Gotta step up the output

I was never sure if I was going to tell too many people about me writing a blog. I am not writing for a specific reason or a specific person or group of friends..but I have told quite a few people about it and I am wondering who will actually read, care, comment, etc. I figured I could use it as part diary, part memoir, collection of random thoughts, ideas, commentaries...

So I am going to re-tell for all posterity the infamous story that took place sometime in 1988.....

Boys will be boys as they say and in 1988 Bill and I were 14 and 13 respectively. I figure you may need some background information before we get into the meat of the story. We went to a small school and had small eighth grade class of 19 students, 11 boys and 8 girls. There were only a few of us who were not from the surrounding neighborhood; a neighborhood that was very cliquey. Bill and I were two of the 3 non-local guys in our class and often just did not want to befriend the locals. Maybe it was us feeling left out, or maybe it was us not wanting to fit in with the usual crowd doing the usual things. Now I have to preface this with saying Bill and I were way above normal intelligence and quite frankly were bored with the classwork and lack of challenge offered. The idle mind is in fact the devil's workshop, which you will soon see in action. Now Bill and I both liked and appreciated our teacher and what we would do had nothing to do with her lack of care. The girls in our room were prototypical suck-up girls that would be a teacher's pet, tell the teacher if you made a face behind her back, and give the teacher a gift 'just because'. A gift such as a clown puppet that was hung above the blackboard by the teacher. Looking at us each day. Smiling. Scoffing at us. Reminding Bill and I about the suck-ups and girls in the class. Now we were both far from saints, but we were smart enough never to get caught, even though the teacher knew we were the masterminds behind most pranks. So one day we both cooked up the idea to take the clown hostage and write a ransom note. Taking the clown was easy after school one day when the room was empty. We then took the clown to our house and put him in a small rocking chair, bound him with rope, and put tape over his mouth. We then proceeded to take a Polaroid of the clown and write the ransom note. I am ambidexterous and can write with both hands, so I wrote the note left-handed so it was not recognizable as my own normal right-handed cursive. The body of the note read:

We have your clown
If you want to see him again
you will give the entire class a 100
on the next test you give
or we will send him back piece by piece

We then put the picture along with the note in an envelope and put the envelope under the teacher's windshield wiper of her car. She did not notice the missing clown that morning. We knew the teacher went to her car during lunch to grab a smoke, so while coming back in for lunch we made sure the envelope was gone and it was. The first class that afternoon came and went with no mention of the note or picture. Next period was the first test since our ultimatum. Bill and I were Science whizzes, so a 100 by us both was no sweat. Next day the test were handed back and we both noticed a few non-100 scores quietly and to ourselves without making it obvious we were looking and give ourselves away in the process. We got back to our house and the dismemberment had begun. A lighter to the face, a snip here, a slice there and voila! Teacher was getting a clown ear in an envelope with a reiterative note stating:

100's for all
or you will get your clown back
piece by piece

This went on for about a week or two....test given...envelope given.....until it all came to a head one day. The teacher had a talk with entire class. First she told the story of the clown and how long it had gone on for. Of course all the suck-up's and oblivous were 'horrified' at such an act. Then the teacher said she knew who was behind it and wanted the guilty to come to her before clas the next day with her clown in it's entirety, or this issue would be forwarded to the principal.
Now Bill and I hated the principal like the Red Sox hate the Yankees. There was no love loss at all between us and the feeling was mutual. The only problem is that the principal was a woman of God who showed favoritism to the local students and shunned Bill and I like the outsiders we were. So we lived up to the outsider persona and tried to make her life as miserable as possible in payback for how she treated not only Bill and I, but all the other students she looked down upon.
We both went to the teacher at the end of the day and admitted our guilt, apologized about the clown, and then explained the clown she got in the envelopes was in fact her clown. The real deal, not some stand in clown. What we were amazed by is the laughter that came from our teacher about the whole incident and that she was not mad about the whole ordeal, but did want us to get a new clown for the one we destroyed. She never sold us out. We got a new clown at the local Spain's Card and Gift Shop. We pleaded our case and asked that he clown not be given as prominent a position as the previous. The teacher conceded with our wishes and he was never seen again.