Room # 13(Nikole Harlan) I didn’t wake up on time that day. In fact, I don’t think anyone in my home did. My family and I were all running late. Running around the house getting our clothes on, brushing our teeth; rushing around getting ready for the day.

I got dressed as fast as I could and ate my breakfast with great haste to try and catch up with time. But no matter how hard I tried, I knew in my 6th grade mind that I was going to be late for school. No lining up with my class on the playground and walking with my teacher to our classroom #13. I would be tardy.

My father and I got in the car and drove over to the K-6th elementary school that was across town from where we lived. I detested school. If I had the choice, I wouldn’t have to go, and felt in every fiber of my being that I SO didn’t want to go to school that day… or ever.

As we pulled up to the school my father dropped me off wishing me a good day. The school looked so quiet and empty as all the school doors were closed keeping the cool morning air out of the classrooms. Everyone was all ready in their classrooms and roll was being called like it is every morning.

While I slowly walked to the door marked, #13, I could hear cheering coming loudly from the classroom. The window above the door was open and the cheers were streaming out crystal clear as I came closer and closer to the door.

As my hand reached for the knob to open the door, I wondered what all the cheering was about. They had to be cheering for a reason. What was it?

No test today?

Movie day?

What could it be?

I opened the door and suddenly all eyes were on me.

Then… it happened.

The cheers suddenly turned to groans of distress.

“Now, we’re not going to win!” said one student.

I stood in the doorway helpless as I learned that the cheering of the students in my class was due to the fact that they thought I was going to be absent that day from school.

I didn’t know what to do. Honestly, I wanted to cry and run back to my father and beg him to let me stay home and not have to deal with the harassment and constant belittling that I had to endure each day. However, there was no such luck.

I took off my backpack and looked at my teacher wondering if she was going to say anything.

She didn’t.
She sat there on her stool in the front of the classroom looking at me over her reading glasses and erased the “absent” mark on her roll sheet and filled in the “tardy” mark.

I walked to my desk and wondered why she didn’t say something. Why as a teacher she could just sit there and know as an 11 year old girl how I could be feeling. She was the teacher. She was the ruler of the classroom. Why didn’t she say something? How could she not say something?

I was hurt and so angry all at once.

'Say something, damn it!' was all I could think.

While sitting down, all I could do was go throughout my day like each day… wondering what was going to be happening next. Each day… the same thing. Not knowing what that day would bring in room #13.

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