I arrived at my seat and sat in my seat. I was now seated in my seat. Soon, the rest of my group joined me, and I became surrounded by Jacques, Julia, and Owen.
"Heeey, guys," said Owen cheerfully. "What do you think we're gonna do today? Do you think we're gonna play charades?"
"What is it with you and charades?" asked Julia.
"I dunno," replied Owen, grinning and putting his hands behind his head. His mustache and beard were looking extra fine, like a 0.3 millimeter mechanical pencil. It looked like he had just freshly drawn them on this morning. I wondered how his parents let him get away with it. "It just seems like it'd be a fun idea!"
"Maybe we're taking another math quiz?" I guessed.
"I think not," said Julia, looking downward and putting her hand on her chin thoughtfully. I noticed that she was wearing a purple beaded bracelet that matched the purple flower in her hair. "We just did that yesterday."
That was right. Between the strange dream and the whirlwind of events that was centers, it seemed like so long ago, even though it was only yesterday.
"Oooh, I can't take it anymore! The suspense is killing me!" said Owen excitedly. "Hey Mister Pony! Can you tell us what the group activity is now?"
The change in Mr. Pony's attitude was noticeable as they switched – Nintendo switched - to full teacher mode in an attempt to rein in the rambunctious Owen. "First of all, it's may, not can," began Mr. Pony, holding up a hand with an irate expression. "Secondly, please make sure to say please when asking something. It's respectful to your elders. And lastly," said Mr. Pony, adding a British accent to their voice, "Patience is a virtue. The group activity will not be announced for another few minutes, so please sit quietly until then."
The entire class became silent after Mr. Pony enforced their authority. In the wake of the aftermath, Mr. Pony did a biiiig scretchum, meandered over to the back of the room where they sat in the same chair that they sat in during naptime. A thought flashed through my mind. Mr. Pony had sat in their seat, which meant they were now seated… IN THEIR SEAT! I felt like I was having a eureka moment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Pony licked their thumb, sitting cross legged on their chair, before turning the page of a large grocery store ad. They picked up a cup of coffee and took a sip. This process continued for several long silent, minutes, until the cup of coffee had been drained and the grocery ad had been finished being read.
"Now then," restarted Mr. Pony, standing up with a clap. "Time to begin the group activity." They strode over to an easel pad and flipped over the top sheet, to reveal… another sheet underneath. This sheet was special, because in big, broad, bold letters with balls on the end "Contractions" was written on top.
"For this group activity, each group will come up with two contractions and choose two people to write them on this pad. But first, for those of you that don't know, I'll have to explain what a contraction is." Mr. Pony wrote the words "do" and "not" on the easel. "A contraction is when two words combine to form a new word, but in the process, they lose something important. Something that can never be replaced. Some letters. These missing letters get replaced with an apostrophe, which is like a floating comma." They wrote "don't" right underneath, drawing arrows from each of the letters and crossing out the o in not. "This is just one example of a contraction, but I'm sure you can think of more that you use in your everyday life. I even used one in that sentence just now!"
The groups got down to business. To defeat the Huns.
"Okay gang," said Owen, balling up his fists in front of himself excitedly. "Let's split up – I mean, we gotta think of some contractions. What do you guys have in mind?"
I tried to think of words in my head. There were so many that I used without thinking about that I wasn't sure which ones were actually contractions.
Jacques spoke up for the first time today. "I'm is a contraction, I think," he said, taking out his assignment book and doodling out a similar diagram to Mr. Pony's but with I, am, and I'm.
"Yeah, it seems to me that is correct," agreed Julia. "What about 'he's'? As in, he is?"
"I think that's also one," I said. "Cool, that wasn't too hard." We had figured out our two contractions fast enough, so we just kind of waited for a few minutes while the other groups finished up, until Mr. Pony rang the handbell.
"Dingalingaling," said Mr. Pony for some reason, even though they were already ringing the handbell. "Time's up, kiddoes! Okay, please send up one person from each group to write one contraction on the easel pad." We decided to send Jacques up first because he was the first to think of a word. He was accompanied by Randy, Kyle, and a girl from the first table with brown hair in sharp bangs, a red bow in her hair that matched her red eyes, and a grey and red dress. By speedwalking, since it was against the rules to run in the classroom, Randy was able to outspeed Jacques' long gait and reach the easel first. He grabbed a magic marker hat was a red as his t-shirt and wrote in big, red letters -"y'all'd've".
