Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Sure Lock

"I can't open my locker!" a student burst into my room at lunch and reported. "I keep putting in my combination and it won't open!"

"When was the last time you could get in?" I asked her.

"This morning!" she told me.

"That's strange," I frowned and grabbed my master list of lockers and combination and followed her to the hallway.

There we found a friend of hers on her knees fiddling with the padlock. "It won't open," she told me.

"You shouldn't tell anyone your combination," I said to the first student. She shrugged in a What could I do? kind of a way. I consulted my list and twirled the dial, pulling down confidently at the end, but the lock held tight. The hallway was getting busy with other students returning from lunch, but I knew it was nowhere near as chaotic as it got during those moments right before the bell rang in the morning.

"Who else was here this morning when you closed your locker?" I asked her.

"Kadin," she told me and pointed three steel doors down from hers.

"Aha!" I said. "Try your combination on his lock!" While she spun the tumblers on that one, I once again consulted my list and used his combination to open the padlock on her latch.

"Yay!" We cheered our mutual success and traded padlocks and spaces. She grabbed her books and both her locker and the case closed with a satisfying clang.

No comments:

Post a Comment