Y’all should know by now just how sweet my girl Jewel is. Even Mamaw remarked, “I don’t think that child has a bit of guile, meanness or devil in any bone in her body.” I would have to agree; I can’t even make her mad, and I have tried – on purpose once or twice – just to see what she would do. She seems to always know it when I try it, and she always ends up making ME laugh, and laughing with me.

One day I was sitting in the lunchroom, pulling her hair just teasing a little bit. I know I am dumb, but I wasn’t thinking too swift that day. Jewel turns right around in the lunchroom, stands up and announces to everybody, “Hey everyone! I have decided to get my long curls cut off, because Peter Hegelund wants them more than I do! Everybody giggled, except for me. I turned bright red, which made everybody laugh more, and she reached over and patted my arm, actually apologizing.

She said, “Oh silly Pete, don’t take yourself so serious. If you wanted me to I would shave it bald and draw a smiley face on top, with a permanent marker just to make you happy.” Nope, can’t even make her mad, she is always ahead of me, and that is super OK with me.

I did get to see her mad yesterday though, and I don’t think I ever want to see that again. We have this substitute, Ms. Baindeaux that we call Ms. Bandaid behind her back. She is an unhappy woman, and she is always sour looking. Well, she does not like Jewel’s mother for some reason, and she takes it out on Jewel, at least that is what it looked like to me from what Jewel’s mama and the principal told me later. She had never outwardly done anything like that, until today.

Jewel makes straight A’s, and has never had a lesser grade on anything in her life. Today, Ms. Bandaid gave us a history quiz, since our main teacher had to take off a few days for some reason. She graded our papers, and gave them back, and suddenly I noticed Jewel’s eyes turn black. “Miss Baindeaux, there seems to be an error on my history paper. You have given me a C; surely you must have made an error while grading these.”

Ms. Bandaid looked snidely back at Jewel, and said with a harsh tone, “I assure you young lady there is no error. I have given you a C and you will take it and sit down. Now sit down and be quiet!” Jewel looked stunned, and the color left her face as she sat down. Suddenly, I saw black smoke rising from her head, and she stood up again. “Miss Baindeaux, I assure you this is a mistake! You have given me a C, and I have never had a bad grade in my life!”

Ms Bandaid looked annoyed, and actually asked, “Are you challenging my authority young lady?! Are you calling me a liar? You get what you get, and if you do not sit down I will change it to an F and send you to the office! Now sit your happy little butt down, and shut your mouth now, little Miss Goody Two Shoes!” Ms Bandaid was super mad, but Jewel got madder.

She packed up her books quietly, shaking like a leaf and beginning to cry, and stood up and headed to the classroom door. She turned to Ms. Bandaid and yelled loud, “You rotten, evil witch! You know full well what my grades are! I am going to get Principal Morgan right now!” Ms. Bandaid actually started screaming back at her, “Wellington! Wellington! Get back in here now! Don’t you disobey me, I will have you expelled immediately!”

She then got on the intercom and started screaming really loud, too loud actually, for school security to come to her classroom. She sounded like a witch, or a hag she was so evil with what she was saying. We were all stunned! None of us dared say a word, but I got up and went out into the hall, where Jewel had literally thrown her book bag halfway down the hall, scattering her books and papers everywhere, and was shaking and sobbing violently.

Ms. Bandaid tried to stop me from leaving, by yelling stuff at me, but I turned around and must have given her one whale of an evil look, because she went silent and let me leave. “Hegelund, you will get expelled too! I may expel you all!” I didn’t say a word, I just went into the hall and retrieved Jewel’s book bag, putting it back together, and we promptly marched side by side to the Principal’s office.

Principal Morgan met us in the hall, as he was heading this way. He told us, “You two sit down in the office up front, and I will be back momentarily. I have something I need to attend to. He was really nice to us. The office door was open and Jewel was still shaking, but I was cool as a cucumber. I felt powerful, like I could literally do anything for my Jewel, and I wasn’t about to let her face this alone.

We listened at the door and heard wild screaming, and it was Ms. Bandaid screaming at Principal Morgan about us just down the hall, about everything and cursing so loud! Jewel and I were shocked to the core at what she said about us! She told Principal Morgan he could shove it where the sun don’t shine. Basically, he had her escorted from the property, and ordered to seek medical attention, if she still wanted her job.

