At age 7, Cynthia Borrows thought she was very powerful. This particular November day was no exception. She enters the class room two minutes passed the last bell, sneaks into the coat room to hang up her jacket, and then turns around the corner to face the music. Not to her surprise, the whole class is staring at her with an anxious look that says: “this is a very bad day to get on Ms Raymond”s nerves’. At the front of the class room Ms Raymond sits silently, her reading glasses perched at the end of her nose, glaring with greater intensity for every step Cynthia makes closer to her desk.

Ms Raymond hates that she got stuck in this “white-trash” school, she hates 3rd graders, she hates her desk, she hates her chair, she hates laughter, she hates singing, she hates explanations, she hates “buts”, she hates questions, she hates tardiness, and she most especially hates Cynthia! Finally reaching her desk Cynthia goes to sit down – “Cynthia Borrows!” Growls a furious Ms Raymond, “What is your explanation for this interruption?!”

The kids cringe as Cynthia actually starts to explain herself. “Are you talking back to me?” Ms Raymond says and stands up with such force that her chair slams against the chalk board. The classroom gets the giggles. Ms Raymond darts a glare to the rest of the class that is silencing. “Get out of your seat now!” She yells so Cynthia jumps up, “and clean-out your desk!”

So Cynthia sits down. This is all far too much for Ms Raymond to handle so she charges over to Cynthia’s desk, picks it up and empties it on to the floor sending all of Cynthia’s pencils rolling.

“But Ms-”

“Don’t you “but” me, child! You obey me when I’m talking to you or-” Ms Raymond yelled as she stepped forward crushing one of the pencils.

“But this isn’t fair, you can’t treat-” Before she could even think of what she was going to say next, Ms Raymond picked her up by the ear and dragged her to the principles office. “I’ll show you what’s fair!”

In Bridgeview elementary you could get away with treating the kids like that because nobody really did care. These kids are not “tomorrow”s future’ the teachers would joke amongst themselves. On arrival at the office, the principle was not to be found, so Ms Raymond thought up a brilliant secondary plan, grabbing the janitor’s keys on their way out of the office she dragged Cynthia over to the furnace room and locked her in it.

Cynthia didn’t cry, because she believed in her own strength. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she saw a little corner that was out of reach for an adult, and with some difficulty she squeezed herself in behind the furnace. Suddenly she heard a voice, a kid’s voice. “Hello?” she said. There was no answer. Then she heard a teacher’s voice from directly above. “The vents!” Cynthia’s eyes lighting up with a thought as she came to this conclusion.

Meanwhile, Ms Raymond was in a horribly fowl mood tearing strips off of every kid that hesitated when called on for an answer.

“Jason! What is the answer! I don’t have all day to wait for your stupidity! Do you think this is a joke?! Do you think I’m asking you for the fun of it? How are you going to get a job at McDonald’s if you can’t count how many paddies to put on a burger! If you don’t give me the answer right now, I’m sending you to a special class room where someone else can waist their time!” Ms Raymond hollered.

“But Ms Ray-” He cut himself off on finishing that sentence for he knew what was in store for him. Ms Raymond came storming over to his desk and-

“Answer the question Jason! Come on, you can do it!” Cynthia yelled through the vents. Ms Raymond looked about the class room to see who dared speak out of turn. Jason, knowing it was Cynthia, was looking around for her. “Come on Jason, don’t let anyone make you think your stupid, your not! Now you can do this question, I believe you can!” Jason went up to the chalk board to work on this question. Ms Raymond charged towards the furnace room. The whole class cheered for Jason when he got it right.