Squid
Ben Gramkowski
It was our first day of fifth grade, and we waited in the hallway for our teachers to arrive. This was a strange hallway, the stairs leading up to the junior high classrooms was right next to us, and already we could hear their lockers slamming. Fourth grade had been different; we had class in the trailers outside, and had to walk through nearly all of the building to get to the cafeteria, at least this year it was just around the bend. The other fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Goodrum arrived and let her students in. We who remained exchanged uneasy looks as we awaited our teacher. The older students had told us much about Mr. Squidvinski, enough to make a grown man cry. Yet their forewarnings were not nearly enough to prepare us for “The Squid.”
The bell rang and he still hadn’t shown up yet. After two minutes, the door opened beside us and the tallest man I have ever seen said to us “You’re all late.” His voice was strong, and dead serious. We walked into our new classroom as The Squid stood at the blackboard. He introduced us to the course, what we would be learning from him, he would be our English, and History teacher, Math and Science would be across the hall in Mrs. Goodrum’s room. As he spoke, I took not of his figure; he was simply the gangliest man alive. His fingers, which part of me still thinks were just bones, were an average of six inches long, including the thumbs. His arms looked about as tall as I was, though he didn’t look ape-like as did some of my long-armed class mates. This was due to his tremendous posture, he kept his head high and his back straight at all times, only ever leaning forward to tower over his pupils.
About two weeks in he threw the first chalk. Charlie Johnson was napping in the corner during a lesson on World War Two, the only topic he ever fully covered, when The Squid yelled “Think fast!” and threw the chalk at Charlie, it missed, shattering on the cubby wall behind him. Several students jumped, and it was certain that many parents had interesting dinner conversations that night. It just got worse, since it was raining that day, we had indoor recess, but instead of playing cards and drawing pictures like the other classes, we were given a special lecture on the origins of rocks. The loss of recess was a bitter blow to many of the students, but it was not yet strong enough to unite us.
In October it was really bad. With complete disregard to reality and the laws of physics, The Squid would assign homework, forget about it completely, and then ask for it a week later. He assigned us two papers at a time, for each class. There was one day we had three papers due, and two of them were on the same topic. You’d think that would make it easier, but you’d be wrong. If we had any thought repeat itself in another paper The Squid would accuse us of plagiarizing...
from our own papers!
The resistance began with Sammy Lang, a skinny little kid with dark brown hair and a rather mousy look. Sammy was a master with machines, he would have become an engineer were it not for the Squid, and he developed a very simple yet absolutely ingenious projectile weapon. Stretching a rubber band between his forefinger and thumb, Sammy would fit a densely folded slip of paper over it and launch it with deadly accuracy at the Squid. He tormented him for the entire morning, until we lined up for lunch. Before he allowed us to leave the room, he demanded that we empty our pockets. A few students, having nothing to hide, agreed and went to lunch. A devoted few of us, though, stayed behind to protect Sammy. The more of us that stayed, we figured, the less likely he was to find the real culprit.
Sammy Lang, John Robinson, Charlie Johnson, Marisa Hunter, Eddie Bonnel, the Swedmack twins, Amy Codel, and I stayed. Unfortunately our plan did not work out. The Squid searched our pockets anyway. John, Charlie, Marisa, Amy, the twins and I were given detention. I still don’t know what happened to Sammy (I’ve heard rumors, but I shudder to agree with any of them), but I’ll never forget what he yelled to us as he was dragged off. “You don’t have to take this!” He told us, “You don’t have to give in!” We didn’t.
You keep telling me that what I did cannot be justified. “There is no justification, only forgiveness.” Well the reason I tell you this story today is because it can be justified. I don’t want forgiveness for what I did, if anything I want recognition. What the seven of us did needed to be done. Not for our good, for really how good is it for us to be stuck here? No. We did it for the good of our classmates, for the good of Sammy, for the good of everyone who would go through Delmor K-8’s fifth grade after us.
The day it happened it was raining out, like the day we lost recess. We had been preparing for just this sort of day for nearly a month. That’s how long it had been since we lost Sammy. When the lunch bell rang, Charlie Johnson was snoozing in his chair, and I was the first to the door. John, Marisa, Amy, and the twins purposely got in the back of line. The now-familiar yell of “Think Fast!” rang out in the class room.
“Run!” I yelled to the other students, as Charlie Johnson caught the chalk and whipped it back at the Squid. Several students wanted to see what was going on, but we managed to usher them out the door and lock it. The Squid was dumbstruck as we rushed towards him, grabbing whatever we could find at hand. We were on top of him in seconds, blinded by rage to the seriousness of what we were doing. We killed that man, yes, and we did it brutally. For that, I can never apologize, for he had long since killed us, and our savage beating was merciful compared to his methods.
I cannot lie, I would do it again. You know why? When, after they had broken the door down with the fire ax, the police were escorting us out of the building. I saw there, in the halls, everyone I had ever known. The rest of our class was there, Mrs. Goodrum’s class was there. The Junior High was on the stair case. And they were all cheering. Cheering for us, because we did what everyone in that school had wanted to do. When we were led through the younger wing towards the entrance of the school, we didn’t see horror and disgust (as we would with out parents) on those children’s faces. We saw admiration. And in that instant we knew that school would never bow before tyranny again. That day we became heroes. Even if I have to spend my entire life here, you cannot convince me that what I did to the Squid was wrong.
