SSC '04 [School]
505 words


The Great Scissors Heist
By Rhosymedre

I watch bruises blossom on my buttocks. Blossoming
now because I was a cowardly child:

I swear I only meant to borrow my third grade teacher's
shiny adult scissors overnight. The snub-nosed dullies
allotted to elementary school kids couldn't snip tough sinews.
(Don't ask: suffice to say I wanted to be a doctor when I
grew up.) Anyway, my scissors heist went without a hitch. But
the next day, Old Man Muller beat me to school. Then, before I
could engineer a distraction and return them, he rummaged
his desk drawer. He pounced, demanding to know which one
of his pupils had purloined them, his precious scissors.
A gift from his mother, he railed at the twenty-nine of us
mum at our desks. Chewing his moustache, he vowed to
smoke out the culprit. He bellowed he'd ear-march said culprit
to Principal Heller's office. His final promise was, "Twelve
with the paddle will cure the thief!"

The wicked paddle gave this little coward nightmares! So,
trudging home alone, I hurled those mama's-gift shears into
the swelled creek while no cars or pedestrians lurked.

In the ensuing decades, my sin remained unconfessed, 
unpunished.

Yesterday, the fates shifted. Weirdly, I bumped into Mr.
Muller in the local supermarket two counties from the
scissors crime.

Funny thing: my third-grade eyes pegged him ancient...
forty! But he can't be sixty yet, so, really, he was a
rather wet-behind-the-ears twenty-something teacher back then.

He volunteered he still teaches -- in the private Hedgeway
Academy nearby. Today, therefore, I screwed up the courage
I've accumulated with birthdays and found his classroom
after school let out. I resolutely marched up the rows of
old-fashioned desks and stood before his. Suddenly reduced
to eight again, I blurted, "Mr. Muller, I filched your
scissors that term."

He chewed his moustache (a habit unshed after all these 
years). His flinty eyes pinned me: "Miss Quinn [my maiden
name], you're in luck. I won't ear-march you to the
principal's office."

Honestly I hadn't considered repercussions... only finally
making a clean breast. I blanched a bit that he remembered
the penalty he'd promised the thief. Still no fan of pain --
even to balance the scales of justice -- you can imagine
my exhalation of relief to hear sentence suspended.

I should have known better.

Old Man Muller continued: "...No need. I'm Vice Principal
at Hedgeway, and my trusty paddle is always at the ready."
He flicked a resin'd blade of hardwood off the wall. Before
panic and fight-or-flight swamped me, Mr. Muller strode to 
my side, bent me forty-five degrees and popped a dozen 
bone-creaking cracks to my arched bottom flesh. My thin
slacks and panties were useless armor against his potent
swings.

In the aftershock, I straightened wordlessly and wobbled
like a wounded deer into the deserted hallway, clawing
inwardly for composure.

Now, in the mirror of the Hedgeway Girl's Bathroom, I watch
bruises blossom. But the scissors ledger is wiped clean,
and I'm pulsingly elated!

Perhaps I should confess those other cowardly acts of 
childhood....