Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind (27 page)

On St. Patrick’s Day, children fall into one of four categories — those who cover themselves from head to toe in green, those
who wear one or two articles of green clothing, those who forget and wear no green at all, and the tricksters. These are the
kids who appear to not be wearing any green. But as soon as you point this out to them, they shout, “Yes, I am!” then bend
over and reveal the two-millimeter stitch of green thread on the back of their sneaker.

Last St. Patty’s Day when I saw that Corinne wasn’t wearing any green, I felt sorry for her. So I called her up and stuck
a green shamrock sticker on her shoulder.

“This is so you won’t get pinched,” I said.

She frowned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I wanna get pinched.”

*  *  *

I have only forgotten to wear green once. It was a Monday morning in my second year teaching. I was running late and arrived
at school just as the bell rang.

“Mr. Done, you’re not wearing green!” Eddie pointed out as I unlocked the classroom door.

My heart stopped. “What day is it today?”

“St. Patrick’s Day!” he announced.

Dang!

“Where’s your green?” Eddie asked.

Deep breath. Remain calm.

I forced a smile. “Well… I… uh… I’ll show you in a minute.”

Inside the classroom, I grabbed a piece of green construction paper and quickly started cutting out a four-leaf clover.

“Mr. Done, where’s your green?” Eddie asked again.

“Right here,” I sang, holding up my green paper.

“That doesn’t count!” retorted Stephanie.

“Sure it does.”

“No, it doesn’t!” Dominic chimed in.

I finished cutting.

“It has to be attached to you,” Brianna stated.

“It will be in a second,” I said. I started shuffling through the piles on my desk. “Who took the tape?” Suddenly I heard
the scooting of chairs and the stampeding of feet. I looked up. “Get back to your seats!” I screamed. Too late. Ambushed.

This year I had recess duty on March 17. The playground was a sea of green T-shirts, pants, jackets, sweaters, headbands,
hats, socks, sunglasses, shoelaces, and spray-painted hair. Hannah and Jocelyn ran up to me. I’d had both girls in my class
two years before.

“Where’s your green?” I asked Hannah.

“Right here,” she said, pointing to her turquoise leggings.

That’s green?

It was clear to me that Hannah needed a refresher in St. Patrick’s Day basics. Acceptable shades of green on the day of the
Irish include: emerald, kelly, forest, apple, lime, olive, neon, chartreuse, teal, mint, jade, pistachio, moss, spinach, and
camouflage. Aquamarine and blue-green: pushing it. Turquoise: should get pinched.

As I walked around the blacktop, I spotted a group of first graders searching under the picnic table. I poked my head under
it.

“What are you kids doing?”

“Shhhhh!” one of them said, putting his finger to his mouth. “We’re looking for leprechauns.”

I smiled. “Oh.” Then I squatted down beside them. “You
really
want to catch a leprechaun?”

“Yeah,” they replied.

“Well,” I whispered. “I think I know where one is hiding.”

“Where?”
they whispered back.

“In the office. Under the secretary’s desk.”

They bolted off. (Ellen thanked me later.)

When recess was over, I walked back to my room. John and Dylan were arguing in line.

“What’s the trouble?” I asked.

“Dylan pinched me!” John cried. “And I have green on!” He lifted up his shirt to reveal a green tattoo of the Hulk. “See.”

“I didn’t pinch him!” protested Dylan.

“Yes, you did!” John shouted.

“I did not!” Dylan exclaimed. “I
fake
-pinched you.”

“You
what
?” I asked, baffled.

“I fake-pinched him,” Dylan repeated.

I grabbed the back of my neck. “What’s
that
?”

Dylan reached out his hand, put his finger right near my arm, and gave the air a big pinch. I stood still for a moment with
my head down.
Four years of college and a master’s for this?
I looked up. The boys were waiting for a verdict. I rubbed my arm and crinkled my brow. “Ouch.”

