Karma by Diane Godfrey-Doherty (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

too.

Chapter 6


Things didn’t change much as the school year continued. Mrs. Chapman was still filling in for Mrs. Small. She didn’t tell any of us when Mrs. Small would be coming back. I was hoping a praying it would be really soon. For the most part kids like Billy Hamilton left me alone. Unless they were bored or needed to show off to their friends and show how tough they were. Second term was long and cold, but Ally and I had each other. There wasn’t much of an opportunity for us to stay inside to help a teacher or work in the library during recess. So we would go outside and just walk around together. As long as we had each other, we were ok.
On the days when Ally was sick and away from school, it was very scary for me, as I am sure it was for her when I was not at school. I tried not to miss very many days. I knew how important it was for us to stick together. Winter seemed long. It seemed as if it would never end at times. I had forgotten all about the pay back scheme Ally wanted to do to those bullies earlier in the year but she didn’t. She was still planning, I just didn’t know it. Ally had been planning something and it had to do with the doors of the school locking once they shut. Even if the students are out at recess the doors would lock us out.
If the bell rang or a student needed to get inside the supervising teacher would have to unlock the doors. This particular day Ally and I were out in the schoolyard wondering around just chatting about this and that when out of the blue, Ally started to tell me about how she had come up with the perfect plan to teach those bullies a good lesson in how to treat people. As she explained her plan, I looked around to see if I could find the kids we were talking about. Then I spotted them on the north side of the building. They were far from the doors of the school. As Ally continued, I realized this just might work, but we will have to be quick and the timing will have to be perfect. All the other kids will have to be inside before they get to the doors. “How do you plan to get those bullies away from the door”? I questioned. “Oh I got it covered” Ally began to explain. “I asked Danny Ferguson to go up to them just before the bell and tell them that Mrs. Chapman needs them to check around the outside of the school for some equipment left behind by the janitor, and when they come back to the doors, they will be locked out”. “Why would Danny Ferguson help us”? I wondered out loud. “He doesn’t like us and he never plays with us”. “I know, but he hates the way those kids pick on us and treat us so mean”. “He wants to get back at them too”. “For what”? I couldn’t help asking. Just as Ally finished explaining, I noticed that Danny was walking over to the bully kids and I said to Ally, “it’s time, let’s go”. Ally and I ran to the door knowing the bell was going to ring at any minute. Our time was running out if we were going to pull this off. Sure enough, the bullies went around back of the building and Danny came running in the school doors behind all the other kids. He began to yell, “Shut the door SHUT the door”! Ally did just that, with a slam! I ran down the hall to the South entrance to make sure that the door was shut and locked. And it was. For some reason it didn’t seem to take long for all the kids to get inside at the end of that recess and get to class. It must have been the weather, it was cold enough to have your nose stick together just by breathing. Or they could be just taking their time getting around back to the north side. Ally and I ran to class knowing we couldn’t be late. We got to our classroom door just in time, took off our boots and went inside. I was out of breath and feeling confident that finally those bad kids will know how it feels to be left out in the cold. I look over at Ally but she had no expression on her face. Actually, she looked terrified. I stopped smiling then and wondered if there was something Ally knew that I didn’t.
We sat at our desks waiting for Mrs. Chapman to enter into our class. I thought of Mrs. Small, she must have been very sick because she has been away for a month or two now. I really want her back. She was so nice to me. I wondered if she will ever come back, and just then, I got a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. What if Mrs. Chapman is our teacher for the rest of the year, was all that came to my mind. Oh God! I wanted to be sick right then and there. The thought of Mrs. Chapman’s evil eyes watching my every move waiting for me to do something wrong or just something she didn’t like. Then I’d have to go into, the time out as she called it. Every time she would put Ally or me in there she would say that she couldn’t stand the sight of us.
