“Eddy, no!” I screamed at my dog when I realized what he had done. It had actually happened to me, unlike most kids just looking for an excuse - my finished assignment was completely ruined. He looked at me with a cocked head as if to say, “What, can’t a puppy be hungry?” I couldn’t believe it; my dog had actually gone and done it! I was panicked beyond belief.

Jenny, my stepmom, came into the room and could see my distress, but assured me that the teacher would understand. I did not believe her for a second. To soothe my troubled soul we began the painstaking process of taping the pieces back together. And by “we,” I mean that she did it while I freaked out, sure that my teacher would not understand my tragedy.

With half of the math assignment intact, we realized we were out of paper to tape back together. I was still distraught so Jenny wrote my teacher a note explaining the unfortunate circumstances.

The next morning I did not feel like getting out of bed and shivered under my sheets even though it wasn’t cold. Maybe it had something to do with being a fifth-grader in a sixth-grade math class. There is something dreadful about going into a class filled with older kids holding a piece of paper stuck together with tape and covered in slobber.

I inched into the classroom with the remains of my assignment in my backpack. Maybe she wouldn’t check homework today. My foot tapped on the ground. What if she found out that my assignment was not intact? She would fail me for sure. I didn’t want to fail and be sent back to my own grade for math.

“Kids, take out your homework,” the teacher said just as she did every day. But this time, it was different. My hands quivered, my palms began to sweat. I could feel my heart beating hard and fast.

The teacher began checking off everyone’s assignments on her clipboard. This was the end. She got closer; I hunted for an assignment that looked similar to avoid embarrassment. No luck. She came closer.

“Kyle, where is your homework?” she asked. Unable to produce a similar worksheet, I reluctantly handed over my sorry excuse for an assignment.

She began to laugh.

Why was she laughing? Was I going to fail? Would I be eternally mocked?

“I never thought I would see the day when that excuse would actually be true,” she gasped.

Every year since then she has told my story, because unlike you, my dog really did eat my homework.