Everyone was stunned.
"That's not even a word!" said the girl in the grey and red dress.
"That's a nice word, Randy," said an entertained Mr. Pony, putting their hands on their stomach. "Can you tell the class what it means?"
Randy closed his elegantly-eyelashed eyes and spoke proudly. "Y'all'd've is a triple contraction," he mansplained. "It stands for you all would have, and y'all'd've known that if you had known what a contraction was beforehand.
"Impressive," remarked Mr. Pony, putting their hands to their mouth giddily. "You may be seated." With his nose held high and his eyelashes turned down at the rest of the class, Randy sashayed back to his seat, giving it a stylish twirl before sitting back down with his legs crossed.
"Okay, Jacques, since you were next in line, go and write your contraction," urged Mr. Pony.
Jacques picked up a bold, black marker, and in all capital letters with very straight lines, wrote "I'm". He turned to face the class. "It's short for I am. As in, I am Jacques." His unblinking eyes burned with an intensity that captured the attention of the whole class. He then returned to his seat with long, powerful strides.
"Jenny," continued Mr. Pony. The girl in the grey and red dress, presumably named Jenny, wrote "we're" in the same red color that Randy had written in.
"We're is short for we are," said Jenny in a friendlier voice than when she had called Randy's contraction fake. "As in, sorry, but we're closed today. Please call back another time." She folded her hands in front of her and returned to her seat.
Kyle waddled up to the easel. Grabbing a yellow magic marker in his fist like NBA Youngboy, he chiseled the word "whɘɘl" onto the paper. The smell of gasoline was deafening.
"Um, Kyle," said Mr. Pony, looking down somewhat embarrassedly, "that's not a contraction."
Kyle glared at Mr. Pony insolently. "Shore it is. Wheel means that wheel go to lunch soon."
Mr. Pony maintained their expression. "You're close," they said, approaching the easel pad. "But that's not how you spell we'll." Kyle bristled defensively, like Sonic the Hedgehog.
Mr. Pony picked up one of the markers and wrote "we'll" on the easel pad. "This is how you spell we'll," they explained, also writing 'we' and 'will' above it and showing how they formed the contraction. I was a bit surprised that they didn't also write 'rock' and 'you' to form a famous song lyric. "You can tell because if you switch out the contraction for the original words, it will still mean the same thing. Like you said, we will go to lunch soon."
Kyle's heavy brow and jowely cheeks contorted into an expression of unbridled fury. "Gow!" he went, scribbling over Mr. Pony's words with his marker before ripping off the front page of the easel pad, balling it up, and stuffing it in his mouth. Everyone was dumbfounded at the scene unfolding in front of us, but Mr. Pony somehow took charge.
"Kyle. No. We do not eat paper in this classroom. Please spit that out at once."
Glowering with rage, Kyle removed the soggy, sodden paper from his mouth. "Fine," he muttered through clenched teeth, seemingly admitting the defeat. Suddenly, his clenched teeth morphed into a crooked grin. "I'll eat it in the bathroom then!" He then took off towards the bathroom at a waddling, unsteady sprint without bending his knees, his breathing enhanced by his nasally, braying donkey-like laugh. However, using their long legs, Mr. Pony was able to outspeed him and galloped to the bathroom door before Kyle could reach it, temporarily locking it.
"Off," said Mr. Pony, softly but firmly. "Kyle, listen to me. We do not behave this way in the classroom. If you keep misbehaving, you will be put in time out. Now please, take a deep breath and count to three."
"No!" went Kyle, trying to push past Mr. Pony to the bathroom door. "You will let me in the bathroom!" he demanded.
"BAAAAH!" went Jacques in the distance.
"Kyle. Off," said Mr. Pony sternly. "You're on strike two now. You're already in time out, and if you get to strike three, you will get to stay inside during recess."
Kyle stepped backward with a frantic expression on his face, scratching his mousy brown hair frantically with both hands. The smell of gasoline was so overpowering that some students were covering their noses with their shirts.
"G-g-gow!" went Kyle, finally backing down now that his actions were having consequences.
