For pride and principle

ILLUSTRATION BY: STEPH BRAVO

“You gave a 93 in the report card—change it,” the school principal commanded.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am?” I asked, aghast.

“This is ridiculous. We don’t give 93 in English, not in my school. I don’t want parents to laugh at me because my teachers are very generous,” she said.

“But she deserves that grade, ma’am. I could show you her…” But she did not let me finish the sentence.

“I never ask for your class record. Just change this grade!” she said, glaring at me.

My teeth clenched, my head reeled as I examined her angry face, her eyebrows raised.

“Change it or you resign,” the principal threatened, tossing the report card on a desk littered with crumpled sheets of paper.

I looked straight at her, wanting her to listen to me.

“Get out!” she shouted and turned away.

I thought I saw her transmogrify into Medusa, her hair turning into a mass of hissing and slithering serpents that mocked me but failed to turn me into stone.

I stood silently in the crowded, putrid principal’s office. The framed photographs and miniature paintings on the walls started to look like dart boards.

I imagined hurling javelins and knives at every one of them.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said quietly after a very long silence.

“Leave,” she said, reaching for her china cup. She shuddered as she drank hot chocolate. I chuckled at the loud, voracious slurp.

The other faculty members heard the “news.” They advised me to obey first then step down.

After all, they warned, the principal was my immediate superior.

Fear gripped me as I thought about the incident. I had to save for the board exam. I had to pay my rent. What about my students? What would my family say?

After hours of weighing my options, I returned to the principal’s office. I said I was sorry and was changing the 93 to 90.

“Good!” The principal smirked. I smiled but inside, I raged like Hades.

I finished the difficult school year. Towards the end of the school year, during a meeting, the principal said, “Please stay. I’m sorry.”

The other teachers looked to me like a basket of multicolored stones as they stared blankly at me.

I struggled for words but could not think of even a single syllable. I was humbled and moved by my superior’s sincerity.

“The students like you and you’re a good teacher. I hope you change your mind,” she said as she handed each of us a facsimile of the year-end evaluation sheet.

“The students like me.” That made me feel good and brave. I wrote “Thank you” on the suggestions section of the evaluation paper.

I was feeling a little worried but was also quite optimistic about the future. I left untouched the contract paper the principal handed me. There was no turning back.