“Okay, everybody, let’s settle down and get to work!” Mrs. Phelps, my history teacher, yelled out over the din of the class.

Slowly, reluctantly, people ended their conversations and shuffled to their seats. Monday morning at 8:30 was not a great time to do anything except sleep. Up until last week, that’s what I was doing at this time. I still couldn’t believe how fast the summer holidays had gone by.

While there were no assigned seats I slipped into my usual spot, like everybody else. It was amazing how quickly—within a few days—everybody had fallen into predictable patterns. Not that I was complaining, because I had a good seat—not by the front, but not in the very back row, either. Teachers always kept a close eye on anybody who sat in the last row. On my left-hand side was my best friend, James. Beside him, clearly visible as I innocently looked in his direction to talk, was a girl who had lots of cleavage, wore little tiny tops and had a tendency to bend over a lot to get things out of the pack underneath her desk. Actually, this was a very good seat.

“You’ll have to excuse me if I still don’t know all of your names,” Mrs. Phelps said.

I figured her not knowing mine was still a plus.

“I have four grade nine history classes this semester, so that’s over one hundred students who are new to the school and new to me.”

I didn’t know Mrs. Phelps very well yet, but I liked her. She was interested in her students, but not too interested. And she seemed to take her job seriously, but not too seriously. She wore a wedding ring, and there were pictures of a couple of kids on her desk. That meant she had a life beyond history. Teachers who lived for their subject could really make their students’ lives miserable.

This school was so much bigger than my old school. It was hard to go from being the big guys in grade eight to being the little kids in grade nine. High school was like a whole different world—a world inhabited by thousands and thousands of kids I didn’t know, all of whom seemed a whole lot bigger than me. Thank goodness almost all of my class from the old school had made the transfer, so I knew lots of people already. Actually, people like James I’d known since Kindergarten. Good old James. I looked over and past him to that girl…wow…maybe there was nothing wrong with getting to know new people, either.

“I’m going to recite a line of poetry and I want you all to say the next line.”

There was an audible grumbling and I turned to James to ask if I’d missed a poem in the assigned reading. Suddenly my attention was caught as that girl slowly reached underneath the desk for her history textbook. My mouth dropped open and I tried not to stare…I wondered if she was doing that by accident or if it was a very deliberate thing meant to drive boys—to drive me—crazy.

“Ring around the rosie!” Mrs. Phelps sang out.

“A pocket full of posies,” most of us chanted back after a slight hesitation.

“Ashes, ashes,” she continued.

“We all fall down,” we all said, finishing the rhyme.

“Excellent! So you all know that poem.”

“Poem? Isn’t that like a nursery rhyme?” somebody asked.

“Rhyme, as in poem,” Mrs. Phelps replied. “Since this is a history class, can anybody tell me the history of this verse?”