My mom came in with me the first day to explain to her the things I could and could not do and left her with a bunch of literature. My mom left and she threw them in the trash.

She thought it would be a good idea to have everyone come to the front of the class to talk about ourselves and what we did over the summer.

Of course, being a totally trusting person, I told the class about the "district" assembly and what they talked about and how they said the world was going to end soon. And I talked about how I spent almost everyday reading books they just printed. And how I missed going on "field service".

Hushed reaction from the class. Ms. C then cut me down. "What a stupid way to waste your whole summer!" Then she insisted I do an assignment to write a 10 page essay on how one should spend summer vacation and that I should listen to everyone elses' stories so I would know what I should be doing.

I told my mom what happened. She got it planted in her head, after that incident with my dad, that I was not to be believed or trusted. Ms. C was all sugar and spice when they met. I must be imagining this and trying to get out of doing homework.

I left it alone at that thinking maybe I was imagining it. I did my assignment and turned it in the next day and was made to read it in front of the class. She said it was an improvement, but I could do better. I wrote my summer essay everyday for a month.

I wasn't the only one Ms. C picked on. Though she made it clear she hated Jehovah's Witnesses. There were four other light skinned people in my class she loved to harass, including my so-called boyfriend. As it turned out, she had a problem with people who could pass the brown bag test. We weren't really black and even more evil than "whitey". She would say things like that to us, but when confronted, she would go back to sugar and spice. Then the punishments on the class got more and more bizarre.

She would inspect our desks everyday. If one piece of paper was out of place, she would write us down on report and call our parents for a confrence. If we had enough write ups, we would spend the day at the principal's office.

We would have to write things like, "I will always turn my homework assignments in on time," or "I will always do what my teacher tells me," or at worst, "I will stop acting like a spoiled brat." We would have to write them 1,000 times, I kid you not.

Ms. C would also punish kids by making us squat in front of the class and hold in that position for an hour or would make us hold out our hands, palms down and would whack us across our knuckles.

We had weekly show and tell assignments. Once a girl brought in a Magic 8 Ball and another brought in a Ouija board during Halloween. She passed these items around the class and insisted we all take turns playing with them. I refused and she hit me across my knuckles and made me squat in front of the class for an hour.

My mom always took her side over mine. I simply must try harder and do better. I was doing the best I could. There was no pleasing this lady. Midway into the school year, I gave up. I stopped doing my assignments. I was also responsible for causing the class to "write lines".

The kids would not say anything at first because we were all afraid of her. My mom wouldn't believe me and said if any such thing was happening it was my fault.

At one point, she even embarassed my "boyfriend" about hanging around with me and encouraged the class to tease the both of us about being boyfriend/girlfriend. He wanted to distance himself from me at that point. He wouldn't speak to me or go near me until one day at fire drill, we were paired up together. Ms C made us hold hands and then teased us about it. This led us to have a fight after school. He started calling me names in front of the boys from our class. I guess he was tired of being teased and wanted to prove we hated each other. I told him to take it back. He pulled my hair and spit on me.

Now, this was not the way for a good little witness girl to act, but I had so much anger inside of me I was holding back for so long. This was just a trigger that got me off. Back in those days, lunchboxes were made of metal. I had a schoolbag in one hand loaded with books and a metal lunchbox which was lighter, but sturdier, in my other hand. I knocked him to the ground with my schoolbag and started pounding him with my lunchbox. I got in about 20 hits and gave him some pretty good cuts and bruises before he got up and started to clobber me back with his lunchbox. I was so out of it, I didn't even feel it when he hit me with his lunchbox. It actually felt good afterwards. I felt a physical pain that was much easier to bear than the emotional pain. This was a turning point for me, but not for the good.

This was of course the inopportune location for a fight, right in the playground of a Catholic school. The nuns came out and broke it up and sent us away.

I came home battered and bruised with torn stockings and a banged up lunchbox. I was yelled at for such demonic behavior. I must be possessed. She spanked me and sent me to my room. I did my homework, writing 1000 times, "I will not smart off to my teacher." She made me write that since I said to her I was not in love with the boy she was teasing me about. My mom said I was lying about that and I must have said something else disrespectful to her. I gave up on ever pleasing mom at that point. I even prayed to Jehovah at times that he would kill mom at Armeggeddon or kill me so I wouldn't have to live with her anymore.

A week later, my female friend and I went to recess at a park not on school property. We were not supposed to leave, but we did anyway. The bell rang for us to go back, but we did not want to. We were both tired of things and couldn't bear going back. We just wandered around until the end of school and went home. We cut school at the park the next day and did not go home until the proper time. I noticed while we were cutting school, I saw a few more students were joining us. Then all of our parents were notified. We were in the principal's office and told him what went on. He had the secretary type a note to our parents to explain there were problems with the teacher and to go easy on us and the problem would be resolved. The next day, we had a new teacher.

My mom asked me what kind of things did Ms. C do. I re-told her everything she did. She said, "Well if I had known that I would have put a stop to that long ago." Empty words. I didn't touch it.

Besides, we were moving to a new house during the summer and I would be far away from that nightmare. I was hoping for a new break. I really looked forward to the assembly, too. It was a big assembly where we had to go out of town.