Tard gets sassy

This morning, as all the kids were unpacking their things, I notices the old new kid was just sitting there, doing nothing. I said to him, "You need to unpack your backpack." His response to me- "You need to unpack your butt."

Tards not ready for upper level sports

Due to an assembly, the recess times had to be adjusted. Because of this, my class had to go out to recess with the upper grades.

My tards were not ready for this. They were getting beat badly in wall-ball and basketball. Brad got hit in the head and knocked over by the tetherball. He was playing against a kid twice his size. The kid served the ball and Brad went to swat at it. He missed and got clocked in the head instead. All the kids laughed.

Augusta and his bling-bling

Augusta comes to school with this huge, cheap, gawdy looking watch on. He was so proud of it, and would position his body in ways that best displayed the watch. He made a comment to a couple of kids in the hall way about his "bling-bling", while showcasing the watch. Word got out, and at the next recess, everyone was making fun of him, saying shit to him about his bling-bling, and about how his dad was probably wondering where his watch is.

At one point, a student grabbed at the watch. Augusta flipped out, threw his arm up over his head and started to shriek. He took the watch off and stuffed it in his coat pocket, warning others not to mess with his bling-bling. He then stormed into the office to call his mom so he could go home and shower.

Tards learn about different races

Ivan and the old new kid are both at the sink, washing their hands before they eat snack. Ivan is half Caucasian and half African-American. Evan's skin is, indeed, brown. The old new kid keeps telling Ivan to keep washing his hands, they are still brown and dirty. The old new kid truly knows no better then to make a comment of this sort, he is six years old and retarded.

Finally, after a good two minutes of the old new kid criticizing Evan's hand washing techniques, the old new kid screams out

"TEACHER, EVAN'S HANDS WON'T TURN NOT BROWN."

It was at that point that I read the class "Elmer the Elephant", a book about skin color differences. We discussed it afterward, I really think the majority of them caught the message.

Tard has problems with change

I assign classroom jobs to my kids. The jobs include titles such as: line leader, messengers, librarians, door holders, etc. I change these jobs every Monday.

Last week, the old new kid and another student were the messengers. This means that they both walk the attendance sheet down to the office in the morning. They were the messengers every morning last week.

This Monday morning, the old new kid could not handle the fact that he was no longer the messenger. He seriously thought I was fucking with him. I kept telling him that the jobs change every Monday, but he continued to argue.

Finally, he busts out loudly with, "It was Me. Me and that brown kid were the messengers." While saying this, he is also pointing at poor Evan. He then said again, "The brown kid and me are it." I cut him off at that, but it was damn funny.

Mom's math sucks

I have been having many problems getting the old new kid to complete and turn in his homework. Keep in mind that the only reason he gets homework is because he is too busy dinking around in class to get his work done. I have been sending unfinished work home in his homework folder, and it has not been coming back. Finally I decide to call home. I speak with his mother, who is younger then me. She seemed frightened by my call, and I am sure she was so nervous that she flushed everything she had. His mother assured me that the work was at home and it was completed. She would send it to school with her son the next day.

The next day the homework comes in. It is obvious that the mother did it, not her son. It was adult handwriting, which in no way resembles 6 year old tard writing. There is one part of the homework where you have to read short story problems and turn them into a numbers subtraction problem (i.e. Jamie has nine turtles, she gives four to Tom, how many turtles does Jamie now have? The answer would look like
                                                     9
                                                    -4
                                                     5
However, the mom had a different way of writing these problems out. This is exactly how she wrote them out:
        7                   5                     3                     4
     -11                  -9                    -7                   -11  

What a dumb ass. I hung the mom's work on our staff bulletin board, it is that good.

Student mismanages money

I am in a fifth grade classroom, observing one of my students while she participates in classroom activities. Lunchtime rolls around, and she begs me to stay and eat lunch with her, so I do.

About halfway into lunch, she starts furiously searching through her pockets for money that she had brought to school. In response to her frantic tantrum, one of the girls (who is not retarded) says, "You already lost your 31 dollars once today...and YESTERDAY!! You lost it yesterday, and Mrs. Bach told you yesterday to not bring that much money to school!!"

The tard gets upset, and starts up with a very annoying combination of crying and whining. She relocates to the corner of the room, curls up into a little ball, and pulls her hooded sweatshirt around her entire body. I slowly coax her out of it with some Starburst and old easter jelly beans.

