True Heroes of Gettysburg

What is the best way to completely disrupt a classroom? The goal is not about creating a little disturbance where the teacher’s glare can put everything back in order again, but to create such a big disruption that it would be almost impossible for the teacher to stop it once it got going. But how do you do it? How can you create so much confusion that the teacher could not help but to let all of the students go home early? That was Darrell Stouffer’s dilemma as he sat by the edge of the creek, eating his lunch at midday recess. Darrell was a tall, lanky 13 year old. He was a bright kid, but he had a smart-alecky attitude that sometimes got him in trouble in school or at home. Darrell liked going to school and getting an education; he was by far the smartest student in the class. But, because he was so old, he probably would not be going back to school in the fall. He had to fight with his father to go to school this past year. Benjamin Stouffer, Darrell’s father, figured that his son could read and write and do enough math to run the family farm – why did he need to spend another year at school? Darrell’s mother, Anna, wanted him to stay in school for as long as possible. The elder Stouffers never got an opportunity to get an education, and she wanted Darrell to get as much schooling as possible, so in the end Darrell got to spend another year in school. Darrell was a good student, but he had another side of him that drove the teacher, Mrs. Garber, crazy. He loved to be disruptive in school. He was even considered to be the most challenging student in class by Sarah Garber, the schoolteacher for Dubaville, Pennsylvania. Darrell, along with his best friend Kenny McElroy, had carried out some of the greatest pranks in Dubaville education history. They played little tricks on students like hitting them with spitballs when Mrs. Garber wasn’t looking. Once Darrel tied the shoelaces of Reginald Saunders together when he fell asleep in class. Then he yelled FIRE, and when Reginald got up to run out of the room, he fell flat on his face to the delight all of the students. However, Darrell and Kenny’s real fame came from the execution of their more infamous pranks. One night they snuck into school and removed all the furniture – even Mrs. Garber’s desk – and they hid everything behind Old Man Brinager’s barn. When everyone came to school in the morning, all that was in the room was a blackboard. The students spent the entire day finding the furniture and moving it back inside the small, one-room schoolhouse. And who could forget the famous frog incident? Darrell and Kenny caught over 30 frogs in a local pond. Once again they snuck into school at night and dumped them all in. When kids arrived the following day, they had to fight off the new, leaping tenants who had claimed the schoolroom as their own property after having been imprisoned there. Mrs. Garber and the students had to get rid of the frogs, and then they had to clean up the mud and what could only be described as gross-looking frog slime that the reptiles left behind them. It took a couple of days before the terrible, musky, amphibious odor left the building and classes could be resumed. Seeing this was the last day of school before summer recess and it was probably his last day of school forever, it was Darrell’s job to outdo any practical joke that he had carried out before. Most kids pull pranks because they hate their teacher. Not Darrell. He didn’t do these gags because he disliked Mrs. Garber. In fact, he thought that she was a fine teacher. She was kind to her students. She had a huge library of books that it was Darrell’s pleasure to borrow and take home and read. Sometimes Mrs. Garber asked Darrell to help her teach some of the younger students, and Darrell felt privileged to be asked. However, there were times when Darrell got this look in his eyes, a devil inside of him, and an idea to do something stupid. Once he got this feeling inside of him, there was no stopping his need to act. He loved the reputation he had in the classroom. The other students looked up to him – but they also expected him to do something funny or bad. Darrell figured that he was just giving his audience what they wanted. He could not go quietly from Dubaville School without leaving the other students with something to remember him by. Darrell had struggled for days on trying to come up with an idea about how to disrupt school one last time. He looked over at his buddy, Kenny. He was a big, stocky 13 year old. He was by far the largest student in school - both in height and in weight. Kenny had two loves in his life – food and farming. His mother always sent him to school with the biggest lunch pail stuffed with as much food as she could. Despite the fact that he had twice as much food as everyone else, Kenny was always the first one done with his lunch. Then he would go around begging for food from the other students. As soon as Kenny got home from school, he hurried out to help his father in the cornfield. Because he was so big, he did all of the chores grown men would undertake. Kenny loved farming. Being William McElroy’s oldest son, Kenny would one day inherit everything including the farm and the McElroy house. He took his work seriously. He didn’t care about schooling as much as Darrell did. He could barely read at the 2nd grade level, he could only write short, choppy sentences which were terribly misspelled, and he knew only a little about adding and subtracting. He mostly kept going to school because Darrel kept going to school. Kenny was the perfect partner for Darrell’s pranks – he never ever questioned Darrell’s leadership, and he always did what he was told. Darrell and Kenny had been best friends their whole lives. They lived next door to each other, and where one went, the other was sure to follow. Kenny didn’t mind that Darrell made most of the decisions on what they would do. He was happy to follow along. When they would get punished for the pranks that they played in school, Kenny never got mad at Darrell for involving him in his foolishness. Kenny knew that Darrell wanted to go out with a bang and play one last great prank, and he was eager to help him pull it off. As lunchtime was close to ending, Darrell panicked more and more. When they got back to school from noon recess, there would only be a few hours before school would let out for the summer. He would lose his chance to play his practical joke. He put his bare feet into the clear, cool, creek water and continued racking his brain for an idea. Just then Darrell saw them - two small, green garter snakes that were making their way up the bank from the creek. His mind raced, and he had an idea for the greatest caper he had ever attempted.