Sister Theodora and Sister Evangeline, twin pillars of the fifth grade. Large and looming, clad in the black robes of the Sisters of Charity, they monitored the second floor hall of St. Barnabas Elementary School, looking for troublemakers. If you could get past them, like Scylla and Charybdis in the Odyssey, you could sail through the fifth grade to the eighth. Many didn’t. They joined the ranks of public school students.
My memory of fifth grade is the lunchtime encounter with Timothy Lee. He spit at my best friend Carlotta and me. After lunch we went to Sister Evangeline to report his misconduct.
Feeling justified, we told her, “He spit at us.”
After we explained what happened, Sister called Timothy over. White shirt collar open, necktie askew, his face red and sweaty, he ran over when called. A chubby boy with a big round face sprinkled with freckles, he cowed before Sister Evangeline’s glare.
“Why did you spit at them?” she demanded.
Not having the foresight at ten to realize this question would be asked, I cringed as Timothy lamented, “They called me fat!”
“Well you are, aren’t you?”
We had an ally. I felt a moment of joy…until I saw the defeated look on Timothy’s face.
Why do we remember certain tidbits, while others pass unnoticed? Like a memento put away in an attic trunk, this memory waited to be taken out, dusted off and examined. Timothy, with his boyish chubbiness, lingers in my mind. Is it a reminder to speak thoughtfully? Is it about how much careless words can hurt?
Do we linger in his mind…the day two silly girls who called him fat? Or the sting of Sister Evangeline’s later insult? Or has he grown into that baby fat, risen to his adult height and self, and left us and Sister Evangeline long behind?
by Lynn DiGiacomo
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