| Thadeous |
| The ginger-bread man magnet Yes! I know that's not how you spell Thaddeus but that was how the 8th graders in my class spelled it. |
| Thadeous. His full name was Thadeous T. the III. A little magnet of a ginger-bread man that lived on the classroom dry-erase whiteboard, and to every class our 8th grade class, known as "Class B," went to, They took him. He had a home on the whiteboards in all of our classes, which They moved him to. They drew even drew a home for him, "they" as in Seth, David, Emily, John, and others. The house was only a circle, with "Thadeous's home" written beside it, and when the ginger bread man was with us at a different class they wrote "Not here right now." He even had little dots drawn, saying "His Food." It all started on that fateful day, Friday, December 13th, 2002. (fateful for poor Thadeous, I suppose, considering where he ended up) It was luchtime. Rachael, Caitlin and I,(Joelle) were sitting with some more of our friends, (Who were not involved in the plot) such as Heather, Fallan, and Sarah. The three of us, Caitlin, Rachael, and myself, were engaging in our usual useless conversation. Rachael, I think, brought it up. She would be the one, it turns out, who would start, plan, carry out most of, and finally foil our plot. Rachael: Look at him. Thadeous. Just sitting there, watching us. Caitlin: Oh, O.K. Whatever. (Takes sip of milk. Caitlin has an odd habit of ordering two milks and opening them both at once, then sipping from them both alternately.) Rachael: He's evil! We should send a hit man! Joelle(me): (laughs) And you could draw the asassin on the board instead of him. I wouldn't be the one drawing it, though! (I'm rather shy of using my artwork for evil purposes) :) Caitlin: (laughs) Yeah. Just imagine what the populars would do then! (Thadeous is very well liked by the "popular people" for some odd reason.) Rachael: He's looking at us! He knows. We have to do it NOW! We talk on and the asassin part is dropped, but we still want to create the ruckus. Rachael: We shouldn't steal him. Then we could be accused of having him in our possesion! Joelle(me): Let's hide him! (through bites of veggiemeat sandwich) Caitlin: Where? Rachael: Somewhere obvious. Joelle(me): How about underneath the calender? (There is a blank oversized calendar above Thadeous's house, the kind where the you write in what month it is and the days in the squares.) Rachael and Caitlin: Yeah! Caitlin: When should we do it? We talk some more. I wanted to do it another day, the other two wanted to do it today, or as soon as possible. It was raining, so there would be no 5-10 minute break outside after lunch when we could sneak in and hide Thadeous. There would be no time today when the classroom would be empty. We decide on NOW. By then lunch was through and people were milling around talking, since we weren't outside. The room was crowded and exeedingly noisy. That was very good, since when it's crowded enough, nobody notices anything. We made plans on who would do it. Rachael would hide the magnet Thadeous. Caitlin would write GONE. I, for safety and evidence purposes, refused to have a physical part in the abduction. I was lookout. If one of Thadeous's admirers came near, I'd laugh loudly and crow "That's funny!" so my friends would know to beat it. Rachael got up. Caitlin and I also casually rose. One problem. There was a couch near the site of the soon-to-be crime, on which were seated Jessica and Summer. I was worried. They were popular, from my point of view. They were good-looking and wore plenty of makeup, and hung out with some of the "cool" people. Rachael was more nonchalant. At this point, Caitlin dissapears, to the bathroom I assume. Oh, well. We could manage. I look worriedly at Rachael. "We can't do it right in front of them!" But Rachael replies, "Don't worry. I think Jessie will do it." I wondered if Summer would tell , I mean, she was sitting right there as Rachael explained our mischieveous plan to Jessica. Rachael swiped Thadeous, and Fwoop! He was gone, hidden safely under the calendar. Jessica wrote in his vacant circle house, under his dotty food, Gone Bye Bye Yes! Rachael and I walked away, giggling mischeviously. I noticed a problem, however. One corner of the calendar was sticking up because of Thadeous in the middle. There was a magnet on each corner except that one, so I took a magnet and put it there. Perfect. Caitlin returns, with news. "He's got a house in the English room!" (At this point we hadn't known about his multiple houses.) "Let's write something in it!" I said. "That's where our class goes next, and we want them to find out about his being stolen as soon as possible." The three of us scampered off to the English room to do our evil deed. I, always the cautious one, brought my books for English as a disguise as just getting to class early. The class was less crowded as the other classroom, so it was more dangerous. I don't think the English teacher was there yet. Rachael went up to the whiteboard and erased "Not here right now" from Thadeous's second house, and wrote "STOLEN." Caitlin wrote beneath it, just for fun, "Held for Ransome!" We backed away, unseen. I sat down at may place and read or something, and quietly giggled to myself. Soon, Rachael and Caitlin came rushing into the room. "You should see them in there!" So we went back to the room we'd had lunch in. It was pandemonium! Thadeous had obviously been popular with a lot more people than we'd thought! Seth bellowed, "SOMEONE STOLE THADEOUS!" David shrilled, "Where's Thadeous? Someone find Thadeous!" What a hoot! David clawed through some backpacks on the floor. Wilfred and a few others were poking around desparately in the closet. Seth ran around the room, bellowing in his deep, loud voice. There was no sign of Jessi and Summer having told. The room we'd had lunch in and the English classroom were only separated by a folding room divider that was almost like a wall exept it could fold neatly away to make both rooms one giant classroom. It was half closed now. Rachael, Caitlin and I were laughing so hard I'm amazed we weren't discovered on the spot. We galloped back through the divider to the English classroom. I would have been happy to leave it at that. But NO! Rachael wanted to leave one last taunt. In huge letters on the whiteboard, Racahael scrawled: FIND THADEOUS. I warned her form the safety of my seat. "Get away from the crime scene, Rachael!" NO. Kept writing.Caitlin went up to persuade her to retreat, for she'd be seen writing that so large out in the open! She finished writing her taunt of "Find Thadeous." She had been seen. A HUGE crowd of populars attacked us. We were mobbed. I cowered down in my seat. "YOU STOLE THADEOUS! GIVE HIM TO US!" someone demanded of me. I put my hands palms up in a gesture of innocence. My tactic of not touching the gingerbread man was paying off. I could say my piece truthfully, "I haven't touched him! Honest! I swear it!" Since I had a good reputation as someone who could be trusted, they turned to my friends. First, they cornered Caitlin, who had been giggling uncontrollably so understandably got pegged. Of course, she couldn't stop giggling so they couldn't get anything out of her. MOST of them attacked Rachael and Caitlin first off, I noticed, probably because they had seen them standing at the board. Some girls were bodily attacking Rachael! |
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