same apple he'd offered as a prize moments earlier—and took a giant bite out of it. Then he dropped it on the floor and stomped on it, splattering mangled chunks everywhere. Aaron jumped to his feet as Herbie snatched up a juice bottle belonging to one of the other kids and threw it at him. The plastic bottle bounced off his head, spraying red juice everywhere.
"You little piece of—"
Herbie made a mad dash for the front of the cafeteria. The dean of students and the lunch ladies were up there, and that meant a safe haven from any repercussions for his brash actions. Aaron and Nick chased after him but broke off their pursuit when they saw Dean Marks. They would get Herbie back for his outburst not too long afterward, and the payback was well-deserved.
"Bold," Doc's voice came from beside me. "Reckless, but bold. Are you sure that was the right thing to do?"
I tried to speak softly so that only he would hear me. "I know it wasn't the right thing to do. And I regret it now. I regret a lot of things I did to other students before I learned of Christ's instructions of love."
"A lot of things?" Doc repeated. "Such as?"
"Let's head back to the Chronopod," I told him. "There are a few more incidents you should see."
We made a quick stop back in our own time period to change into a dry set of clothes before reconvening at the Chronopod an hour later. When we set out again, I showed Doc a number of different incidents where I had been less than kind to my fellow students. There was the time I was making jokes about Jenny Henderson's weight while she was giving an oral report in front of the class. She ran from the room in tears. On another day, I tripped poor Timmy Tiel when he was carrying a stack of heavy school books.
I wasn't mean because I disliked people—although the behavior of some kids did provoke negative reactions from me at times. No, I was mean because it got laughs out of Henry and his friends. With Nick and Aaron having turned against me, I was desperate to keep whatever friends I could. Of course that didn't justify it, but I was struggling to find my place in the sixth grade. And most of those things weren't premeditated. They were just things I did on impulse.
But the worst, by far, was what I did to Nick. That was premeditated.
If I was Henry's sidekick, then Nick was Aaron's. Like me, Nick wasn't really secure in his position on the social ladder. Looking back, I can see that in the way he acted around both myself and Aaron. On his own, he almost seemed like he wanted to restore our friendship. But once he was with Aaron, he was someone else entirely. And after one particular incident in which Nick poured an entire pint of spoiled milk into my knapsack, I decided to show him that his betrayal would not go unanswered.
Now, before I tell you what I did, I need to explain what drove me to such drastic actions. Nick knew I came from a poor home. I didn't have the money to get a new backpack; that's why I used my tattered old knapsack. And I certainly couldn't afford to replace my books or supplies. So I had no choice but to continue to use the foul-smelling stuff. And after a few days of dealing with the stench and being harassed for it by other students, I got to a point where revenge was all I could think about.
It wasn't the right thing to do. But I didn't care. I wanted Nick to know that I would not take the abuse anymore. I find that funny now, considering that my guilt was never revealed.
The Chronopod dropped us off on the morning that my plan was to be executed. For my part, there was only one thing I really had to do to get it going. Then the rest would happen on its own. I'd left one minor hint of my involvement that I wasn't even sure Nick would pick up on, but even if he did, there would be no way to prove my connection to anything.
Doc, naturally, was curious. "What did you do?"
We were once again walking across the soccer field as the buses dropped students off at the door. Winter was almost over, so there was warmth in the breeze despite the barren trees. I quickened my pace when I saw bus one-fifteen in line. "I used the computer lab one day to type up a letter. But we'd better hurry or we won't be there in time to see it delivered."
We got to the main office with only minutes to spare. As I had expected, Nick entered to put his weekly article for the school paper into Mr. Burns' mailbox. He dropped his articles off every Thursday morning. That was important because the presence of his article indicated that he had been in the office that morning. Minutes after he left, Herbie entered and dropped a folded letter into Miss Meyner's mailbox. The secretary, as anticipated, was too busy on the phone to notice him; she was always swamped with student absence calls at that time of the morning. Herbie left without saying a word and hurried to Miss Boyd's class.
