Sister Nasty

My brother Mark nicknamed her two years after I had her as a first-grade teacher. Her real "nun" name was "Sister Ernesta", but "Sister Nasty" fit her so much better. All three of us stairstep kids had Sister Nasty in first grade. We had moved away by the time Rita got old enough to hit first grade, so she missed the warped teaching we received in first grade at the hands of a deranged nun.

We didn't use pencils in first grade. We used these big, clumsy Eversharps. Sister told us that we were never to turn them (advance the lead) ourselves. She said we'd go to hell if we did. Honest to God...that's typical of the things she told us. And six-year-olds pretty much believe everything they're told by someone wearing a habit.

I did as I was told concerning the Eversharps, but then my friend Gerarda Edwards showed me how to "turn it" and talked me into doing it. I was doing a great job advancing the lead. Then one day I dropped my Eversharp on the floor and what little lead was left in it fell out onto the floor. So I took it up to Sister.

She took one look at it and started screaming at the top of her lungs at me. I remember backing all the way to my seat. I wasn't about to turn my back on her--hard telling what might happen. Oh, she also told us that if we stuck our Eversharps in our mouths we would die.

There was one girl in our class that had obvious "issues". She flunked everything. She would get up from her desk, lift her uniform over her head, and walk up and down the aisles. Looking back now, I'd say she was mildly retarded. We didn't know what was wrong with her, but we did know that she couldn't help it.

One day Mother Superior came to our door and said something to Sister Nasty. Then they both came and got this little girl up from her desk. They took her to the back of the classroom and gave us strict instruction not to turn around. Well, you tell me not to do something like that, and of course I'm going to turn around. I was just lucky they didn't see me or I'd have been next in line to get what that poor little girl got.

What I saw was the little girl standing between the two nuns. One nun would slap her in the face, and then the other nun would turn her around and take her turn slapping her in the face. This kid hadn't even done anything that day, but for some reason those mean ol' nuns were physically abusing this kid. Once they finished with her, they took her out of the classroom and we never saw that little girl again. I assume they either kicked her out, or her parents removed her from the school.

The only good things I can remember from her class was being the best one at flash cards and Catechism. As I remember it, our Catechism book was chock full of Catholic doctrine questions and answers. We had to memorize word-for-word every answer in those books--and I had mine memorized. Some of the answeres were a big paragraph long, but some just had a sentence or two. An example of a question/answer would be:

Q: Was anyone ever preserved from Original Sin?

A: The Blessed Virgin Mary, through the merits of Her Divine Son, was preserved from the guilt of original sin, and this privilege is called Her Immaculate Conception.

Sister always held me up as an example to the other kids, making me stand and flipping flash cards at me as fast as she could "flash". Then she'd ask me Catechism questions and I'd answer them without blinking; every word perfect. Nowadays I can't memorize squat, but back then I was a whiz. I'm surprised that she would use me as an example, since I was going to hell for turning my Eversharp; but I suppose I was so good at flash cards and Catechism that she plumb forgot where I was headed, without so much as a stop in Purgatory.

About the only thing I loved in first grade was my angel. Each one of us had a beautiful paper angel and when we did something good, like a perfect test score, we'd get one of those lick-em, stick'em metallic stars on our angels. My angel was absolutely full of colorful stars. But one day in church, my rosary got tangled (yes, Leslie...the rosary you now have). I couldn't get it untangled, but my friend Roseanne Rogers untangled it for me. Then we sort of forgot we were in church and started talking about our dads for some reason.

After a few minutes, Sister walked by with this ominous look on her face, and up came the index finger to her lips telling us to shush. After church, she called both of us up to her desk and told us to bring our angels. She took both angels, retrieved a black permanent marker from her desk, and drew a big black blob on them. I was devastated. It was the only neat thing I had in her class and she ruined it because we were being kids.