I then focus on the girl who had claimed she had repeatedly lost her money. Her recount of the multiple losses killed me. She said that on Monday, 31 dollars had been found stuffed into the cracks of an upper cubby. The tard went all day without realizing she had lost it in the first place. By the end of the day, she figured it out and claimed her money. She also received a lecture from her regular classroom teacher about not bringing that much money to school.

On Tuesday, there was a wadded up 31 dollars on the floor by the overhead projector. The teacher put it up on the wipe board. Still, she goes all morning without noticing her 31 dollars is missing. When she realized it was hers and claimed it, she got another lecture from her teacher about money at school.

And then to top it off, the freak-out over the again, missing, 31 dollars.

Brian likes movies

Brian's parents are my age and they watch movies and let him watch too. This is all he fucking talks about--movies. Of course I think it is funny, but it has spiraled out of control to the point that I have to repeatedly tell him, "Brian, you are not on topic."

Monday he saw Goldmember. He kept saying, "Shmoke and a Pancake, Waffle and a cigar, Bong and a blintz." As he was saying this, he would extend a hand to me, as if he was offering me something. It was funny, but also disturbing.

As I was putting him on the bus on Friday he was telling me about the movie eight legged freaks and about how his mom spanks him really hard on the bottom everyday.

St. Paddy's Day:

he new kid came in today wearing a fucking black top hat and had a black plastic cauldron full of gold foiled chocolate coins. The cauldron hung from the front of his walker. He actually came to school as a leprechaun, although he never could verbalize that. He would just respond "yes" when asked by others if he was, indeed, a leprechaun. He gave goofy smiles, and kids would take a shitload of chocolate coins out of his bucket. They abused the "take one" privilege until the coins were all gone, at about 9:45 a.m.

We had a small St. Patrick's Day party in the afternoon. The new kids mother made each kid a shamrock cookie with green frosting. She also made green kool-aid, but it was pretty nasty. I think it might have been sugar-free or something.
The whole gesture was very nice of her. At the end of the party,  when I probed the kids to thank her, amongst many "Thank You's," I hear Augusta mutter, "Thanks for the Green Water."

Lewis becomes obsessed

Lewis is very intelligent, but he displays odd and compulsive behaviors. He is really funny though. He is very good at spelling, and even won his classroom spelling bee, which made him a participant in the school spelling bee. He practiced like an anorexic ballerina for the entire week before the school spelling bee. On the big day, he told me he could not be more ready.

There are about twenty contestants in the spelling bee. One of the students walks up to the microphone to spell, and Lewis gets up out of his chair and walks toward her, staring intently at her shoes.

The girl had the kind of shoes on that light up when you walk. Lewis is fixated on these shoes like I have never seen him fixate in anything before. He immediately gets up and walks over to her, gets on his hands and knees and stares, places his face about 8 inches from her shoes, and stares right at them. He is literally on his hands and knees, at the microphone, staring at this girls shoes. Snickering could be heard faintly throughout the gym.

The administrator of the spelling bee warned Lewis that he needed to return to his seat. He may have heard her, but he was not listening. He was asking the girl questions about her shoes, and she just stared at him in silent disbelief.

She warns him one more time to return to his seat, he pays no attention to her and is disqualified. He still will not leave the stage. I had to go up there and remove him. It was not pretty. I lied to him and told him that I had a pair of the light up sneakers in my classroom. This was the only reason he followed me off the stage.

New mother reads her Machiavelli:

The new kids mom has cleverly worked it so that her son is now the most popular kid in my class. She has extended her pattern of daily gift-giving beyond me.

She now brings in little surprises for the kids, and she MAKES her son pass them out. He has no clue about why she is there, and why he is struggling to hand out rice-krispy treats via his walker. But he does it, and this makes the kids like him. Sometimes he will even give into Augusta's greedy attempts to coerce him into giving him an extra treat, leaving himself without one.

This mother has entirely taken over the 15 minute period in our day that is referred to as "snack time". Fuck everyone else's nasty donations--on Thursday she brought in EGG ROLLS that she had made herself. They were so good that I would have fought Augusta for the last one.

Wednesday was the day she brought in the cake. This day has become legendary in our classroom. The kids refer to this day as "Bunny Cake Day". It was a cake, shaped like a bunny with colored coconut sprinkles on the frosting to form eyes, nose and mouth. It also had Jelly Beans along the outside.

When she brought her son in the morning, she set the cake on the front table. The kids admired the fucking thing throughout the morning, and were overjoyed when she returned at 11:00 a.m. to serve it. Along with little pint size chocolate milk cartons, of course.