"Now we wait," I whispered.
When I did it, I had no idea when Miss Meyner, Nick's math teacher, would find the letter. And since I didn't share any classes with Nick, I wasn't even sure I'd find out what happened as a result of it. But I wasn't worried about that. I figured that something this big would make the rounds, if only as rumor and nothing more, and that would tell me that the plan had been a success.
Today, however, I had the chance to witness events firsthand. Because no less than ten minutes later, Miss Meyner stopped in to pick up her mail before heading to her classroom for first period. She just picked it up and left, so I nudged Doc's elbow and whispered as softly as I could. "That was her. Let's go."
We caught up with her a short way down the hall. She was flipping through the mail as she walked, no doubt scanning through the various documents and bulletins that the school had left for her. But there was no mistaking when she came across the letter Herbie had left for her. She stopped short in the middle of the hall as the blood seemed to drain from her face. Doc later told me that he read the letter over her shoulder while she stared at it in horrific disbelief. I don't remember the exact wording of it, but it went something like this:
Dear Miss Meyner,
I can't keep this quiet anymore. I really need to tell you something. I've been deeply in love with you ever since my first day in your class. I can't pay attention to your lessons because I'm too busy staring at your beautiful eyes. I hope this doesn't make you feel weird. But I just can't help it. I've never had a girlfriend before, but I really hope one day you can give me my first kiss. I promise I won't tell anyone. I swear! You said your name was "Miss" Meyner, so you're not married yet, right? I hope I can be the one to marry you. You're very pretty and I think about you all the time, especially when I'm falling asleep. Do you think you'd kiss me? I'd like it, I know I would. If you want me to, I can come by class after school one day. Would you kiss me then? No one would see. No one would know. I think I love you. Please love me too, ok? Just don't tell anyone. I'll deny it if anyone asks. I won't get you in trouble.
Love,
Nick Trobolski
P.S. I like games but not kickball. I hate kickball. So if we were married, could we play something else?
Yeah, the spoiled milk thing really set me off.
I intentionally included some spelling errors and improper grammar to make sure it seemed legitimate. By the look on her face, I'd say I made a believer out of her. Doc told me it was appalling, and I agree. This was a horrible thing for me to do, and I'd have to say it is one of my bigger childhood regrets. Even at the time, despite the fact that I wanted to see Nick feel a taste of the embarrassment I felt every day when people got a whiff of my knapsack, there was a part of me that felt bad about it. Deep down, I wanted to be a better person than that. I didn't want to be the stereotypical delinquent child. But that's exactly what I was.
Anyway, Miss Meyner turned around and rushed back to the main office. Inside, she headed straight for Principal Patterson's personal office.
"Joe, I have a problem," she said, dropping the letter on his desk. "Apparently one of my students has fallen in love with me."
Mr. Patterson tried to hide his smile at first. "Miranda, this wouldn't be the first time one of our students has taken a likin
g to his or her teacher."
"This is more than that," she told him. "Read the letter. He openly requests for me to meet him in my classroom to kiss him. The last thing I need is for a parent to hear anything about this and get the wrong idea."
The principal's smile faded as he read my bogus letter. "Oh boy," he said softly. "We're going to have to bring the child in here and straighten him out. He should be transferred out of your class, as well."
"Are you sure that's wise?" she asked. "Suppose his parents want to know why he's being transferred? It says in the letter that he'll deny it if anyone asks, and you know they'll believe their son before they believe a public school teacher. But if we tell them about this, they might get the idea that this is something I provoked or encouraged! Especially with so many news reports of student/teacher relationships these days. This could ruin my career!"
Mr. Patterson stood up and held up his palms. "Miranda, calm down. First period is going to be starting in a few minutes. Why don't you go to class for now, and I'll see what I can do about this. Which class is this boy in?"
"Sixth period," she said with a sigh of resignation. "Right after lunch."
"All right. I'll bring him in for a talk to see if we can get this all straightened out."
"Fine. But I'm telling you, I'll sooner quit my job than lose my career over false allegations of some kind of affair with a student."
