Whiiiirrrrr!

I meant to post this a while back, but I'm only now remembering.

I was on Library duty the other day during a lunch shift. Kids were coming in to take AR tests and asking me to put the monitor password in, etc.

Suddenly I hear some racket in the hallway. It's noisier than the usual yelling and slamming of lockers. A bunch of kids in the library jump up off the computers and crowd around the library entrance to see.

I'm trying to grade papers in peace over by the librarian's desk, and the librarians are in the computer lab or down the hall or something. So I get up to go fuss at the kids in the hall and tell them to go back to class or lunch or wherever the hell they came from.

When I walk up behind the kids in the doorway, I hear a sound like a blowdryer blowing up an air mattress. Then I see a kid on a hovercraft scooting down the hall and whooping. A HOVERCRAFT, y'all. How do you fuss at that?

Turns out it was the Physics class. The teacher was right there with them (a small Asian woman who has won a bunch of teacher awards). They were just doing a lab or something. Building a hovercraft and trying it out. As you do.

On closer inspection, it was a flat round disk on the floor that looked somewhat soft, like a stiff yoga mat. There was a tube coming out of the top and some blowing device that was stuffed into the tube. The kid taking a ride would mash the trigger of the device until it (I guess) pushed some air under the mat and some other kids would give him a hard push. Then he'd sort of glide down the hall right in front of the library and yell.

I thought to myself: I'm teaching in a place where you can occasionally find a kid hovercrafting in the hallway. During class time. And I felt a little grateful.