It is so funny to see how many kids now will play with the new kid. Especially kids like Tyler, who will do anything he can to extort money from him. And Augusta!! He always sits next to the new kid at lunchtime. The new kid is easily talked out of anything in his lunchbox. The new kid often goes hungry.

Van ride goes wrong

We had a field trip this week. One of the parents was kind enough to drive us. She had the nastiest mini-van I have ever seen. It had crumbs, dirt and assorted detritus all over it. It reeked, too. But she managed to top herself.

On the way back to school the mother stopped at the gas station to purchase gas. I kid you not about this: She seriously pumped 52 cents worth of gas into the van. I was dying inside. I wanted to call every single person I knew right then and tell them about what I had seen.

New New Kids mom going overboard

Gifts to me from new kids mom this week:

- bouquet of flowers

- photo album

- box of chocolate

- cigar from Niemann Marcus

- socks with monkeys on them

- an Atlanta Braves Baseball hat

Augusta's criminal activities move up in scope

Augusta's cousin works as a physical therapist for a local sports team. Often, Augusta gets to accompany his cousin to games, and meet the players. Augusta, as we know, is also somewhat of a kleptomaniac.
He recently came to school with a bunch of these tubes of glue. The packaging made the tubes appear to be syringes. Out at recess, one of the playground aides caught a large circle of boys that Augusta had rallied, all sniffing the Dermabond type stuff.

Augusta is nailed. He has succeeded in distributing inhalants to his peers at a public school. Him and all of the boys who were in the glue circle were summoned to the office. Many of the boys had, in their possession, a tube of the glue, given to them by Augusta.

Augusta's Dad claims that neither Augusta nor any of the boys were sniffing the glue. His blindness to this confuses me. It's not like Augusta had a model airplane out there with him. Augusta has been suspended for three days, and the other boys who were caught with the glue are suspended for one.

Augusta steals more food

Earlier this week, the new kid's mom brought him a meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. It contained more food then he could eat in an entire day. There were 3 pieces of chicken, a biscuit, mashed potatoes, pudding and a big ass soda pop.
She set everything up for him; buttered his roll, cut up bites of chicken, put spoons in his pudding and potatoes. She then left. Augusta swooped towards him like a vulture. I was temporarily distracted by questions from the bitchy lunch money lady, and dealt with her for about 5 minutes.


After I deal with her shit, I walk over to the new kid, and notice that his lunch, in its entirety, is gone. Even his soda pop, finished.


I ask him how he ate his lunch so fast. Tyler, who is sitting nearby, points at Augusta, and says, "No he didn't eat it, the Kentucky Fried Fat-Ass over there did."

Treat jar causes problems

Brad and Tom got into a huge fight about who, out of the two of them, would get to chose from the Friday treat jar first. The Friday treat jar is glass, and has a metal top on it.

The two of them were pulling at the jar, each trying to select a piece of candy first, when they dropped the treat jar on the tile floor, causing it to shatter. This causes mixed reactions amongst the tards.

Some immediately burst into tears, as they can not deal with loud, startling noises. Lewis freaks out, and stays as far away from the glass he can because "Glass has AIDS."  All Brian wants to do is pick up the little bits of glass. Because of this, he is removed from the classroom until the custodian comes down to sweep it all up. Augusta charges the remnants of the broken jar like a pinata had just been broken into. He completely ignores the glass aspect, and starts grabbing at the candy on the floor. He cuts his hand, but it still takes two aides to remove him and his bleeding hand from the candy.

I decide that it is too dangerous to have the tards in the room with broken glass all over, so I take them outside to play until it was all cleaned up.

Tyrell has problems with referees

First of all, I wish to dedicate the following event to all my friends, with the exception of DW, who continue to ridicule, harass, and talk shit to me for encouraging and participating in the extra-curricular activities of my students; both former and present.

Fuck you guys. All of you passed up what DW referred to as "Better than a fucking Lakers game."

So it begins, Thursday, four o'clock, I arrive at Tyler and Tyrell's residence to pick them both up. I honk my horn a multitude of times, but no one exits the house. Fuck. I pull up into a handicap parking spot, leave the car running, and run up to their door. After several punches to the door, no one comes. I let myself in.

