The Evil Eye

The other day, I was checking my students’ homework like I normally do. To do this, I go up to each child’s desk and flip through their homework book to see that they did the assigned pages. Once a week, I collect the books, correct the answers, and then return them to the kids.

About half way through, it was Kevin’s turn. Now, Kevin is a beautiful child. He is the kind of little Korean kid that makes me want to put him in my purse and take him home with me. He has shiny black hair, flawless skin, gorgeous eyes and a super cute and friendly personality. All around, a very handsome little eight year old.

Well, I came up next to him and took his homework book. When I walked up, Kevin happened to be turned around in his seat, talking to one of his friends. When he noticed me looking through his book, he very slowly turned around and looked up at me. When I looked down at Kevin, I almost screamed! The poor child’s eye was bright, flaming red. Like, the white part of one eye was this crazy, unnatural shade of red. It really took all of my self-control to not scream my head off.

The whole thing was like something out of a horror movie. Kevin very slowly turning around and looking up at me seemed almost orchestrated. Also, his beauty really amplified the hideous imperfection of his crazy, red eye. On top of it, Kevin happened to be wearing a sweater that looking like something out of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The sweater had a picture of a teddy bear on it. The teddy bear, however, was all mangled looking. The bear had a X for one of his eyes and had missing limbs that were replaced with creepy stick figure arms and legs. I was definitely freaked out.

I looked at Kevin (even though I really, really wanted to look away) and asked him what happened to his eye.

He replied “Chan punched me!”

I looked at Chan and asked “Why did you punch Kevin? I thought he was your friend!”

Chan looked confused and said “I didn’t punch Kevin!”

Kevin then looked guilty so, I asked him what really happened to his eye.

Kevin looked down sheepishly and mumbled “My jacket zipper…”

Now, I was the confused one.

Kevin went on to explain what happened. Apparently, he was playing with the zipper of his down jacket when it flew off of the zipper track and hit his eye. His mother was so freaked out by the redness that she rushed him to the emergency room, fearing that he would lose sight in the eye. He was examined and the doctors decided that the injury simply looked horrible but, no real damage was done. So, he was sent home with his creepy eye.

I looked at Kevin’s Crazy Eye and said “So, what you’re saying is that you got into a fight with your jacket and the jacket won?!?!?”

The class took a minute to process what I said (remember, they are 8 year old second language learners) and then burst out laughing. The kids thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Kevin looked a little shocked and then started giggling like mad. He told me that he was still a little afraid of his jacket so, if it tried to get him again, I should throw it out the window. I promised him I would.

That class now has a running joke about not making your jacket mad or it will get you. It’s pretty funny but, I still wish that I didn’t have to look at Kevin’s eye.

Not nearly as bad as Kevin's eye.

Scary but, still not as bad.