“The Infamous Pencil Sharpener Incident”

A micro memoir by Yael Boaz (9).

“I’m trying to be nice here! I’m new and still adapting, so why are you guys being so disrespectful?” The words being yelled in my face pushed me into myself, a wall of concrete unmovable by the hurtful barbs being thrown at it. Beside me, my friend’s face was turning red and I could see the dam blocking her tears shaking.

I felt bad for her, pulled into a situation that wouldn’t have had much to do with her had she not stood up for me, but even more than that empathy, I was pissed. Pissed at my teacher, who was blowing a tiny instance out of control. I couldn’t understand why the sin of trying to sharpen a pencil was so horrible that my friend and I had to be yelled at.

Some of my classmates had broken the pencil sharpener during study hall the period before and Mr. Cohen had taken it away from them, from all of us. I had been working and hadn’t been paying attention. It wasn’t like he had told everyone and written it on the board. It wasn’t my fault that my pencil became so dull I could barely read what I was writing. It wasn’t Siena’s fault she can’t stand injustice, especially towards her friends.

I wanted to sharpen my pencil! I wanted to scream at him so loud that he would have no choice but to hear me and listen. I wanted to start crying. I wanted my feet to grow roots into the ground as my soul floated away to somewhere else, somewhere better. I wanted to shut my teacher up and kick him out of that room, then turn to my friend and clasp her into a giant hug.

I did none of it, staying still and quiet like a soldier in front of a tyrant.

“The two of you are some of my best students and you act so respectful usually! What is wrong with you? I told you to sit down! I told you the pencil sharpener was broken! I told you to stop and yet you didn’t! And Siena, you didn’t have to stand up and add in! The only thing that happened is that you’re standing here with her!”

Here Siena, the angel that she is, tried to get in another word, another sentence to defend us. 

“How could I stay sitting down when you’re yelling at Yael when she did nothing wrong?”

But like a doomed train, Mr. Cohen was gaining speed with no way to stop. He just kept repeating himself, shouting about respect, expecting better, scolding Siena for standing up for me, and scolding me for standing up at all.

I know that he was a little in the right. He did tell me that the pencil sharpener was broken. I shouldn’t have taken that as my cue to point at the empty English classroom and say, “Alright, then I’ll go there to sharpen my pencil if I can’t do it here.” I should have sat down and borrowed a pencil from someone else before Siena stood up and entangled herself in the situation.

But when Mr. Cohen left the room with only the instructions to “calm down and return to class,” I was thinking about none of that. I was too busy hugging one of my best friends who was crying and cursing the day Mr. Cohen became our teacher to empathize with the villain of the story. When Siena and I returned to our classroom, my head was raised and inside, a little smirk was pulling at my mouth.