The phone rang, the call came bursting in on me, while on my drive back home from Mira's. It was Mama calling again. She said she was wondering what had happened to me and wanted to know if everything was okay. "How come you haven't come home as yet?" She inquired. She further wanted to know what other mothers had I got that she didn't know about.

"Oh! That? It's my other mother from another era," I said. "None other than Ms. Brodbendt from my primary school days."

Ms. B was calling for me again. Ms. Brodbendt seems to think of herself as my mother and has always treated me like a son. Bubbles was to butt into my conversation again here like he's always done: "Yeah, a son, eh? Right!" He said.

Ms. Brodbendt was the headmistress at Sunnyside School. That was the place where I would have transitioned from a shy and insecure little Mama's boy to become one of the most feared "Bad-ass dudes" ever. That was after I was done fixing Bobbie Nooks' business with a busted head and a bloody face. The girls then came calling, and I would have transitioned even further to become, as it were, common to refer to dudes like me in those days: the girls' delight, "The girls' dem sugar," and more, you name it, they have it.

After more words started getting around that I'm a no-nonsense-taker, girls-heartbreaker, and the despicable, girls them (dem) puppy dog, to name yet another few more that were popping up here and there on their list of names. My reputation was hitting the stars, both for the good and the bad, but mostly for the bad. Man, I loved every minute of it.

Ms. Brodbendt kept me over the following afternoon because I would have gotten sent off to the office for a fight with Bobbie Nooks. Which was then followed up by another incident between Mrs. Taylor and me in class. Mrs. Taylor wanted a two-thousand-word essay on the virtues of a good education. Which she reminded me, "That is what you are here for, have it, (the essay,) have it on my desk first thing tomorrow morning," she said. I was being punished for the inattentiveness of my ways, and for boisterous and disruptive behavior in class, as well as other places on school grounds. She said further that I needed to focus more on the things that matter in life. "The things that 'really' matter."

I should have been more careful to put the pictures in an envelope before placing them in my notebook, but you know! They were meant for her eyes only. Of course, I did the assignment. Two thousand words she had said. But it was Mrs. Taylor herself who'd imparted to us, all of us in her class mere days earlier, that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, she's now in possession of not two but three of my finest selfies ever, in the nude, of course. What else did you expect? The extra picture was intended as a bonus, just for her. Just for the fun of it. Well, there was more to my plan than what was to meet the eye. A method to the madness, one might say.

The pictures fell out of the folder and onto the floor in front of the entire class when she'd popped open the notebook she'd picked up off the desk in front of me. No, I did not bother to place it on her desk first thing in the morning as she had asked of me. If I did all of that work to get it to her. The least that she could do was to pick it up from the desk in front of me. Right? Maybe she was somewhat peeved by that and therefore did not exhibit the usual grace, charm, and caution when she'd popped it open.

"Whoa!" the whole class exclaimed as they all buoyed up and became instantly interested in the business of learning, more so in this than in what Mrs. Taylor was teaching. This surely did seem to conform more to their idea of what learning was about, to them. If only they could be made to become so stimulated by the prospect of seeing an "A" or A-plus beside their names on the end-of-term exam papers. But yes, you know where this is going to lead me? Right? Straight to my most favored place in the entire world. My teenage world: the most principalest officette of them all? Miss Brodbendt's office. Mission accomplished. That, as you might have already figured out, wasn't the beginning of my encounters with Miss B and her office. And it sure as hell wasn't going to be the last.

Ms. Brodbendt sat me down that evening and talked to me. Trying to figure me out, this I'd assumed. She'd concluded that I needed more and better adult supervision. She also said, with proper guidance, I could indeed become a fine young man, indeed. She promptly offered herself up to "keep a close eye on me."

Mom's blessings were always one of the most valuable commodities for one to have around these parts. As it would apply to me and all her children. But something that was never very easily obtained. She must have okayed the headmistress' interventionist schemes, though, because off to Ms. Brodbendt's care, her office, and her home, I ended up going. Although it was not on as regular a basis as I would have liked, it was regular enough. As it turned out, that was to be the beginning of something wonderful between the headmistress and me.

It started quite innocently indeed. With some special sessions between her and me, like time spent in her office. Or at other venues on or off school premises, they became more and more jovial and light-hearted as time went by. I even started to look forward to it, imagine that! I'm now looking forward to going to the principal's office. Hmm! Then she took it a step further, on home we went, to her very own home.

Ms. Brodbendt lived alone in her fabulous home on the waterfront on Montreal's West Island. A two-story brick on top of a cut-stone house on a grass-covered woodland mound off Lakeshore Road. A property that rises straight out of the riverbed. She didn't have to ask me home more than once, I was in for the long haul. Ms. Brodbendt's home quickly became my favorite place to be. And then, she just as quickly became my favorite person to be with, for a thousand more reasons than one.

She'd said she had something to do that evening that would require my helping hand. I obliged. What's not to like about helping Ms. Brodbendt? She was, by then, my most favored person in the whole wide world, after my mother, of course.

I was even taking to calling her mom by then. So, mom, as it turned out, wanted to nurse her newborn (or more like, newly found) baby (me) into what her idea of a fully developed and rounded young man should be. If one is to care for the baby? Then one must start at the very beginning, with the very basics. That was where she got it all started, right there, in the mammary regions. Yes. She "babied" me.

To be continued.

WritingElk.