All the girls in my class had boys’ names, and they all spelled them with an “i” at the end–Andi, Franki, Sami, Bobbi, Randi, Rikki, Nikki, Tomi, Stevi and Charli. They thought that was cute. Charli’s real name was Chartreuse. She was a zero for cute and a ten for evil. Sometimes girls are both cute and evil, but I didn’t find that out until high school. Which led to my dating slump, a story I won’t be telling.

Even though Stevi Hall wasn’t the cutest girl in our class, everybody liked her because she smiled at everybody all the time. Our teacher, Mrs. Hall, was her mother and Stevi always got the highest grades, except Randy (not Randi) would beat her once or twice a year.

One day the class was nervous because Mrs. Hall had given us a big history test that would count for half our grade. Except Randy wasn’t nervous. He studies hard, which explains why tests were easy for him. I was pretty smart without studying, up to the end of third grade.

Since then I had been in a slump, but I expected to break it any day. “That’s how it works for Mickey Mantle,” I told Randy. “Casey Stengel told him ‘Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll come out of it.'” Randy said an intellectual slump and a baseball slump were different, but I was dead set on proving him wrong. Besides, it was trout season. I wanted to make sure I didn’t have a fishing slump, so I couldn’t waste time studying.

That afternoon Mrs. Hall said, “Please remain in your seats. I’ll be right back,” and she left the room. As soon as the door closed, Charli walked up to the pencil sharpener. Mrs. Hall had left her grade book open on her desk. Charli stopped there, wrote something in it, then sharpened her pencil and went back to her desk.

That’s when my pencil rolled off my desk and landed right on the point. I figured if Charli could leave her desk to sharpen her pencil, I could too. So, I went up to the pencil sharpener, stuck my pencil in, and cranked the handle. I was returning to my desk when Mrs. Hall came back into the room. She said, “Stevie, what were you doing?”

I ignored her while she said my name two more times, and I looked over at Stevi–a trick I saw other guys with girl names try. It never worked, but sometimes it got a laugh. That’s when Mrs. Hall (Tommy called her “Mrs. Hulk” ’cause she wasn’t a little lady) grabbed my ear and raised me up from my seat. Then the bell rang and she let go.

The next day Mrs. Hall handed out the grades. The bad news is that my ear was still sore. The good news was my intellectual slump was over! I got the highest grade in the class! Randy’s grade was two points under mine. Stevi? She almost failed.

After morning recess, Mrs. Hall told the class someone changed her gradebook. I got Stevi Hall’s grade and she got mine. Even worse, Mrs. Hall remembered the day before when she came into the room and saw me walking between her desk and mine. She decided I must be the one who swapped the grades, so my good news turned out to be bad news and my bad news was about to get worse. She grabbed my sore ear and marched me down to the office.

She told the principal she caught me changing her gradebook. “That’s not true!” I said, which didn’t sit well with the principal. “Are you calling Mrs. Hall a liar?” Strike one.

“I got caught red-handed when I didn’t do anything!” The principal only heard the first part of that sentence and took it as an admission of guilt. Strike two.

“Charli did it! Charli changed it!” That made Mrs. Hall angry. When she got angry she looked even bigger, like the Incredible Hulk, only she turned red, not green. “Shame on you! Accusing Chartreuse, with no evidence at all!” Three strikes, and I slumped right into detention.

Randy was right again. An intellectual slump is way worse than a baseball slump, probably because Mickey Mantle didn’t have an umpire who was the mother of a girl on the other team!

While in detention, my ear swelled way up. I sure didn’t want any more slumps, so I gave up studying. From then on I would focus on hunting and fishing, because teachers’ don’t grade killin’ and catchin’. And game wardens won’t pick me up by the big lump on my ear.

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When “The Everyday Hunter” isn’t hunting, he’s thinking about hunting, talking about hunting, dreaming about hunting, writing about hunting, or wishing he were hunting. If you want to tell Steve exactly where your favorite hunting spot is, contact him through his website, www.EverydayHunter.com. He writes for top outdoor magazines, and won the 2015, 2018 and 2023 national “Pinnacle Award” for outdoor writing.