I hadn't gone to preschool. My parents had decided I was too smart. This is another example of their undying cruelty. From what I hear about preschool from other kids, it was pretty awesome. But Mom and Dad said, "No, Joey must be the most brilliant kid in the entire world and surpass everyone!" I'm sure they thought at least once about moving to Asia somewhere and forcing me into child labor to "toughen me up." So I arrived at OK Adcock Elementary School for the first time in August of 1996, unprepared for what was lying ahead of me. I walked into that classroom, with the alphabet banner going across the top of the room, and the little number lines over the dry erase board. I saw the little acronyms and rhymes littering the walls, and the bathroom hallway connecting us to the other kindergarten classroom. And I thought...

 

"This is how I get smart?"

 

Really it was quite ridiculous. I never wanted to learn any of this stuff. Who really needs to know it? It's silly and juvenile. But worst of all was, they were describing these things like they were the basics of life. Numbers and letters aren't the basics of life. The basics of life are the lessons you learn from your family and friends, and the experiences and memories you have of them. All the important things I ever learned, I learned outside of a school curriculum. And then they pull this crap on you the farther you get into school without giving you any choice. All of a sudden when you finish your first year, they make you spend twice the amount of time in school everyday! Then, as if that wasn't enough, they then decide to pull back your wake-up time every day by an hour TWICE over the course of your education! And they expect you to go to college after getting away scot-free with all that? Yeah, right!

 

But worst of all was that I learned about the foundations of our country from school: democracy. The central idea of democracy is that the majority rules. In theory, this is how the nation runs. In reality, it is the complete opposite; one differentiating person can completely discredit a thousand people with an idea. Case in point: on that first day of kindergarten, Mrs. Leach, my teacher, had all the students sit down in desks so she could take her alphabetical roll call by last name.

 

"Cory Bullock," she began. A nervous boy, shorter than me with a round face and blonde bowl cut raised his hand. "Cory, tell us a bit about yourself."

 

"Well... my mommy works for First Security..." he said.

 

So this is what we have to do, I thought. I was extremely worried. What was I going to say? I completely spaced out as the names kept being called.

 

"Raymond Hamel," Mrs. Leach continued.

 

Hamel. Hamel was close to Hines. That meant I would be coming soon...

"Joseph Hines," she said.

I was extremely embarrassed. I raised my hand slowly. "Um... not to be rude... but my name's actually Klafterus."

 

Mrs. Leach looked at me with a puzzled expression. "Excuse me?"

 

"Please don't call me Joseph," I said. "I'd prefer the name Klafterus."

 

"Oh, come on now, that's silly!" she said. "Now, Joseph, tell us a bit about yourself."

 

I wasn't going to let her do this. "I refuse to respond to that name," I told her.

 

She looked frustrated. "Fine," she said irritably. "Klafterus, tell us a bit about yourself."

 

"Well," I said, "I'm the Messiah."

 

A look of utmost horror came over Mrs. Leach's face, as if she didn't know what to do. A whisper came over the class. Some kids didn't know what the word meant. They were quickly educated.

 

"Ha ha, now, Joseph, this may be true, but please don't publically announce it. You may insult some other children's beliefs," Mrs. Leach said, a strict tone in her voice.

 

"But I'm serious," I said. "I am the Messiah!"

 

"Fine," she said for the second time, "just fine." She got up and hit a button on the wall. "Pam, I need an escort to take a boy up to the principal's office."

 

"Yes, Jo, just a minute," a voice came over the intercom.

 

"Ha ha," Mrs. Leach said with a horrible plastic smile. "Let's go on, then, shall we?"

 

I slumped down in my chair as she continued down the list through Victoria Scolpino. No one ever believed me about anything. A minute later, a plump old woman came to take me out of the classroom. I had to wait in the front office for a long time before my parents came and we went into the principal's office. "Mr. and Mrs. Hines, from what I understand, your son has both refused to be called by the name you provided the school with, and he has also made a claim that might offend some of his classmates," the principal said.

 

Mom turned in her chair and stared me down. "What claim was this?" Dad asked the principal.

 

"He has said," the principal stated, "that he is... the Messiah."

 

"WHAT?" Mom screamed. "HOW DARE YOU! THAT'S BLASPHEMY, YOU'RE GOING TO BURN IN HELL, YOU LITTLE..."

 

"Mrs. Hines, please settle down, this is an educational environment," the principal said, looking rather shocked.

 

"Can I say something?" I asked. "Personally, I think most kids and their parents are rather open-minded. I think the majority of my classmates wouldn't really care about the claim I made. Sure, they're might be one or two people who complain, but this is a democracy, right? You're only making it worse by calling me up here and making a big deal about it."

 

The principal's eyes weirdly boggled out. "Joseph, don't be silly. If everyone is not happy with a decision the school makes, then we can not make it."

 

I slumped in my chair again. "Well I'm not happy," I mumbled. I wonder if Jesus has tried to talk to anyone recently. If he did, they're probably in an asylum somewhere. Let's hope he didn't have anything important to say.

 

The next day I came to school amongst talking behind my back. "There he is," I heard Joshua say to Samantha. "The Jesus kid."

 

And so I was already an outcast, just when I had been handed a new slate to fill. Some of the kids tried to be friends with me out of pity. "Hey, Joey, you wanna go play on the monkey bars?" Travis said to me once.

 

"My name is Klafterus," I told him. "Call me Joey again and I'll set your house on fire."

 

But even for the losers in life, some sort of companionship must come. And it came for me one day at recess. I was approached by a boy named Andrew Swaney. He was about a kilometer taller than me and shaped like an isosceles triangle. He had messy blonde hair and Bugs Bunny teeth. "Hey... Klafterus," he said. "I just wanted you to know... I believe you. About the Messiah thing."

 

I looked up at him, trying to decide whether he was worth my trouble. "Cool," I said. "Cool. But don't tell anyone. I'm not supposed to talk about it."

 

Andrew and I became best friends. He lived down the street from me, so the two of us would ride home on the bus together, and then alternate going to each other's houses each day. When we were at my house, we would be babysitted by our neighbor, Rachel, since my parents were always gone when we got out of school. We always had more fun down at his house, though it was a forced sort of fun for me. Sometimes he would rip pages out of my coloring books and hold them over my head, making me jump to try to reach them. Other times he would hold me over the staircase railing, making me scream at him so much that I would lose my voice and be unable to tell his parents on him. Through first grade, when the two of us were rezoned to Ernest J. May Elementary School and were placed in Mrs. Liveri's and Miss Ward's class, we remained inseparable. And the two of us shared the secret that no one else knew, and those who had had forgotten, about my true identity. We made plans to one day change the world from its horrible state and create an order of our own.

 

We learned so much more outside of school.