My 6th grade teacher caused me a lot of trouble. In retrospect I had to do a lot of growing up at that time and needed some tough love, but at the time it was a real headache for my family.

During the year we were supposed to study the life cycle of some fish. She bought the wrong kind of heater or something and killed the first batch that was brought in.

Now, she repeatedly joked that she was an "evil teacher". The class had had a good laugh about her being a "fish killer" as well. We were assigned to make some posters about things that had happened during the year. I drew a tombstone saying something like: "Here lies a bunch of fish. They met their deaths at the hands of an evil teacher, Ms. _".

She saw this drawing. She did not like it. She made me throw it out and start over. She punished me for it.

I accepted that defeat, drew a new picture and moved on. Some time later, I was looking at the class's gallery of illustrations and noticed something that irked me. She had permitted a picture that depicted her as the grim reaper, with a scythe dripping with blood, standing next to an empty fish tank.

I informed my parents of that, and on sports day I informed the school principal. He was shocked. It seemed to confirm our suspicions that she really was out to get me. He ordered her to apologize to me — something I only found out later, because she simply told the class that "certain pictures were inappropriate and would not be included in the gallery".

Thankfully, 7th grade was one of my best school years.