Paper Towels

     We sat on the little rug plastered with the ABC’s. Ms. Susan stood up and glared at us.

     “I have something we need to talk about,” she announced. “Someone has put a wet paper towel on the mirror in the bathroom.” We all looked at each other, searching for guilty faces. There was a long silence. I hadn’t done it but her tone made me feel guilty about it all the same. She kept talking on and on about consequences and when people do bad things they should tell the teacher but I wasn’t listening. In fact, most of us were probably not listening. We were all five year olds and what came out of Ms. Susan’s mouth was law, but after a while of blabbing, our attention spans expired. “…so does anyone want to confess?” she finished. We all stayed perfectly silent. But then I started thinking about the situation. We were all going to stay here until someone confessed. None of us were going to confess. The whole class might get punished. So I came up with a perfect idea. (One that sounded like a good idea at the time) I got up in front of the class and took one for the team.

     “I did it,” were my exact words. Ms. Susan looked at me with extreme distaste. She started laying down the punishments. But I knew I had to do this. When she finished, I started to cry, but I knew the damage was done. Paper towels would haunt me until Elementary school.

     Ms. Susan never stopped hounding me after that day. And neither did the one who had actually done the deed.

     The following days after the incident whizzed by. About three weeks later, another paper towel appeared on the door of the bathroom. Ms. Susan found it before me. In the middle of or nap, she woke me up. I looked up at her and a chill went down my spine. I sat up, and she looked me up and down.

     “Rachel,” she said, “ I am very disappointed in you”

     “But I didn’t do-“

     “ Yes you did. I saw it. And I have decided to give you three more chances. The third time I am calling your parents” My hair stood up on the back of my neck. I racked my brain for clues as to what she was talking about. “I don’t want to have to do that. No more paper towels okay?” She asked. Oh no, I thought. Not this again.

     “ O-okay” I stammered. She gave me a tight smile and walked away.

     I felt betrayed. How could the culprit take advantage of me like that? I did something nice for them so they should be nice to me. That’s how I thought when I was five. That was just how my life went. That was how it should be. I buried my face in the mat and felt water pour out of my eyes. I kept it to myself, though. Only silent tears hit the mat.

     The next paper towel hung on the wall. I looked at wondering what kind of sick trick this was. I walked out of the bathroom and looked around the room. My wandering eyes gazed out into the place, first looking at Ms. Susan’s cluttered desk then the tiny chars set around the wooden tables. I looked at the corner of the room with the book shelve stocked with stuff from fairy princesses to flossing how-to’s. I glanced at the ABC rug where I had made my stand and at the toys that littered it. All my friends were playing with toy cars on the ground in-between the tables maneuvering the cars through the chair legs and under the tables shouting “VROOM VROOM” as loud as their squeaky little voices could go. No. Ms. Susan wasn’t there.

     “Rachel!” shouted my best friend Thomas, “Come play cars with us!”

     “I can’t,” I told him. “Do you know where Ms. Susan is?” Just then, Ms. Susan walked in the room; probably back from a bathroom break. (The teachers always had their own bathroom) She was wearing a long ugly leopard print skirt with a puffy white blouse and a deep magenta scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. Her perpetually frowning face was covered in lipstick and smeared over with a few thick layers of makeup.

     “Yes, Rachel?” she asked.

     “I found a paper towel on the wall in the bathroom,” I said. Her frown deepened.

     She walked straight into the bathroom. She looked around and spotted it. She reached over and ripped it off the wall, holding it up in front of my face “See?” I said, “I didn’t do it.”

     “Yes you did.” She stated. I tried to explain how the towel was there when I got there, but everything I told her went in one ear and out the other. “This is one. Two to go” She walked out of the room like she owned the world.

     The next two went quick. One landed on the door and the other was tucked in the corner of the bathroom. It’s funny now that I think back on it. What seemed like a serious issue then is not that big of a deal now. But there wasn’t a very fine line between serious and silly for Ms. Susan. It was always serious. She stayed true to her word and called my parents.

     When I got home, they asked me about it. They weren’t even that mad, but I just told them I didn’t do it and ran to my room. I cried and cried. Mom came into my room to try to comfort me. But once a little kid goes into that mode, there is no consoling them. The next day she had to drag me to day care. She put me in the room and I screamed. She told Ms. Susan that I was upset. What made me even more upset was that Susan asked why. As if she didn’t know.

     Eventually I resorted to check the bathroom for paper towels every time I went. My method worked until the day I found one on the ceiling. No matter what I did, it would not come down. Luckily Ms. Susan never noticed it. It stayed there until the day she left the day care for good. It continued to hang up there until I left. And to this day, I never saw that paper towel come down. But it always hung there, as a reminder of the mistake that I made. Of the mistake I will never make again.