QUEEN OF THE 4TH GRADE TRICKS ... I'VE TRIED THEM ALL

*Names have been changed to protect the guilty as well as the innocent.

Callie* fell spread eagle on the pavement the other day as we were heading in from recess. She's constantly taking spills of one sort of another. I really thought she'd hurt herself this time.

As she's picking herself up, three of my boys, Brian*, Jimmy*, and Zed*, commence to laughing ... out loud ... obnoxiously. None of them bothered to see if Callie was okay. They just started laughing.

"Gentlemen!" I bellowed. This could be the reason I have a permanent case of laryngitis -- I don't know. "Gentleman, since you thought that was so funny, you get to spend tomorrow's recess writing letters of apology to Callie. HOW RUDE! Did it not occur to any of you to help her up or see if she was alright?"

"No ma'am," said in unison.

"Unbelievable!"

Fast-forward to today.

Brian, who has just looked up at the board and realized that he will be walking for his next 18.72 recesses (we make them walk laps around the playground to "pay recess back"), sees an opportunity for some negotiation.

"Um, Miss Murray," he says meekly. "I wasn't laughing at Callie yesterday. See, Mitchell told a joke, and I was laughing at that."

His name has been on the board since yesterday. I can tell it's taken him the whole morning, today, to come up with this little gem. This could explain why he's gotten nothing else done!

"Really? Huh. What was the joke?"

You could just see it in his eyes and all over his face ... "D'oh! Didn't think she'd ask that!"

"Ummmm..."

"Yeah, nope. Not buying it. Get your clipboard and start writing!"

These kids don't believe me when I tell them. I AM THE QUEEN OF TRICKS! I wrote the book ... I've field tested them all! There's not much you can pull over on me.