Mary's Son is the Devil's Child.
So back in high school, we had a homeroom/reading kind of thing where you'd sit in silence and do stuff like homework or read a book (different than Study Hall). I have no idea why this is so foggy in my head. But I know it was always a different teacher, and it was always excruciating. Like being forced to pull over on a long road trip, just because. And having to do so for an hour. Rather than getting the day over with quicker.
So I bring in a book called IMP. A rare move for me since I usually read from a very limited list of authors. But there I was with Andrew Neiderman's (author of Tender Loving Care) book called IMP. Or, rather, iMP. The teacher on this particular day was an Earth Science teacher who would (seriously) fill up a beaker with water and drink from it like a glass. A beaker in a high school lab room. And drink from it. In my mind, he'd stir the water with a glass stirring rod, but I'm pretty sure that's some kind of embellishment related to memory loss.
This teacher would walk up and down the aisles seeing what each kid was reading. He got to me and took the book out of my hand and read the yellow tag line on the back:
He threw a bit of a fit about this. And, at the time, I had a feeling he thought the 'Mary' in the description, and I have no idea why I felt this way, related to Mary the Mother of God. So he starts ranting that it's disrespectful sacrilegious crap and I start trying to explain that it's a different Mary. And thinking about this now I'm CERTAIN he was just appalled at the notion of any woman giving birth to the Devil's Child (Catholic high school) and wasn't thinking it was THE Mary. I would have made the worst defense attorney on the earth.
Funny that I still have the book (and that he gave it back to me and didn't toss it in the trash can at the front of the room).
9 comments:
Another splendid story; thanks for sharing your memory!!
I actually laughed out loud about the science teacher drinking from a glass beaker. A perfect detail!
Is/was iMP good? The cover certainly looks terrifying. It's really cool you still have your copy.
I dread to admit that I have no memory of actually reading this book and think I was just faking it and reading the first few pages.
More shelfies please!
My unusual (outdated) cd collection demands it.
Wow - good story about a creepy teacher.
Thanks!
Public high schools are totally ok with a woman giving birth to the devils child. Lol.
Haha you know what I meant!!!
Good lord! I didn't know you did Catholic high school too. Yikes! My parents had mercy on me and let me out of "Catholic school jail" after 7th grade. That book would have definitely been confiscated at St. Ignatius school with a note sent home to my parents.
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