The home smelled like cats and smoke. The combination of T.V. and CD player almost deafened me. Both boys are on the couch, staring at the set. Tyrell had to be at his basketball game an hour early to practice. I scare the shit out of them both when I walk into the TV room. I ask if they are ready to go, and they say yes. We leave--the TV and CD player remain on, and the girlfriend remains on the dads bed. She is out for the count.

We walk out to my car and there is a cheap-ass rent a cop by my car. He begins to bitch at me for parking in a handicap spot. I need not respond to him, as Tyrell busts out with "Me and my brother have to be in special reading classes." I laughed. Not exactly the response he was looking for.

We all get in the car, the rent-a-cop continues to talk to me. He is signaling at me to roll down my window. I ignore him and slam the car into reverse. We have a basketball game to attend.

We arrive at Tyrell's middle school and drop him off. Tyler and I go get McDonald's. We hit the drive-through, and I buy them both dinner. Tyler eats his in my NEW car, spilling shit all over the place. I ask him to be more careful. He says OK, and continues dropping french fries everywhere.

We then go pick up my friend DW, who has expressed great interest in attending one of the games. DW was a baller in High School, but I actually met him in college, where he continued to star on the court. Sadly, he relied way too much on his image, and not enough on the actual game, so his post-college career has been pathetic. But, at one time, he was quite a star, especially regionally.

Tyrell knew who he was, and it was going to be a surprise for him when we arrived at his game with DW.

So we arrive back at the school, it is 5:00, the game was to start at 5:30. I have DW take Tyrell his food. Tyrell was speechless, all he could muster up was "I saw you on TV." Tyrell then spouted out something about DW and I getting married and adopting him and his brother. This was too much for DW, he returns to the bleachers.

The next twenty minutes is filled with DW bitching at me, Tyler asking DW what it is like to be "really black", and Tyrell trying to show off on the court for DW.

The game finally starts, but Tyrell is not a starter. We could see him bitching to his coach about this, but could not make out any words. Tyrell then points to DW, the coach looks over, Tyrell jumps up and down in temper tantrum, and the one of the starters is pulled. Tyrell is in.

All is normal for a long ass time. Tyrell is on his best behavior, and is playing a great game. Half-time rolls around, and Tyler is throwing his Ju-Ju fruits on the court. He is aiming for the center. DW is encouraging this behavior. I do nothing to stop it, because it is funny. Finally it is announced on the microphone that "anyone throwing objects at or on the court will be asked to leave."

Second half begins, and immediately Tyrell is shoved by a kid on the other team. They talk shit to each other throughout the next 5 minutes of the game. Finally, after the kid makes a remark about his dad being in jail and his teacher having to take care of him, Tyrell's dam breaks.

In the angriest, loudest tone I have ever heard come out of that kids mouth, he screams "Don't make me cotton candy your ass, Mother Fucker!! I'll cotton candy that shit right now, Mother Fucker!" The referee blows his whistle, and throws Tyrell out of the game. Tyrell will not accept this. To the referee he says, "You want your ass cotton candied too mother fucker? Cuz I will cotton candy that shit, and with a capital K."

Yes, he said with a capital K. One of his spelling words last year was cotton. I am a poor teacher.

Everyone in the gym is angry, mothers are covering the ears of their children. DW stands up and shouts out "Cotton candy him kid. Candy dat ass!!"

DW is now ejected. Tyler then stands up to contest both ejections, when he is also ejected. He calls the ref a "Pansy ass mother fucker." DW then repeats it, except a lot louder.

At this point, everything is chaos. Tyrell is refusing to leave the court. All his teammates are cheering him on, as is DW. He is loving the attention. He then decides to drop his shorts, grab his penis, and tells the entire visiting side of the bleachers to "EAT THIS".

DW was barreled over laughing, headed toward Tyrell, I was in shock. DW actually goes out onto the court, and tryies to coax Tyrell off of it. Tyrell looks at DW, again grabs his penis, and suggests that DW "suck my twelve-year old cock."

DW looks up at me in the bleachers, gives me a seriously apologetic look, and signals for me to get down there. I grab my bag and Tyler, and we head down. Everyone is staring. I refuse to make eye contact with anyone.

Tyrell's coach is nearing him, when Tyrell announces " Coach get away from my cock!!!" I have never in my life seen a kid as out of control as Tyrell was at this point. I was truly amazed.

The coach warned Tyrell that the police had been called, when Tyrell decided to pull his pants up. He walks over to the bench, gives some of his teammates a high five, then exits the gym.

