It would not have been so bad if there had been someone else in my class who had stood up and walked out with me. But nooo. I was the only one. It took me a second but I got up, red faced and dying. I marched out of the classroom, with my head hanging low. Not to mention a sick stomach and my heart beating out of my chest. As I left, the loud speaker boomed again and Sister Reina barked once more and finished her demand by saying “ALL six girls, NOW.” Puke…
I ran into two of the other girls and they were as pale and scared as I was. We caught up to the three older girls and they were trying to act as cool as cucumbers, even thought they were saying they really wanted a cigarette. I envied their poise and “I don’t care attitude.” One mentioned that her mother was going to kill her. I groaned, realizing that I had not thought that far yet. MY mother WILL kill me. Why did I do this? Because you wanted to…because you thought it was cool…We stood in front of the principal’s office and got all fidgety. We bit our nails and tried to slow down our pounding hearts. When the door opened, we all jumped. Sister Reina bid us to come in. She was not smiling. We were in so much trouble.
We filed in and the principal Sister Pat just watched us. Sister Pat was just there in name. Sister Reina was the punisher, the one who really ran things. And she railed, ranted and bitched…up one side and down the other. I was sweating buckets. She told us to write a 5000 word essay on proper conduct for young ladies. When we left, Sister Pat hadn’t said a word, just glared at us. We were relieved not to be expelled, that our parents were not going to be notified but we all moaned about having to write those stinking essays. We had three days. The funny thing is we were famous for the duration. Every one at school wanted to know what happened and to hang out with us.
When we brought those essays in, Sister Reina, took them from us and without so much as a glance, tossed them in the waste basket. She asked if we’d learned anything and we nodded, all of us on automatic pilot, just waiting to get out of there. When we did, we complained about all that work we did and that hag nun just tossing it in the garbage. You would think that we’d be grateful we didn’t get worse punishment. That would be reserved for later and I would hear about it after the fact. Seems there was a real incident with the boys from the St-Lawrence College…a panty raid in the middle of winter. Someone left the fire escape door opened. We all knew who did it but the nuns could never figure it out. There was hell to pay then.
That summer they closed down the academy. There were rumors Sister Pat was pregnant. One Saturday night, at Bingo with my mother, I saw Sister Maddie, in regular clothes, her hair all long and stringy, and smoking like a chimney. I was shocked and kept staring at her. She, like many other nuns, had left the order and we’re just regular women. It was then that I realized that’s what they were in the first place. Just regular women, many caught up in something out of their control…just like me.
Next -> Time Gone By
Tags: bingo, college, panty raid, punisher, St-Lawrence