What The Duck?

(My teacher momentarily leaves the classroom during a book reading and as expected, the class descends into child-anarchy for five minutes. Just conversations about TV shows and whatnot, but one boy sitting next to me is reenacting a scene, instead. He is yelling all the lines exaggeratedly, and even laughs in the place of the laugh-track used in sitcoms. I am not very social and don’t feel a need to talk to anyone purely because the teacher is absent for a few minutes. I am actually trying to finish the story we have been reading, but the boy next to me is making it impossible. While mustering the courage to ask him to quiet down, I am debating whether to ask politely or try and assert dominance: “Can you be quiet?” or “Just shut up!” What comes out instead is:)

Me: “Can you just quuck up?!”

(The surrounding kids that heard me went silent before bursting out into even louder laughter.)

Loud Boy: *laughs* “Sure, I can quack up! QUACK QUACK QUACK!”

(I groaned in shame and put my head down until the teacher came back. The next month was spent with me feeling humiliated while being taunted with “quack” jokes for my word fumble. Like other moments during that age, it was either quickly forgotten about or turned into a fond memory I learned to laugh at myself for.)