"You may want to reconsider that stance," Mr. Patterson said. "If you quit, it will give people more reason to believe you have something to hide. My advice is to just keep doing what you've always done best. Teach the kids. There's no need to panic just yet, okay?"
"Very well," Miss Meyner finally agreed. "Please just see that this is taken care of, alright?"
"I'll do my best, Miranda. Don't worry."
After she left the room, Mr. Patterson had the secretary find Nick's schedule so that he could be called down for a talk. Fifteen minutes later, Nick peeked through the doorway. He looked scared. If I'd seen that look on his face back then, I'd have felt a great satisfaction. Seeing it today, I felt disgusted with myself.
"You wanted to see me, Sir?" Nick asked, taking a slow step into the office.
"Yes, Nick," Mr. Patterson replied, removing his glasses. "Come in, and if you wouldn't mind, please close the door behind you."
Nick visibly gulped as he closed the door and took a seat in front of Mr. Patterson's desk. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, Nick," Mr. Patterson began, "but I feel that we need to have a talk to clear up a few things."
Nick clearly didn't understand. But he just said, "Oh, okay. About what?"
There was an awkward pause; I got the feeling that Mr. Patterson wasn't sure how to deal with this sort of thing either. "About Miss Meyner," he finally said.
"Uhm, okay," Nick said again.
"Nick, it is perfectly normal for a boy your age to begin to have feelings for a person of the opposite sex. But sometimes our feelings can play tricks on us. You know, make us think things that would otherwise be considered inappropriate? That's all that's happening here."
"I don't understand," Nick said, shaking his head.
Mr. Patterson took a deep breath. "I'm talking about your letter to Miss Meyner," he said, placing the letter on the desk before the boy.
Nick's face went from confused to surprised to horrified to mortified within the span of twenty seconds. "Mr. Patterson, I didn't write this! I swear!" he exclaimed. "This isn't mine!"
"You don't have to lie, Nick," Mr. Patterson said. Clearly, he believed Nick was just denying ownership of the letter because that's what it stated he'd do. "Your feelings are normal. But they are misunderstood feelings. You don't love Miss Meyner, you just think you do."
"No, I don't!" Nick shouted. "I don't love her, and I don't think I love her! Someone else wrote this letter, Mr. Patterson! I swear to you that I didn't do it!"
I don't think the principal was buying it, but he had to ask Nick outright. "So you aren't in love with Miss Meyner? You don't want her to meet you in her classroom after school?"
"NO!" Nick shouted. "No! No! No!"
"Calm down, Nicholas. Calm down. If you say you didn't write it, then I believe you. We'll try our best to find out who did."
Nick was on the verge of tears, but that seemed to calm him a bit. "Okay," he said with a sniffle. "I'm sorry I yelled."
"It's okay. Why don't you head on back to class, okay?"
With another sniffle and a nod, Nick left the principals office. Mr. Patterson sat back in his chair and put a hand to his forehead. "Judy?" he called to the secretary. "Do we have any aspirin?"
Doc and I left the office at that point and returned to the Chronopod. Once we were a safe distance away from the school, we deactivated our invisibility belts.
"That was creative, I'll give you that," Doc said. He wasn't smiling this time. "How did it make you feel to see Nick's reaction firsthand?"
"Horrible," I admitted. "Even back then, I started feeling pretty bad about after a while. I wanted to go and tell him how sorry I was, but I didn't want to get in trouble. I should've told him anyway. It would've been the right thing to do, and any punishment would've been deserved."
"Were there any long-lasting repercussions of this whole incident? Did anything happen to Nick or Miss Meyner?"
"Rumors ran around school. You know how kids are. The stories ranged from saying that he had a crush on her to saying the two were secretly married and that Nick was actually a thirty-year-old adult with a biological problem that made him appear to be a child. He handled it pretty well, for the most part. I think he suspected me because of the kickball comment I added, but it couldn't have been anything more than a faint suspicion, because he never once accused me of anything. And by seventh grade, the whole thing was ancient history, buried beneath whatever the newest rumors were. Thankfully, I had nothing to do with any of them."
