Be The First To Stand

Thanks for tuning in this week. It's another "late night" post, because I am determined... but not always free... that sure sums up my life! I just took down the "To You Who Are Forgotten" post as a featured item, and I got a little sentimental about doing so. It got over 120 views. Never in my wildest dreams did I see my online work getting that much attention. Seven or eight weeks ago, I started this blog for my sake, but now I feel like it is both for you and me now. Truly, thank you for reading my content, please share it and subscribe to see my posts weekly. If you don't know how to do so, click into the "Contact" tab and write me a message about your concern and I will help you. You really don't want to miss out!

Anyways, let me introduce this week's post! This idea came to me at the end of January (the 22nd to be precise) this year. 11 months ago, I would have been in Kingston-Upon-Thames and I imagine the idea came from me relaying a story of my childhood to one of my companions, I'll explain the story later but as for now, enjoy this week's short story!

"Be The First To Stand"

Minutes felt like years as they watched the clock on the wall. Ms. Crawly had kept them roughly 5 minutes over into recess time every day of the school year so far. Each kid eyed the wall eagerly. Recess was in 42 seconds, but really that meant nothing to them anymore. Ms. Crawly scanned the room frustratingly, realizing she no longer even had one child's attention.

"What's wrong class? Do we need to take a pop quiz before you go to recess?" she taunted.

The class was unamused.

"Come on children, speak up or I might get ideas!" she laughed to herself.

A usually-quiet boy with strawberry curls sighed hard and stood up on his chair bravely, "Ms. Crawly, we've just about had it with your nonsense," he pointed a shaky finger at his teacher, "this is why nobody wants to be in your class and the sweet office ladies have to persuade our parents into putting us here!" he took a quivering breath, "now let us go to recess already!"

Wide-eyed glances were exchanged across the room, one kid even erupted in laughter.

"Pardon me!? Boy, where did you learn to speak like that!? How dare you say such a thing!" her face grew red and many other children let out giggles. She could feel her cheeks getting hot and she turned to the rest of the class, flustered, "Children, you are dismissed! Charles, you stay right here with me!"

The red headed boy looked down, his heart was pounding. Instead of putting up a fight like he had planned on doing, he sat down in his chair and pouted silently.

The old school bell rang loudly and the other kids shuffled past Charles. One of the children pointed to a note on his desk and whispered something to her friend, it was exactly what he had said to Ms Crawly, he had written it down word-for-word.

"Did you see the look on her face?" one of the chubbier boys asked the group.

"Yeah, I thought she was going to expel us all! Charles sure was brave," another kid added.

"I wonder what is going to happen to him," a shorter girl with pigtails chimed in.

"Well, all I know is that we are the first ones to the playground! When has that ever happened?" the chubby one observed.

"Yeah!" some of the children cheered.

"Hey come on guys, aren't you a little worried about Charles?" the short girl replied, "he only said what we were all feeling."

"Yeah but we all know not to say those things to Ms 'Creepy Crawly,'" another girl contested.

Some of the kids chuckled.

"Whatever Ruby," the chubby kid responded, "let's just enjoy recess and you can think about your boyfriend later!"

"He's not一" Ruby stuttered, but her classmates had already ran ahead laughing to themselves.

When she caught up to the group, Chuck, the chubby boy, had already got the kids in a circle for a game of "Duck-duck-goose."

"Okay, loser has to go run into the forest and touch a tree before coming back!" he said in triumph, proud of himself for coming up with the idea.

"No Chuck! You know we can't go in there," Ruby refuted.

"That's why the LOSER has to do it," he emphasized.

"Hey, I'll do it anyways," a voice butted in.

The children turned to see Charles strutting up to the circle confidently; some of them gasped and exchanged whispers.

"Charles! She let you come out?" Ruby asked on the others' behalf.

"Nope," he replied with a big grin, "snuck out when she went to get the principle!"

"Ooooo, someone's in big trouble!" one of the kids snickered.

"Exactly," Charles added, "that's why I'm gonna go into the forest," he pointed at the big area of trees on the outskirts of the school field, "I'm already in trouble... might as well!"

