So in my G&T 5th/6th class we did special things, like we put on a mock trial in class. Two other classes were invited to be a part of it too, so the classroom was overflowing with about 40 extra people!

My role was as a witness for the prosecution (a role I would reprise in real life 15 years later). I was petrified of being in front of the triple-sized class. So when it came my turn to talk, I could barely manage a raspy little meek whisper. It was as though my lips would not move enough to make sound even though my brain was sending them signals to. So everyone kept yelling “We can’t hear you!”, “Speak up!” etc. which only made it worse. My teacher, Miss McDonald, seemed to be leading the charge. I could see her face in the back, standing with the other two teachers, and she was rolling her eyes and frowning at my inability to raise my volume. Also saying things out of the crook of her mouth that I couldn’t make out in the din.

After bombing, I walked numbly back to my little schooldesk, which was right flush with Miss McDonald’s big teacher desk. As I sat down and turned to look for her approval she hissed, “Thanks a lot for embarrassing me in front of the other teachers!”

The rest of that schoolday is a blank, my memory picking up with a vision of myself sobbing in our living room. Between wrenching out pales of tears, I told my parents the story.

Miss McDonald, I should tell you, was a Big & Tall woman of about 40, I guess. She had reddish hair in a matronly poof style, probably dyed, at home, to save money. She wore knee-length skirts usually, and had gigantic legs: Her legs were too big in proportion to the rest of her, which was very big indeed. She had pocky red skin, and wore granny glasses sometimes and always carried an expression of haughtiness on her face.

Like all of my teachers, I empathically sensed she was not happy. But I thought she liked me! The hissed reprimand of me was a shock.

My dad was a teacher, too. He knew the system from the inside. After making me repeat the story so he was certain he understood what happened, he said he would go talk to Miss McDonald. I calmed down quickly after that, because I knew a little bit about my dad’s ways.

I was a good kid who never needed much disciplining. I was also a sensitive li’l thing. With isolated exceptions like the hammer incident, I did not fight my own battles. I have never punched someone in the face in my life. My dad took care of things, and then when I was older, I had other protectors, too.

The first class session that took place after my dad talked to Miss McDonald, I sat in my desk next to hers and looked at her. She wouldn’t look back at me. I didn’t like it: Disapproval scared me (it still does). “Hi, Miss McDonald, how are you?” I said in a voice somewhat louder than the one that had “embarrassed” her “in front of the other teachers.” She kept looking down at her lesson plan. “Miss McDonald?” Then she seemed to gather herself up, and took a deep breath.

“Class, in a few minutes Miss Wood and Mrs. Kirchner are going to visit us briefly. Please take out your reading assignment about the Salem Witch Trials from yesterday and review it while we wait.”

I looked around, suspended in nervous confusion, but also did as the rest of the class did and fished out my dittos from yesterday from inside the lift-top desk.

Miss Wood and Mrs. Kirchner soon came in and nodded at Miss McDonald. They stayed standing right by the classroom door.

Miss McDonald stood up and leaned one arm on her desk, the palm of her hand flat. I was a mere three feet in front of her.

“Last Friday I said something I shouldn’t have,” she began. She trained her eyes above everyone and out the windows. “I scolded Scott here for speaking too quietly. I should not have done that, because I know — knew — he was doing the best he could.” She steadied herself for a second and continued, “So, I’d like to say ‘I’m sorry,’ to you, Scott.”

Across the room I heard a pin drop. A hairpin fell out of Miss Wood’s bun, and she bent over and picked it up. No one else made a sound. Miss McDonald made a windy exhaling sound and asked me, “Alright? Do you accept my apology?” She offered a wincing smile, and the two other teachers forced out a fake cheerful laugh in solidarity with her.

“Yes,” I said in that same quiet voice from the mock trial.

_____

Many years later my dad told me what he had said to Miss McDonald. Let’s just say it was a mixture of blistering ad hominem attacks and fully guaranteed threats.

In telling me the story, adult-to-adult, he appeared to go on his own backward emotional journey, reliving the anger he felt back in 1980. He started jabbing his finger in the air as his eyes became slits and his jaw tightened: “I said, Why is it you’re so shitty with children? Huh? Maybe because you don’t really understand them because you don’t have any of your own?” And that was just the beginning, he said.

Now that I’m Miss McDonald’s age, and a bitter, childless spinster myself, I look back with a lot more sympathy toward her than I had back then. She had a bad day and forgot herself, it happens to us all.

But even more, with the benefit of full adulthood, I respect and honor my dad for protecting me.

Most of all I love the judicial flourish he executed: Making her apologize to me in front of the other teachers. He had listened carefully when I told him my story tearfully in the living room, he noticed the important details. I don’t think I appreciated that fully at 10. But I do now.