Teacher’s Pet

By Kathy Luder

All I said to Molly was that Mr. Hanson was kind of cute. He is our chemistry teacher. Chemistry is the boringest stuff on earth, but he gets excited about it. He is really dorky, but he tries to make chemistry interesting. He makes terrible puns and tries to be funny to help keep us awake and make us understand. He is a nice guy, goofy as can be, but in a cute way.That is what I meant.

Molly knew it. She even agreed. But then over lunch, right in front of me, she told Kelly and April that I think Mr. Hanson is cute! She acted like I was some geeky kid with a crush on old Mr. Hanson—just for a laugh. She knew it wasn’t true. She knew Kelly and April have a mean streak and she played right into it. What made it worse was that I completely lost it. Molly laughed harder than anyone. By the end of the day, the whole school was laughing at me. They called me “teacher’s pet.”

It is not like I am super sensitive. This isn’t the first time I’ve been subjected to public ridicule. I am, after all, in high school. But it is the first time I’ve been betrayed by someone I really care about. I can handle April and Kelly. They’re just a couple of stuck-up dolts. But Molly! Molly was my friend. She handed me over to their ridicule like a lunch lady slopping seasoned beef into the all-you-can-eat taco bar. She did it just to gain a few seconds of female bonding! She and April and Kelly were the “in” crowd. I was taco filler. I was so furious I misspelled my own name on my Econ paper in 5th period.

I plotted my revenge all afternoon. I would make Molly endure public humiliation. As soon as I got home, I started writing letters to the school newspaper about her. Wouldn’t they be interested in the fact that Molly won’t drink out of the drinking fountains at school for fear of germs? Wouldn’t they get a chuckle over her summer polka festivals with her grandparents? She has costumes and CDs. Who even knew there were polka CDs? Vengeance would be mine. She was no match for me in a war of words.

I was well into my second draft when Mom called me down to get Dad and my brothers from the garage for dinner. I got Dad and Michael, but John wasn’t there. When I went upstairs looking for him, I found him standing at my desk reading the letters.

“NO!” I screamed, pushing him backwards onto the bed. He is two years older than me and quite a bit bigger. He just laughed. Everybody was laughing at me. I was out of my mind with rage. I was on top of him and trying to hurt him, pummeling him with all my strength. Then Mom and Dad were there, telling me to stop, and pulling me off of him. I melted in frustration. I curled up into a ball and rolled onto the floor between my bed and the desk and cried.

Mom and Dad told John to leave, but he didn’t. He just stood in the doorway. They eventually got me calmed down and off the floor. I told them what had happened with Molly. Right away, Dad started smirking. He always says he can never keep a straight face at a funeral. He always thinks of something funny at the worst times.

“What?” I said.

John said, “Hey, I heard what Kelly was saying about you today. But, really, nobody believed it.You just freaked out. You kind of brought it on yourself. I can see why you’re so mad since it was Molly who started it. But this drama queen stuff is over the top. You are as bad as Kelly.”

“Go downstairs, John. We’ll be there in a minute,” Mom said. “Now, look, Kathy, I know you’re hurt. But these letters are wrong.”

My Dad had tears in his eyes and I could tell he was biting his tongue.

“What?” I asked Dad again, feeling my anger creep back to the top.

“Kathy, I am talking to you,” Mom said over Dad’s coughing. “The letters. I know. I didn’t actually send them. I wouldn’t have, you know.”

“I know. But your language and emotion is a little scary. You didn’t carry it as far as Molly. But at some level, you’ve betrayed her too," Mom said. "You shouldn’t have even written these things down. Now, John knows about them.”

I started to protest, but she stopped me. “Yes, he was wrong to come in here. I am not saying that what you did was as bad as what she did to you. But maybe you can see that you’re not a completely innocent victim here. Maybe you can bring yourself to cut Molly a little slack. She has been your friend for a long time.”

Dad stood up to leave the room. He looked like he was in pain. “What is so funny, Dad?”

He burst out laughing, finally managing to gasp out, “Old man Hanson with that fish tie of his...in a tux...picking you up for the prom!”

“Dad, you are as goofy as Hanson.” I was exhausted. I couldn’t defend myself anymore. Let ‘em laugh, I figured. Who cares?

“You should get a fish tie.” I told him.

I turned to Mom, “I’ll destroy the letters. I am sorry I wrote them. But I don’t know if I can make up with Molly.”

Well, we did. Not right away, and everything isn’t like it was, but we did make up. It took almost two weeks before we even talked again. I knew she felt bad, but I wasn’t going to talk to her first. Eventually, she just sat by me at Sunday school one day like nothing had ever happened. And wouldn’t you know that Mrs. Zaftig was explaining the parable of the unmerciful servant? Molly called me that afternoon. We never talked about what happened.

I have mostly forgiven her. She knows it, I think. But I haven’t told her. I just did it. She hasn’t said she was sorry, either.There is still a bit of rift between us. I don’t feel too good about that. Mrs. Zaftig’s Sunday School lesson didn’t help any.

So I caught our pastor a few weeks later and asked him, hypothetically, of course, what if we couldn’t completely forgive someone? Doesn’t the Bible say that if we don’t forgive we won’t be forgiven? He just loved it. The guy lives for these questions. It is really kind of pathetic. He could talk theology all day and night if he had an audience. Anyway, he went on for a long time. He wanted to loan me half a dozen books from his library.

But what it boiled down to was that we can’t forgive as perfectly as we’ve been forgiven because we are still sinners. Jesus also died for this. We can’t condemn people to Hell. That would be denying the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But even though we don’t forgive perfectly, we rest in the perfect forgiveness that we receive from Christ and not what we do.

So, I am trying to be a better sport. And as stupid as my Dad’s humor is, I can barely stop from laughing out loud whenever Hanson wears that fish tie of his.

Kathy Luder attends Midwest Lutheran Church in Middleville, Indiana. She imagines herself quite stunning and extraordinarily clever but, alas, no photo is available. In fact, no photo exists.

PS: Thanks for the cup. Six Flags was great.