One of my favorite places to be on St. Patrick’s Day is Kim’s second-grade classroom. In March, the staff affectionately calls
her the Leprechaun Lady. Kim’s room is plastered with rainbows and pots of gold and leprechaun stories. (One of her kids wrote,
“If I caught a leprechaun, I would sell it on eBay.”) But the highlight is her students’ leprechaun traps.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Kim’s room is full of boxes and bottles covered with stickers and glitter and aluminum foil. (Leprechauns
like shiny things.) Each trap contains bait and of course something to catch the little pranksters: trapdoors, lids propped
up on pencils, webs made out of dental floss, “quicksand” collected from the playground. One year a boy named Hayden decided
he’d get the leprechaun to stick. So he covered the inside of a red rubber toilet plunger cup with duct tape rolls then filled
it with molasses.

After excusing my students to lunch, I walked over to Kim’s room. The traps were spread out on the floor. No signs of leprechauns
yet.

“Did you leave the phone message?” Kim asked.

I answered à la Mr. O’Hara from
Gone with the Wind.
“Aye, Katie Scarlett.” Kim thought it would be fun to leave a message from a leprechaun on her voice mail and asked me to
play the part.

She laughed while shaking her head at me. “Ready to get started?”

I clapped my hands together. “Are you kidding? I’ve been looking forward to this all week!”

She laughed again. “Now don’t get too crazy. Okay?”

“I promise.”

After Kim locked the door and shut the blinds, together we tipped over desks, set the beanbag chairs on the bookshelves, threw
papers on the floor, and put the overhead projector in the ball box. We clothespinned stuffed animals on the wires, dumped
the sharpened pencils into the unsharpened-pencil box, opened the piano lid, spilled out the crayons, set the hamster cage
in the sink, and poured green paint in Kim’s coffee mug.

I started springing the traps while Kim stamped green footprints by the window, sprinkled glitter paths on the carpet, and
set a little note in teeny writing on her desk.

“How many students do you have?” I asked.

“Twenty.”

“I counted twenty-four traps.”

“Devin made extras.”

“How come?”

“For backups.”

The last trap I sprang was a shoe box lined with pink marshmallow moons, yellow hearts, and green clovers. The lid was propped
up with an Irish flag (a sure lure). Taped to the side of the box was a sign written in large green letters.

“Now
this
kid knows how to catch a leprechaun,” I said, chuckling.

“Why’s that?” Kim asked.

“He wrote, ‘Free Food!’”

“That’s Wyatt’s,” she explained without looking up. “And that was his
second
sign. The first one said, ‘Free Beer.’”

I laughed.

Pretty soon the bell rang. Kim turned off the lights and we sneaked out the back.

“May I stay?” I asked. My students’ recess ends later.

“Sure.”

Kim and I sauntered around the corner as though nothing had happened. A couple of parents were standing at Kim’s classroom
door trying to act nonchalant while holding their cameras. (She had tipped them off.) Then casually Kim opened the door.

As soon as the first children in line saw the room, they started screaming. In two seconds all the kids were shouting and
pointing and laughing and jumping and running. I stood in the doorway while moms took photos and Kim was pulled around the
room, pretending to be shocked. No one had caught the leprechaun, but that didn’t matter. He came.

In the midst of all the hubbub, one little girl scurried up to Kim holding her trap. On it was a leprechaun scooper made out
of green and orange pipe cleaners.

“When’s Easter?” she panted, out of breath.

“In a couple of weeks,” Kim answered. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to fill this up with carrots and catch the Easter Bunny!”

She dashed off.

After about ten minutes, Kim gathered the children around her desk and read the tiny little note that the leprechaun had left
behind. (She used a magnifying glass.) The note said,
“Dear Boys and Girls, Nice traps! But not good enough. See you next year! Toodleoo! Cheerio, Lucky the Leprechaun.”
All the kids started chattering.

“Wait!” Kim gasped. “Wait… I think there’s more.” Then she leaned in with her magnifying glass just like Sherlock Holmes.
The kids leaned in, too. “I think it says…
‘Check your phone messages.’
” Kim looked up with a bewildered expression. “My
phone
messages? What could
that
mean?”

She jumped up and walked quickly over to the phone. The class followed and clumped around her while she dialed in to listen
to her messages. Kim quieted them down as she waited. Suddenly her eyes grew huge. On the other end of the line a man’s voice
started laughing. “You didn’t catch me! You didn’t catch me!” he gloated. Kim held the phone out for the children to hear.

The boys and girls started bouncing up and down. “It’s Lucky the Leprechaun! It’s Lucky the Leprechaun!”

