Jimmy Our Class Clown

Jimmy was our class clown in tenth grade. He especially liked kidding our over-wrought, hand-wringing English teacher. She droned on and on and on in such a dry, dull way, every 55 minute period. It was especially exasperating to those of us who could read. After about thirty-five minutes of it, Jimmy would slide himself onto the super wide window sill And disappear out the window, screaming all the way down, as if he had been killed. We would all laugh and some idiot would yell “Jimmy fell out the window!” as if it was unusual. The teacher nearly had a heart attack each time. Of course I did not realize until later why it was a big deal. Jimmy landed quite softly on a rather large Mulberry bush under the window sill, never getting hurt. We would all rush to the window and look out. Laughing at our grinning Jimmy who had brought joy to class again. The principal would soon bring a grinning Jimmy by the ear back to class. If our English Teacher had ever looked up from her book or stopped her droning she might have seen Jimmy sliding onto that cement windowsill. I marveled that she never changed her routine in any way.