By Eamon S.

I went to Mary Munford Elementary for 6 years. The school was great, most of the people were nice, and I barely got in trouble. The school had a lot of fun experiences. Every month or so a band came in or a grade had a performance. When I said most of the people were nice, that excluded some people. The main one being Ms. Roberts, the choir teacher.

 She was not really reliable to teach each day. Some classes, she would be on a call for the whole class or just be yelling about how we were singing off tempo. Finally she got fired for cussing out a kid in my class and throwing a tape roll. I don’t know what the kid did because every person has a different story. I wasn’t there, but because Ms. Roberts was such a bad music teacher I had to switch and started playing viola. I wasn’t especially good at viola and often missed notes. I got by, and by the end of the year I had sorta caught up. I was never as good as the kids who took private lessons. I never had a strong connection to it. I never practiced at home.

 Somehow at the last concert I was scheduled to play a solo to the hardest song we had learned. I was scared I was going to mess it up so I started really trying. Before I knew it the concert was almost here. The last class the teacher told us not to forget are music sheets. I felt like it was targeted at me because I often forgot them. The rest of the school day went by. When I got back home, I didn’t practice and I never opened up my case. I was worried about the concert but I was also excited. My parents dropped me off in front of the school. I was really nervous as I walked up the walkway. I looked to my side and saw two of my best friends in the orchestra. One was named Dax and the other was named Collin. I instantly waved over at them and all my fear was gone. I waited for them and we started talking as we walked up the pathway. We got in the building and went to the cafeteria here we started practicing. We were the third show after the 3rd graders’ flute recital and the band.

 I sat down next to Collin. I put the instrument case on my lap and opened it. When I looked in there was only my instrument. I got scared. I looked all through the case but there was nothing. I started frantically thinking of all the places I could have left it. Then it struck me; I left it in my folder. My folder was on the other side of the school in my classroom. I had to get it fast.

 I asked my orchestra teacher if I could run and grab it. He said only if I had a partner. I quickly grabbed Collin and we left. At the time I thought he had also lost his papers because he wasn’t practicing. We walked normally by the auditorium where the parents were. Collin and I were only expecting people to be near the auditorium. As soon as we started going up the stairs we broke out into a sprint. We went up the stairs and took a right turn to go down the third and fourth grade hallway. We sprinted as fast as we could through the dark hallway, barely able to see the end. I never really thought about why I was running. It could have been because we were racing. Or we could have just been scared. 

We got to the end of the hallway and took a left down the hallway. We ran as fast as we could. The classroom was at the end of the hallway. We got into the classroom and finally stopped running. We were both panting, completely out of breath. It took a while until we could talk and start moving to our desks. I sat in the front row closest to the door. Collin was in the back near the space heater.

 I started looking inside my messy desk as I thought Collin was walking to his desk. I couldn’t find my music because my desk was cluttered with loose papers and books. I heard Collin sifting through something I thought was his desk. I just couldn’t find my paper. Then I heard a voice. It sounded deeper than Collins’ voice. I looked up.

There in the doorway was one of the meanest teachers. Her name was Ms. Cyrus. I remember I used to stay after school with the YMCA. One time we were walking to the bathroom. Another boy in my school had just given everybody a piece of gum. As we walked we saw Ms. Cyrus down the hallway heading towards us. I don’t know how but she managed to see us chewing. She started walking faster, and when she got to us, she stopped us and started sort of  angrily talking to us. She pulled out a paper and ordered us to spit out the gum on it. We had to comply because she was a teacher. We knew we were technically not allowed to chew gum, but no teacher enforced the rule.

 When I saw Ms. Cyrus I was a little bit alarmed, but not that scared. After all, we weren’t doing anything against the rules. Then I looked back at Collin. I saw him in the back of the room standing on the rug. It took me a minute to realize what he was doing. Then it hit me. He was looking through the candy bin in the back. At the time I didn’t know what to say. She probably thought that I was also trying to steal candy. I ended up telling her what I was doing.

She asked, “What are you all doing?”

I told her, “I left my music sheets on my desk for the concert downstairs.”

She let us get the sheets and we ran back to the hall for the concert.  

The concert went well and we sounded good. I was really nervous so I didn’t tell my parents about Ms. Cyrus. I thought she didn’t recognize us because we never got pulled aside and punished.

 It took until the following summer for me to get told what really happened. Last summer I was on a walk when I saw my teacher. We said hi and my parents started talking. Towards the end she looked at me. She told me jokingly she knew about Collin’s and my heist. Next she told me the real reason why I didn’t get in trouble. Ms. Cyrus said that when I looked up and saw Collin I was just as surprised as she was. I was surprised at the time, but I didn’t realize that it was showing on my  face. My parents were not mad and I never ended up in any trouble.

I think from this experience I learned that you wouldn’t get in trouble if you are doing the right thing even though I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As long as you are doing good (and have an alibi) you should be fine.