Stepping into a brave new world

What a unique recipe!

Mixing up a fresh batch of educational instruction with an unexpected dash of mischievous tomfoolery was a perfect combination to kick off the brand-new school year.

When I first laid eyes on Robert “Mags” Magnifico in our seventh-grade homeroom, he was inconspicuously placing a dead cockroach in Elaine DeCarbo’s curly tresses; whereupon he roared with laughter as his innocent victim frantically flicked the grotesque critter to the floor before smashing it with a large spiral notebook.

All my fears and inhibitions of being a small fish in a big pond at Lincoln Junior-Senior High School temporarily vanished as I joined in on the hilarity of the moment.

Earlier that same morning, I boarded a special education mini school bus to make the nearly one-mile trip to the ginormous educational institution on the other side of Ellwood City; because it was determined the trek – which included traversing the Fifth Street bridge – would be much too strenuous for me to walk considering my physical disability.

Well, isn’t that special!

Not only did I ride a girl’s purple bike around our neighborhood, but I was also required to make a trip to school – five days a week – in a special needs’ vehicle for the next nine months.

Do you think my life could get any more ridiculously challenging?

Shortly after arriving at the school bus unloading zone underneath a giant awning which stretched over the sidewalk outside the Commons Area, I squeezed by several talkative students entering through a set of double doors and sauntered down a long corridor toward the music department prior to receiving a hole-punch lunch ticket for the week ahead in the sizable cafeteria.

Upon acquiring the free meal card and placing it securely inside a recently obtained bi-fold wallet – a birthday gift from my maternal grandparents – I continued the long trek down a crowded hallway next to the boy’s gymnasium, encountering a group of teenage boys poking fun at my awkward gait; after which I traversed the teachers’ parking lot before heading down the ramp to Hartman Elementary School.

Finally seeing a rather familiar face, I expeditiously walked over to the cement treads where a large group of seventh graders were gathered and enthusiastically greeted Jeff Olinger – one of my boon companions from Northside Elementary School – and took great comfort in knowing that we were going to be in the same homeroom together.

Immediately after the eight o’clock bell rang out, these junior high school newbies who had been congregating behind the substantial red brick structure – named for the founder of the mid-size industrial city north of Pittsburgh – opened a set of double doors and scampered down the stairs to the basement, which housed three of the six seventh-grade homerooms at the south end of the building.

Subsequently, this would-be herd of wild elephants rounded the corner and plowed through an open door sandwiched in between a set of lockers on either side of a short passageway as Mr. Anthony “Tony” Peitrcollo greeted his young scholars entering the brightly-lit room with short windows along two walls looking out onto the pavement above.

While I quickly found my assigned seat near the teacher’s desk, Jeff traipsed to the back of the classroom prior to finding his own name tag amongst a couple of familiar comrades.

Once the laughter died down following the clever ruse by the black-haired Italian wearing a football jersey, my face lit up like a Christmas tree as I immediately recognized the daring culprit who performed the underhanded shenanigan sitting across from me.

Aren’t you one of the bathroom boys?

“We’ve crossed paths several times already,” responded Mags, wagging an index finger into the air as he perfectly recalled an incident at Veterans Memorial Swimming Pool a few weeks ago. “You’re the boy who climbed the ladder to the high dive and then chickened out after getting all the way up there; whereupon you made the other kids, patiently waiting their turn, move aside.”

My mouth dropped open before asking him how he knew so much about it.

“I had a bird’s-eye view as the scene unfolded,” admitted the youngest son of the police chief flashing a mischievous grin while sharing his gut instinct about what happened. “While sitting in the bleachers on the balcony above the locker rooms with one of my buddies, I had a sneaking suspicion that you weren’t going to go through with it even before you climbed up there.”

“Would that buddy happen to have red hair,” I inquired with a thoughtful rub of the chin prior to speaking about a certain undisclosed revelation. “Because I suddenly remembered the two of you were the sneaky mischief-makers who set off a bundle of firecrackers; and I don’t think the pool staff ever caught the little hoodlums who did it.”

Guilty as charged!

Then the crafty preteen adjusted his eyes to the opposite side of the cinderblock room where his redheaded partner in crime was chatting it up with a few of our fellow classmates.

There’s the other bathroom boy!

Not long after the bell sounded to announce the first class change of the day, I ran headlong into Robert “Robbie” Brough while rounding the corner with the rest of the cattle stampede charging through the hallway in an effort to reach our next makeshift holding pen without being tardy.

As I lay sprawled out on the shiny tile floor with all of my school supplies scattered about, the friendly red-haired stripling sporting a boyish grin reached down to lend me a helping hand.

That’s definitely going to leave a mark!

“You can say that again,” replied Robbie with a concerned look splashed across his face when extending a hand of friendship to help me back on my feet. “Considering you’ve already taken one tumble today, it would be my honor to escort you to your first class up at the high school; because I wouldn’t want you to land in the nurse’s office on the very first day of school.”

Without even realizing it, those purported hooligans would become my best friends throughout junior and senior high school, just as if we were “The Three Musketeers.”

In fact, it stirred up memories from elementary school when my close-knit companions and I would often shout, “All for one, and one for all.”