Norge
By ice rivers
- 298 reads
We called him Norge because he resembled a refrigerator topped with a failed pompadour. His real name was George. He kinda just stood there. He was older than the rest of us. Like Rizz, he had started out a grade ahead of me but unlike Rizz who had become a grade behind me, Norge was somehow two grades behind me and just biding his time til he reached sixteen so he could stand somewhere else other than grammar school.
He used to wander over to the field a lot where he would stand during the games in right field. Everybody knew him because he had at one time or another been in everybody's gradeOn top of everything else, his last name began with Z, therefore in every role call Norge was the last to be called.
He was cursed with great size, kind eyes and a gentle nature. I never saw him get mad, thank God, because if he ever released the rage that must have been building up inside, he would have kicked everybody's ass and maybe more.
When he wasn't around, everybody referred to Norge as a "duh" which was about as gentle as criticism could get in the field. When he showed up, he was accepted.
One day on the bench, we were talking about Treasure Island. Norge overheard a snippet of the conversation and flashed some rare curiosity.
"Who's Bobbaloo Stevenson", he asked.
I think Norge thought we were talking about a baseball player.
Norge lost interest when we said that he was a famous writer.
From that point on, up to and including today whenever the subject of Robert Louis Stevenson comes up, we/I would always yell out
"bobbaloo". (Not gonna lie, today I don't yell Bobbaloo, I whisper it if I remember Norge or other deeply buried treasures from the past.)
In class, we used every maneuver to get the teachers to bring up Kidnapped, Dr Jekyll or Treasure Island and when they did we would all say Bobbaloo to one another and amuse ourselves at the teachers' confusion and consternation. When those of us who were in on the joke passed each other in the hallway, we'd snap our fingers and say "Bobbaloo".
Norge was long gone by then, outstanding in his field while we were in school struggling with Latin and hormones. He left a legend behind him when it came to spelling bees.
When Norge was descending into my class, our teacher would regularly schedule spelling bees. We loved them because it gave us a chance to get out of our desks and stand along the chalkboards. The Teacher would choose words that were not on our spelling list which made matters even more impossible for Norge who usually memorized a few words on the list for our weekly spelling test. Since the spelling bee words were a test not of memory but of syllablization and reading recall, Norge never uttered a sound when his turn came. We would wait a few silent moments until Norge turned pink and returned to his seat.
Sometimes, we the top spellers would get annoyed when the teacher gave us words that were obviously harder to spell than the words that she gave to the other kids. One day, she decided to help out Norge to the max which nobody objected to.
"George "You're word today is 'bus'.
A twinkle of recognition lit up Norge's dark eyes. Bus was in his vocabulary. By God he was going to get one right.
"Bus", he repeated the word.
The streak was about to be broken. George was gonna make it to the second round.
Then it happened, a moment frozen in time; a moment that made me realize that I wanted too be a teacher when I grew up; a mystical moment beyond my understanding.
Norge began to spell "bus".
It didn't last long.
He started and finished with the letter J.
The letter J
He sat down.
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Comments
ah, not the brightest. But
ah, not the brightest. But other things matter more.
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Hi ice rivers ...
I really enjoyed reading this story. Did you become a Teacher? That made me smile started and finished with J. It was cruel of the Teacher to add words that were not in the spelling bee. Maxine Jasmin-Green.
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