Currently, I'm teaching how to write an autobiographical narrative in both 6th and 7th grades, so for them, I wrote a piece about one time in fourth grade when a hamster my class was taking care of scurried up my pants. My kids had such a blast with it that I thought I'd let you all have a laugh on me too!
The Recess I'll Never Forget
When I was in fourth grade, my teacher, Miss
Pantazopolous, bought a pet for
our class to
call our own. We were allowed to keep the pet, a hamster, only if students
volunteered to come in during recess to play with and feed it. I am not
particularly fond of rodent-like animals, but I was excited to be a part of the
class project and to spend time with my friend, Brittany.
On
the day of the recess I’ll never forget, I stayed in the stuffy school, instead
of going out in the fresh air. The thrill of getting the opportunity to play
with the hamster pulsed through my veins, so seeing the beautiful shining sun
didn’t matter much. My friend and I were the chosen ones for the day; we were
special. I almost couldn’t contain myself. To be special is not something I
have felt much in my life, so I was eating it up!
Brittany
and I grasped gently for our tiny, furry creature, each wanting a turn to play
with it. Because we were such good friends, we knew how to share.
“Hey
Deena,” she said, “let’s sit across from each other and put our feet together.
We’ll make, like, a play pen for him.”
“Yeah!”
I returned, so we sat ourselves down on the cold floor, the only warmth coming
from the idea that we were getting a chance to do something no one else was
doing. The silence of the classroom could have eaten us up if it hadn’t been
for our own enthusiasm to play with this little guy.
On
that particular day, I was wearing what I thought to be oh-so-stylish at the
time. It turns out that overalls weren’t really ever “in,” but I didn’t know
that. The events of that recess forever changed my perspective on wearing
overalls- to school, anyway!
So
there Brittany and I sat, on the dark green floor of our fourth grade
classroom, excitement filling our two bodies, which were connected only by our
shoes. Brittany placed the hamster between our legs, since I, again, am not
crazy about picking up animals. It began to run around, and we giggled at the
idea of this little creature not being able to find its way out of our
temporary pen.
This went on for several minutes,
and we began to distract ourselves with talk. All of a sudden, Brittany spoke.
“Where’s the hamster?”
Neither of us could detect its
presence, so we stood up, brushing ourselves off from the dust of the floor. We
stood there for a few seconds, looking around, when I felt something funny in
my pant leg. The sensation continued, and it didn’t take long for realization
to set in: the hamster was in my pants! As fourth grade girls are prone to do
when something like this happens, I screamed and screeched, a chill running through
my body from this thing that was way
too close for comfort.
That hamster crawled quickly, and
before I knew it, it was all the way up my pant leg. I shook my body vigorously
from top to bottom, trying all I could to remove it from my pants. It was no longer
a cute, little, fuzzy creature that I loved; it had become a rodent that I
didn’t want around.
Finally, with the force of someone
who is desperate, I managed to coach the hamster back down my pant leg, and it
returned to the floor where it belonged.
“Got it!” Brittany cried. I sighed
a sigh of relief, and we replaced it safe and sound in its cage before it could
cause any more damage. With the fear of this foreign creature in my pants gone,
I broke out in laughter. Brittany and I giggled for the rest of the recess, but
deep down inside, I knew I would never get close to a hamster again. And I
would never forget that recess for the rest of my life.
