The Principal's office

I wasn't one of those kids who got sent to the principal a lot.  But there was an incident when I was twelve.  It started in Mrs. McMullen's science class.  She bore a grudge because my father, a university professor, had given her husband a failing grade, as a result of which he couldn't graduate.

In science class we usually did experiments in teams of two. But one day there was this complicated experiment involving Bunsen burners where pairs of teams had to work together as a team of four.  Mrs. McMullen teamed me and my partner with Duane and Glen, the two people she knew good and well I didn't get along with!  I warned her to put us with another team but she wouldn't listen.

The other two proved impossible, and I ended up hitting Glen.  Mrs. McMullen sent me straight to the office, while there were no consequences for Glen. (Later on we were playing volleyball in gym class, and when it was my turn to serve he called out, "Hit the ball as hard as you hit me!") The principal actually wasn't so angry about it.

I eventually told my mother about it, and her second reaction was to get mad at the teacher. (She actually wrote a letter to the New Brunswick Department of Education!) But her first reaction was to get mad at me.  The next time I got into similar trouble, I didn't tell my parents at all and they only found out when the school phoned them.

Just seeing the trailer of Silence of the Lambs gave me nightmares!  In one of them I was back in school and the principal was Hannibal Lecter!