"Most children in your position would've settled the matter with their fists," Doc said. "Did that thought ever cross your mind?"
"Yes, but never seriously. I'd fantasize about beating the snot out of both Nick and Aaron for the lies they told about me and the torment they put me through, but I never considered actually doing it. I'm afraid to hurt another person, to be perfectly frank. I don't need that weight on my shoulders. Besides, I didn't want to be like my father in any way."
"What did you take away from this whole thing? What did Herbie take away?"
Have you ever wanted to punch someone in the face and yet give them a hug all at the same time? Have you ever wanted to be kind and understanding of people yet feel the uncontrollable desire to smack them in the head at times? That's how I felt with a number of people growing up. That's how Herbie felt. I didn't really hate Nick. I missed our friendship, however shallow it may have been. I wanted him to see that I wasn't the person he believed I was. But when he hurt me, I was like a completely different person. I just wanted to show him that I wasn't going to sit there and take the abuse. But I went too far. And even back then, I knew it.
"For a long time, I had been unhappy with my own behavior," I answered. "I could see that my personality and actions were changing in a negative way. But when I'd do something mean and Henry and his friends would get a kick out of it, it made me feel appreciated. I wanted to be liked. More than anything, I wanted to be liked. But I wasn't happy with the things I did. I was appreciated for the wrong reasons. And I think this incident weighed the heaviest on my mind. I had gone beyond pushing someone's book off their desk or calling someone a name. The whole thing articulated my need for a change more clearly than anything I'd previously said or done. I don't know that I'd call it the last straw, because it wasn't as though this event caused some miraculous epiphany or anything like that. But it certainly weighed on me for a long time. And I didn't like that at all."
Doc remained silent for a moment as if wa
iting for me to go on. When I didn't, he asked, "What did lead you to change?"
Before Doc actually asked the question, I would've expected the answer to be something cut and dry. But once it was out there for me to think about, I wasn't really sure what to say. "I . . . I don't really know," I told him. "Nick and Aaron kept picking on me in school, girls kept spreading rumors that I never showered because of the milk smell, and Mom and Dad were . . . well, Mom and Dad. Nothing encouraged or nurtured that desire to change because I was continuously surrounded by anger and hate. I don't know that I ever really decided when or how I was going to improve myself until I saw that sermon on holovision one Sunday morning. I think that's when change found me."
Now, Doc was grinning. "The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps."
Friday – Day 5
Another depressing day.
Given our talks regarding my sixth-grade mischief and my desire to become a better person, Doc told me this morning that he wanted to see some of the earlier days of my life as a Christian. He suggested that people's reactions to my new attitude likely had a severe effect on my perceptions of myself, God, and humanity in general. I'm sure they did; it was quite a shock to me when I helped Shawn Kaiser—I had made jokes about him on more than one occasion—pick up some books he dropped only to have him call me a vulgar name. So that was the focus of today's travels. And our first stop? My first conversation with my parents about Christ.
The day I became a born-again Christian was an exciting day for all the wrong reasons. As I've said before, I thought showing the love of Christ to others would in turn motivate them to show love to me. I also foolishly thought that being one of God's children meant that He would keep bad things from happening to me. Now, of course, I know that's not the case. Bad things happen to good people all the time in this world. Sometimes, it seems they happen more often to the good than the bad. I've come to accept that, now. I don't understand it, but I accept it.
Back then, however, I expected the exact opposite. I thought being a Christian meant you had a safety barrier around you that would prevent people from hurting you. I mean, if God is our Father, why wouldn't He protect us from things that might hurt us? The whole idea excited me and filled me with an overwhelming joy. And it was joy I just couldn't wait to share with my parents. My foolish hope was that they would love me better if I loved them better. So when they woke up that morning after I asked Jesus into my life, I tried to tell them how God wanted them to love me. Doc and I arrived just after Pastor Hoskins' service ended. The door wasn't open this time, and Herbie was sitting on the