Smack Down In Apricot

Normally, Tuesdays are pretty fun because I have my Apricot class all day, but this week was definitely the exception. This week, we have two more kids added to the class, Clare and Ben (who has since changed his name to Big Kevin) to make a grand total of 7 students in the class when originally we only had three. Its not too bad, they are all good kids, but trying to get them all to do something at once is really difficult.

This Tuesday was the first day for the new kid, Ben, and Clare's first day with me (I get off on Mondays). All was going well until I brought out the stickers. I blame the stickers. I was giving them out – this took all my attention – when the first blows were delivered.

I look up and Lukas is on the ground wailing like he lost his arm and Kris is smiling at me with his best I-didn't-do-it smile. Lukas isn't really one to cry for no reason but I had a crowd of kids around me (stickers, people. Serious business) so I couldn't go to him right away. When I finally got to him, he was still crying and I could see the long, red scratches down his face. Kris looked guilty as hell. To his credit, when I asked what happened he flat out told me. He put his hands in a claw and gestured to demonstrate (never to pass up an opportunity for learning, I informed him that that was 'scratching').

I took Lukas out to the lobby where Rachel teacher usually is stationed to get him fixed up with her little med kit she keeps under the desk. She wasn't there and I felt guilty for always bringing her these types of things (usually, its Kevin who I bring there for a change after he pees his pants – not in my job description) so I decided to try and take care of it myself.

I'm halfway through that when the rest of Apricot comes out. At first, I think they just wanted to see what's going on, but then I see the huge welt on Kevin's head and the scratches and bruises all up and down Kris' face, I'm thinking: seriously, guys?

Apparently, since I was gone, they decided to go for it and had a battle royale right there in the classroom. I've left the classroom many times in the past and this has never happened. At this point, I turned it over to the Korean teachers. There was no way I was going to figure out what happened and there was even less chance that I would be able to reprimand Kris (the mastermind of this all, I was sure) properly.

We had to call Lukas' mom because the scratches on his face were very visible and even bleeding a bit. If I wasn't so good a compartmentalizing, I would have been worried about it. As it was, I was busy with P.E. class when they called and only thought about how much trouble I could have been in after the fact.

When I got out of P.E., though, both Christina and Lynn told me about the phone call. Apparently, Lukas loves Emily teacher. And he has been telling his mother this for weeks. So, when they called and said, “Emily Teacher let your kid get his face scratched up,” (although I'm almost certain they didn't phrase it like that) she was like: “But we love Emily Teacher! She draws funny pictures for my son!” and that was basically the end of the conversation.

Still. I blame the stickers.