"The Crack At The End Of The Wall"

I grew up reading "Hardy Boys" books. The adventures of  brothers Frank and Joe, and their sidekick, Chet, filled many hours of my growing up years. After my brother, Ralph, introduced me to the books at the old public library on East Main Street, I never looked back. Who can forget "The Secret Of The Old Mill"? or "The Wailing Siren Mystery"? and "The Disappearing Floor"? Good, clean, wholesome reading!

I know my little story will not come up to the standard of *Franklin W. Dixon but let me tell you the true story of: "The Crack At The End Of The Wall"...

I began my school days at the Junction Hill C-12 Elementary School. I did not attend Kindergarten, but in 1970, when I started first grade, it looked exactly as it appears above. My first grade class, with Mrs. Beulah Story as teacher, was the one right behind the basketball goal in the picture.

When the school was built, there was not a separate classroom for each grade. There were six classrooms, so some of the grades had to share a room. I confirmed with one former teacher, Mrs. Nondes Good, that she taught 3rd and 4th grade in one room in 1963. She also said that the 7th grade was divided between the 6th grade room and the 8th grade room. I also visited with former teacher, Mr. Bobby Vonallmen, who started teaching at Junction Hill in 1961. He said that the 1st and 8th grade had their own classrooms with the other classes being divided between the remaining rooms and he taught 4th and 5th grade together. (And as a side note: He was also the boys PE teacher for all the upper grades!)

Taking all this into consideration, it seems that some of the rooms were larger than others. And then sometime, in the years before I started school, they divided the larger rooms with a wall...

And a few years down the road, I made a discovery...

When they built the wall dividing the room which would house the 6th and 7th grade classes, they did almost a perfect job. "Almost" being the key word. The end of the wall, opposite the windows fit perfectly against the inside block wall. The end that was against the outside wall where the windows were... not so good. At the end of the wall, about three or four feet up from the floor at the bottom of the window, there was a crack...

This crack was between the end of the wall and the window, and it reached all the way to the ceiling.

I discovered this crack at the end of the wall by mere accident. Our teacher, Mr. Herndon, had moved me to the very back corner of the classroom so I was not directly under his gaze every moment of the day. I was forever more looking for ways to occupy my time in class. Besides studying.

I kept hearing the teacher lecturing in the 7th grade class, very clearly. So I knew there was some kind of opening into the class next door. Upon further investigation (at intervals when Mr. Herndon wasn't watching) I discovered the small open space between the window and the end of the wall. "The Crack"!

Well... I had a good friend, Eric, who was in 7th grade, so we conspired to fix a method of communicating using this secret passage. After all, adolescent boys have so many important messages that they need to send back and forth to each other...

I brought a long, thin piece of copper wire to school, and while the teacher wasn't looking, threaded it through the crack, into the 7th grade classroom.

In the 7th grade room, where the wire came through the crack, was right on top of a row of book shelves. So... Eric found some excuse to go back to the bookshelf and attached a note to the end of the wire. I pulled it through to my side, read it, attached an answer back and sent it back through the crack.

This worked famously for a couple of days. Then, things got even better. Eric somehow persuaded the teacher to move him to the back corner, right across the wall from where I sat!

This made it so much easier and faster to send our important missives.

So we sent our messages back and forth, back and forth and enjoyed the fact and we were getting away with secret, high level communication, right under the teacher's nose.

We might have gotten away with this clandestine communication until the end of the school year....If I hadn't been so slow. Alas! It was impatience that brought the whole surreptitious operation down in flames!

Eric had passed a note through to me and I was attempting to answer it. Before I could get a reply written and passed back, Mr. Herndon stood up and started lecturing on some important (I'm sure) 6th grade subject.

I figured, "No Problem". Surely Eric can wait until Mr. Herndon finishes.

How wrong I was...

A few minutes into his lecture, I began to hear a rustling behind my head. Now, I didn't dare turn around, because the teacher's eyes were roaming back and forth across the class as he talked. And all of a sudden... He stopped talking, his eyes bugged out and he was looking RIGHT AT ME!!

Actually, he wasn't looking Right at me. He was staring at something right above my head and right behind me!

It seems that, in his extreme impatience, Eric had decided to get my attention. He had found a HUGE sheet of paper. Rolled it up into a long tube. Flattened it out until it would fit through the crack in the wall. Stuck it through the crack until there was about two foot sticking out on MY side... And was WAVING IT UP AND DOWN!!! LIKE A HUGE, NARROW WHITE FLAG!!!

Uh Oh!!!

Mr. Herndon had this quirky habit. He was left handed, so he would snap the left thumb and forefinger then make a fist and smack the heel of his left hand into his right palm. Over and over, while he was lecturing.

Here he came, slowly down the aisle between the desks, snapping his fingers and smacking his palm.... He walked right back to the corner where I sat, reached above my head, grabbed the still waving paper banner, and jerked it all the way through the crack and right out of Eric's hand!!

Then... He just stood there... Wadding up the paper... Staring at me with his black beady eyes... Not smiling... His mustache twitching... "Mr. Riggs! Get your desk and move it right up in front of my desk. It seems I need to keep an eye on you."

I moved my desk to the "honored" place, right in front of his desk. The front of my desk was actually touching the front of Mr. Herndon's desk!!

Almost immediately, he went next door and informed the 7th grade teacher of our covert activity... And guess what? Eric also had the honor of being moved to the head of the class!!

We didn't receive any other punishment, but the humiliation was enough.

The school year ended. I attended West Plains Junior High my 7th grade year. But I have never forgotten the rush of excitement, the thrill of danger, the humiliation of discovery, in the undercover case of: "The Crack At The End Of The Wall"...

*Franklin W Dixon, "author" of the Hardy Boys Books, was actually a pseudonym for Edward Stratemeyer the original creator of the series.