By: Loren Rhoad
It was a boring day on the playground at Mountain West Elementary School. Jimmy was on the swings with his best friend, Paul, discussing about how bored they were. Paul then came up with a great idea. “Let’s make a code that no one understands”, he said. At first, Jimmy thought this was a dumb idea. But then he thought that he could use their code to mess and fool with the teachers. The boys decided to use the code Pig Latin.
“How does Pig Latin work?” asked Paul.
Jimmy responded with, “It works by transferring the initial consonant or consonant cluster of each word to the end of the word and adding a vocalic syllable.”
“Ohh okay” said Paul. “So if you have the word chicken soup then it would become ickenchay oupsay.”
Jimmy had to think for a moment. “Yes exactly!” he answered.
Now the boys had come up with their language that they wanted to use to confuse the teachers.
They went back inside and found there 5th grade classroom and sat down where they normally would. Mrs. Sheldon, their teacher, began teaching the class on social studies. The class was of course bored out of their minds by the teaching and started daydreaming. Jimmy whispered to Paul, “Next time she calls on one of us let’s fool her and use Pig Latin.”
“Okay let’s do it”, he answered.
So the teacher called on him to answer a social studies question. She asked, “Can anyone tell me what the capital of Germany is?”
Jimmy raised his hand. “Erlinbay”, answered Jimmy with a smirk on his face.
“Nice try” answered his teacher. “I studied pig latin in college so you’re not gonna be fooling me.” The boys had been defeated. Their new language wasn’t gonna work. They’d have to come up with another language to fool the teacher with.
The next day on the playground the boys were sitting in their usual spot on the swing, bored out of their minds. “I have another idea!” said Jimmy.
Paul’s face lit up with excitement. “What is it?!” he asked, exclaiming with glee.
“Alright so how about this; Let’s change our secret language to gibberish instead of speaking in Pig Latin.”
“Alright”, answered Paul, “How do you speak in gibberish though?” he asked.
“Well you see, when you have a sentence like ‘Did you like the ride?’, translated into gibberish that would be ‘Pe ug riko zo lido’.”
“Okay I got it! Let’s do it.”
They went inside from recess and sat back down. The boys sat in their usual seats and the class began to learn their usual lesson after recess, social studies. Mrs. Sheldon was rambling on about the French and Indian War and the whole class was bored out of their mind. She asked a question to the class to try and wake them up. She called on Paul.
“Who was the leader during the French and Indian War?”
“Di waxasnk paxayick axattonkien”, said Paul, laughing quietly under his breath. His remark had made the whole class laugh and Paul felt as if he was king of the world.
“Oh you weren’t paying attention?” said Mrs. Sheldon. Paul was confused. He couldn’t understand how she understood what he said. “Nice try but I have learned how to speak gibberish and you mister have a detention.”
The boys looked at each other. They couldn’t figure out what to do. They had been beat, once again.
The next day, the boys sat on the swings, even somehow more bored than the last two days. They didn’t know what else to do to make school fun and exciting. “I guess we’ll just have to be bored for the rest of the year”, said Jimmy, with a glum look on his face.
“I’ve been doing a lotta research on funny languages and such”, said Paul, “and I think I may have come up with something to fool her with.”
“Go on”, said Jimmy.
“Well, how about we try using Turkish Irish as our next language to fool her with”, he said.
“I guess it’s worth a shot. But how do you speak in Turkish Irish?” asked Jimmy.
“It’s pretty easy. All you do is put ab in front of vowels. So if you have a sentence like ‘How do you like your eggs?’ you put ‘Habow dabo yaboabu likabe yaboabur abeggs?’”
“Okay I think I got it”, answered Jimmy. “I hope this works.”
The boys went inside and sat down. Once again, Mrs. Sheldon was boring the class until half of them were falling asleep on their desks. The boys were wide awake though, waiting for her to ask a question. Finally, she asked a question. Jimmy’s hand shot up and Mrs. Sheldon called on him. Jimmy didn’t even know the question so just winged what he said, praying to God that Mrs. Sheldon wouldn’t understand what he said.
“Abi labikabe taburtlabes”, said Jimmy. Mrs. Sheldon had the look of confusion written all over her face.
“Um no”, she answered confused. “But thanks for trying.” Jimmy glanced over at Paul and mouthed “We did it” with a wide smile on his face. The boys had finally won.
Pretty soon, the whole class had been speaking Turkish Irish and making their days fun-filled because of how crazy it made Mrs. Sheldon go. And it was all thanks to two boys who never gave up.