Wrong Place, Wrong Time.

I seem to be there a lot: wrong place, wrong time.

First there was the incident with Ms. A when her students picked her up and carried her crowd-surfing style down the hall and I was the only witness. That was a long statement I had to write.

Then there was the time when I was the only person standing around when a kid threatened another boy's life. That was a long statement I had to write.

And of course there was the second-week-of-school disaster where my classroom got vandalized. That was a long statement I had to write.

Today, yet AGAIN I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. I entered the lunchroom behind my fourth block class. As soon as I crossed over the threshold, I heard a lot of commotion coming from a table in the corner. Quickly scanning the room, I noticed I was the only teacher in that area. Great. I didn't know what "it" was, but "it" was getting louder and louder. All the students were standing up, craning their necks to get a better view. Following the direction of everyone's stare, my eyes finally rested on the instigator. An enraged girl was standing over one of my students, bowing up and screaming at the top of her lungs. As far as I could tell, my student was doing nothing to provoke her. She merely sat at the table, staring straight ahead as her nemesis rained obscenities on her head.

I started walking over to the action when all of the sudden the aggressor stopped. She stormed towards the door to leave with the rest of the class. Whew. Close call. BUT WAIT. Now she was spinning on her heel again--this time with fire burning in her eyes. Unthinkingly, I sprinted across from the opposite direction to cut her off before she could get to my student. Right before she was in swinging distance, I valiantly leapt in her path.

Bad idea.

You see, this was no ordinary middle-school girl--a fact I unfortunately realized a moment too late. As I stared up at her 5'10" frame and across her shoulders (which easily doubled mine in girth), my mind went blank. Uh...what next? What exactly was I planning to do at this point? "TURN AROUND." It came out a lot less intimidating than I had hoped. The girl bumped her chest against me, barely looking, then BAM! One swift push was all it take to send me flailing. From my feeble position against the lunchroom table, I saw a police officer run in and jerk the girl up by her collar before any punches were thrown. So much for heroics.

"Daang, Ms. M!" some kid said. "You 'bout got NAILED by a SIXTH GRADER!"

"That girl was a SIXTH GRADER!?!" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah. You 'bout beat by a little sixth grader!"

She may have been a sixth grader, but there was nothing "LITTLE" about that girl, I can assure you. I walked back to my boys' tables, trying to decide if this was real life. What kind of wack job do I have? Word of the incident spread quickly through the lunchroom.

"That was that Alabama defensive back coming out in you!" BJ joked. "'Cept for she must have been C.J. Spiller 'cause she run yo ass OVER!"

"We didn't see it," insisted Jemon, Norman, and Will. "But if we had...she'da gotten WHOOPED! If she'da laid Ms. M out, I'da STEALED her. Don't worry, M, if we see her in the halls its gon' be REAL bad news for her!"

"Yeah, right," I laughed. "As soon as she pushed me, I turned around just knowing that my boys would be standing right behind me, ready to defend me. But where were y'all? Nowhere to be found. And you call yourselves men!"

Laughter. "Well, brah," Norman admitted to Will, "she WAS kinda scary!"

The good news? By the end of the year, perhaps I can collect all my statements and publish a novel out of them. It would be a colorful read, no doubt.