DW, Tyler and I follow him out. DW asks Turell him for an autograph. Tyrell agrees, we get to my car, and he scribbles his name on the McDonalds bag that was still in my car. He proudly hands it to DW. DW then says, "Kid, you have no idea how famous you really are."

I pull up to DW's house. Tyrell demands that DW kiss me goodnight. I about shot myself. I told Tyrell that this was inappropriate. He announced that his Dad's girlfriend kisses her friends all the time. DW laughs, kisses me on the cheek, and gets out.

The boys then fight over who will sit in the front seat. They begin punching each other. I stop the car, remove my seatbelt and turn around--just in time to see Tyrell clock Tyler so hard that his mouth starts to bleed. All over the back seat of my new car. I scold Tyrell and give Tyler my jacket to soak up the blood that is now gushing from his mouth. I did about ninety all the way back to their home. Luckily, his mouth stopped bleeding. I then turned them over to the care of the 20 year old girlfriend who asked me if I "had a smoke she could bum." I told her I didn't smoke. She asks "What do you smoke?"

I said goodnight and got the hell out of there. Next Tuesday I take them to see their dad in jail.

Tom loses it

Tom came to school today in full form. He was kicking other kids on the playground even before school started. When he came into the classroom, he refused to unpack his backpack, hang up his coat, pick up his reading notebook, etc.

About ten minutes into reading group, he is kicking me under the table, and it hurt. Imagine getting kicked in the shins repeatedly by a hyperactive tard on 45 mg of Dexedrine. I am used to this sort of kicking, but then he started to kick the other kids. One of them cried, but most kicked back at him.

My aide removed him from the room, and into the hallway. He was going nuts--kicking, wailing his arms around, spitting. She had to literally hold him in a bear hug type restraint. He was resisting as best he could. He got one of his legs free and kicked a non-retarded girl in the stomach as she was walking by. And he kicked her HARD. She buckled over in pain, crying, was short of breath.

My aide asked him if he wanted to have a good day that day, and earn all his points. Right then, a fifth grade class was walking by on their way to music. She kept asking him if he was going to improve his behavior, when he yelled out loudly "NO YA ASSHOLE!"

The fifth grade class of course thinks this is the funniest thing they had ever witnessed, and all twenty seven of them bust up laughing. Tom assumed they were making fun of him and begins kicking like crazy. A second aide was needed to hold him down. Tom continued with "NO FAT ASSHOLE!"

He was carried up to the office by the two aides, screaming at them the entire way up. His mom was called, and he was put into a small conference room while we waited for her. He destroyed the room and broke the fax machine. Mom was presented with a ninety dollar bill when she got there.

The new, new kid

I got a new kid this week. The circumstances behind his arrival at my school are funny.

I am at Bally's on the treadmill. I am also on my phone--talking loud, swearing, laughing loudly, saying highly inappropriate things. Everyone around me is glaring at me. Except for one lady, who moves from the bike to the treadmill next to me. I continue my conversation, and end it with "Fuck You Lorrie, call me later."

The woman starts laughing uncontrollably, looks at me, and laughs louder. She then says, "If that's how you talk to your friends, I'd hate to see how you talk to your enemies!"

I am not OK with this comment. She had been listening to my conversation, and is now trying to talk to me. This sort of thing annoys me. I mutter "yeah" to her, pull my hat down a little further, and flip open my magazine. This is no deterring this woman. She says "Oh, I read Newsweek too. Isn't it a great magazine?" This was quite possibly the dumbest thing anyone had ever said to me.

I look up at her with my best "what the fuck?" look. This does not silence her. She holds out her hand and says "Oh, I am Pam by the way." I automatically assume she is a lesbian. Fifty thousand things I could say to her are going through my head. "Riti" I say to her and held out my hand.

"You are cracking me up," she says. "What do you do?"
I act like I am reading my magazine and mutter "I'm a teacher."
"Oh, thats so great!! Wow, what a tough job you have."
I give her a half ass smile.
"What do you teach?"
"Special Education."
"No way!! My son is in special Ed classes. He has muscular dystrophy and Autism."
At this comment, I exhausted myself trying to hold in my laughter.
She continues, "I am looking for a really good school to place him in. What school are you at?"
I answer her, reluctantly, as she is obviously fucked in the head.
"Oh, I know where that is. Do you have a good program there?"
"Yes"
"Do you accept out of district transfers?"
"If there is room, yes."
"Do you have any space right now?"
"I just lost two, so yes, I do. It is nice with not as many kids."
"Well, I just think you are fabulous! I am going to see about transferring my son to your class."

