My Champion

When I was in the sixth grade at Barcelona Hills Elementary School, our teacher had us embark on what today might have been called a multi-disciplinary creative project.

I can’t recall if everyone had the same project, or if I had decided, among several choices, to make a book.

I gave it the title Fan-Fac-Sci because it would have elements of fantasy, fact, and science fiction. It included a character — a wizard named Yim-Yam-Yamo — who spoke entirely in rhyme. I wrote it in pencil, with colored pencil illustrations. And, undoubtedly with the teacher’s help, but if memory serves, not too much help, I also created a cardboard cover, sewed the pages, and bound the whole thing well enough that it’s still in one piece four decades later.

I got an A+. That semester, I was among the students who received a “Principal’s Award” on the strength of Fan-Fac-Sci.

Then, my limited-edition-of-one book… disappeared.

I’d brought it home for a while, I’m sure, but I had to bring it back to school to be on display for the Principal’s Award ceremony, or some such. Memory fails.

Point is, it was stored in my classroom, and then… no one could find it.

For weeks. Maybe months. Again, memory fails. I was a kid.

I was disappointed.

My mother, on the other hand, was furious.

My teacher had raved about it. She had told my mother she bragged to other teachers about the book, what her…