My second grade teacher, Mrs. Susie, was an older woman with a raspy, smoker's voice. She dressed in gold and pearls, and once left a cigarette butt on my desk. Her room always smelled musty, like a mix of stale cigarette smoke and grandma's perfume.
When we were learning cursive, she gave us a homework assignment to write our name 50 times. I came home, complaining to my mom that my 8-letter name will take me much longer to write than the names of the other students. My mom offered the brilliant idea of writing my nickname, "Lulu," instead of my full name. Realizing that this would save me half the time, I agreed, and wrote "Lulu" 50 times in cursive.
Mrs. Susie was unpredictable, and would often punish kids for the most ridiculous crimes. We once were told to draw a picture from a scene in chapter 10 of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I missed the chapter break, and read all the way through to chapter 12. Without realizing it, I ended up drawing a picture from chapter 11. I was particularly proud of this picture; I had drawn a king with his hand wrapped around a sceptre. When I turned it in, I expected praise for my impressive attempt at drawing something in 3D. Instead, she took one look at it and yelled at me for drawing something from the wrong chapter. She sent me to my seat, forced me to erase the entire drawing, and told me draw something from chapter 10 on the same sheet. I cried silently as I erased my masterpiece.
Because of this experience, I half expected her to yell at me when I turned in my nickname, which I had never mentioned, written 50 times. Instead, she said in her raspy voice "Lulu! That's adorable! Why didn't you tell me that was your nickname?" I hadn't told her, because I wasn't particularly fond of that name and preferred to be called "Lorraine." For the rest of the year she called me "Lulu." She was the only person in my life to consistantly call me that name. Family members and close friends referred to me as "Lu." Everyone else called me "Lorraine."
Every time she said my name, I wanted to ask her to please call me Lorraine. Yet, it was my own fault that she now knew of this nickname. I couldn't admit to her that I actually didn't like being called "Lulu," since that would reveal that I had been lazy on that one homework assignment. She also became somewhat nicer to me after she started calling me Lulu. Saying the name seemed to give her some odd satisfaction. To this day, I still don't know if the name "Lulu" actually made her smile, or if that smile was a devious, knowing smile, deriving satisfaction from the constant punishment I bestowed upon my lazy self.
