Too Afraid to be Afraid

The first day of being a fifth grader, thinking your one top of the world, moving school for a primary school to an elementary school, being with all the big cool kids that are in higher classes than you. ms. cooks class 1st period, new teachers are always the worst you don’t always know how they’re going to be at first, the first impression is always the best thing you can give, it sets the tone for the rest of the year. Every year that you move up in grades the harder it gets, as well as reading which I had the first period with probably one of the hardest English teachers to this day, she was hard on students for getting there work done an there wasn’t any late turn ins.

While reading the first book on my own in fifth grade, ms Cook asked me to go get the new books down in the office, while she was asking me, I kept thinking to myself about where the office is and everybody already knew accept me because I missed the step up day to see where everything is in the school because I got sick at home. Without hesitating in the class so that everybody would stare at me I quickly said yes. She gave me 2 minutes to get down to the office that I didn’t even know where it is and I was so afraid of making her waste her time on me and me letting her down as well, I didn’t ask the question about where the office is. I quickly sprint out the door and run down the long hallway, where all the classes are. I stop and look, there are two doors and I have no idea which one leads to the office, ms. Cook only gave me 5 minutes to get down there grab the printed papers and get back, It’s been 3 minutes, at this point.

While trying to find this office that no one has shown me, and how is it not near the front of the school? this school is just too big, I should have asked for directions but at the same time, I wanted to make people realized that I knew what I was doing here. Is it too late to go back and ask for directions? Will she get mad at me? I have wasted her time with the foolish acts of just running around trying to find the place that people call the office, but iv looked everywhere and it is nowhere to be seen, at this point, its a failed mission and its time to go back and tell her what happens. I have sweat beating down on my forehead like a gushing wound of a hurt soldier. I hurry up and run back into Ms. Cook’s room to only to stare at, while being out of breath, without any hesitation and not to look dumb and not know where the office is I told Ms.Cook that the papers didn’t print and I waited there for 5 minutes seeing if they were.

I could have just told her the truth and she would have understood right? Probably not even she asked me if I knew where it was I still ignored her so that people thought I knew what I was doing even though I didn’t. When you have 200 eyeballs staring at you at once and someone is trying to ask you if you know how to get to the office, its tons of pressure on you and when your only 10 years old it makes it even harder to focus on the question being asked at hand. I was so scared to ask this silly question just because I thought people would look and talked to me differently if I was to ask such a Dumb question or was it? I guess we will never know since the question never got asked again. after a couple of minutes Ms. Cook stands up and chooses another student from my row to go to the office to pick up the papers, as a relief I sat down and waited for my homework. Taking a deep breath in as a relief I knew that the papers printed I just never grabbed them.

As Jim came back from the office he looked at Ms. Cook and said “You printed 48 copies” Ms.Cook look at him all confused and dazed when she looks at her laptop it said she only printed 24 copies, I started to look around the room when people started staring at me, I got all light head and hot, I was scared, felt trapped even though I could lie my way out of this I quickly say, ” they must have printed when I left” the classes eyeballs switch quickly to Ms. Cook and she carries on class without any more distractions. As the class carries on the bell rings for next class and Ms. Cook keeps me after class asking on if I knew where the office is located, since everyone is gone and it’s just us I quickly say ” No. >She sits me down and tells me where the office is and if it ever scared to ask a question in front of 30 kids to ask her to step outside, ask her alone so that my question doesn’t look stupid in front of everyone.

Photo by dprevite on Foter.com / CC BY