Julie R Fricke

Ten a.m. New school.

I shuffled up the gritty ramp to the shabby portable classroom. I went as slowly as I dared, but quickly enough to avoid being late. It was my second day at my new school, but my mind was still on my awesome weekend, surfing off San Clemente, or San Cemente as I liked to call it.

Ugh, school.

I hoped eighth grade here would be an improvement over my last school. It was hard enough to change schools in the middle of eighth grade. I hoped sincerely that this class would be an improvement over my last. The teacher at San Cemente seemed to fly by the motto "Don't reinvent the wheel." Every day was a dreary repetition of work sheets, labeling diagrams, and writing out boring answers to tedious questions. By the time I got to the tests, my brain was numb. Could it get any worse?

"Poo poo," sang out another eighth grader trooping in behind me.

WTF? I thought. Aren't we in eighth grade?

We entered the classroom. I glanced to the right. Yup, There were those enormous frogs Mrs. Frickland had. A deep "Oomph" resonated from the depths of one frog. His shiny eyes stared straight ahead; his body still as a statue. I nodded back at it. Gotta be polite. I hoped these kids would be as friendly.

Abruptly I recalled that Mrs. Frickland had enlisted my help in today's lesson. Not knowing then how to respond other than agreeing, I contemplated being the center of attention today. Ugh again. I found my stool in the front row and slid into place behind the heavy black lab table. In front of me I placed my pristine new notebook full of 100 sheets of unmarked, lined paper. I glanced at the students on either side but they seemed to be preoccupied chatting with students on either side of them. I looked behind me. There was that strange dude Bradley, the one with the poop fixation. He was busily plotting something with Mitch, who I had a bad feeling about.  Over there was Rudra, who perpetually had a smile on his face and, just as perpetually, never stopped talking.

Brrrring. As the bell rang, most students were still finishing conversations. Mrs. Frickland stepped in front of the massive demo table that blocked off the white board in front of the class.

"Students, today I am going to give you permission to call me by an alternate name. For today, you may call me Mrs. Ickland." she turned and wrote a gawd-awful long word on the board: Ichthyology. "I am changing my name in honor of this month’s new topic of study. Does anybody here happen to know what this means?"

“Poo, poo,” responded Bradley. Mrs. Frickland made a sour look. "Bradley, please stay after class today." Bradley scowled in a petulant manner, acting as if he had been abused unfairly.

Suddenly my brain kicked in. Ichthyology. I knew this! My hand shot into the air.

"Yes, Jordan?"

"Fish," I replied. Suddenly I glanced around, concerned that my new classmates might look down on me for being a goody- goody. No one really even looked up. There was Cole over there with his back turned. He and his big blue eyes were more interested in entertaining that blonde chick with the low cut top. Then there was Chad. Man that guy looked just like Tiger Woods! He began to tap his desk rhythmically with a pencil.

"Good job, Jordan. She smiled and continued, "Hence I will let you all call me Mrs. Ickland. Get it? Ichthyology? Ickster, even."

Interesting, I thought, not completely convinced. She's got guts.

"Now I have prevailed upon Jordan here to serve as our model for today's lesson. Are you ready, Jordan? Come on up. And could you please remove your shoes?"

I hoped to goodness that my socks didn't stink. This whole thing was either going to ruin me for life or catapult me to instant stardom. Mrs. Frickland's stunt with the new name wasn't entirely reassuring.

"While Jordan's removing his shoes, ladies and gentlemen, let's have Jose pass out the worksheets."

Ugh, I began to groan. The freaking worksheets again.

"However, students, these are merely for your benefit, should you want to take some notes. I will definitely not be collecting them."

Huh? I thought. Interesting times two.

"Now what do we know about fish?" Mrs. Frickland asked the class. "It's OK, you can and should state the obvious." She adjusted her glasses further up her nose and expectantly scanned the mostly bored faces of the thirty-five thirteen-year-old souls who squirmed on the stools in front of her.

"Yes, they swim. What helps them swim?"

Suddenly from a big box behind her desk Mrs. Frickland, er, Ickland, pulled out some enormous blue and yellow swim fins. "Here Jordan, please put these on."

I squeezed my monster size thirteens into those fins and stood there looking sorta like a geek. I began to take a step to the right but quickly realized that it was a no go. No way was I going to get around in these things.

Students started to snicker. Suddenly every eye was bearing down upon me. Chad even stopped tapping his pencil.

Mrs. Ickland turned to the class. "How do fish breathe, class?"

"Gills!" Shouted out a few.

I wondered what she would come up with next.

"Right!" responded Mrs. Ickland with glee. With that she reached into her box of tricks again, this time pulling out an odd arrangement of pencil-sized orange feathers all attached by the quills to a strip of masking tape. "Jordan, here are your gills." She slapped those puppies right along each cheek, the tape adhering to my skin. I wondered if she had caught any of my carefully nurtured sideburns in the sticky tape. I realized I probably looked like I was wearing some kind of weird, sideways Indian head dress. Classmates began to titter. Like a chimpanzee, Mitch let out a loud and raucous guffaw.

With persistence, Mrs. Ickland added, "Fish breathe oxygen, but get it out of the water using their gills."

Next up, Mrs. Ickland drew a black plastic garbage bag over my head, a hole conveniently cut in the top for my head, as well as in the sides for my arms, er, fins. Gently she eased my gills out. Over the plastic she began to squirt generous runny blobs of Purel.

