Pranks and April Fool’s Day

It’s April Fool’s Day! Caught u laffin!

In second grade, the check-out system at my school library worked like this (are you hooked?): Every book had a pocket glued into its back cover, and every pocket held an index card with the book’s title. You wrote your name on the index card, you gave the card to the librarian, and then the book was yours for two weeks. If you didn’t return it within that timeframe, the librarian would know from the index cards, so she (it was a she, it was Mrs. Samuels) would send out a list to each classroom of who had checked out what, and by how much it was overdue. Your teacher would then read this list out loud to the class — “Edith Zimmerman, 500 Pictures of Horses,” etc. — and you would be reminded to bring this book back to school.

So I thought it would be funny to check out certain books using the name of a boy I hated, and see whether the teacher would read the titles out loud in front of everyone. It worked, and she did: “Fred Fredrickson, Dr. Ruth Talks to Kids. Fred Fredrickson, How to Make a Home Nature Museum. Fred Fredrickson, another copy of Dr. Ruth Talks to Kids.” Haha. That’s it. Fred didn’t give a shit — “I didn’t check those out” — and I don’t think anyone even noticed, which is crazy.