At this point I hit the stop button on the treadmill. I am waiting for an "I'm kidding" to come out of her blabbering mouth. I continue to wait as she plays twenty questions with me. Finally I have had it. I give her a card and tell her to call the school to check on the specifics of a transfer.

Nine days later she calls me at work. "Guess Who...?" she said.

Oh, Fuck, I got kids snorting pixie sticks over here, I don't have time for this shit.

She is calling to tell me her son will start in my class on Monday. I tell her how happy I am to hear that, or some bullshit, and hang up.

I completely forget that this new kid will be coming until Sunday. He shows up on Monday, but I am not there. His mother calls my house repeatedly.

Tuesday I finally meet the kid. He is eight years old, blonde hair, blotchy red skin. He should not be in my class. He has severe problems, far beyond anything my class is equipped to deal with. He uses a walker, is pigeon toed, has a hearing aid, drools uncontrollably, and the poor kid has progeria. He is is bad shape. He can do nothing by himself. He loses balance when transferring from his walker to a chair. He falls over like ten times a day.

The worst part is that his mother dresses him like he is Prince Harry. He comes to school everyday in deck shoes, polo sweaters, khaki pants, suede jackets, etc. He is like the retarded Armani poster child.

This combination was the most alarming thing I had ever seen.

It is difficult to watch him eat. All those nice clothes get covered with shit. And he eats tapioca pudding every single day. This disturbs me to no end.

He has NO academic capabilities. None. He can barely talk. He can't even comprehend holding up three fingers.

But possibly the worst part is that every morning his mother walks him in and brings me something. Tuesday it was a latte and a muffin. Wednesday she brought me stationary. Thursday a desk calendar. But Friday is the kicker, she shows up with A FUCKING TURTLE. MY GOD WOMAN, I CAN'T TAKE MUCH MORE.

As for a husband? He committed suicide six years ago.

I can't help this kid. He needs physical therapy, not school. And he is exposed to the behavior problem kids that I have. He doesn't understand their funniness, but still, he doesn't need to be around them.

Augusta steals, again

I was out on Monday. I get a phone call at about 10:30 Monday morning. The caller ID says it is my work calling. Great, I couldn't wait to see what the hell had happened. I decided not to answer it, that if it was important enough, a message would be left. I wait, hoping not to hear the beep that signals a new message. The phone beeps. Dammit.

This is the exact message: "Good Morning (Riti), its Juanita from school. There was a little incident here this morning, and I wanted to give you a heads-up on the situation. All the kids are fine, so don't worry...... Just give us a call when you get a chance. I hope you are feeling better."

Never before had I received a call like this. The hesitation in Juanita's voice was almost eerie.

Do I call? No. Do I drink? Yes.

The next morning I unlock my classroom door. The room was completely dark, the aquarium light was turned off. I have a tortoise named Homer in my classroom, it is the "class pet", and the aquarium light is left on at night. This is a specific instruction in my sub plans. I assumed the sub was stupid, and felt bad that Homer had to spend the night in darkness.

I flipped the lights on and walked over to the aquarium. Homer was not there. I looked around for a bit, thinking he was crawling around on the floor or something--he wasn't. I am immediately drawn into one of those "what the fuck" mind states that seem to haunt my classroom.

I walk to my desk and flip on my computer. On my desk is a stack of pictures drawn by the kids. Each picture is of Homer. In some of the pictures Homer is crying, some have hearts around Homer, the best ones have a person crying while standing next to Homer.

There could be only one reason for this: SOMEONE KILLED HOMER.

I bolt to my table and read through the substitute's notes. She started off with the usual "I hope you are feeling better" and "Today was a disaster", which then led into "Jamel dropped the tortoise, killing it." I am angry now. In the sub plans, in bold letters, it says "The kids are not to handle the tortoise."

So the notes she left describe how Jamel insisted that on Mondays they get to hold the tortoise, how all the kids held him, and how Jamel was the last one to hold him. While he was holding Homer, he peed on his hand. So Jamel dropped him on the tile floor, cracking open his shell and killing him.

Jamel insisted that Homer was taking a nap, and all his peers believed him. He then demanded Homer go back in the aquarium to nap, because I would be mad if he napped anywhere else.

The sub then summoned the principal. He came down and assured her that I was going to be very upset. The custodian then came down and disposed of the poor turtle.

I see Jamel a little later, and he requests that I get a guinea pig for the new class pet. I wanted to strangle him.