STUDENTS TORCH LAB

As you can imagine, I got into a lot of trouble for this, but it was only the beginning, the tip of the iceberg. For punishment, I got assigned after school lab cleanup. This means washing out beakers, mopping off tables and whatever other stupid task Mr. Leonard could think of at the time.

About the third night I stayed, four boys stayed to work on their science projects. Mr. Leonard left us alone. What else do four teenage boys and one girl do when left alone? We joked around. It got rowdy. One of the boys tried to snatch his homework back out of my greedy hands. I backed up quick, hit the Bunsen burner and poof! The flames shot up the wall! We got the fire out before the fire department got there. There was only minor damage.

The next morning, in the principal's office, it really got nasty. You'd think I was a juvenile delinquent or something. It was only a little smoke damage. We did put the fire out and saved the whole school. We alienated a lot of kids for that alone. Mr. Thompson was not in a thanking mood. We were all suspended until the school board could decide what to do with us.

My grandmother persuaded my parents to let her send me away to art school for a year until the heat was off. She was totally embarrassed. This was a woman who came from an age when a lady only had her name in the papers three times in her life, once when she was born, the second when she got married and the last when she died. Needless to say, I was a constant embarrassment to her.