuff like that up.

  When I got home and told my parents about my day they were in stitches. Dad thought it great that I had given Sam Clemens enough of a hint that he could figure out what was going on.

  We made Thanksgiving decorations during our Spanish lessons. Using construction paper we cut out many colored feathers for a turkey’s tail. Then we cut out fruit for a cornucopia. Mary got to paste the fruit in. I noticed she kept her fingers licked clean from the flour based paste we were using to glue everything together.

  As you may have guessed the younger kids set the direction of the lesson. It didn’t matter what we did as long as we practiced Spanish. Besides I am certain that someday I will need to be able to talk about a Mitología in Spanish maybe when ordering a basket of fruit.

  The boys made headbands with feathers to be Indians. I made a pilgrims hat. It really looked neat. It is a shame that it fell apart when I put it on. My brothers and sister thought that was the funniest thing they had ever seen, brats.

  We got to tell Mrs. Hernandez all about the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving dinner. She referred to the Pilgrims as recién llegado which is a Spanish term for newcomers. Her ancestors had been in the Americas long before we showed up.

  Mr. Tolson called. He wanted to let me know that they already had commitments from almost every unit in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Michigan. Even two confederate units from Virginia were coming. There would be cannons for certain.

  He was very excited. It appears there was a big blank in every ones schedule, so the timing was perfect. He told me since he was in charge of the event he was brevet to brigadier general.

  I asked him who did this.

  “There is no real upper command of the reenactor movement, so tradition has it that whoever organizes the event is brevet to the highest rank of the real army for that size of a unit. If everyone showed up I would be a major general but that has never happened.”

  Since you are my official liaison I am going to brevet you as a second lieutenant. That way you will be recognized by other units if you have to carry orders during the event.

  “Will I have a uniform?”

  “Yes, but you will have to buy it yourself, will that be a problem?” he asked, with a note of concern in his voice.

  “No problem, where do you buy them, I have not seen them at J C Penney.”

  “And you won’t. You will have to buy it from a sutler.”

  I knew that a sutler from my reading was a civilian who followed an army and sold items that the army didn’t provide to the soldiers. This could be anything from soap to sewing kits. Apparently the modern sutler sold uniforms.

  “Where would I find one?”

  “There will be a winter encampment in Dayton just before Christmas. It is really the units Christmas party. There will be a sutler there that sells full uniforms. He will have or be able to mail you everything.”

  “That sounds neat.”

  “I will mail you the time and place with directions.”

  “Thanks Mr. Tolson.”

  So now I am a Texas Ranger and an officer in a Civil War regiment. What next?

  That night I read more about the Indian boy. He was now going to school in England being prepared to play a part in the Great Game. He was going to be a spy for the British against the Russians in India and Afghanistan.

  By Wednesday the weather had cleared up and I could run again. I had left my shoes by a heater vent overnight so they had dried out. Denny was excited at breakfast. Dad had informed him that he could join the men on the annual Thanksgiving Day hunt.

  This was Dad and his brothers plus all my male cousins over thirteen. Dad had bought Denny a single shot twenty gage shotgun for the event. Mum wouldn’t let him bring it to the table while we were eating.

  When I came onto the school property one of the shyest freshmen girls I knew June Hardesty came up to me. When she got in front of me she just stood there for a moment staring at her feet.

  “Yes June?”

  She almost shook herself to break free of her paralysis.

  “The Sadie Hawkins dance is next week and...,” she tapered off. I had never given the dance a thought.

  “June if you are asking me to go with you I would be delighted.”

  “You will!”

  Her smile lit her face like I had never seen before. An average girl became a beauty right before my eyes.

  She continued, “I was so scared to ask you,but I was dared by my girlfriends and I told them I would do it. Then when I got to you I couldn’t talk, thank you so much Rick.”

  She then took off presumably to tell her friends.

  I would have to catch up with her somewhere along the way and get the details. I had never been to one of these dances. I knew I wouldn’t have to marry her, but that was about it. Was it formal? I had better find out what I had got myself into.

  As I went into the building I was approached separately by three different girls from the ‘in group’ asking me to the dance. I was able to tell all of them I had a date. When they found out that meek little June Hardesty ‘The Mouse’ had beaten them to the punch it was a treat to see their faces. I was glad she was the one.

  I checked in with Mr. Donaldson. He had the shower head adaptors like I had asked. He also had shower heads from the six major manufacturers with the adaptor attached.

  I owed him another hundred and ten dollars, but it looked like it would be well worth it. He had included a can of paste dope to seal the threads. He would keep them in his office and I could pick them up after school.

  Chapter 16

  In home room while waiting for the bell I was able to find out the dance is a week from Friday. A suit and tie for guys, dresses and high heels for the girls. As a twist since June had asked me she had to provide the transportation and purchase the tickets. She would pick me up and return me home. She would buy me a boutonniere. I could get used to this!

  That reminded me I would have to work out transportation to the 6th OVI Christmas party in Dayton on a week from Saturday. I wasn’t certain how I would work that out.

  Then it dawned on me I was going th
ere to buy a uniform not to attend a party. I needed to find out what time the sutler would be there ready for business.

  The bell rang to start classes. The day went on like school days do. Lunch was interesting. I saw June sitting at her usual table. While June was known as The Mouse there was a whole group of girls known as The Mice. Not individually just when they sat together. Well The Mice were excited today and The Mouse was the center of attention.

  Tom saw me looking and said, “The Mouse has belled the cat.”

  “That’s the only thing I could think of to describe it. She got up the nerve to ask you out. That is the same as belling the cat to the other mice.”

  “You know we won’t be able to call her The Mouse anymore,”

  “Yes we can, she will be, The Mouse that Roared,” Tom came back with.

  “Oh good one, you got it.”

  As we finished lunch I decided to add a little fuel to the fire. I stopped over to the Mice table, Mouse table, Mice’s table? Anyway I stopped by June’s table.

  “What time do you plan to pick me up,” I asked.

  The silence became deafening at that table. You would have thought it was the most important question ever asked.

  June rose to the occasion. “The dance starts at seven, so I will pick you up at seven so we can be fashionably late.”

  “What color of tie should I wear with my grey suit? I should match your dress.”

  “Royal blue if you have it.”

  “I will.”

  Another thing to add to, my to do list, buy a royal blue tie.

  In study hall I started researching a world history question at the back of the chapter that we would be covering in two weeks. It matched the story I was reading.

  Why was there a struggle between Russia and England for control of Afghanistan? Afghanistan had nothing to recommend it, a rough mountainous country, with no known natural wealth.

  I believed the answer was the Khyber Pass. The countries only value was that it was a gateway to India and control of Asia Minor. Control the Khyber Pass and you controlled land access between Asia Minor and Europe. England had control of the sea lanes.