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I was a pretty good kid, but I did have a bitchy streak a mile wide and wasn't afraid to show it.
I punched several boys in elementary school who bothered me. One was a bully named Alex who loved to pick on the littler kids when he could catch them out in the hallway alone. I balled up my fist and aimed for his nose when he tried to bug me, knowing what was likely to come next. I promptly got sent to the principal's office, where the principal--who was friends with my parents--just laughed about it. I punched another boy in 3rd grade because he wouldn't stop pestering me--he had decided that I was going to be his girlfriend, come hell or high water. So I followed the advice my father had given me after the last punching incident: 1) Tell them to stop. 2) If they don't stop, tell someone in charge, and make it clear that if they don't do something about the situation, you're going to take it into your own hands. 3) Punch them.
I laid the kid out flat on the playground with a punch to the nose, and the recess lady just about had an apoplectic fit. Of course, I got sent to the principal's office. Same principal as before. He made me sit outside of his office while he called my mother, and all I really remember is being sent back to class, because I hadn't done anything really wrong. My mother told me some years later that Mr. Allen couldn't punish me because I reminded him too much of his wife--who had been his childhood sweetheart.
After that, I stopped punching boys. I did lift a girl up by her shirt and forcefully put her at the end of the squareball line in 4th grade, because she cut.
I used to cut class now and again in high school. I got in big trouble for cutting 2 weeks of zero period in 9th grade, which was held at the senior high school, while I was a student at the junior high normally. I disliked going to the high school for one class, and didn't really know anyone in that class at the time. So I didn't go, but it didn't last--a warm classroom, in the end, is more appealing than hanging out in cold, half-constructed houses, waiting for regular school to start.
I also skipped Algebra II a lot junior year, but that was because I was helping the colorguard to choreograph their talent show routine. All of my best friends were on colorguard, and they wanted to show the rest of the school they could dance too. It was a lot more fun than math. I did get busted for hanging out in the commons during that class with some friends by the vice-principal (again, friend of my parents), who knew I was supposed to be in math, double-checked with me that that was were I was supposed to be, and then let me go because she figured it was my decision, and the Autodialer would inform my parents anyways (Mom's typical response to the Autodialer: You skipped math again, didn't you?).
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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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