The ritual was kept a secret by everybody, and only whispered when she wasn’t around. We would look around the room cautiously and eye our teacher’s location. Then, one person would whisper, and the people within hearing range would widen their eyes, then fill with sly pride.

This was a trending habit in Ms. Hovan’s first grade class. We, the students, would keep our tiny ears open at all times for the slim chance that we would be able learn some new vocabulary, despite the vulgarity of a few choice words.
   

On a special day in our usually quiet and orderly classroom, I sat down at my group that consisted of three other students. The one sitting opposite of me was Taylor Young, an acquaintance of mine. She whispered to us that she had heard a new word recently. The two other students and I leaned in to the center of our clustered desks, and her eyes scanned the room.
   

“Eff you see kay. That’s how you spell it. It’s a really bad word. Don’t say it, though. We’ll get in really big trouble. We might even get sent to the principal’s office.”

    I became flustered and anxious. How could there be a word that I didn’t know? I was seven years old. I was a big kid. I knew most of the words in the world, and the ones that I didn’t know were just the big ones, the ones with more than letters than my name had. In my mind, I convinced myself that Taylor Young was lying.

    “That’s not a word! You’re just making it up!” My voice return to normal volume.

I could see her recoil at my sudden change in volume. However, I was furious that someone was trying to fool me into thinking that there was something I didn’t know.

“Nuh uh! I heard it on the TV last night! It’s a real word!”
“It’s fake!”
“Nuh uh!”
“Yuh huh!”
Her stubbornness fueled my frustration until it blew up.
It erupted from my mouth.
“F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!”

I rose from my seat and walked around the classroom victoriously, proving my point that it was not a real word due to the lack of immediate repercussions.

I returned to my seat with a false sense of graciousness, ignoring the stunned faces of my peers at the table. I assumed that they were just shocked by my vast knowledge and brushed away the thought from my mind.

However, my security began to falter when I saw Taylor Young’s eyes dart between my face and the area to my right.

“What’s wrong?” questioned the tiny voice in my head timidly.

As I turned my head to the direction that Taylor was looking, I froze when I saw a tall, seething vulture hunched over me in a black suit that just so happened to look like my teacher.

Very much like my teacher.