"No Charles, that's a bad idea. You should go back," Ruby said.

"And get fed to Ms. 'Creepy Crawly's' pit bulls?" Chuck rebutted, "I think you should see what's in there Charles!"

"Yeah!" some kids shouted.

"Charles don't一" Ruby started.

"Not your boyfriend huh?" Chuck teased again, interrupting her.

Ruby's face grew red, "fine!" she thrashed, "do whatever you want Charles!" she folded her arms aggressively and turned around, hiding her flustered look.

"Okay, I will!" Charles said proudly. Then, without any hint of hesitation, he turned and started his course for the treeline.

The rest of the class ran closely behind him, screaming and shouting in excitement. It didn't take long for them to reach the edge of the forest. There stood a sad little wooden fence and a large sign that read: "RESTRICTED, DO NOT ENTER" in bold red letters.

"Look alive class!" Charles shouted, as if he had rehearsed it. And then, with one effortless hop, he thrusted himself over the low fence and trudged into the thicket.

The kids watched as Charles, clearly acting without a plan now, found the largest tree he could and began to climb it.

"That's the spirit Charles!" Chuck cheered!

His classmates continued to watch as he made it to a stable branch and pumped his arms up and down as if he had won a boxing match. The kids hollered and cheered. While he celebrated his climb, his straddle on the tree branch started to slip and he lost his balance. The kids watched in horror as he fell several feet to the ground, hitting it hard. Many of the girls screamed and the boys winced.

"He fell!" one of the girls screamed, alerting Ruby on the playground.

Ruby perked up and read the worried look on each of their faces. She sprinted to the crowd and looked down the path of trees to where Charles lay on the ground motionless.

"What happened!?" Ruby asked worriedly.

Before anyone could respond, she vaulted herself over the fence and ran to his aid. Her classmates looked at each other, wondering why they hadn't done the same when he fell initially. Then, one-by-one, each child jumped the fence and rushed to the scene. Ruby shook Charles, "Charles!" she shouted, "are you okay?" She repeated it several times and scanned his limbs for injury, although, her immaturity prevented her from really identifying any.

"We need to get help," she looked at her classmates distressingly.

"N-No. I'm okay," Charles coughed in pain, sitting up slightly. He rubbed his head and looked around. "That was... EPIC!" he winced with a smile.

"Boys..." one girl remarked, rolling her eyes.

"Let's go get you to the nurse," Chuck suggested, squatting down and helping Charles up carefully.

They exited the forest together and walked slowly as a class while Charles limped next to Chuck supporting him. A girl from another class saw them leaving the trees and ran straight to the teacher on her phone, sitting by the school building.

"Somebody went into the forest!" she tattled in a whiny tone, pointing to the class returning to the building.

The teacher leapt to her feet and quickly cut them off. She looked Charles up and down and realized exactly what had happened.

"Alright young man, let's get you to the office. You are in big trouble," she scoffed.

"Can't you see he is hurt!?" Ruby contested.

"Did you go in with him!?" the teacher assumed quickly.

Ruby and the rest of the class went quiet. The teacher grabbed Charles by the arm roughly and marched him into school doors as the bell rang out loudly. In surprising unison, each child on the playground and field made a b-line for the school in fear of being late to the remainder of class. Ruby and the others joined them and went back to Ms Crawly's classroom where she was standing at the doorway waiting. She looked around, identifying each of the little faces in front of her.

"And where is Charles??" she asked sternly, "did he not sneak out to join you?" she added in disapproval.

The kids bowed their heads and moseyed into the room, promptly finding their desks. Ms. Crawly started to enter behind them but was stopped by that same teacher who took Charles to the office. They exchanged words and Ms. Crawly's face became increasingly angry as the information was delivered.

"Oh," the teacher said as she started to walk away, "and I think one of your kids joined him."

Ms. Crawly entered the room swiftly and slammed the door shut behind her. The children shivered anxiously as she rushed past them to the front of the room.

