A well-spent childhood, obedient to my parents’ draconian mandates, did not prepare me for a summons to the Principal’s Office during my sophomore year in high school. Despite having been a consummate goodie-two-shoes, I was no stranger to harmless hijinks and the occasional practical joke. My parents enjoyed an intermittent date night, leaving my sister and me in the care of our older brother. Both of my siblings played free and loose with the family rules, so I appointed myself as the household police in my parents’ absence. I chronicled the multiple infractions on a list I kept hidden in the pocket of my flannel housecoat, putting check marks next to the crimes they committed more than once.

• Joe called Pam on the phone. (two checks)
• Ann ate ice cream AND put Bosco on it. (one check)
• Ann let Rags (the dog) sit on the couch. (three checks) 
• Joe changed the channel to The Twilight Zone even though you told him NOT to because he knows it scares me (highlighted and underlined)

Just before crawling into bed, I folded the list and tucked it beneath my mother’s pillow, satisfied that I had performed my surveillance responsibilities with aplomb. 

It was this firm commitment to good behavior that shielded me from suspicion when rules were broken.  No one ever thought I would engage in aberrant behavior. 

*    *    *    *    *    *   

Rita and I were best friends in high school; birds of a feather; two goodie-two-shoes doing what we were told when we were told.  However, as we grew more comfortable with the open and trusting school administration, we began to take a few liberties.  Neither Rita nor I particularly enjoyed our foreign language class.  Rita was already almost fluent in Spanish, so repeating simple vocabulary words and asking simple questions like “Donde esta el libro?” seemed pointless.  I grew up watching cartoons broadcast in French from Ontario, Canada, so I experienced the same boredom in French I.  “Ou est le livre?” was just not piquing my interest.  

“Oh brother,” I said as the end of recess bell rang, “You’ve got Spanish and I’ve got French!  I don’t think we really made good use of recess!  Why don’t we go to class, each wait fifteen minutes then tell the teacher we’ve got cramps.  They’ll let us out and we can meet behind the auditorium and have  . . . an extended recess!” 

“That’s GENIUS!” replied Rita.  “Let’s do it!” 

Our plan worked like an absolute charm.  We checked in, were present for roll call, each suddenly experienced debilitating cramps and were both excused to go to the Nurse’s Office (but never quite made it!)  We were so successful that we used that ruse quite often in the months ahead with different teachers.  Sometimes we were allowed out of class to retrieve forgotten books from our lockers; sometimes we lied about another teacher asking for our help on a time-sensitive project and sometimes we presented a note from the Principal (forged, of course) requiring our appearance in her office.  

One of the responsibilities of the Student Body Treasurer was to replenish the vending machine in the outside patio.  During one of our trips to the Nurse’s Office for non-existent “lady problems,” we watched the student officer dutifully stack the spring-loaded columns in the machine, then store the remaining candy and snacks in the Principal’s Office for safekeeping.  That’s when another scathingly brilliant idea was born. 

“Whoa!” I said, “Look at all that leftover stuff!  And look where it IS!”

“What about it?” asked Rita.

“Think about it!!!  Why should we pay ten cents for a Three Musketeers when we can have a whole box for free?” I said, not really acknowledging that I was suggesting grand theft.  “Tomorrow when we’re not wasting our time in Spanish and French, let’s do it . . . let’s get some candy!  Sr. Joan teaches a class at that time, so . . . it’ll be easy!” 

We hatched a plan: Rita would engage the front office receptionist whose desk was dangerously close to Sr. Joan’s office door. I would crawl into her office on my belly, stash the goods in my backpack, then wriggle back out as fast as I could. 

“I’ll tell Mrs. Harvey that my locker won’t open,” said Rita.  I’ll tell her that it’s been getting harder and harder to open and I’ve been getting in trouble in some of my classes because I can’t get my books!  She’ll get the master key and we’ll probably even go to my locker so she can open it!  You’ll have plenty of time, but HURRY!”

Shortly after that first foray into the Principal’s Office Rita and I started our own little business.  Eating all those candy bars and snacks caused our uniform skirts to shrink so we fenced the stolen snacks for five cents each!  Soon after, no one used the vending machine and we were rolling in nickels.

In the weeks ahead, the skies turned blue, the air was warm and there was just no way we were content to endure another 50-minute class. 

“Hey!  Let’s go swimming during biology today!” I said.  “Same plan . . . I’ll get a migraine and you double over with cramps.  Meet at the pool.” 

Like clockwork, fifteen minutes later we arrived at the pool, disappointed that the gate was padlocked.

“That’s o.k.,” I said, “my dad says that if a dog can get his head underneath a fence, he can wiggle the rest of his body through.”  

“You’re kidding, right? You want us to squeeze under that fence?” asked Rita.

“Yep.  Easy-peasy!” I assured her. 

Not yet convinced that this was such a good idea, Rita said, “O.K.  You go first!”  

So I did.  I laid down on the cement, carefully tilted my head this way and that until it cleared the bottom rail of the chain link and began to push . . . and push . . . and push. 

“C’mon!” screamed Rita in as quiet a voice as possible, “Sister John Edmund is coming!”

Fear and panic paralyzed me.  Sr. John Edmund, the sternest, fiercest, meanest, scariest nun on the planet, rounded the corner on the walkway on her way to teach a class.  If we were caught, we’d surely be expelled . . . Or killed, no doubt about it. 

