I guess it’s safe to say Gerald has come home. Metaphorically speaking, I think it’s safe to say he’s been found.

Poor Gerald. Gerald is the name of a goldfish that went missing William’s freshman year of high school. You get that he didn’t really, right? Spoiler alert.

I suppose we should’ve been more suspicious when boy appeared hyper studious after so many years of not that. Why one day out of the blue he appeared super invested in a “project” for “school,” eagerly draining our trusty Canon of all color ink, printing out half a ream of flyers to hang at school. Did we assume he was running for student office? Did we assume the writing assignments had finally gotten up to par? Why did we turn a blind eye to the shenanigans that were transpiring right beneath our eyes? Because, Gerald. A missing fish is a big deal. And anyway, what school out there doesn’t need a little fun poked? A little hole in its bubble burst? What administration doesn’t need a little endurance test from time to time? Is the system still working? Oh yes. It’s working. Gerald may have gone missing for several weeks, but William, our student, came home.

In the time of attention-getting behavior, we had many other such exploits. The tooth that broke, broke off completely, walking down the hallway to lunch. Uh, I tripped? replies ol’ snaggletooth who cannot eat corn on the cob or bite into an apple for the rest of his mortal life. The bag of milk he carried around all day (double bagged, thank goodness, but still). Stuff that defied explanation or common sense or impulse control of any kind, so then we had to stop asking questions like “how the–?” or “What were you thinking?” and certainly that age-old conversation killer, “Why?”

And all through all of it, he’s only ever told one lie. One denial. And mom, it was about something so small, I wish I hadn’t, I wish I had a perfect track record. Record?!! Record! There’s a word we don’t cozy up to around here. His crime of denial? Pushing a rolling desk chair, just your average office staple, on its glory tour of a lifetime from one end of the school building to the other. (See…? We don’t even need to ask why, Sir Edmund–because it was there!) To every other escapade he took full credit. The firecracker lit on the last day of fifth grade in the boys’ bathroom? Yes ma’am. Those perforations in the vinyl back of the bus seat made with a pen/pencil (“writing implement” is what it says on the incident report)? Yes ma’am. Hacking through the firewall and impersonating a teacher to join the online classroom of a buddy in the early days of Covid-inspired remote learning? “Well, he’s honest,” an administrator once said. “And he’s always so polite. I’ll give him that.”

Right after she gives him ISS. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior. No excuse. But you know what? There is a surprising amount of–well, for lack of a better word, understanding. From the heavies on the scene who often happen to be male, they may pull their I-mean-it “Mr Administrator” on him, but they also know. They know. And sometimes they let him in on that empathetic undercurrent: I know what it’s like to be you. Ultimately, we have discovered, there is forgiveness and there is redemption, but on a more day-to-day level, we discovered there is a lot more empathy and understanding out there. Which is a good thing, for Gerald’s sake.

I don’t know where the idea of a missing fish came from. Tell me it wasn’t some inane meme or Tic Toc prank. But a boy new to 9th grade of the testing variety would necessarily need to test the water (get it?). See what this high school jam is all about. So he created a flyer, I don’t know why. Picture it: Hapless little goldfish graphic in bright orange and below it, all the details reminiscent of a missing pet flier, including cell phone number. And then he taped it up. Forty-seven times throughout the building.

For added success and out of concern for his poor (not) fish he also filled out the necessary Google form and followed protocol for getting the information announced over the PA system on the morning announcements. A little Ferris Bueller moment, if you will. Imagine 1200 students sitting in their classrooms first block of what promises to be another long day and hearing this little gem come on over the loudspeakers? Soccer practice, fundraiser pick-ups, See Mrs. McNutty if you need this form or that, afterschool BETA meeting (get it) in Room 207, and what’s this? A missing fish…?! I imagine little Johnny trouble-maker perking up his ears at the school-wide announcement. Why, Gerald was leaping with fish-less glee with relief that the world was still safe for serendipity and out of the bowl–er, box thinking. Will is just one of those folks who would declare April 1st a national holiday if he could (See Master of Crime 2020).

When he was in first or second grade, hard years for our student, we opted for a fish tank for his September birthday. Therapy pet. Fish are soothing, right? It turned out to be quite the educational learning curve as we discovered you can’t just buy a tank, fill it with water, and put fish in it. Unless it’s beta fish and only that. Nope. To have a true aquatic habitat and an aesthetically pleasing tank filled with many different types of fish you have to “prep” it first. You have to cycle the water – for weeks! Six of them, actually. So we did. Had to buy a $30 water test kit and monitor that thing daily. We prepped and tested and monitored a fishless fish tank for two months, just basically caring for water. Perhaps this is where the idea of imaginary fish came from, because it certainly felt like that. It was a huge test of patience for boy and a curve ball we didn’t anticipate. But like everything else, a lot of blessings begin as hardships. A lot of blessings can actually feel like living nightmares if you don’t study them or stay with them long enough. With William, we stay the course.

Please don’t tell the boy but he comes from a long line of mischief makers. His Grandpa grew up a “faculty brat,” the son of a respected and long-time teacher of Greek and Latin at a boys’ prep school in the new England hills. I don’t know why, but the rather strait-laced and rule-based man as I knew as my father told the most wild and irreverent stories of building brick walls overnight in the dormitory hallways. Like, to block a hallway in a pretty significant way. Crime of what–architecture? Of driving a teacher’s car out onto the ice until the ice melted or cracked or something and, well, hard not to be horrified by that one. In our youth we never questioned how he got the ice to melt, or why the teacher and driver of the vehicle would ignore his stolen vehicle until the spring thaw, or just how grand larceny was handled at a posh boys’ school. Or how long it takes mortar to dry in the average dormitory. We never questioned that. We took these tales for the teaching they were: I was once human, too. And there’s his Uncle, my brother, back in the day parking a car precariously over the legs of a store mannequin, staging a wreck on the eve of graduation, threatening his senior self from participation in said graduation. I have been trying to reach said brother for details of other exploits I vaguely remember. His silence is my proof.

Today, I don’t celebrate the hijinks so much as I celebrate the young man who has survived them. He’s had his consequences. Lots of ’em, on every level. He’s had to make “a couple calls” recently just to make sure he was answering all those questions about delinquency correctly on his college applications. Remember, boy is honest to a fault. You know you’ve been through it when the boy is relieved they’re only asking about suspensions longer than 10 days. Well, there’s a relief, son. College boy, you seen a lot in your young years. Mostly because you done a lot. Deep in my soul I know he learned more about life than some folks learn in a lifetime. Do I wish he’d done it in a way that still got him invited to birthday parties? Sometimes? Does my heart just swell and when he speaks of going into education, the very arena of his idiocy for the past 13 years, teaching or camp counseling or working with kids? I do. Because I know for the next generation of testers and hackers and hurting, searching, needing boys out there that help is on the way.

Life has a way of coming round again, looking different, lighter and freer than ever before. In what room of the school did Will recently report for Swim team photos? ISS.

So you can see why Will’s recent graduation was a victory in many sense of the word. And do you know what the principal said as she shook his hand and handed him that rolled up tube of printer paper? 8 am on a Saturday morning, all the pomp and circumstance of a college ceremony. Will in his sister’s borrowed gown that never crossed a stage until now (2020) “Congratulations, Will. We’ll keep looking for your fish.”

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