Sample Story

(from ‘Haven Misbehavin': The Imp of Mischief-

©Sheila-Ann Bender 2025

©Sheila-Ann Bender/©Butterfly Tree Books

©Sheila-Ann Bender/©Butterfly Tree Books

After my sister was born, I started misbehaving a lot at school.  The school counselor said I was just trying to be noticed because I was having to share attention with a sister at home now.  She convinced my parents that I was trying to get noticed in any way I could, even if it was through negative attention. 

I admit that I liked being the center of attention at home before Adelyn’s arrival.  I liked not having to share my bedroom and toys with anyone else.  Why couldn’t I be enough for Mom and Dad?

 Whatever the true reason for my behavior, I started getting bad conduct marks on my report card because teachers viewed my actions as disruptive and disrespectful. 

This did not please Mom and Dad.  They were so embarrassed when all the teachers and staff at my school started calling me HAVEN MISBEHAVIN’.  

Truthfully, I just liked to talk and make people laugh.  I loved to talk to my classmates, and I couldn’t seem to stop when my teachers said NO TALKING during tests and classroom assignments.  My progress reports sent home to my parents always said HAVEN TALKS TOO MUCH IN CLASS.

While my teachers were talking to the class, I often blurted out things without raising my hand for permission to speak. My teachers said this was disrespectful, which also went home on my progress reports.   

I said funny things when I spoke out of turn, which made the whole class laugh.  Teachers said this was disruptive to the learning environment.  Yes, this went home on my progress reports too.  

I loved playing harmless pranks on my classmates and teachers—well, at least they seemed harmless to me.  It was all just supposed to be fun, giving my classmates a good laugh during a terribly boring day of school.

 I never intended to hurt anyone, but Principal Hawthorne and the rest of the school staff said that my mischief was unacceptable behavior.  This did not go over well with Mom and Dad, even though I received very good grades on my report cards.  They said that school conduct was just as important as good grades.  I spent more time grounded from television and gaming than anyone else I knew of.

Emma and I have been BFFs since kindergarten.  She was always a model student with excellent grades and perfect conduct marks—in other words, she was the perfect student I was not.  She was always nominated by the teachers as STUDENT OF THE YEAR, even though she had yet to be the overall winner of the coveted award that is presented by the school principal, Mr. Hawthorne, at the end of the year school assembly.  Only one student can win each school year, but it is still an honor just to be nominated.

On the first day of school, I always promised myself that I would work hard to be nominated as student of the year, but I had usually blown the opportunity before lunchtime on the very first day. 

 In first grade, after my baby sister’s arrival into the world, I had started out playing pranks on my classmates with dead bugs.  Big juicy cockroaches were the best.  I would sneak them into someone’s lunchbox before lunchtime. Oh, what fun when the dead bug was found by a squealing boy or girl sitting at my table in the school cafeteria!  

I had loads of fun with my dead bug prank for a few weeks until my first-grade teacher caught me in the act of planting a big cockroach inside another student’s lunchbox.

They were just normal-sized dead cockroaches, but the rumor throughout school became that they were alive and as big as mice—and that they popped out of the lunchboxes and started chasing kids throughout the cafeteria.  There was not a bit of truth to it, but it was a funny story.

By second grade, I had advanced to dead mice.  After Mom and Dad had the house exterminated, dead mice started appearing.  I would put on a pair of Mom’s latex gloves and carefully gather up the dead critters and place them inside small zip lock bags which I would carefully slip inside my backpack and carry to school.

When I found the perfect opportunity, I’d put a dead mouse packet inside an unsuspecting student’s desk when no onewas watching.  I was careful to leave the mouse inside the bag so that no one would get germs and die from touching it, which I thought to be quite considerate of me.  

It was hilarious when someone found that little old dead mouse inside their desk and started screaming their fool head off!

However, it didn’t take very long for my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Aguilar, to figure out the guilty party was me.  I had to go to the principal’s office for it, and Mom and Dad grounded me for a week.

In third grade, I would find bull frogs out by the creek behind our house.  I decided to put one inside one of Mom’s little plastic food bowls, and I carefully poked little holes into the lid with a kitchen knife so that it could breathe.  Into my backpack it went.

When my teacher, Mrs. Donaldson, left the classroom unattended for a few minutes, I took the frog from my locker and held it up over Ann-Marie Baker’s head while she was busy working on our math assignment.

“Look what I found under your desk, Ann-Marie!” I shrieked.

She looked up to see a huge bullfrog dangling from my hand above her head and started screaming.

Now Ann-Marie is generally a good sport about such things, but she was very picky about her perfect hair.  Just as she looked up, that frog peed all in her eyes and on her pretty hair.  She screamed so loud that Mrs. Donaldson heard her from inside the restroom way down the hall.  

The school nurse had to wash out Ann-Marie’s eyes with some kind of solution, and she helped Ann-Marie wash the frog pee from her hair.  So back to Mr. Hawthorne’s office I went.  My parents grounded me for two weeks this time.  

 By now, I’m sure you have figured out why I became known as Haven Misbehavin’.