I was having so much fun but, then I froze as I remembered that there were rules while I was at school.  I panicked as this was the first time something like this actually happened to me that I could remember, I said to the others, “I quit” to the other three and then I walked away hoping that I would not get in trouble.  I began to tremble as I thought about the consequences, the more I thought about them the more nervous and worried I got. 

About 17 minutes ago, at the start of recess I ran out classroom number 27 looking for something to do and looking across the campus, my eyes landed on my my two friends, Joshua and Vibhu, who were throwing tambark (tan colored small wooden scraps) at two slightly older girls on the playground and joined them.  Joshua was a smart short Chinese boy and Vibhu was a tall slightly less intelligent Indian boy.  He bragged a lot saying things like, “of course I am better than you”.  In our class we had simple addition tests every friday where she would give us five minutes to finish as many questions as we could and I did okay on them but our teacher always announced the people who did the best.  One week in the past, she made the test a lot harder and announced the only person that finished the test, not surprisingly to the class it was Joshua.  Vibhu used to be my enemy as I hated him because he lied so much and did not listen to anybody.  Whenever he told a lie and somebody said that he was lying, he would always say, “mind your own beezwax”  which I assumed was meant to be his word for business.  Some time ago I was getting a book from our class bookshelf and I got the book that Vibhu wanted before he could get it so he pushed me to try to get me to give it to him, he went to tell the teacher that I pushed him and stole the book he got  and because I was very shy, I said nothing resulting in my teacher emailing my parents which finally led to me getting punished.

Throwing tambark at the girls seemed very fun and pleasurable to me and so I joined in and also started to throw tambark at the girls on the play structure chasing them round and round on the tambark.  I was sweating due to the hot summer temperature as the Californian sun glared down at us without mercy but I did not care because I was having so much fun.  All I could hear were my friends maniacally laughing as we chased the two girls and the kids screaming as they played around us.  I completely forgot how to act and what I was allowed to do and what I was not allowed to do.  I suddenly snapped back to my senses and started thinking about what I was doing again when I realized that I had violated the school rules and how much trouble I would get into so I decided to quit and told the others hoping that I could escape the trouble that I was about to get into.  I was thinking how I could avoid getting in trouble and I was so desperate so I almost started daydreaming and imagining things such as how I thought that the girls could not tell on us because they did not know us until I realized that the two girls could easily tell on us because we told them our names while we were chasing them.  In the last two minutes of recess, I was pacing around the school play structure nervously and impatiently waiting for recess to end, hoping that I would be deemed innocent.

It was only a couple of minutes, but it felt like an eternity.  Every once in awhile I would see Joshua and Vibhu run around the play structure chasing the two girls with tambark ready to be thrown in their hands pretending to be superheros.  This only made me more nervous as I thought about the consequences that I may face.  After what felt like an hour, the bell finally rang and I made my way to my classroom and lined up with the rest of my classmates.  Then I saw the two girls follow Joshua and Vibhu and approach our 1st grade teacher as she came to open the door for us.  They got into a conversation and I knew that it was about what had happened during recess.

I heard,”three boys in your class were chasing us” and some other kids started talking loudly about what they had done during recess and I could no longer hear the conversation between the students and the teacher. 

Then I saw the two girls walk away, I snuck a glimpse at Joshua and Vibhu to see if they were paying attention too, but they were at the other end of the line and did not seem to notice since they were still having a great time delighted with themselves.                                                                                                                                                      

Then the teacher turned to the line of students and said wearing a very annoyed face, “I would like to see Joshua, Vibhu, and…”.  She paused for a moment and within that moment, I closed my eyes and hoped that it was not going to be me and for a second I thought that I had a chance of survival, but of course I heard, ”and Adrian”.

I felt that my heart started to beat faster and faster as she instructed us to go to her desk.  At that point we began to walk towards the teacher's desk passing all of the other kids in line who were laughing at us, shouting insults and mocking us in the hot sun.  I could feel that my palms were getting sweaty, I wanted to just hurt them so much but I knew that that would only get me in more trouble so I kept my emotions underneath my actions.  We walked inside and felt a cool breeze from the AC hit us slightly relieving me as we approached the teacher’s desk.  Back in 1st grade, the teacher had a rest period right after recess where all of the kids would put their heads down on the desk for a few minutes and calm down so that they could be ready to work.  The teacher came over to us and told us that she was going come up with some consequences and was going to email our parents.  Now at that age, having the teacher email our parents about something negative was pretty much the worst thing that could happen.   Then she had us stand in separate corners of the room as she wrote the emails and I stood in a corner with a “How Do You Feel” emotions poster.  I could feel everybody was looking at us, whispering to each other discussing what had happened and silently laughing with not a lot of people feeling sympathy.  I then took a second look at the poster, It had the words “how do you feel today?” written on it and so I picked out all of the angry ones such as angry, annoyed, and hateful.  I was silently hating my teacher and hoping that something bad would happen to her.

After a few minutes she called us back over after she was done emailing our parents and took us outside. She asked us some questions and one distinctive question I remember was, “Do you think teachers are dumb?’  I did not hear correctly because I was so distracted by the sun and because I was panicking so much I replied, “yes” without thinking about what she had actually said.  She turned to me with her mouth open, surprised, and offended by my reply.   The other two laughed because clearly she thought that I was joking around. Then she told us that we were not allowed to play during  recess for an entire trimester, starting from the end of the first trimester to the end of the second trimester, and I was very angry about it.  I thought that it was unreasonable and dumb.  All we were allowed to do was sit on the bench and if we needed to, go get lunch from the hot lunch line and come back.  All of the kids were mocking us as we sat there and could not do anything, in just a single hour my life had gone from being amazing and gone to disappointment.  From this I learned to always think before I act or do anything.