One day while I was not in, the time out, I realized that none of the other children in the class ever used the time out. If another student misbehaved and Mrs. Chapman wanted to punish them, she just sent them out to the hall. She never said anything to them in front of the class. But that didn’t happen often. It was mostly Ally and I that got the blame for anything that went wrong in our class. Well, I wasn’t going to give her another chance to put me in the time out. I was going to try to be as good as gold. As I was looking straight ahead towards the front of the class I was thinking of how I could be so good that Mrs. Chapman wouldn’t bother me anymore.
As I sat there lost in my thoughts, I suddenly felt a sharp snap of pain to the back of my head. My head flew back so fast it hit the edge of the desk behind me. “Whoa! Ouch”! I turned to see Mrs. Chapman standing over me. She was looking very angry. She looked like an evil witch who was ready to boil me in a pot, right where I sat. Oh know was all that came to my mind besides the pain in the back of my head. “Get out of my class, you are a bully”, she said. I was confused what was she talking about. “GET OUT OF MY CLASS NOW”! She repeated yelling so loudly I thought for sure the other teachers would come running. I couldn’t speak; I got up slowly and moved as far away from her as I could get. Was afraid she’d grab me again or worse throw me into time out for a really long time. When I was almost to the door, she turned on Ally. “GET OUT OF MY CLASSROOM”! She screamed repeatedly to Ally. “You are a bully, and I won’t have that here in my class”. “GET OUT”! Ally got up and moved just as quickly as I did to the door. We were barely outside the class when... ...SLAM! The big old wooden door slammed shut behind us hitting Ally in the back. Mrs. Chapman couldn’t even wait for Ally to be fully out in the hall before shutting the door. I looked at Ally as she rubbed her head from the thud of the door. “What just happened”? I asked her. “I don’t know”, she relied.
We just stood there confused not knowing what to do. So, we waited. Waited for someone to come and tell us what we were to do or for someone to send us down to the office. We didn’t dare move unless Mrs. Chapman or Mr. Grimes said to. I looked down the hall as I heard whispers of laughter coming from the end by the staircase and I saw their faces. The faces of those bully kids that Ally and I locked out at recess. My first thought was, how did they get in to the school? Who let them in? Everyone was in class. And how would they know that we had anything to do...............oh!
The thought hit me hard like a brick, Danny Ferguson snitched! He must of. It had to be him. He was the only one who knew about our plan. He knew we were the ones setting this up. I wondered, did he offer to help us just so that he could get us into trouble. I bet he did. I said from the beginning he isn’t our friend and we couldn’t trust him. All the white kids stick together. Even if they don’t pick on us they certainly wouldn’t stand up for us. They just laugh like everyone else.
All this was running through my mind in seconds. I turned to Ally who had slid down the wall and was sitting on the floor. She looked defeated, broken. But I wasn’t. I was mad! Mad that I let myself trust a kid like Danny Ferguson. I went to sit next to Ally to tell her what I had just realized and seen at the end of the hall. Ally just stared at the wall on the other side of the hall as if she were in a trance. “Ally.....Ally?? Are you hearing me”? I whispered. After a long silence she replied, “Ya, I hear you”. I immediately started to tell her that I thought Danny Ferguson had ratted us out. Ally returned with, “It’s not true he wouldn’t do that, he didn’t do that”. “Oh Ally can’t you see it”? I pleaded with her. “It had to be Danny, who else”? “No Karma, it wasn’t”. She said with a sigh. This sounded like a sigh of defeat. “Well then you tell me who else knew, who else would have squealed”? “No one squealed Karma”, her low sighing tone continued. “I didn’t think about the front doors of the school and today Mrs. Chapman had supervision duty at that door”. “I bet you my snicker doodles that the bullies came in and asked her where the equipment was and the story just came out from there”. “Mrs. Chapman knew that she didn’t ask those big kids to do anything”. Ally finished. “Well ok” the thought stirred in my head, “but why us”? “Danny told the bullies to get the equipment not us! So he must have told them”. “No, Karma he didn’t”. “I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think it was him”. “Mrs. Chapman blames us for everything and those bullies love to get us into trouble”. “We are just easy targets”, she finished. “But that still doesn’t answer the question, why us”? “Why not us”!? Ally returned with anger. “What do those boys care”? “They’re just using this situation to their advantage, and watching us get in trouble”. “I didn’t think about that until we came into the school and I saw Mrs. Chapman supervising the front foyer and doors”. “Then I just had a feeling, I knew it just wasn’t going to work out for us”,