The hand bell tables indicated that it was going to be another horrible day in music class—another day where we had to shove our hands into smelly gloves worn by other smelly fifth graders, another day where we had to play “Hark the Herald, Angels Sing,” for the fiftieth time. We ushered into the classroom with various groans and found our numbered spaces on the risers with juvenile melancholy.

 “No Noah today?” Asked Mrs. Reynolds, her graying eyebrow twitching with ill-disguised pleasure. Class without Noah at least made things a little easier.

  The class exchanged perplexed glances. Hadn’t Noah ushered in with the rest of us? Hadn’t he uttered a dirty word under his breath when he saw the hand bell tables?

 Mrs. Reynolds perched herself behind her hand bell table and began another tiresome lecture about how we were never to touch the bells (lest our fifth-gradery-ness was contagious and infected the barrel with cooties). Behind her frameless glasses, she gave us looks that could raise our blood pressure.

The first time it happened quickly. Only a few people barely spotted the massive blue cabinet door open and close behind Mrs. Reynolds’ lecture. A slight whisper exchanged ears. The next time, Noah decided to savor the reaction a little more. The cabinet door opened, just a crack, and he inserted one index finger out the crevice. Slowly, and one by one, all of his fingers joined his index. From the risers, we just saw a disembodied hand waggling his flirtatious phalanges at us. There was giggling from the risers.

 Mrs. Reynolds chose to ignore it at first. Until various appendages of kept materializing from behind the cabinet door every five minutes or so. She started to blush, and get agitated as the giggles mounted. She checked her dress, and felt her bum for a wedgie. She ran her tongue across her teeth to see if breakfast was still lodged between two of them. Figuring that her appearance was normal,  she strapped each one of our souls to a lie detector with her eyes, but none of us yielded the secret source of our laughter.

 Finally, after a prolonged absence (Noah had a way with comedic timing), Noah decided to reveal his true identity. Slowly languishing in the laughter that sustains a class clown, Noah peeked his entire head out of the cabinet door. The risers erupted with uproarious laughter now. Mrs. Reynolds swung her head around frantically looking for the final source of the eruption, but Noah had nimbly tucked himself behind his safe haven again without nary a snap of sealing cabinets. Mrs. Reynolds was flummoxed and upset.

About midway through the class, Noah got bored or hot or something. The cabinet door opened its final time, and Noah silently crept out. The class collectively inhaled, certain that Noah would meet his doom. Noah darted right past Mrs. Reynold’s foot without being noticed. Now he was hiding underneath the hand table, so the entire class could see him except our woe-begotten teacher. Unfortunately, it seemed that there was little way to get to the risers from his current location. Then that characteristically devilish grimace slid across Noah’s face as he caught sight of Mrs. Reynolds’ foot. The class was silent, in solidarity for our comrade and his quest.

Noah reached down, every second of his hand’s dissent feeling laboriously slow, and then he pinched Mrs. Reynolds’ foot. She hopped, and yanked her gaze downward, but Noah was as quick as a jack rabbit. He withdrew his hand, and darted silently back onto his numbered spot on the risers. Mrs. Reynolds never even realized he was back. I think she even chose him to be in the first batch of students to play the hand bells that day.