ARTICLE

Susane Karamanova

What are your best and worst school memories?

School – a lifetime of powerful memories bond with teachers, school subjects, other students and amusing or not so much situations. Coming as no surprise, the same applies to me although the moments were more unforgettable to the others involved owing to my special assistance. Let me give you a special insight into my innermost school memory.

As you may have guessed by now , I was somewhat of a rebel at primary school, but despite this fact I was actually regarded with any affection by few of the staff. One said I had spirit and imagination and another commented on my particular brand of " cheeky charm ". But some of them just downright hated me …. One of these was the grey haired, spinster music mistress. A bird-like woman, she flitted around wearing soft grey scarves, securing her silver-white hair in a neat bun, ever busy, ever watchful . But while she appeared on the surface to be sweet and nice, she could shoot you a look of pure evil when crossed. We spent her lessons singing the oldest folk songs and despite not even close to professional, she loved to play the piano whilst we performed her own meticulously choreographed dances. Then in third grade, completely accidentally, I found out that the smell of Herbal mints sent her into odd psychotic frenzy. I had just come in from the lunch break, sucking one, and had passed by her on the crowded corridor. What followed was a strident scream, Mss Wallman running and shouting like a madwoman "Who's sucking the mint? Get rid of it now! " Without fear of hesitation, I arrived the next day armed with six packs of herbal mints which I politely distributed to the entire class without explanation. Every mouth contained a mint well sucked and getting off its signature of strong aroma. As soon as she entered the room, Мss Wallman stopped dead at the door, grimaced with horror and fled. We were left unattended for an hour and strangely the Music Mistress had disappeared from the school without a trace .
Of course, I had signed my death warrant doing so and what came were meetings with the principal being accompanied by my red-faced parents, afternoons with the school psychologist and being on probation from an early age. But, looking on the bright side, I ‘won’ a lifelong sentence of admiration from all the other students turning into the most popular buddy at the premises.
The sales of herbal mints continued to flourish for the remainder of that term, a significant proportion of whose were to students scarcely interested in music…