“Where is it? Where is it?” My anxiety rises with each repetition, but I repeat this mantra with increasing desperation as I look under and in everything.
At last, I sit down on the floor and accept the fact that I have misplaced my English essay. I thought I left it on the kitchen counter, but when I came downstairs this morning, it was nowhere to be found. As I am pondering the age old solution of childhood, summoning my mother to find it for me, Fido comes over to rest his head in my lap. As I gently pet his head, I realize something protrudes from each side of his mouth.
“What do you have there, buddy?” I ask, reaching for it.
My hand closes on a wad of wet paper. Fido opens his mouth to release his prize. I gasp as I recognize the sodden mass as my English paper, hand-written as per the teacher’s unconventional request, and now unreadable compliments of the drool monster begging for more affection in my lap.
“Sorry, buddy, I have to go find my last rough draft of this masterpiece,” I offer him one more pat on the head before racing up the stairs.
A quick dig through my trashcan reveals nine of the ten pages of my previous draft. I sigh and return downstairs with both unacceptable submissions. I grab a large plastic bag to put my finished draft in, complete with Fido’s attempt to edit.
I seek out my English teacher before school. She sits with her stocking feet up on her desk and a thick novel in hand. I shudder as I realize she is reading “Don Quixote”, which she informed us was her favorite book on the first day of school. She assured us that anyone who had read it would guess this fact from the donkeys and windmills strewn about her room like disturbing Easter eggs. I hesitate on the threshold.
“I know you are there, Miss Finer. Do you need something?” She slowly lowers the book, peering at me over the top of the book as she pushes her glasses up on her nose.
“I need to talk to you about my essay…”
“You had two weeks to finish it.” She closes the book and sets it down on her desk, so I can clearly see her frown.
“Well, Mrs. Abernathy, my dog got ahold of…”
“You are going to tell me your dog ate your homework?” She sneers. “Surely, you can do better than that.”
Irritated by her disbelief in my story, I pull the plastic bag with the sodden mess that I am sure was a coherent A+ paper out of my bag and hold it out to her. “Well, if you want me to lie to you, I can. So here is my alternate ending, I was so excited about this paper that I couldn’t stop reading it and rereading it. I was reading it in the bathroom and it slipped into the toilet.” I held out the bag to her.
She shied away from it in disgust.
“I brought my rough draft, but I lost a page somehow,”
She peers at me suspiciously. “That explanation was even worse than the first one. Good thing I am not grading that.” She holds out her hand.
I hand her the loose pages and the plastic bag. She peeks at the former quickly before opening the other for a closer inspection of the contents. She closes it quickly.
“Your dog needs a milk bone. I will look at what you have here and try to be kind…” She shakes her head at the bag of drool, paper, and ink. “…considering.”
~~~Hope you are all enjoying back to school time, whatever that looks like for you. I know my children will eventually regret that we do not own a dog for exactly this reason. Maybe they can say their uncle ate their homework? He might. You never know...~~~
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