We saw all of them walk down the hall past the office, and she gave me and Jewel the most insane, evil look I’d ever seen a teacher give a student. She looked just like she had a demon in her eyes, and Jewel and I both shuddered just a little bit. As they passed, Principal Morgan warned her, “Do NOT say a word Ms. Baindeaux. Eyes forward and out the door NOW!”

Ms. Bandaid had made BOTH of us mad, and I made up my mind if Principal Morgan had any issue with it, I was gonna get Mamaw to come up here, and give everybody the what for. Mamaw did that once when a teacher had accused me of skipping class, when I was actually running an official errand for Principal Morgan, and had to help clean up the County Bus Barn, since a storm had messed it up. We all pitched in, but I got in trouble. Mamaw came right up to the school and made such a firestorm, Principal Morgan said later he never wanted to go through that again.

The principal came back, and we told him exactly what had happened. “Kids, I am sorry you had to endure that, this isn’t the first time Ms. Baindeaux has had a run in with a student, but I assure you if she doesn’t cool it, it will be the last. She is a good teacher, and very talented, but every now and then she pulls a stunt like this, and I am not entirely sure exactly why, but I have a good idea. The kids told me what took place, and I know that Ms. Wellington here was asking a genuine question.”

The principal was kind, even gentle. “May I see your paper Ms. Wellington? I will look at it and determine what your grade will be, if you wish.” Jewel smiled through her tears, and let the principal look it over. “After reading over this briefly, I don’t see a thing wrong with this. It appears to be factually correct, and the only thing wrong with it is the C at the top. I will strike that from the reporting database; this paper has an A because I say so. Good work, Ms. Wellington.”

The principal then started asking questions to get the entire story, and finally he told us, “I didn’t want to give out private faculty information, but Ms. Baindeaux’s husband just left her yesterday.” “I can see why,” I was thinking to myself; “Who would want to be around that banshee hag for very long.”

Principal Morgan went on, “I think her and Jewel’s mother had a run in long ago in school together, like you two are now, and she never learned how to let it go. Now that her husband has left her, I am sure she is quite chagrined. While I can understand her position, I can certainly understand the position that puts you kids in. I will not have a teacher abusing a student under any circumstances, and especially not you two.”

Principal Morgan went on, “Now promise me please that you will keep that information to yourselves, because I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. But you two are exceptional students, and I felt if perhaps you knew the reason, you two might be able to overlook this, and perhaps give her some grace. She doesn’t deserve it, but maybe this time it is in order. She has had an awful lot of evil happen to her. I assured her, if she does this again, she is out and no quarter. Gone!”

We thanked Principal Morgan, and told him we would consider what he said. I know he was aiming it mostly at me, because Mamaw has been up here to the school a few times, and he KNOWS what a force Mamaw can be to reckon with, as in calling the governor if she has to, or driving to the Capitol in Jackson. But maybe he was also just being nice to a person who was going through it; a person who needs to learn how to forgive and forget.

Me and Jewel knew the kids would have questions, so we made it up between us to leave out those parts, and just say there was a slight misunderstanding, and Ms. Bandaid was ill and needed to go to the doctor. We went back into the class, where the baseball coach had taken over. He smiled at us and softly told us to go ahead and have a seat; we didn’t need a hall pass or a note neither.

Jewel did call her mother and ask her to pick her up early, since she wasn’t feeling well. I asked to walk her to the front, and the coach gave me a pass so I could. While Ms. Wellington was getting Jewel in the car, I quickly explained what went on. Ms. Wellington assured me, “Yeah I have had run ins with that woman before, for different reasons, but never ever over Jewel. Pardon me Peter, but I too am a bit angry today because of this.”

She continued, “She and I go way back to high school; its there she accused me of doing something I would never ever do. She still thinks I stole her beau from her, and turned him against her. I never even had any dealings with that guy, and we never even dated but she was crazy. No one could tell her anything; even now she still gives me a side eye when she sees me out and about. That woman is nuts, and if she ever hurts my kid again I swear I will literally snatch every single hair from her head and feed it to her!”

I hugged Ms. Wellington and watched them drive away and walked back to my class, alone. “Note to self,” I said to myself. “Never make Ms. Wellington mad either; I need my hair for sure!”