Today is my birthday and when Mom woke me up she kissed me and said Happy Birthday! And hugged me and I hugged her back and it felt pretty good. And when Dad left for work he kissed me too, and said Happy Birthday! The only thing different about that was saying happy birthday, because they both usually kiss me in the morning.
So big deal, so I’m fourteen, so what! Being fourteen didn’t make me any different overnight. I’m still fat and I’m still not in Bianca’s Saturday morning recorder classes with Larry, and Mom still picks on me to wear my hair neat and my teachers still don’t like me, much. Yech!
We had a real big snowfall overnight and we woke up to find the most snow yet. I don’t ever remember seeing this much snow all together in Toronto, and Dad says we better get used to it. I don’t mind getting used to it, I think it’s just great.
We slogged our way to school through the park over all that snow and our feet went in really deep. Dad said before he left for work that if it stays mild we can go out after dinner on our skis and fool around down the hill beside the junior school. That would be a nice way to spend a birthday evening.
At Industrial Arts Mr. Bronson said my chopping board is pretty good and that was nice of him. He said the same to Jennifer T and of course it’s true, they are pretty good. But crap, he says the same to everyone, no big deal.
We’re almost finished with the boards and they are really nice. They’re laminated kind of; we used strips of walnut and strips of pine alternating so there’s a two-tone effect, and we’ve been doing tons of sanding. It won’t be long now before they’re finished and we can take them home and I’ll give mine to Mom, of course.
Mr. Bronson said if anyone has guinea pigs or hamsters maybe they want to take the wood chips home, but I don’t think I will, because they’re not soft chips like I use for my pigs. Jennifer said she’s asked her mother if she can get a guinea pig because she likes mine so much, and her mother said maybe and I told her if she gets one she can bring it over sometime so they can play together, hers and mine. She’s so sure she’s going to get one, she took home a big bag of wood shavings.
And oboy, Kerry Blake was at it again today. He kept throwing spit balls at everyone all day and none of the teachers could do anything much with him. I mean, we all like him and everything, because he’s really okay and he doesn’t really mean to be a pest and all that, but he sure can be hard to take sometimes. Like, he clipped me with an elastic band behind the ear this afternoon and does that ever sting! On my birthday, too.
Mr. Henderson gave us a new assignment today, also. Just in case we didn’t have enough to do, of course. Of course, they never think to ask if we’ve already got too many assignments from some of the other teachers. Oh well, that’s life. On my birthday, too.
Anyway, this assignment was, we were supposed to write about success. Like, what we think represents success. And he asked for some people to kind of talk about success, give the rest of us some ideas, that kind of thing.
So every time someone put up a hand, or Mr. Henderson asked someone to speak, old Merry-Kerry went to it. I mean, you couldn’t shut the kid up.
“Hey, hey, Mr. Henderson” he’d yell, “ask me, Sir!”
So sure, at first Mr. Henderson asked Kerry because if there’s something you can’t do, you can’t ignore Kerry. I mean, he won’t let you.
“Well, Mr. Henderson, class” he got very formal, “what I think is a success is to be like Evel Knievel. He is my idea of a success. Evel Knievel is known all over the world. Just ask any kid anywhere who is Evel Knievel and that kid will tell you who he is. And he makes plenty of money.”
“And what do you consider Mr. Knievel’s mark of success, apart from his notoriety?” Mr.Henderson asked Kerry who’s just bursting with pride at his speechifying.
“What’s notor-notoriety?”
“What I mean, Kerry is, what did Mr. Knievel achieve in your opinion to have you consider him a success?”
“Well, Sir, everyone knows about him.”
“Yes. Kerry, you made that quite clear. What I would like you to tell the class is how Mr. Knievel attained these heights of recognition.”
“Huh?”
“Kerry, what does Mr. Knievel do?”
“Oh, that. Well, everyone knows, Sir. I don’t have to tell the class.”
“Kerry”, Mr. Henderson’s voice was kind of loud this time, he sounded like he’d like Kerry to shut up but he’s always careful not to hurt Kerry’s feelings. I wish he’d be more careful of my feelings. “Kerry, please tell me, and the class, what Mr. Knievel does … for a living, I mean.”
Well Sir, Evel Knievel is the world’s best, greatest, most daring, most famous, special daredevil!” And he beamed a great big grin around at us.
“Oh yes? What does he do that you would term him a daredevil?’
“Sir! Mr. Henderson, he rides his motorcycle right across the Grand Canyon!”
“Indeed. Interesting. What’s the Grand Canyon?”
“It’s a stupendous hole, Sir, and Evel Knievel goes right across it and he could go right across Niagara Falls if he wanted to, and that’s my idea of a success and that’s just exactly what I’m going to do when I grow up. Even better, and I’m practising already!”
“Fine, Kerry. So I suppose we can consider Mr. Knievel Kerry’s conception of success personified. What I am hoping, class, is that you can come up with some more definitive information for me respecting success. Nancy Goren, do you have any ideas off the bat?”
“Yes, Sir. How about Elizabeth Taylor? She’s really beautiful and a great actress and she’s so famous and she’s really beautiful and she has a famous husband and she makes fantastic movies, and she’s really beautiful and she gets great big diamonds from her husband!”
“Yes, Nancy. I suppose that would do for one kind of success. Now Ted, Ted Binter, can you give us an example?”
“Oh yes, Sir. How about Bobby Hull? Like, he’s a great Canadian and a terrific hockey player. He’s been playing a long time and he’s one of the all-time greats, and he’s still going, and it’s really great to watch him in action!”
“Fine, fine Ted. Now, let’s see a few hands, please.”
And hands went up like mad, all the kids had something to say. Well, almost all. And Mr. Henderson asked Micheline Lachute for her success person and she said Albert Einstein, and Mr. Henderson looked really pleased. Then Rosemary Brown said Sophia Loren, and Bill McLaren said Hugh Hefner (I never heard of him, but Bill McLaren smirked and all the other guys, almost, laughed like crazy).
Mr. Henderson didn’t look too happy. Mark LaPointe said Alexander Graham Bell, and Bethany Reinhold said Mahatma Gandhi and then Kerry started shouting out loud he wanted another turn.
Like I said before, you can’t ignore old Kerry, and Mr. Henderson had to let him have a turn. “Yes Kerry, what is it? Have you decided on another personality rather than that whom you previously chose?”
“Naw, Sir. What I want to say is, they’re all wrong, those other guys. Like, I never even heard of the people they’re talking about, but I bet everyone one of them heard about Evel Knievel. So why do we hafta write the project, why can’t you just pick the winner now?”
“Kerry”, Mr. Henderson said, like he was losing patience. “I am not picking winners” and boy, did the class laugh when he said that. I don’t know if Mr. Henderson knows what picking winners means, but the rest of the kids do, even Kerry, and it was a long time before Mr. Henderson could get us to shut up and he looked mighty mad.
“I repeat, this is not a contest. I merely wish to ascertain whether you students are capable of writing a reasonably intelligent report and I have chosen as your subject the criteria of success. Now class, you have a full week to work on this assignment and hand it in. I’ll take ten percent off your mark for each day you are late in handing in this assignment.”
And that was that, so now I’ve got three assignments for this one week. Crap! Some birthday!
I was so depressed on my way home from school, even Jennifer T couldn’t cheer me up, and she tried. She’s a good friend, and I like her more all the time. I hope she gets to get her guinea pig. She’d be a good mother to a guinea pig.
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