As the kids squealed, Kim looked over their heads and gave me a smile. I waved good-bye and slipped out.

The next morning at recess, I stopped by to say hello. Kim was sitting slumped at her desk, her hand leaning on her elbow.

“Well,” I said, “did our Leprechaun Lady survive another St. Patty’s Day?”

“Barely,” she croaked.

“What happened?”

She looked up. “Next year I’m not leaving any messages from any leprechauns.”

“You’re firing me?”

“Yes.”

“How come? I thought they liked it.”

“They
loved
it.” She feigned a smile. “But do you know how many times I ended up playing that dang message?”

I shrugged.

“Twenty!”

“Twenty?”

“Yes.” She gave a great heaving sigh. “I had to play it for
each
kid. Then this morning when they walked in, the first thing they did was ask if they could listen to Lucky again.”

I bit back a laugh. “Did you play it?”

“No! I told them that leprechaun messages are magic just like leprechauns and the message disappeared.”

I walked over to Kim, set both hands on her desk, and made a devilish grin. “Well now, it seems to me that Lucky just may
have to make another wee call.”

“DON’T! YOU! DARE!”

T
eachers try everything short of back handsprings to get their students to quiet down and pay attention. We flick off the lights,
clap patterns, hold up fingers and wait, change the level of our voices, count up to three, count down from five, set timers,
brush wind chimes, shake shakers, bribe kids with free play, and seat the boys next to the girls. Gail, my buddy teacher,
tells her kindergartners to pretend they have sparkly bubbles in their mouths and if they open them the bubbles will float
away. When you walk into her classroom and it’s quiet, all the kids have their cheeks puffed out like they’re holding their
breath underwater.

Many teachers use catchy words to get their students to listen up. When Lisa sings, “Peanut butter,” her whole class chants,
“Jelly!” When Dawn announces, “Spaghetti,” her kids shout, “Meatballs!” When Kim croons, “Abraham!” her students call out,
“Lincoln!” Mr. Davis acts like an astronaut and says, “Mr. Davis to class. Come in, class.” When my students are getting too
loud, sometimes I shout “SALAMI!” (Stop And Look At Me Immediately!) They aren’t supposed to say anything back, but once in
a while some smarty-pants whispers, “Sandwich.”

This year my class sounds like a Chatty Cathy convention. Some days I’d swear they all drank Red Bull for breakfast. I spend
half my time saying, “Turn around,” “Be quiet,” “Get to work,” “Do you want to go to recess?” and “Your mom made an egg salad
sandwich for lunch? Careful. I love egg salad. Now stop talking.” My students are so social that when one is chatting away,
I skip right past “Who put a nickel in you?” and ask, “Who dropped in fifty bucks?”

Not every quieting strategy works though. If I jokingly threaten to tape one child’s mouth shut with masking tape, the whole
class will beg me to tape their mouths. A few days ago when the volume in my class was way too loud, I said, “Okay, everyone,
press your Mute buttons.” Danny said his remote was out of batteries.

Raising hands before speaking is something teachers are always reinforcing with their students. There are three groups of
hand-raisers: (1) students who lift their arms and patiently wait to be called on (the smallest group); (2) those who blurt
out at the
same
time their arm is going up in the air; and (3) those who bypass the whole hand-raising thing completely. This year, Brian
is in Group Number 3.

“Brian,” I said one day, “put your hand up.”

He raised it.

“Now put it down.”

He lowered it.

“Good,” I said. “It works.”

“What works?”

“Your arm. I thought it was broken.”

You’d think that with all their talking, kids would be perfect little speakers. They’re not, of course. Kids mispronounce
words all the time.

When I was in the student-teaching program, one of my professors asked everyone in the class to keep a journal. She encouraged
us to write down the funny things our students did and said. “Trust me,” she explained, “on bad days, you’ll be glad you did.
It’s cheaper than therapy.” After I started teaching, I continued to keep up my journal. (Hence this book.) Here is a list
of some of my favorite entries:

Olivia called the national anthem “The Star
Strangled
Banner.” Russell thought the pirate flag was the
Jolly Rancher.
Fred said he had a
cricket
in his neck. (He meant a
crick.
)