"That's right," advanced Mr. Pony, "Gow, indeed. Now please, go to the time out corner over there until lunch." they beckoned towards a lone blue chair near the cubbies.
Still fuming, Kyle shuffled towards the lone blue chair and stood next to it, stubby arms crossed and almond-shaped eyes glaring at Mr. Pony.
"Please be seated," encouraged Mr. Pony. "The longer you misbehave, the longer everyone else has to wait until lunch." Kyle muttered something under his breath and plopped down in the chair. For a few seconds, the entire classroom was dead silent, aside from Kyle's heavy breathing. Suddenly Kiki coughed, and Mr. Pony resumed the lesson.
"Well, now that's been dealt with, the next four students can come up to write their contractions on the easel pad."
The next batch of students, including, but not limited to – Kiki, Julia, The boy with the buzzcut and camo shirt, and a girl with makeup and two red-brown pigtails. They all strode up to the easel. The boy in the camo shirt got there first and grabbed the green magic marker with a confident smirk and tired looking eyes. Using the marker, he scrawled the word "is'nt" and turned around.
"That's very close, Jeremy," coerced Mr. Pony, "but the apostrophe actually goes between the n and the t. Remember, it goes in the place where the letters get removed. You can almost think of it as the hungry apostrophe eating the letters if that makes you feel better."
"Huh, okay," said Jeremy, clearly thinking about something else. He shrugged it off and walked back to his seat. Next up was Julia. Using the purple marker, she wrote "he's" on the board. No complaints by anyone there – counting the math quiz yesterday, by academic standards, Julia was two for two. She strode back to our table with her eyes closed behind her plastic glasses.
Then, it was the pigtail girl's turn. She took the pink marker and wrote "there" in curly letters, before turning around expectantly.
"That was also a close guess, Skylar, but that there is there is the wrong there." Mr. Pony approached the easel again. The tension in the room this time was both palpable and seismic. Everyone was hoping that Skylar would not react the same way that Kyle did, but no one could be sure. Us kindergarteners sure could be an unstable species.
Mr. Pony delicately scritched "they", "are", and "they're" onto the easel pad and diagrammed out how the contraction was formed.
Skylar looked confused. "But I thought there was spelled that way."
Mr. Pony explained. "That means it's time to teach you about the three theres. Kind of like the three bears!"After putting their hands on their stomach briefly, Mr. Pony wrote "their" in between their "they're" and Skylar's "there".
"When you say all of these words, you say them all the same way, but when you spell them, they're different depending on how you use them in a sentence." I felt like I was receiving a lecture. "The first they're is the contraction, because it's short for they are. The second there is for something that belongs to someone else. If it's not your marker, and it's not my marker, then it's there marker. The last there is a place, if it's not here, it's there."
Skylar raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "That makes sense, I guess."
"So if you were to go back to your seat, where would you go?" pressed Mr. Pony.
"There?"
"Bingo!" it took a second for Skylar to take the hint and return to her seat. A few more seconds passed before Kiki yawned and then was like "Oh wait. It's my turn now right?" Mr. Pony nodded. Kiki picked up an orange marker and scrawled "'sup" on the easel pad, underneath the three theres. It felt like this class was going on forever.
"That's… an interesting answer," commented Mr. Pony, tilting their head to one side and putting their hand on their cheek. The one on their face, of course. "Care to explain it, Tiffany?"
Tiffany didn't respond for a few seconds before she finally put two and two together. "Oh, yeah. For a second, I thought you were talking to my mom, sorry. It's 'sup. It's short for what's up, and it's how some people say hello. The apostrophe must've been super hungry in this one, because it ate a whole lot of letter."
"Well, that's technically not wrong," admitted Mr. Pony. "Good job, Tiffany. You may be seated."
"Cool, thanks," she concluded, before heading back to the first table. She must have forgotten to put the marker back, because Mr. Pony quickly strode over to the table and retrieved it.
After looking at their bare wrist for a second, Mr. Pony addressed the whole class. "Alright, you lot, that's enough learning for now. It is officially lunchtime. Please line up behind Jordan and head to the cafeteria."
I got in my usual spot in line between Kiki and Jacques, and without a word we all filed out of the dark underscore classroom. Although I was moderately excited for lunchtime, I had no idea what was waiting for me in that cafeteria. Little did I know, I was about to find out.