The Stolen Pens

 The Stolen Pens

alan w greenwood

originally published in Grit magazine 

            Miss Mildred Perkins had taught third grade twenty five years at Herbert Hoover Grade School in Phil Mont, Texas. She had reached the grand old age of 50 years—half a century. 350 if you counted in dog years! And Miss Mildred Perkins marked her final week from retirement on her GARFIELD DIETS calendar in red ink (a teacher’s favorite color): May 25^th was “D” day. She had circled the day several times with permanent marker. Four days until then, thirty hours, fourteen lunch duties, two fights, one bloody nose, and countless more recesses. Teaching had tired Miss Mildred Perkins. She had taught her children despite principals and superintendents, searching for parents who cared or had time to help as chaperones on trips to the zoo, or buying glue. She had trouble finding children who learned despite all their problems: bad home lives, ADD and poverty. She had lined up desk every afternoon and picked up papers and gum. And now her new Crayola felt tips…were gone. Stolen.

            Where was honesty with these modern children nowadays? This kids just didn’t have any. Kids in the 90’s…oh my gosh the 00’s; you could not trust them farther than you could toss them. She had to watch everything in her room or it would walk off and never surface again.

Miss Mildred Perkins stared up at the face of her large clock. “Children, five minutes!” She said this to the five little scoundrels serving her afternoon d-hall. She frowned and they sulked and fidgeted. One played with his belt loop. Another tapped a number 2 pencil on her desk like a metronome. A commotion buzzed in the hallway today too. Why didn’t the others GO HOME? What were they doing out there? Playing basketball? “Five minutes and you children can leave.” Mildred arched her eyebrows, displaying the look she had found could curl children’s socks. “Consuelo, did you get your arithmetic turned in? You don’t want your grade to go down.”

Consuelo nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.” Her ponytail flipped.

“Margaret, do—not—forget your jacket. It may be chilly tomorrow morning and you will catch your death of cold. You never know what this weather will do. You children never think ahead.” Also, she could not find her good scissors—the blue handled ones Mrs. Stone had given her for Christmas two years ago. Mildred started to chastise Manuel for his squirming, but did not. He squirmed some more and picked his nose.

Miss Mildred Perkin’s sister, Beth, lived near San Antonio in Texas hill country. They had prepared her a room complete with an easel and a view of the hills and nearby oaks. Perfect, she thought, no kids! Just Beth’s husband Elmer to deal with. She could handle him. Beth had made Mildred promise to call tonight and update them on her schedule. They knew she rented here, and it would not take her long to uproot from Phil Mont.

            Miss Mildred Perkins studied Manuel and Bobby sitting beside her. Was it one of them—took her pens and scissors? Probably, marking up the boy’s rest room with them, she thought. They were always doing something. She kept these particular children close, not from her fondness for them, but to manage their outbursts during class. Manuel had untied shoelaces as usual, his feet not touching the wooden floor. Work had been so different when she had first started teaching. Kids seemed nicer, more tolerable. Or had she just been younger, more enthusiastic and more naive. Was that marker ink on Consuelo’s fingertips? It looked like marker ink. Stealing! She spent enough of her own money buying supplies, lending lunch money, providing tissues for their snotty little noses. If the thief had asked, she would have given the supplies. All they had to do was ask!

            “Miss. Perkins, what you do when you don’t…teach?” Margaret asked.

“What do I do?” Mildred Perkins answered. “It’s what do I do, Margaret.”

Children couldn’t imagine teachers outside school. When she was little, Mildred thought her teacher, Mrs. Craibel, slept at her school. She had lingered once after the other children left. Peeked through the first floor window to see what teachers did when they were alone. Mildred Perkins smiled.

“Dear, I’ll paint. That’s what I’ll do when I retire next week. But with difficultly…seems someone made off with my NEW drawing pens. But I imagine no one here would know anything about that, would they.”

Several sets of brown eyes stared guiltily at their scarred desktops. Mildred Perkins grew bolder. These five were usually responsible for much of the mischief in room 17: her room for all those years of teaching. Except for the one year she taught high school, but she rushed hurriedly back to her eight-year-olds at Adams Elementary the next year. She had declined the principal’s job twice—remaining with her children.

