The school in Winfield wasn�t really a one-room schoolhouse; in fact, there were five rooms and a small auditorium. The entire elementary school was housed in three rooms with the first six grades taught by three teachers. The first and second grades were in the same room and taught by a single teacher. The third and fourth were paired, etc. Since no grade in the school had more than twelve students, there was usually ample space. One year we had only two graduating seniors. Everybody graduated with honors; the worst you could do was salutatorian.
When you�re a six-year-old whose feelings about the first day of school are already a blend of hysterical excitement and sheer terror, seeing those big kids all around you can only make matters worse. The fact that my brother Bill had again been influencing me, and telling me that some senior boys had killed and eaten three first-graders the year before, didn�t help matters.
When Mama left me that first day, what struck me was that all the high school boys were twice as big as anybody I�d ever seen and at least three times as ugly. One of them even growled and bared his teeth at me. I told Mama I�d decided that maybe she should reconsider leaving me, but she assured me that everything would be all right.
Everything was okay � until about ten o�clock. Then my first day went to heck. It happened in the boys� restroom, an outhouse located about fifty yards behind the school. Unfortunately, the outhouse was always occupied by several older boys who went there to smoke, tell lies about girls, write stuff I didn�t understand on the walls, and terrorize first-grade boys. I had just gotten inside when three older boys arrived. I thought maybe they wouldn�t notice me standing at the long metal trough that I later learned was correctly called a urinal, not a �p*** pan� as the boys had dubbed it. I was still fumbling with my zipper and trying to keep an eye on the whereabouts of the other boys when the first one spoke.
�Well, well, what have we got here?� he chortled. They moved closer. I decided that maybe I didn�t have to go to the bathroom after all. There are just some things I never could do, still can�t, with everybody watching. Besides, all I could think about was Bill�s story about the three hapless first-graders, killed just last year. I pretended that I�d already finished my business and moved as nonchalantly as a terrified first-grader could toward the door.
Suddenly the door burst open, and Billy Frank Killingsworth leaped into the boys� restroom. The three older boys had been so intent on terrorizing me that they failed to keep a watch for Mr. Killingsworth, the principal and coach of the six-man football team. It was rumored that he had been a regimental boxing champion in the army and had later found some degree of fortune and fame as a professional wrestler. Quicker�n a cat�s whisker, he grabbed all three in his massive arms and dragged them screaming outside.
I was afraid to go outside, so I don�t know exactly what transpired, but I could hear bodies slamming against the side of the outhouse. The muffled yells became fainter and finally subsided. I figured he had either killed the three or he had dragged them back to the school. By then, I really didn�t need to relieve myself; I already had. My courage had run down both legs.
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