Escape

Thank you to all who responded to my request for requests. It seems that you would enjoy a brief escape into a more lighthearted world. So, I offer you a short-short story (memoir, not fiction) about a childhood escape. It is titled exactly that.

Escape

Ann McCloskey

At St. Raphael Catholic School, we were given permission to leave class to go to the bathroom only if we took a buddy. I always wondered why, as I knew that I could get into far more trouble with a friend than I could alone.

The rules at school were quite strict and, while I liked school, there was an element of fear involved in my experience there. It was a safer place than home, but still, rules were to be followed and the threat of a trip to the principal’s office hung heavily in the air. We were taught by both nuns and laypeople (women, of course), but the principal was always a nun of imposing stature and authority.

Corrine and I headed to the first-floor rest room together, a welcomed break from the classroom. After taking care of business, we were tempted by a high open window in the back stall, which overlooked the blacktop on which we played at recess. We wondered if we might get away with one of us climbing up and crawling out, while the other ran around the corner from the restroom to let the escapee back in through the main entrance to the school. This would be a risky mission, as the principal’s office was at the other end of that short hallway. What if she were to emerge and see us?

It was the danger of the situation that enticed us. We were good girls, by and large; we almost never got into any kind of trouble at school. We were considered trustworthy. But we also felt imprisoned by all the routine and rules and expectations, even more so because of this reputation of ours as being rule followers. The pressure on us to always do right was enormous. We started out thinking of this as a big “what if?,” just a fun thought, and then we started to mull it over more seriously. We decided to go for the escape. We didn’t think too much about the possible consequences. We just wanted to know if we could get away with it. We just wanted to color outside the lines.

Boosting Corinne up to the window was not easy. She was bigger than I, but a bit more daring, so we decided she would be the runner. She flailed a bit as I pushed her up from below. She managed to squeeze through the opening (one of those windows that opens out from the bottom). This was exhilarating. I don’t know how she felt about dropping to the hard pavement outside from above; I was already out of the stall, through the bathroom door, and peering around the corner of that hallway into the front hall. All clear. I ran to the heavy front doors where Corinne was waiting. I pushed the door open as quietly as I could, she dashed through, and we quickly (but not too quickly) walked back to our fourth-grade classroom. Our hearts were beating hard, but we didn’t dare speak of what had happened or of how we were feeling. We didn’t dare speak at all. We would not be home free until back at our desks, where we could breathe sighs of relief.

And then, we felt more than relief; this was a triumph! We had broken a rule and gotten away with it. While it was a victimless crime, it was certainly a punishable one. This felt like a coup! Being caught leaving the school building without permission, even for only seconds, would have ruined our reputations as well-behaved Catholic girls. We would have paid dearly for this transgression. But we had succeeded, and this adventure would remain our secret.