I don’t know if I’m going to be any good at this moderator thingamajig. The first ten minutes of the class, Martin and I were cornered by 50+ bouncing balls of pure energy. It was kapow this, and kapow that. Little hands were thrusting yellow slips at us and my voice was quavering above the din. “Hold on to them please! We’ll get them later, when the real teacher’s here!” The real teacher didn’t come until twenty minutes later, where she saw us huddled into one corner, desperately trying to make the kids pipe down by having them introduce themselves (Name, section, reason for joining Blue Horn). The real teacher stepped onto the platform, cool as cucumber, wrote on the board with a flourish, and with a voice as clear as a foghorn (I’m not kidding), boomed. “Can we start with a prayer? Are you ready to listen? I want a boy whose last name starts with an O to come up front and lead us into prayer.”

So that’s how it’s done. Damn.

It was a blur for the next 20 minutes. The little boys, somehow, got onto their bellies and were drawing logos for the magazine (And may I just point out that each paper had the drawing of a tank on it. Blue eagles with horns and tanks. Unbelievable.) and thinking of possible taglines.

“Does anybody know what a tagline is?”
“No!”
“What’s Globe’s tagline?”
“Making great things possible!”
“Good!”

Which resulted in taglines like “Making writing possible,” “Making magazines possible,” and my favorite, “Love namin ‘to”

One little boy with big, round eyes sidled up to me.

“Is this club boring?”
“If you like to write and draw then no, it’s not boring at all”
“Because if it’s boring, then I’ll just join Kids For Christ.”
“Well you can transfer now if you want. You can’t change your mind after today, you know.”
“No. There’s always next quarter.”

Oh my god. First meeting and I’ve already been threatened.

“Teacher, teacher I changed my mind! I don’t want to join Blue Horn, I want dance club!”
“Okay, let me just look for your yellow slip and then you can leave.”
“Yay!”

I am scared to death of boring these children. I don't want to let them down. These are second and third graders, highly impressionable children, and I don't want them to think we are unimaginative, uninspired people telling them to do unimaginative, uninspired things. Frantically, I printed out and collated about 20 Creative Writing for Children activities and tips to make me feel that I'm somehow prepared for this onsurge of responsibility. My father has volunteered to do a storytelling session (Note to self: Save for when there is a severe emergency).

I'll get these children to love me (and writing), if it's the last thing I'll do.