Principal Lemmon stood at the front of the classroom, as I sat catatonic at my desk. The students were still a bit rowdy from recess as the principal tried to get them to calm down.
"Alright everybody, if I can have your attention." he said to no avail as all the kids kept talking. The principal tried again.
"Okay I really need you all to listen. There's some bad news I need to tell you." This seemed to do the trick, as all the kids fell silent. All the kids looked at each other, wondering what news could be so bad that the principal needed to come to our class. Principal Lemmon continued, "As you may have noticed, Mrs. Stoner has been absent since recess. Well, I'm sorry to say that she has passed away." All the students in the class made at least one shocked noise. All the students but me, that is. I was still shell-shocked from my discovery during recess. Finding your teacher dead in the middle of the school day would leave you pretty shaken up, even if you didn't like that teacher. I continued to stare at the wall in front of me.
"What happened?" shouted Jorge Adams from the back of the class.
"Well," the principal began, obviously a bit shaken up from this whole incident. "It seemed she died of natural causes during recess. If anyone needs to talk to a counselor or your parents after all this, please let me know." The class remained silent, clearly not as traumatized by the incident as the principal thought they would be. "Does anyone have any questions?" he asked.
"If we were at recess," began Jessica Langford, "Then who found out the teacher died?"
Principal Lemmon blinked, "Um, oh, yes." He didn't seem to be expecting that question. "Well, Harlan came in early from recess and found out what happened. After that he came down to the main office and told us." I could feel the stares of all the other students on the back of my head, which snapped me out of my catatonic state. I looked around the room, seeing the faces of my classmates who were now looking at me like I came from another planet.
"I know this came all of a sudden. And that today was very troubling" said the principal. "But hopefully you will be getting a new teacher soon."
The whole class cheered.
Our new teacher Miss Monroe was everything Mrs. Stoner was not; young, pretty, nice, full of life, and a good teacher. Also she was much easier to please. During her first day in class, she had us write about ourselves. "Nothing too fancy, just tell me some things about yourselves so I can get to know you all better." Those were our only instructions, a far cry from the long list of usual requirements from Mrs. Stoner's assignments.
I wanted to see how much easier getting a high grade from Miss Monroe was, so all I wrote was a measly two lines; My name is Harlan Andrews. I like to learn about science and math! I did, in fact, not like math. I only wrote that with the hopes of getting me in good graces with the new teacher. As I handed in my assignment, Miss Monroe read what I had written. "Well Harlan," she said, looking impressed. "I'm very glad that you like to learn." "Thank you, Miss Monroe." I said before heading back to my seat. As I sat back down at my desk, Troy Allen, who sat at the desk right next to mine, turned to me and asked "Are you gonna kill this teacher too?"
Apparently, a rumor had started throughout the school that I had killed Mrs. Stoner. The fact that we had that disagreement on the day she died, as well as that I had been the one to find her dead, had fuelled all these rumors. The adults at the school of course knew that I didn't do it, but the students were convinced I did. For several days after Mrs. Stoner's death, kids on the playground would point at me and chant "Harlan killed the teacher! Harlan killed the teacher!"
There were several theories amongst the students about how I actually did the deed. Once during recess, one kid confronted me.
"You poisoned Mrs. Stoner, didn't you?"
"As I said a hundred times before, I didn't kill the teacher!" I shouted. He wasn't convinced.
I had also overheard some other kids at lunch speculate that I killed Mrs. Stoner by using my glasses and sunlight from the window to burn a hole into her skull. The many theories, most of which were far-fetched even for first graders, ranged from me giving her a heart attack by simply jumping up from behind a desk and yelling "Boo!", to me hiring alien ninjas to assassinate her.
It had been a week since I found Mrs. Stoner dead, and I was still feeling the shock of it all. By now of course, I had told my parents about my teacher dying. But I left out the part where I was the one who found her lifeless corpse. The last thing I needed was them making even more nasty rumors about me.
I sat alone by the wall of the school during recess. The shock of Mrs. Stoner's death was mostly gone by now, but what disturbed me now was the fact that the whole of first grade had thought I was a cold blooded killer, which I wasn't.
I sat by myself in a thousand-yard-stare as the bell rang. I snapped out of it and walked toward the school doors. As I turned the corner of the building, I tripped over something. I landed with a thud on the pavement. I looked up and saw that Brock Brewster, the schoolyard bully, had been waiting around the corner with his foot out to trip me.
I'd been through all this before. Brock would always pull this stunt of tripping people and pin them while they're down and demand their lunch money.
This time however, Brock didn't pin me. When I looked up at him from the ground I saw that for some reason he looked afraid.
"Oh, Andrews. I-I didn't see it was you. I-I-I-I'm sorry!" He said as he turned around and bolted the other way. I just sat there wondering what had happened. Brock usually takes any chance he can to pick on me. But today, he somehow seemed scared of me. What was going on? Then it hit me. Brock had heard and probably believed the rumors that I killed Mrs. Stoner. If he believed I killed a teacher, then he would think I could kill him just as easily. As I stood back up, a grin appeared on my face. I knew my luck had changed.
As I quickly found out, there were some perks to the rumors. Before, I was a nobody on the playground. Now, I was either respected or feared. As a kid from my class said, I now had "playground cred". I had become something of a hero to the kids who didn't like Mrs. Stoner. Not just from my grade, but all the way up to the sixth graders, who had bad memories of Mrs. Stoner and her class. Brock Brewster never tried to bother me again, and since he genuinely believed I was capable of murder, I can't really blame him
The other threats to me at recess were effectively neutralized. The rock war kids eventually made me an honorary general during one of their battles, and the Tube Slide Gang offered me definite protection against the safety patrol.
Even back then I knew it was all probably too good to last. Eventually, the rumors that I had killed a teacher eventually became old news, and as we grew up, most people figured that I probably hadn't murdered Mrs. Stoner in cold blood. By the time I got to second grade, life was pretty much back to the status quo and I found myself back at the bottom of this proverbial food chain. I guess that's just how life is sometimes. Truth be told, the whole thing was quite stupid, but I guess I still gained something from all of this. And because of all of this, I learned something that I still carry with me to this day: That through determination, some exaggeration and a little bit of dumb luck, life might not be so bad after all.