Miss Hill
©2002 Andrew Calhoun, recorded on Tiger Tattoo.
Little leaf tornadoes stood up in the schoolyard,
The kids going in to the 5th grade all knew that year'd be hard;
It was battle-ax Miss Tierney, or crazy old Miss Hill,
The second meanest teacher at the West End School.
"I had a fourth grade," she'd tell us, "they'd run rings around you kids,
You can't pull the wool over my eyes, I'm wise to all your tricks,"
Then she'd turn back to the blackboard, scratching out full throttle,
While the flesh hung from her bared arm and flapped like a turkey's wattle.
There was a new kid introduced to class who couldn't take her teasin',
One morning he burst into tears with very little reason;
"Oh, crocodile tears," she crowed, "somebody bring him a bucket,"
And one boy did while that poor kid turned purple as a turnip.
Silent in the laughter that rained down on the fool,
Sat the smallest, shyest 5th grader in all of West End School;
It was nothing new for old Miss Hill to make poor kid crawl,
Now she turned her class on the classmate who had no friend at all.
I found one boy at recess, who said he would go too,
To tell our lady principal what that kid had been put through;
There's a first time for everything, and so it came to pass,
that Miss Hill said "I'm sorry," in front of our whole class.
The new kid moved away again, I don't think we ever spoke;
I hope he knows not all of us were laughing at the joke.
He's the reason one shy 5th grader ran rings around Miss Hill,
The second meanest teacher at the West End School.
The second meanest teacher at the West End School.