Freshman English

Once upon a time I was in English IA. My teacher was under the impression that my classmates and I were interested in becoming better writers. To help us in that endeavor, he assigned “weekly writings,” a short, creative writing assignment that was due at the end of each week. These weren’t free-for-all assignments; he would give us a topic and occasionally other parameters for our work.

One week (far enough into the year that he was aware that I was smart, and that I knew I was smart, but that I was not smart enough to know when to keep my smartness to myself) our class was discussing payphones. Mr K’s* gave us this assignment for the week: Explain how money is emptied from payphones when no one ever sees anyone emptying them. We were learning about adjectives that day so there was an addendum: we had to use at least 40 adjectives, but we could only use 2 adjectives per sentence. “What is the minimum number of words you can use?”

I raced the numbers through my head and my hand shot up almost before his question finished. “Yes, Miss Hartman?” He was not surprised.

“Eighty.”

Delight illuminated his face. “No,” the emphatic reply shot out of his mouth before he had a chance to think. I sat forward, looked at him, my brow furrowed, and thought back over my answer. Surely my math and grammar were correct. 40 adjectives at 2 adjectives per sentence would mean 20 sentences. Each of those sentences would need a verb and a noun. 20 sentences at 4 words per sentence equals 80 words.

Mr. K stared into the air in front of him, contemplating his response. “Wait a minute,” he pressed his finger to his lips as he thought. He looked back at me. “You’re right.” His crestfallen face displayed his disappointment in my correctness.

I leaned back and relaxed. Challenge accepted.

Tune in Friday to read the resulting product!

*Initial changed