Mrs. Bronik.
Say the name softly; let it conjure imagery in your mind. Surely a serial killer, born with venom on her lips.
Her pupils?
Elliptical.
Mrs. Bronik.
Not a woman from whom to expect a shred of mercy. At the very least, an adult driven into a frenzy by the mere sight of innocent young children at play.
I walked onto the playground of Public School #4. I was six. I met Bucky Bowles, age eight, also that day. I perceived Bucky then as a comrade of limitless intelligence and a wide knowing of exotic things. Today I would characterize him as imaginative in the extreme. [Perspectives do change, don’t they?]
“Just pray you don’t get Mrs. Bronik, man,” he said slowly for emphasis. “I heard she has killed a coupla kids for whisperin’ in class . . .”
Did I smell of compost in those days? Did I dress like the son of an immigrant? Why did he think I would believe such a tale?
Well…. I did.
My mouth must have dropped open [all geniuses are quite gullible] `That’s why they need a homeroom teacher,’ I remember thinking. `The one person in the history of grade school education who has, despite multiple acquittals for murdering children [the bodies never being found], somehow wrangled a teaching certificate from a slapdash Board of Education [not unlike hiring a fox to patrol the chickens]. With my luck, I’ll not only get her for a teacher; I’ll be the only kid to show up for class today…’
Like a rat gnaws at crib corn, there began within me a full-scale, no holds barred fretting.
Oh misery me!
“There she is now!” he said, pointing to a window on the third story. “She dangled a kid by his hair out of that window last year. She’ll probably kill you before Thanksgiving break,” he predicted confidently.
I spent the few minutes remaining before death and school regretting my life-long chastity. I had always been a model, a well-behaved youngster, at least in my own reckoning. (Just take my word for that; don’t check with Mom.) But now I began to see in my good behavior many derelictions.
Soon to die, I regretted not having cut-up more; failing miserably to live life to the fullest. Forgive me if you are able, but in that moment, at that age, I preferred the minor enthusiasms of childhood to the glories of eternity.
Even back then, I never wanted to live forever, but I did have this urge to at least undergo puberty, having heard so much about it and all. So I truly did not care to be educated or mutilated by Mrs. Bronik. As it turns out, I was assigned another teacher and lived well into June [and a few years after that.]
Mrs. Bronik? She remained free on bail based on her solemn pledge not to kill any little kids for a while. Or so Bucky informed me.
Of course, using retrograde thinking, Bucky told me so many `stretchers’ I never worried that he would be sorely hampered by telling just one more.
And one of my little patients I was examining today thought he had it rough. In my day, we walked barefoot through the snow to get to teachers like Mrs. Bronik!
Look for Lucky’s three latest books on Amazon: Reflections, Cemone’s Trilogy, and Perish The Thought!
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