            “They making you quit?” Bobby asked. He scratched a freckle on  nose with his pencil eraser. Miss Mildred Perkins, whimsically, imagined how he would appear with his scores of freckles joined—like connecting dots. A puzzle from Scholastic Magazine: Color Bobby’s face.

            “No, dear, they’re not making me. It’s called retirement. You do what you really want and don’t have to work anymore when you retire.”

            “So, you don’t like teaching us anymore?” He seemed perplexed.

            “Of course I like teaching. Except when people steal things from me,” she said. Mildred Perkins raised her thin eyebrows for emphasis. Bobby shrunk down in his chair. Squirmed right and left.  Talking and scuffling issued from the hallway. Miss Mildred Perkins had finally had enough. She marched to the door to see what was brewing outside room 17. What was all the noise?

            “Surprise!” 

Miss Mildred Perkins’s mouth dropped when she looked out. Her entire third grade class crowded the hall, with several parents, and some smiling colleagues, including Mrs. Stone. One of Mildred’s students, a girl, pushed to the front with a small, carefully wrapped gift. They had tied it in a yellow bow—looked tied by a youngster. One side of the bow larger than the other. Another student carried a German chocolate cake: Mildred’ favorite desert. How had they known that was her favorite?

She heard laughter from behind and turned. Her five little prisoners held a banner they had unrolled secretly behind her. The students had scrawled WE WELL MISS YOU MISS PIRKINS! on the long white paper held stretched between Bobby and Margaret. Miss Mildred Perkins noted with humility that students had scribbled the banner with what she guessed were her Crayola markers. So that’s where those darn markers went. They had probably used her scissors also, to wrap the present.

            “Open your present!” The eight-year-olds whined. “Open—it, Miss Perkins!”

Miss Mildred Perkins’s eyes misted. She studied each of her little criminals from d-hall. Not exactly the James Gang at that. Bobby peeked around shyly from behind the banner. The hall air-conditioning popped on and set the banner to waving. 

            “We borrowed your stuff, Miss. Perkins. Sorry. We wanted to make this banner for your surprise. And we wanted to wrap your present.” His figure blurred. A smile crinkled the corners of Mildred Perkin’s mouth as she took the offered gift, clutching it to her ample bosom. Her eyes misted and she held her breath for a moment.

            “You have fun in Uvalde…not being a teacher,” Manuel added, squirming. “Open it!” The students, parents and other teachers crowded her.

“Happy retirement, Mildred,” Mrs. Stone said. Her friend smiled, clutching Mildred’s wrist warmly.

Poppycock! Kids were still the same deep down inside. What had she been thinking? What were a few pens, if they had been “borrowed”? Heck, even if a student had stolen them. She had received so much more from her teaching in the last 25 years. Much, much more. More than she could imagine giving up when she retired. Mildred unwrapped the paper ever so carefully from the gift.

            “I’ll get your stuff…your pens, Miss. Perkins,” Margaret said.

            “You just do that, Margaret. Because I will need them soon. Right here!” Everyone stared at her questioningly. Mrs. Stone grinned. She already knew what Mildred was thinking. Mildred opened her gift, the most precious one stood before her now, she reasoned. She would get a bigger retirement check for teaching five more years. She WAS only 50.

She had some talking to do—with the principal. John would see her side of it and keep her on. Heck, she had taught him when he wasn’t much bigger than a folding chair. He better! And her sister and the Texas hill country could wait…the painters could breathe a sigh of relief they would have no competition from her. She could teach five more years, and send more Bobbies and Manuels to d-hall. And make more memories.

            “Hand me those scissors kids, my blue-handled ones, young lady, so I can cut this darn ribbon. But you may want your present back—”

Everyone stared. Mrs. Stone raised her shoulders and grinned. Grabbed Mildred and hugged her. After Stone released her, Mildred grinned, snipping the present’s red ribbon. Below her, Bobby still stood holding the stolen pens, eyebrows raised in question. She’d tell them the good news later.