You can take the boy out of Brooklyn...

Stealing, lying, cheating and even forgery, were all in my young repertoire while I was a student at the academy. I was a good boy, who did very bad things. Sometimes, I got away with it... other times, not so much.

I distinctly remember a time in seventh grade, when two other boys and I sneaked up to the campsite of some visiting boy scouts. It was the annual boy scout jamboree on campus. Boy scouts from all over New York came up to showcase their skills. While they were out racing and earning badges, we were rummaging through their tents, taking everything we could grab. The Swiss Army Knives were my favorite. So I snatched two of those. The other boys grabbed clothes, and even bigger knives (Rambo knives). We got out of there with about two or three hundred dollars worth of stolen goods. It was a good day.

When we got back to the dorm, we heard the supervisor on the phone with one of the campus's overseers. Our supervisor then called an assembly in the lunchroom to ask if anyone knew who ransacked the boy scouts' tents. Of course, we all denied it. Only three of us knew exactly what happened earlier, and we swore each other we wouldn't tell a soul. It seemed like a perfect plan. Then, our supervisor said the boy scouts called the police and the police were going to handle the investigation. I still don't know if they actually called the police or not, but the youngest of our crew, Steven, wasn't about to find out. He rolled over and told Ms. Electra the whole story. That's right, he gave a detailed account about how it was all my idea, and how I forced the other two boys to go along with my plan.

Needless to say, Ms. Electra showed up at the dorm and sequestered me in my room. She asked me if I had anything to do with the heist. I said "no way, c'mon Ms. Electra, you know me." She then told me Steven had already told her the whole story, and I could forget about seeing the light of day for at least a month (that just meant no gym privileges). When I denied it again, even after she told me about Steven, she reached under my bed (not a very clever hiding place, I know), and pulled out the bag where I stashed the booty. She caught me, red-handed. I started crying and apologizing profusely. She told me it was too late and how disappointed she was in me.

That was probably the most painful part of the whole ordeal. Not the month I went without gym privileges, not the embarrassment of writing the "sorry letter" to the boy scouts and not even the humiliation of everyone in the dorm knowing I was a thief. Ms. Electra's acceptance was more important to me, than how the other boys perceived me. She was like our mother. She actually was the only one who never physically hit us. She was against corporal punishment, but you sure knew when she was upset, and you never wanted her angry at you, or disappointed in you.

I learned a great lesson that day. No matter how perfect you think your plan is, you'll never get away with being a thief or criminal. Whether it's because your friends snitch on you, or whether the evidence is found under your bed, that type of life always catches up to you. Thank God for Ms. Electra and the academy. Without them, I probably would be in jail, or worse, today.