Mom made me go back to school. I asked not to go. I said, “Please,” and everything. When that didn’t work, I even used what mom would call “logic.” She said, “All your friends will be at school.” So I said, “If all my friends jumped off a bridge, you wouldn’t make me do it.” So she said, “Don’t be smart.” So I said, “See? I’m way too smart for grade two.” So she made me wash dishes while she watched Match Game with Gene Rayburn. Logic might work for grownups, but other than that, it’s useless.
I went to school with new pencil crayons, which was good, and an Aquaman pencil case. Aquaman is a SuperFriend and I like all the SuperFriends except for the Wonder Twins who are only good because of their monkey, but Aquaman is actually kind of lame. If you had the choice of having super strength and bulletproofness versus being able to talk to jellyfish without moving your lips, you’d take the super strength and stuff pretty much every time. I mean, how often do supercriminals rob an underwater bank? When I told dad about that one, he laughed and said, “The Grand Banks are underwater.” Sometimes dad can be pretty lame.
I sharpened all my pencil crayons and wrote my name with my last initial in the little white spot they give you on each pencil crayon to write your name and maybe even your last initial unless your name is like “Christopher” or something like that which is superlong so you wouldn’t have room and then you’d have to hope there was only one Christopher in your class.
What I really wanted was a protractor, but mom wouldn’t buy it. She said I didn’t need it because I didn’t know about angles, but I knew she was going to say that which is why I asked for it. It was my plan because what I really wanted was a compass. Compasses are cool. Mom said, “You don’t need a compass. Plus, I don’t like that sharp pointy end. You could put out somebody’s eye.” So I said, “Only if I try.”
Mom didn’t buy me the compass.
When you’re in grade one, like I was last year, it’s easy. It’s almost kindergarten and that’s just like one step above being a baby, so you don’t learn anything except how not to wet your pants which Christine didn’t learn so well, so maybe the grade one teachers aren’t as great as they think they are.
When you’re in grade two, like I am this year, it’s a big deal, especially since Miss Gibson is our teacher and she has really long hair like a lady from television. I also know her first name because I heard someone in the hall say it last year and it’s Joanne. Last year, Mrs. Wilcox didn’t have a first name and she let me do as many dot-to-dots as I wanted.
My desk is pretty much in the worst spot ever. I’m right beside Christine, so she better not get any pee on my shoes or anything. I’m also right behind Pavminder who’s new so I don’t know him yet to be able to ask to borrow things like a rubber if I lose mine, except my mom says I should say “eraser” instead of “rubber” but she didn’t tell Pavminder about that so he probably wouldn’t know what I wanted if asked to borrow his eraser. I probably wouldn’t ask anyway because his rubber is one of those pink ones and not a good one like mine with the two colours – the white side for pencil and the grey side for pen, even though I’m not allowed to use a pen yet in class. No one is. That’s what happens in grade three – you get to use a pen which probably means that you also get a compass because I’m pretty sure you can put someone’s eye out with a pen, so what’s the difference in having the compass too?
When you’re in grade three, it’s practically like being a grownup.