Nicodemus 3:3

Henry and Jacob

As Did One, So Did The Other

Ms. Kimberly or Ms. K, as her students referred to her, had the largest classroom on the west side of the building. Red Team was the smallest group out of the four kindergarten classrooms, but it was the busiest. Her fifteen students were supported by herself and the ever-talented multilingual Early Childhood Educator (ECE), Zahra. Her classroom was a steady mix of complications and challenges, but so were the other sixteen classrooms at Sir John A. MacDonald Elementary School.

Although Ms. K’s classroom had its list of personalities and behaviours, Henry and Jacob occupied most of Red Team’s time. They were the only two Caucasian boys in the classroom. They mischievously gravitated to each other at every opportunity, one always competing to outdo the other in antics and outbursts. Their arsenal of pranks and chaos was highly influenced by unsupervised exposure to TikTok and YouTube influencers. Their latest fascination was pulling. Their goal was to terrorize and make the lives of everyone around them miserable.

Grabbing a handful of hair and pulling as hard as they could usually produce the loudest screams and tears from an unsuspecting girl. This was a fun game for both boys until Ms. K and Zahra informed parents to either send their child with a cap or to place their hair in a bun. It was a temporary solution for about a week until Henry pulled Amina. M’s hijab off of her head and propelled it in circles as if it were a helicopter blade. The hysteria that followed fueled the boys’ deviant behaviour. Their ultimate goal was to pull the fire alarm, but they settled for hijabs.

Henry was the leader of the two. An intelligent student, he read and wrote at the same level as the grade threes. Jacob struggled to keep up with the pace of the class. He was fascinated with how smart Henry was and over the moon when Henry started befriending him. Henry liked having Jacob around because Jacob followed his lead without question.

It was Henry’s plan to grab the scissors off Ms. Zahra’s desk. He gave it to Jacob and told him to cut off a chunk of Lilly’s hair. Henry was also the mastermind behind flushing Javonte’s lunch in the toilet. Nicodemus had them separately spend some time in his office on Friday afternoon but could not get a straight answer from either of them. They both denied involvement in the incident as if they were sworn to the code of the streets.

“H, hi Lisa.” Nicodemus stuttered a bit, unsure of the reception he would receive from Ms. Dechambeau. “This is Mr. Nichols calling from Sir John A. Is now a good time to talk about an incident that happened on Friday?” “Hi Mr. Nichols, we were wondering when we were going to hear from the school.” Her voice was unusually calm and pleasant, considering the situation. “Yes, sorry about that. We had a few pressing incidents at the end of the school day on Friday!” He wanted to share more, but Katya had already spoken to him about his tendency to overshare. Nico knew he messed up by not calling her the day of, especially after she threatened to find a new school for Javonte if there was another incident.

“So, about Javonte’s lunch bag, we wanted you to know that we are still investigating the incident and will be replacing his lunch bag when we see him tomorrow.” “Was it Henry and Jacob? Javonte seems to think it was the two of them that did it.” Lisa pressed Nico as if she were performing a separate investigation. “Sorry Ms. Dechambeau, out of confidentiality, we do not talk about the affairs of other students. Just know that we are doing everything in our power to keep everyone in our classrooms and school safe.”

Nico felt like a politician answering to pacify her worries. The solutions she was looking for were not possible. The board’s policy does not suspend kindergarten students; there was no money in the budget for additional support, and reorganizing the classrooms was out of the question.