6th Grade Capers

   I should probably preface this with a disclaimer, that I do not condone this type of behavior.
  I have been remembering my 6th grade year. I was one of those kids that totally believed the 6th grade "Ruled the School" (please read the books by Knudsen and Wilkensen). After all my years of timidly trying to do all I was told and never causing problems, I got a very young male teacher. We were ruthless. I think his name was Mr. Hall. We saw his age and lack of experience as a sign of weakness and tortured him mercilessly. The day we really cut loose was April 1. I am so embarrassed but I will share the memory.
   We started the day by sneaking into the classroom before school I had brought a frozen carp that my brother had left in the freezer. This was cunningly put in Mr. Halls desk drawer. Someone in the class had drawn a picture of Mr. Hall romancing Miss Moulton (an old maid colleague). This was taped to the pull down map at the front of the room. There were a few other tricks that were mild and so have been filed in the trash of my mind.
    We waited all morning with snickers for Mr. Hall to open his desk. When he did we all guffawed and he threw the fish in the garbage. Then we had to 'cleverly' ask him to show us something on the map. Here he didn't join us in the laughing. He went bright red and chastised us. We took that as a challenged and all ran out of the room in mass. We still thought we were hilarious and decided to hide. ...We found the perfect place. We left the school yard and hid in a neighbors garage. They looked for us for about 1/2 hour. They principal finally saw our feet under the garage door and took us back to class where he promptly made the announcement that April Fools Day was over. My memories are that we should have been severely punished, but the teacher and administration gave us the chance to make things right. I felt so bad for what we had done and all my part in the shenanigans. I think because of the way that they responded, I made some decisions that being good was more enjoyable than being bad. I sometimes forget my own good advice, but am grateful to the people in my life path that helped me choose to improve myself rather than seek for shadier choices.