"Can you come in?"

The phone rang at 6am. I could hear Kevin's voice on the answering machine. I knew right away it was the school asking me to sub.

I accepted.

I arrived at a school dressed for Halloween: witches, clowns, draculas, saloon madames (very popular in an Old West town), princesses and elves were popular. One young man was dressed as a banana with a Chiquita sticker on his forehead. Without that sticker he could have passed for a yellow condom...

Today was another easy (re: boring!) day dealing with students on truancy, delinquency or special needs. I figured I'd have a rough time but even the three football players who came in for after-school detention were gentlemen.

It never got rowdy like I was warned it would get. I actually had some nice conversations, including a sweet young lady who has to leave school twice a week to drive her disabled mom to the chiropractor.

I even was able to read a chapter in an American History book "The Great West" by David Lavender, published in 1965 by American Heritage Books. The forced resettlement of the native Americans was one chapter that caught my attention, and which took me all day to read.

Another sub recognized me from the middle school, and for 15 minutes she reminisced on our four days together earlier this month. She mentioned kids' names I wished she hadn't mentioned, as many of the middle school students are known by older students in the high school and there were several students in class when she dropped by.

One of the students warned me that the classroom I was in was infested with bees. By the end of the day I saw three bees flying around the classroom. There were many more bees near the garbage bins on the other side of the school grounds.

***

I got home shortly after 4pm, feeling another bout of the sniffles and sneezes coming. And I wasn't in the mood to sit outside and pass out candy for Halloween.

Yappity dogs in the neighborhood barked all night long. Our dogs were restless.

The kids came by in short groups. The first two came at 5:45pm, the next group of four came at 6:22pm, another group of four, then three, then two. Where were the massive groups we had in 2005, when we had two huge bowls of candy and almost ran out?

"They are at the mall" said Kevin.
The mall's eight miles away!
I ended up passing four pieces of candy each to the little ones, knowing that we'd have a lot of left overs this year.