My first stop the first day of my second year at Suitland Junior High School was the gym. Mr. Q. saw me coming. His broad smile told me he was pleased to see me. He reached for my hand and shook on it.

"Hi, Charles. How was your summer?"

"Great!"

"You're tan. You've grown too," he said, stepping back to look at me.

Feeling a bit more at home there, I waited until the last minute to go to homeroom. There the atmosphere was sterner, making it harder for me to breathe and to think. If I had looked at my schedule I'd have noticed the man at the front of the class was also my CORE teacher, but I didn't look at anything but room numbers when it was time to change classes. No sense in getting too far ahead of myself. I paid little or no attention to him, since homeroom was a pass.

As soon as the bell rang he demanded silence. He called roll and after morning announcements dismissed us to head for other parts of the school. A few hours later I was back in the same classroom for CORE. This time it wasn't so easy to dismiss the man that I would spend more hours with than any other teacher.

CORE was a combination of English, Civics, history, and whatever else the teacher wanted to enlighten his students about.

His name, Mr. Charles Warnock, was written across the blackboard. He was a small man who seemed entirely focused on what he did. He went about his business as we piled into the classroom and took our seats. As quick as the bell rang he reminded us to be quiet and then reminded us again, but the second time we all knew he was serious.

Mr. Warnock was distinctive. Under his gray suit was a large hump on his back. You couldn't miss it, although other people's flaws never meant much to me. I felt as though I was so flawed that I had no right to comment on anyone else's. Since his was physical, it was always visible. I was lucky in that regard and was able to keep my flaws on the inside, so they weren't so apparent. The hump was never an issue for me, but it was there and made the man distinctive to say the least. There would come a time when the hump would disappear and I never noticed it again, but that first day it was all I knew beyond the name scrawled on the blackboard.

It didn't take long to see a pattern developing in the earliest hours of my time in his CORE class. He started with the first person in the first row and one at a time he was having everyone read from the textbook he issued to us a few minutes after our arrival. After the first day, half the class had read for him. At that rate he would reach me toward the end of the next class period or at the beginning of the one after. My dread was overwhelming. My stupidity was about to be exposed and I saw no way to divert it.

I'd managed to hide my ignorance for the first eight years of my education. No teacher had ever systematically had all the students in his class read and in that Mr. Warnock was distinctive indeed. Since I read at a third grade level, if that, stumbling over words I knew but could never be sure of, standing up to prove I couldn't read wasn't something I looked forward to. The closer it came to being my turn, the more resigned I became to my fate.

It was the beginning of the third class period when he called my name. Using an old ploy, I didn't immediately respond. This was not the way to win friends and influence teachers. The second time he called my name it left no doubt that I should stand or risk a fate worse than the one that awaited me. I pushed myself to my feet, leaning down into the book, having no clue what page we were on.

This was not a problem for Mr. Warnock. He moved down my row until he reached my desk. He yanked the book out from under my searching finger, abruptly turning several pages, which made a ripping sound. He slammed the book back on my desk with his finger firmly planted on the desired starting point.

"Here! Start here! Read!" he said, leaving no room for doubt.

I placed my finger on the page as soon as he moved his. I stared into the rows and rows of letters. I looked at the first word for too long, not sure of what I was seeing.

"Read!" he ordered abruptly, turning to face his other students as a titter escaped from different corners of the classroom in unison.

"Shut up!" he ordered.

I leaned forward, staring down at my stupid finger and the mysterious letters that I knew were words.

"Read! Stand up straight," came the orders.

He was confusing me right off. How could I worry about my posture if I was supposed to sort through all those letters to find words? I slowly started to single out words until I hit my first snag, three words in. As quick as I faltered, he corrected me.

The class laughed all together now, enjoying the entertainment.

"Shut up," he yelled, following in a softer tone, "Continue, Charles."

My legs shook as I bent deep into the book now, wishing I could climb inside, getting lost among the words. As bad as it had always been in school, this was the worst day of all. I could feel myself turning red as I shook, stammered, and stuttered in slow motion agony. The sweat started dripping down my finger, wetting the page.

I fought each word as though it had a life of its own. The students expressed their amusement, the teacher yelled, and I died a little more each time we went through the sequence. Stupidity was a curse. I stood there just short of forever before he released me from my shame.

"Thank you, Charles. You may be seated," Mr. Warnock said as he had said to each of us after our time in the sun.

I sat down exhausted. I'd read one paragraph, forty-six words, and he'd corrected about half of them. Anything over three letters was a major mystery. As bad as it had been, it was over. I was sure he wouldn't make that mistake again, and so in my greatest defeat came a small victory. Any idea I might pass this class was exiled to the recesses of my mired mind.

I cringed the following morning when I entered his class. I very much wished to become invisible to teachers, as I had almost always been.

"Good morning, Charles," he said as I scooted past his gaze.

"Morning," I mumbled, not daring to look at him as I scurried past.

He knew my name. But how could he not after my performance the day before? I cringed and slumped down in my seat. This was not good. At least I could rest assured he'd never call on me to read again.

WRONG!

When your luck runs out, I guess it runs out all at once. At least that's the way it seemed.

"Charles, turn to page twenty-eight and read from the top."

He might as well have punched me in the gut. This was beyond comprehension. Why would he want a repeat of the previous day's agony? I got up and leaned down to turn the page to the designated beginning of my further humiliation at the hands of the humpback sadist. What did he have against me?

Within three words I had the class in stitches.

"Shut up," he roared loud enough to be heard above my lovely classmates. "Charles, you may continue."

I'd like to say that the second day was easier than the first, but it wasn't. If anything it was far more difficult. The first day was an anomaly, a learning experience for a teacher. It was now a routine.

There was no improvement I could detect. The laughter didn't last as long and his admonishments came faster. He corrected me about an equal number of times. I still shook, shuddered, sweat, and turned a lovely shade of crimson to further entertain the class. If I thought it couldn't get any worse, I was wrong, and subsequent days proved it.

Thereafter, each class period started with my reading a single paragraph from our textbook. I was the one and only student singled out for this treatment. By the end of the second week I came to accept the daily reading as inevitable. It did lessen the stress. Resignation can be good.

By early November, when the winds of change were starting to blow, I noticed that while I still sweat, it no longer ran down onto the page. I no longer shook and shimmied while reading. I still stuttered and stammered, but it had lessened. And then something quite unexpected happened as I completed my prescribed paragraph.

"Very good, Charles. You've come a long way. Keep up the good work," Mr. Warnock said quite unexpectedly.

I did recognize more of the words and he didn't help me as much. The one thing that hadn't occurred to me, I was finally learning to read.

I suppose there comes a time in your life when your body and mind come into perfect harmony and for me it was in my thirteenth year. At the end of the second school quarter something very strange happened, the class clown's name appeared on the Honor Roll with 3 A's, 2 B's, and a C in music, where no one could teach me to lose my tin ear.

I relished my time with Mr. Q. but I now excelled in every class. I was constantly looking for ways to achieve better results. The dynamics created by my presence in Mr. Warnock's class had me doing things I had never thought about doing before.


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