Around The Corner

I rode the army school bus. My driver was a young soilder who taught us to sing. My father, the officer, expected us to behave.

Around The Corner

　

　

   "Around the corner and under a tree a sargent-major once said to me, Who would marry you? I would like to know cause every time I look at your face it makes me want to go...around the corner".  We sang our guts out all the way to school and all the way home at noon and again after school on one of Fort Hauchuca's army school buses. We were called "army brats" and our driver was a young soilder. We were "his kids" and he taught us to sing.

   I was in the second grade, having just returned to the states from our father's duty in England. My only sister was in the fourth grade and our favorite thing to do was fight with each other. We spent much time in our own corners of the backseat of the family car, Dad having turned around half- way and raising up his arm to us.

   "You get in your corner and you get in your corner. I don't want to hear another word out of either one of you or I will stop this car."

   I moved quickly to my corner and stared out the window. I knew better than to make a sound and so did my sister. Silence. Silence.....silence.  Miles rolled by before our mother turned in her seat and spoke to us.

   "Who wants to sing Found A Peanut?"

   Ready to open up our mouths again we began to sing.

   "Found a peanut. Found a peanut. Found a peanut just now. Just now I found a peanut. Found a peanut just now. Cracked it open. Cracked it open..........".

Moving, riding in the backseat of the car, singing and squabbling...this was the army.

   One day as we rode home for lunch on our school bus a tall girl moved up the isle from the back of the bus and hit me right on the shoulder. I was startled because I didn't know the girl. She was my sister's friend, a big girl and two years older than me.

   That's for your sister," she spat. Then she walked to the front of the bus and got off.  I thought I saw her grinning.

   I started to cry but stopped myself deciding it would more fun to tell on my sister as soon as I burst through our front door. I knew both our mother and father would be there having lunch at the round table in the kitchen. Dad would be in uniform. Boy was my sister going to be in trouble for having her friend hit me on the bus.

   "Mom! Daddy!

  "We are in the kitchen,"  I heard my mother say.

   "Sister told her friend to hit me on the bus".

   I fully expected my sister to be punished there on the spot as our father's face went sour. He got that look in his eyes where his eyes squinted. His jaws clenched. I could see the backs of his cheeks twitching the way they did when he was clenching. His face turned red as he set his sandwich down, half-eaten, on his lunch plate.

   "I will not have my daughters fighting with each other on the school bus in front of another soilder."

   That was all our father said before he marched my sister into the small bathroom down the narrow the hallway. Our mother stood in the doorway of the cramped bathroom as our father sat down on the pea-green clothes hamper with the flowery upholstered seat and which sat facing the toilet.

   "Pull up your skirt and get over my lap", our father ordered my sister. I stood grinning in the hallway and thinking it would be a cold day before my sister asked anyone to hit me again. Her punishment administered, she ran from the  bathroom crying, never daring to say, "I hate you Chris".

   "Alright. Now you come in here and pull up your skirt, my father said, for he was not finished.

   I couldn't believe it. I burst into tears. Crying. Bawling. Scared to pieces because I, too, had to get over our father's lap and take the consequences. There would be no more fighting on the school bus in front of another soilder. Ever. I fought. I sturggled. I cried my eyes out. I gagged. I begged not to have to get over my father's lap and feel the sting from his whipping while my mother stood in the doorway of what had become the punishment bathroom.

   "You are not going anywhere until you get over your father's lap," my mother scolded. "We will not have our daughters fighting on the school bus."

   "But, but...she told her friend to hit me. I didn't hit anybody."

   "It doesn't matter. You were fighting just the same and we will not have it," my mother insisted.

   It was the longest and most terrifying walk for me, that noonday, as I made my way over to my father's uniformed lap. I kept looking over my heaving shoulder at my mother who stood, unflinching, in the bathroom doorway. For me, it was like walking to my death...to the gallos or a firing squad or the electric chair. The bathroom where my sister and I brushed our teeth and where our mother twisted our hair around her fingers into tight banana curles was now an execution chamber and I was about to be spanked.

   "Pull up your skirt, Chris, and get over my lap, " were my father's words. They were not harsh words. They were not spoken unkindly. But they were an order.

I pulled up my skirt and layed myself across my father's kahki lap. Before his hand ever came down the fear-driven waters let loose drenching his perfectly creased pants. 

   My sister was pouting and our father was changing his uniform as the bus pulled up.

   "Hey, lets sing," from our bus driver as we headed back to school.

Author's Note

Punctuation, as always, needs review.

Reviews

[jeril]

The part I remember most was that you peed on dad's uniform. Yes!! You tell this story so well. I don't remember most of the details. I hope you can laugh about it. I am howling!!!

[Zachary_James]

GREAT JOB

[Samuel Dickens]

I guess the moral of this story is, #1, be very careful about telling on your sister and #2, kids are resilient. I enjoy these kind of stories very much. Not everyone has a memory like yours.