The pencil I dropped

The music teacher, Bella turned her back. Her large dress, with draping sleeves, revealed the hairs growing from her armpits and a hint of her bra. The dress was a flame of yellow, orange and red.

We sat on the chairs, in a circle and she tried to teach us cannibals of fourth grade, about Motifs in the songs. She played Beethoven, and the kids played on her nerves. She was not cut out for this, poor Bella.

But I listened, I always listened. I liked Bella’s lessons very much. I’m crazy about music, and I was also strangely drawn to the perfume that she was wearing.

I remember her soft eyes, as she answered some of my questions after class. She was not what you would call my mentor at the time. for that age, my grandfather, who was a remarkable pianist, would fit the mentor role. But because of the strange loose dress, and the scent she had, and of course, the amazing music, she was somone for me. definitely set apart from the other teachers, whom I mostly hated.

Maybe a quasi-mentor.

So she got upset when the kids were throwing their paper balls. She walked back to the record player and took the needle off the black disk, and Beethoven stopped. No more intervening phrases, that I enjoyed listening to in modulation. No more Harmony. Just silence.

An ugly sort of quiet, that made me feel guilty that we were not quiet enough, collectively.

Secretly, I hoped this was just going to be a short lecture . Bella had days, where a short talking to, followed by a threat, will be enough. after we would go back to the music. Sometimes, after we tried her patience, she even let us play along with items from her percussion box: cymbals, castanets , chinese boxes, whistles, kazoos, drums and triangles. perhaps this was her way to compensate for showing her anger. These occasions, where we got to play along with the music accordng to some kind of musical score was a joy and I got so excited every time. I was really a weird kid.

But this time, it wasn't meant to be. Bella didn't give us a quick lecture and then out with the toys.

This time she was in one of her darker moods. She brushed her long hair in an agitated way and told us to take out the notebooks.

This was going to be a punishment. But it serves us right, we pushed her too far.

"..Now. NOW... Since you can't listen to the music, and you don't want to be nice, We are going to have a dictation." she proclaimed

So what can you do?

I took out the pencil and got ready to write. I hate dictations. My spelling is terrible. But what can I do?

Maybe, so I tought, when we get this thing over with, Bella will feel that we served our tme and let us play a bit.

Maybe...

"Musical instruments.. In-Stru-Ments " Bella annunciated the difficult word

“..create sound by a varaiety of methods. All musical isntruments cause air to vibrate Vai-Brea-TT. The vibration of the air is the sound we hear" She continued.

But then, I lost track of the dictation, because Eddie, one of the other kids, swiped my pencil and threw it down in the center of the ring. I scrambled to find another pencil , while the class laughed, and fell into chaos again.

"Eddie. you grabbed the pencil! I saw you" Bella shouted. she was just boiling over. I've never seen her so angry.

"Get up, and come here and pick up his pencil" Bella said. But Eddie refused. He was the class brat. He looked at her defiently as if saying "you want it-you pick it up!"

It was getting very tense now. Bella was standing over the fallen pencil in the middle of class. And she was looking like nothing I've seen before.

If a teacher that you hate looks evil, then it's just expected to see the lava coming out sooner or later. But what about the teachers you like? What do you do if they get livid? what is that going to be like?

All I knew is that we were in the middle of the dictation which was already punishment. What if she gives us something worse?

What if we don't play with the music any more?

"Did you hear what I said? " demanded Bella "Eddie!! come over here NOW and get the pencil!" she roared.

My heart was beating fast. In my anxiety, I figured that it would be best if we could just get on with the dictation and forget about Eddie.

I got up and ran to the pencil. After all, it was MY pencil.

The class was laughing and it was so noisy.

I reached the pencil, and bent down to get it.

"Drop that pencil." Bella was shouting. this time at me. "I told Eddie to do this! " Bella face was turning red. The noise and the laughing and her anger and the pencil and the stress.. and I was sure we will not play again today.

I was completely flustered. It didn't register, exactly what she said.

Drop the pencil? Why drop it? didn't she want me to have it so we could finish the dictation?!

I did not know what to do at all. So I just stood there with Bella towering over me. With her strong perfume and her flaming dress and her armpit hair that looked oddly green in color, and much too long...

And she told me...commanded to drop the pencil, again.

"Drop the pencil! And get to your seat!!" she shouted. again.

Conflicting oreders. I was going to go to the seat, but why would I go back to my seat without the pencil? It didn't make sense; Don't I need it for something?!

I clutched the pencil in my confusion and the laughter got louder. The kids were having a ball with this. I was usually not the guy getting shouted at in music class. I did not know what was going on.

And that's when it happened. The slap.

The slap.

I did not feel pain. But I heard the vibration of the air, as the skin of my cheek was struck, and the sound that came with it, like what we were writing in the dictation. Bella's slap across my cheek sounded like a bell, and the hollow that was my head rang in echo.

Bella stood there, for a moment, and I was hoping that we will get back to the dictation, maybe even playing some music. But then, I caught on to what just happened.

I dropped the pencil, as Bella told me. I stood there for a while. The class was silent. The Echo was still ringing apparently. I didn't know what to do . Again.

Could I come back to my seat? Could I stay standing?

What a ridiculous situation. One of many that I have been through.

Finally, I decided to walk out of class. Bella said nothing. she stood there still, In that quiet class, with her trange dress, and the strong perfume. and that was it.

She was fired a few days later. I did not have any music classes in school for the rest of the year. I was moved to an art class in my timetable and wallowed away with sticking dry leaves on paper. As if that could compare to Beethoven.

The rest of the kids in my class did get music lessons, and that hurts the most in a way, because they didn't even seem to want to have these lessons. Life is absurd sometimes.

But I kept learning about music in other venues. my pian teacher, my grandfather. And to this day, I am still a very big fan of classical music and I even became a teacher myself. Working with young kids, today I have met many brats, and I can understand the tensions that Bella had to oparate in. Kids can be hard, and unbalancing. They can pick on displeasure and disapproval, and some turn it as an easy source of entertainment. I never found out what happened to Bella, I don't even know her last name.

I believe that she was compltely overruled by anger. That this outburst was a singular occurance in her life. I hope so.

I still wonder, sometimes whenever I meet a woman wearing Bella's perfume, If it would be ok to ask for the brand name. but I always fear that I'll get slapped. so I never do.