“C’MON!” pleaded Rita, “She’s getting closer?  Meet me in the locker room!” 

Suddenly I found myself alone, head stuck under the gate, pigtails caught in the chain link, face toward the pool, listening as Sister’s approaching footsteps shook the ground like Godzilla trudging across the ground.  There was no way she wouldn’t notice me! 

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” I heard Sister’s question in her signature monotone voice.

“Oh!  Hi, Sister!” I said, trying to sound casual, innocent and cheery as if what I was doing was not out of the ordinary.  “I left my watch on the bench here during P.E. today and I just came back to get it!  It’s a fancy watch that I just love.  My parents brought it to me from their trip to Japan.”  I stammered over each word, trying not to cry, but drowning in my own sweat and dying inside.

“Very well.  Carry on!” she said, and she walked away.  

A miracle had occurred.  My prayers to St. Jude, Patron Saint of Impossible Causes, had been answered.  Sr. John Edmund actually said ‘Very well, Carry on!’  I pinched myself to make sure I was really awake and alive! 

“What happened?” asked my fair-weather friend as she tiptoed ginergly from her hiding place. 

“There IS a God!  She said, ‘very well, carry on!’” I said, still in disbelief.  “Now help me get my head out from under this fence!” I ordered. “And by the way,” I continued with an understandable sense of betrayal and anger, “how COULD you?  How could you just leave me here?  We are SO not friends for the rest of the day!” 

I vowed then and there NEVER to ditch class again . . . or to do anything bad again!  Sometimes, though, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The high school I attended was run by an order of nuns who lived in a private wing of the enormous facility.  Of course this area was off limits, but that’s exactly what made it more intriguing.  Rita and I gathered the courage to sneak beyond the big wooden doors and were amazed at what we saw.  There was a private dining room, a community room furnished with overstuffed furniture, a television and other amenities consistent with a comfortable family room, a small chapel and individual bedrooms.  

I really don’t know what came over us or even why we did what we did, but . . . I can only say that “the Devil made us do it!”  We short-sheeted the nuns’ beds!  I’d learned the technique from personal experience.  My brother honed his short-sheeting skills on my sister and me on a regular basis and I thought it would be fun to try it out on someone else!  Just as we exited the forbidden hallway into the common area, my heart skipped a beat. 

“Oh no!  RITA!”  I gasped, “We’ve got to go back!  I left my popsicle stick in Sr. Joan’s room!”  Why I didn’t toss the frozen treat into the trash before venturing down the hallowed halls, I will never know!

“You WHAT????!!!!” responded Rita in abject horror.

“My popsicle stick!” I repeated, “I put it on the nightstand and I forgot to bring it out with us!” 

“You’re the one going back in,” she said, “I am NOT going back in there!  I’m staying right here!”  I don’t remember Rita ever being that disgusted with me.

At that pivotal moment when I was once again about to risk my continued enrollment in the school, Sr. Joan ambled down the hallway in our direction. 

“Hi Sister,” Rita and I sang in unison, like the angels that we weren’t.

“Good Afternoon, Girls,” she said, “Have a nice rest of your day!” and with that, she disappeared into the cloistered convent.

“Oh GREAT!” said Rita, admonishing me. “We’re doomed!” 

“Not necessarily!” I said, “Maybe she won’t notice the popsicle stick.”

“Well, Einstein,” continued Rita, “she may not notice the popsicle stick but there’s NO WAY she’s not going to notice that her bed’s been short-sheeted!  We’re the ONLY suspects she’ll have!  It’s as bad as if we were caught in the act!”   

The next morning during Homeroom, the last announcement over the P.A. beckoned the two of us, for the entire student body to hear, to report to the Principal’s Office . . . immediately.  

We arrived, each pushing the other to be first to enter.  

“Come in, Girls.  Please, sit down.” 

We dropped into the chairs across from her, her desk protecting us from a horror that was sure to come. 

Silence ricocheted off the four walls for what seemed like hours.  Rita and I sat, unable to speak even if we’d wanted to.  Sr. Joan sat opposite us, resting her chin in her hands, elbows on her desk.   The pounding of our hearts nearly drowned out the screaming silence. 

“Do you want to tell me about it?” asked Sr. Joan, hands slightly covering her mouth.  

It was then that the dam burst.  We babbled, confessing everything we’d done since Freshman orientation, before we’d become friends, before either one of us had even thought to circumvent the Three Musketeers from the vending machine or to ditch French and Spanish to have a longer recess or to violate the sanctity of the convent.

Sr. Joan burst out laughing!  

“You two did what?” she asked through her laughter.  “I had NO IDEA you did all that!  How did you get the Three Musketeers?” 

“From the box on the floor of your office,” we explained through our sobs, “we took them and we sold them for five cents!  We’ll pay for them . . . ALL of them . . . and we’ll pay the full ten cents for every single one!  And for the Fritos, too!” 

“But please, oh PLEASE!  Don’t make me tell my mother!” I begged. “She’ll hate me for life!  It’s true!  She’ll totally disown me!”

An agreement was made. The sum of fifty dollars to cover the cost of all of the candy bars and bags of Fritos was donated to Santa Margarita (our sister school in a blighted area in the inner city), seventeen Our Fathers and thirty-four Hail Marys, along with a promise NEVER to enter the cloistered halls of the convent. My mother went through the rest of her life thinking that her youngest daughter was a perfect angel.