Sister always hated this one boy we had in class. I think his name was Dennis and his special trick was turning his eyelids inside out. Sister hated that. But one day she told us a little bit about "pagan babies". Sister told us that if we brought in a quarter for the pagan babies that when we died and went to Heaven (even me???) that our pagan baby would come up to us and tell us "Hi...I'm your pagan baby". I was hooked. I wasn't too sure what a pagan baby was, but if I could have one when I got to Heaven; then count me in! I did know it was some sort of a baby--it was the "pagan" part that kind of had me confused. I guess I didn't understand how a baby could or could not believe in God. But still...at a quarter, it was one heck of a deal.

As soon as I got home, I started hounding Mom for the quarter. She wanted to know what it was for. I told her that if I brought a quarter to school, I'd get a "piggit baby". I tried explaining what a piggit baby was, but she was stymied. She had no idea what kind of varmint I was going to bring home, but she gave me the quarter. I took it to school and gave it to Sister Ernesta. So now when I die, I might not be able to take anything with me; but for sure my piggit baby will be there to greet me when I arrive at the Pearly Gates.

But Dennis...the one that Sister hated because of his inverted eyelids, brought in $5 for the pagan babies. After that, he could do no wrong. He could play with his eyelids all day long and that was fine. So when Dennis gets to Heaven, he will be greeted by 20 pagan babies! Wow! I sure hope they're pottie-broke or he'll spend his days changing pagan baby diapers.

One of Sister's really nasty tricks was something she did to control us when she had to leave the room for a few minutes. She never, ever explained this, but I knew what it was due to my Catechism and my love of Saturday afternoon sci-fi movies. Sister would very quietly go to the blackboard and pick up a piece of chalk. Without saying a word, she would draw a large triangle on the board and then draw an eye in the middle of the triangle. Then she'd put the chalk down, press her right index finger to her pursed lips as if to tell us to "be quiet". Then she walked backwards out of the door.

Well, that ol' nun could've left for the day and we wouldn't have made a sound or moved at all. I don't know what the rest of the kids thought, but Catechism taught me that the triangle was "The Holy Trinity" and the eyeball belonged to God. And I just knew that if I even twitched, a beam would come out of that eyeball and zap me into vapor. I saw it happen too many times on those sci-fi flicks, except the beams came from aliens.

One day during Sister's absence, as usual we all sat like little stones at our desks staring at the triangle. The little girl next to me was so scared that she peed while sitting at her desk. And since our lunchboxes were stored right under our open seats, all that pee flowed into her lunchbox. I did look out of the corner of my eye when I heard the noise, but it was luck that God's eye didn't see me or I'd been dust. That little girl ate her lunch as usual. We didn't have Ziplock sandwich bags either. Our moms wrapped our sandwiches in waxed paper.

Speaking of pee, one day Sister found a puddle of it on the boys' side of the classroom (we were segregated--boys on one side and girls on the other). She asked who did the deed, but no boy in his right mind would own up to that or face a slapping in the back of the classroom. Since no boy confessed, she asked for a volunteer and of course some dumb boy stood up. Sister had him go around and sniff each boy's butt to see who the culprit was. After about three or four boys, the snitch pointed and said, "It's him".

If you think that's horrible, when my brother Mark had Sister Ernesta, she walked by one of the boys' desks and smelled something putrid. It ended up being human feces in an absent kid's desk! How that kid pooped in his drawers, dug it out, and placed it in his desk is beyond me. And evidently it was beyond God's sight and the nun's. Again, Sister asked for a volunteer. My brother Mark stupidly raised his hand hoping to make some brownie points, and was assigned the duty of cleaning the poop out of the kid's desk. A few weeks later the same kid pooped while standing in line on the stairs and it fell out onto a couple of the stairs. Good ol' Mark was assigned poop detail again. That year before Christmas my Aunt Rita said she was going to get Mark a "super-duper pooper scooper upper" for a Christmas gift!

Not all the nuns at St. Frances de Sales were like Sister Nasty and Mother Superior. There was one nun that taught one of the higher grades that shined with God's Love. It was something you could just see. But unfortunately, she didn't teach first grade and I didn't have her for second or third grade either.

I'm sure Sister Nasty died many years ago. She might not have headed straight for hell, but I bet she's still hoping someone prays her out of Purgatory!