A Different Grade Of Thief

When I was younger, I always loved reading. I still do, even though I don’t have as much time as I used to. In my school, we were allowed to quietly read after we finished our work, something I took full advantage of… at least until my grades started drastically dropping in one class.

I always did my work before I pulled out a book, so I was confused. A parent-teacher meeting was called, and my teacher told my parents that she hadn’t been receiving any papers for me. The decision was made to ban me from reading at all in her class.

I still did my work, and my grade in that class didn’t get much better, but since the apparent “reason” had been taken care of, nothing more was done until one day, when we had a new kind of assignment.

This new one was a magazine for kids with short informational stories. We then had to fill out a little quiz on the back of it. I turned mine in, went back to my seat, and waited.

Towards the end of class, the teacher read out the names of everyone who had turned them in… and mine wasn’t there. I knew I had turned it in, so I asked her if I could look through them, which she allowed. And about midway through the pile, I found it: my work, with my name erased and another name written over it. How did I know?

Well, once you wrote on those magazines, the indent would still be there, even if it was erased. I showed it to my teacher, pointed out the indents, and the person who stole that paper — and several before that — got in a lot of trouble. I had more problems with her, but this was the biggest stunt she pulled by far.