It was at school. After sixth period I have my prep. hour, which is kind of a free hour that teachers have, by contract, to prepare for the next day, and mine happens to be at the end of the day, which I find very convenient. Anyway, before doing my planning I went to gather my things, my cell, my keys, my bag, and found that my Zen was gone.I didn't really know what to do, and I felt stupid going to the vice principal with my little complaint, but I did anyway. "Someone stole my MP3 player. What do you recommend I do?" I asked her. She was all surprised, and asked me to fill in a report. I told her that I noted the thing was gone between fifth and sixth period, but I wasn't sure when, so she called all the kids from my fifth and sixth period classes to the office. Some looked very worried (mostly the good ones). The rest were happy they didn't have to be in class and didn't seem to care. The police officer on campus then called them one by one, searched them, and questioned them. It was kind of sad to see some of the kids who never get in any kind of trouble get searched, but some other were used to it. Many of them came to me after talking to the police officer and said "Mr. Saine, I'm innocent!!!.
The secretary found that one of the kids had something in his pockets, and asked him what it was. "It's cat food," he replied. "Cat food? Why do you have cat food in your pocket for?" asked the other kid that was being searched at the moment. "My cat comes and puts it one by one in my pocket. Okay?" The secretary thinks that the kid eats the stuff. Many of these kids don't even have much to eat at home, which is heartbreaking.
One of the kids came and said "It was Jake! I saw him, it was Jake!" "Why didn't you tell me before, then?" I asked. "Well, I wasn't sure, but he went behind your desk, grabbed the thing, and turned around pretending to put it back. I wasn't sure if he did or not. That's why." The truth is that I had seen Jake wondering around the classroom when he should have been working with his group, and I had to ask him several times to go back. Thing is, he didn't come to the office when they called him, so I went to get him in his classroom, which is the band room. When I walked in, the teacher was raising her hands, and the whole band got to play a very loud and discordant note before I entered and said "excuse me. Is Jake here?" "No," replied the band teacher, "he left when they called him to the office." He left alright. The vice principal, the police officer and I took different wings of the school to try and find him, but he was gone. In the way, one of my students from another class runs to me and asks "Mr. Saine, is chicken meat?" "What?" "Chicken. Is it meat?" "Yes, it's a kind of meat," after which she turns to another student and yells "Seeee? I told you!!!!!"
I went back to the office and the police officer decided to go to Jake's house, and one of the advisors was asked to try to find him in the streets. The whole thing was extremely sad, because I like Jake, and I thing that he is a really good kid, he just got tempted and did something stupid, which is going to get him in a lot of trouble. "What would you guys get into so much trouble for something like this?" I asked one of the students who were waiting to be searched. "Because we are poor, and we don't have anything." Of course, that's not a reasonable excuse, but to a 13 year old's mind that makes a lot of sense.
Now I guess I will have to wait until Monday to find out what happened.
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