“Now students, I want you to know that a fish’s skin is very protective. It is resilient like armor. AND, it is coated with an antibacterial slime. Never pick up a fish with dry hands, as you will cause the fish to lose some of this protective layer.

“Now we need to give our fish eyes," said Mrs. Ickland. From her secret supply box she produced my new eyes: some alarmingly shiny, black, metallic-coated swim goggles. These she wrestled onto my face, vigorously pulling the tight elastic back over my head. I was really starting to feel like an alien.

“Feeling fishy yet?” Mrs. Icky turned to grin at me. I opened and closed my mouth in response.

“Somebody feed him a worm!” shouted some jokester from the back of the class.

In response I waggled my arms, you know, like a fish. Go with the flow, I figured. This was turning out to be OK. It felt like some kind of twisted stunt on the Letterman show.

“Does anybody know how fish go up and down in the water?” asked Mrs. Ickland.

"Glub, glub" I answered. I actually know this, I thought.

“Yes?”

“A swim bladder,” I responded.

A smattering of embarrassed laughter, punctuated with unabashed hoots, erupted from my fellow students. The use of that incriminating word, “bladder.” really grabbed their attention. I noticed Bradley in particular.  I heard him nasally repeating the word, emphasizing it, "blaaaader, blaaaader."

"Exactly!" grinned Mrs. Ickland. She gleefully pulled a purple balloon out of her box and asked Cole to blow it up. "Here Cole, you've got plenty of hot air."

Sheepishly, he laughed and happily blew up the balloon until it was nearly the size of a volleyball.

“OK,” That’s enough,” quickly inserted Mrs. Ickland.

“Glad to be of service,” he replied.

“Most fish have an organ in their bodies that inflates and deflates to help the fish adjust its level in the water. You will see this as a silvery organ when we dissect mackerels next week.”

“Oh, cool!” A moment passed as several boys turned to their neighbors to speculate on what should turn out, with luck, to be an opportunity to terrorize some of their female classmates. A few girls, as well as boys, did twist their faces in apprehension at the prospect.

Mrs. Ickland cast a concerned eye over her audience. “Well, I see a few skeptical faces. Believe me when I mention that most people love this lesson, but boys are actually more frequently the squeamish ones, in my experience. Don’t worry. If anyone truly feels their stomach turning, we will work out an alternative lesson for you. I’ll also leave the door wide open so we have plenty of fresh air flowing in.

“I would like to mention here that sharks are an exception to the swim bladder club. Because their livers are so fatty, they are naturally more buoyant and have no trouble floating.

“By the way, we will also be dissecting sharks in the following week.”

I was not alone in staring at Mrs. Ickland. Really? This actually might be turning out to be a cool class!

The Ickster quickly glanced at the moon-faced dial of the clock on the wall. “Ah, I see we’ll have to step this up,” she commented. With greater speed she expeditiously further adorned me with swim paddles for my hands. "Fins,” she offered. “Class, you will want to take note of the various names for the fins on the diagram, at your leisure. If you are familiar with body building, that should help you remember the various names. Pectoral fins are attached to the fish’s chest, for example.”

I thought back to my weekend of surfing. How many times had I fantasized about being a permanent, fishy resident of the sea?

“How many of you have ever wondered how fish swim in huge schools without ever bumping into each other? It almost seems as if they all have a secret communication with each other preventing collisions.” With emphasis she threw in, “How do they DO that?”

Thirty-five faces, including my own, turned to her with blank faces.

“No one? Not even Jordan? Well you’d probably never guess.” Again she reached into her big box. She pulled out a fat roll of masking tape with a flourish. Ripping off a length of about five feet, she slapped that tape all the way down my sides from my arm pits down to my flippered feet. Another five feet were plastered down the other side.

“I present to you the LATERAL LINE,” she announced with great drama. “The lateral line is an organ fish have which serves as sort of an early warning so the fish always knows where his buddies are swimming. Thus they are able to swim in a large group with nearly perfect symetry. Fish swimming in a large school present a greater profile to predators, both confusing and scaring them a bit into thinking they are actually a very large fish. It also disguises the fact that they are actually very tiny fish that could be gulped down easily in a single bite.

“With this complete get-up, Jordan, you will now be ready to join a water ballet team. You’ll be able to stay underwater indefinitely, and you will never crash into another swimmer.“ With that, she handed me a ladies’ purple bathing cap, complete with a pink plastic flower dangling off it.

I looked at her with some alarm. “Just kidding!” she hurriedly said. She grabbed it back with a smile. “Let’s all give Jordan a hand for his awesome portrayal of a fish today!”

The class enthusiastically, (maybe TOO enthusiastically!) slapped their hands together and made appreciative hooting noises. Everyone was in a good mood.

“This school of fish is excused,” she directed. “Thank you, Jordan.”

I began to peel off layers of fish attire. I found I was smiling.  Boy, that was an improvement, I thought. Sure beats the ‘same-old- same-old. The Ickster sure seemed more inclined to come up with new and improved lessons than that other old fogey I had.

“Hi, Jordan.” I looked around to see Cole’s former target of attention gazing at me with interest. “I’d kinda like to get to know a real fish.”

“Sure.” I grinned. “Glub, glub?”

“Poo poo,” I heard disappearing out the classroom door.

“Bradley!” Mrs. Frickland suddenly sounded a lot more stern. “Get yourself back in here. You’re going to be calling your mother and explaining your behavior to her”

“Ah, crap.”

The cute girl and I smiled at each other and headed out the door.

Bradley, not so much.