A. H. SMITH

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Schooled: The Fence


Me: You’re late.
He (muffled): Sorry.

Me: What happened to your face? Did you just get into a fight?
He: I’m ok.
Me: No, you’re not. You’re bleeding profusely from your nose and mouth. Get some paper towels.
He: Can I talk to you outside?
Me: Yeah, but get some paper towels.
He: I didn’t want to talk in there.
Me: You were bleeding in there. Did you get hit?
He: No. It’s worse than that.
Me: Worse?
He: I was late. So I jumped the fence. As I was coming over, I caught my pants leg on the wire and I lost my grip. I fell forward and my face smashed into the metal pole. I cut my lip. My nose is bleeding and both of my front teeth got pushed in. I can wiggle them. See?
Me: That’s got to hurt.
He: What’s worse is that I was late because I was coming back from the dentist.
Me: That’s bad. You know I used to be a dentist before I became a teacher. I could just get a pair of pliers and pull those babies now and save you a lot of pain and expense down the road.
He: That’s not funny, Mr. Smith. It really hurts and my mom is going to be so mad.
Me: I know. Go to the nurse. Your teeth will probably be fine.
He: Don’t say anything about this when you go back into class. This is so embarrassing.
Me: Ok, but could I tell the newspaper about it? Maybe they could do a story on the pitfalls of jumping the fence. You could be a star…a toothless star…but a star nonetheless!
He: You’re not funny, Smith.

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