The Fight

 Tom Phillips was my best friend in 6th grade.  He had a hamster.  One day, I went over to his house, and he said that his hamster liked to play in hair.  I told him that I was afraid it would use my hair as its bathroom.  Tom assured me that the hamster had already done it, so it was safe to have him play in my hair.  So, I put the hamster on top of my head, and it went to the bathroom on my head.  Tom thought that was funny.  I didn't, but we were still best friends.  We both loved "The Man from UNCLE" and would play it every chance we got.  One time, his mother was doing something at the Town Theatre, and she took us downtown at night, while she was rehearsing.  We had a great time playing spy downtown.
 Tom's mother wore pants most of the time.  My Mother wore dresses all of the time.  The other kids in the class noticed this and tried to get Tom and me to fight for the honor of our mothers.  We didn't want to fight each other, because we were friends, but the pressure mounted.  Tom got caught up in the pressure from the other boys in the class, so he started to taunt me about a fight.  My Mother would come and pick me up in the afternoon after school, so I would hurry to her car, before the fight would start.  This went on for three days.  Finally, I said okay, so we planned to fight after school.  We actually planned to just run around and slap at one another.  So after school, a circle of boys surrounded us, and we started to run around in the circle and slap one another.  Dust began to come up from the playground, and a teacher came out and stopped the fight.  Tom and I were taken to the principal's office.
 The principal knew us, and he knew we would not have done this unless we were coaxed to do it.  He asked Tom who had started it, and Tom wouldn't say.  Then, he asked me, and I named names.  Pretty much all of the boys in our class except for two.  The problem was that we were patrol officers.  That was a pretty big position for a 6th grader.  We were able to roam the school and look for kids out of class.  We were able to stop traffic in front of school to let kids cross the street.  To be on patrol was a huge honor.  Not all of the kids were chosen.  We even had badges.  But now, I told on the other patrol officers as being those who started the fight.  The principal called them into his office and removed them from patrol duty.  The other two boys, who didn't participate, were given patrol duty.  There were normally six patrolmen at any one time.  Now, there were only two. 
 The kids, who got in trouble, didn't speak to me again.  In fact, some of them still do not speak to me to this day.  It was almost like Watergate for the 6th grade.