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Jeff Johnson is chasing me off the stage at McNulty Elementary School. It is the end of a rehearsal for a class play. We are about eleven or twelve years old and just beginning to think we know it all. Jeff is taller and bigger than me; I am a small child.
Barreling into the hallway, thinking Jeff was right behind me, I run into Mr. McKnight, slamming into his torso and laughing out of embarrassment. He is not pleased. Later in the day I get in trouble with my homeroom teacher who backs up her case proclaiming, “Mr. McKnight said you had been acting squirrelly lately.” So there it was, and here I am.
Squirrelly. Is that even a proper word? At the time I didn’t quite grasp what it meant. Mischievous, troublesome, playful, excitable, energetic… I chatter, I chew, I run, I leap. I make far too much noise on some days and no sound at all on others. I’m just a kid.
There are worse things than being considered squirrelly.
(It turns out that it is indeed a proper word. I looked it up.)
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