"How many of you knew Charles had left my class unexcused!?" she asked in a strict manner.

The children remained silent.

"How many of you knew he went into the restricted part where the field meets the forest?"

Still silent.

"I know one of you went into the forest with him!" she scanned the room in rage, "who was it!? I want you to stand and face me!"

The children began to sweat, Ruby rubbed her hands in a nervous fit as her heart felt like it was leaping out of her chest. She met eyes with Chuck who was shaking his head at her as if to say: "don't you dare." But was it honest to stay seated? She did go into the forest after Charles, and so did everybody else. She looked up at the teacher who met her gaze with a scowling glare. Ruby shakily swung her legs to the side of her desk and stood up very slowly, looking at the floor.

"Ah, Ruby, that wasn't so hard now was it?" Ms Crawly smiled slightly.

Ruby said nothing, still looking at the floor. Chuck dug his face in his hands, why did she have to come clean!?

"Let's go call your一" Ms. Crawly started but was interrupted by the sound of Chuck shimmying his way out of his chair into a standing position.

Ruby looked over her shoulder in awe, Chuck would've been the last person to stand, in her opinion.

"Oh there were two of you?" she observed sinisterly.

"Not quite," said another girl standing up; and then another.

Ms. Crawly watched in shock as slowly, each student stood up. Not one chair had a student left in it. Ruby looked around the room and smiled as she locked eyes with her classmates. This was the right thing to do. Ms. Crawly was speechless, she would have never thought all of them would break such a strict rule.

"You gonna expel us all?" Chuck smirked.

Ms. Crawly yet again got red in the face. The class laughed as she turned so they couldn't see her redness.

"Fine have it your way!" she screamed as she stormed out of class for the principle's office.

A few days had passed and the children had explained to their parents how they entered the forest to help Charles once he had fallen out of the tree. The parents then came together and decided to contest the way the school treated the situation. After a successful petition, the school district decided to give the students a week off while they looked for new staff.

Charles was only reprimanded because in the height of all the parents protesting, the school decided to let him off with just a warning.

"I hear you were the first to stand?" Charles said to Ruby as they sat on a swing set in the middle of their neighborhood, "why did you do it?"

"I may not have written a note telling me what to say like you did, but I always felt the same way. She wasn't very nice to us." Ruby said.

"Yeah, but that doesn't explain why you did it," Charles responded.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure, but we were all bound to stand up at some point right? We had all gone in and we all knew what we did was against the rules. I guess something inside me just kept saying: 'be the first to stand!' and so I did. It felt really good though Charles, I couldn't run from truth, but that didn't mean I couldn't defend it." she replied.

"Wow," Charles said, "that sure is poetic."

"So is how you called her out." Ruby added.

"How old are we again?" Charles asked.

"Seven Charles... Seven." she giggled.

-Cale K. Montoya (11-10-23)

Another one for the books! I had a lot of fun writing this one. Like I had mentioned in the introduction, this basically happened to me in my childhood. No, there was no restricted forest, but there was an element of fun that we participated in that the teacher didn't like. (I am masking many details to protect identities that I care about, including my teacher) Every day in this teacher's class felt like a punishment and at one point, she used the same tactic "Ms. Crawly" did by asking the culprit to stand, and it really was our whole class... or at least, the vast majority of it. Here's the catch, I never stood. Neither did any of my classmates, and she really would keep us in from recess in punishment. We also had nicknames for her like the ones the students used in this story, but that is just a minor side note.

So what was the point I was trying to get across? Well, bravery and courage for one thing, but "standing up for truth" was the main focus. Ruby, though she is seven years old and logically not that wise, says: "I couldn't run from truth, but that didn't mean I couldn't defend it." Sometimes we have to face a blinding reality, whether it is our fault or not, and if we stand on the side of truth, truth stands on the side of us. We can't run from it, but if we always strive to be morally honest and earnest, we can defend it with determination. Well said Ruby! Who cares if you're seven! Fun ending aye?

Thanks everyone, you are my heroes. Remember, when it comes to truth, always "be the first to stand."

-Cale Montoya