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It was a paradox of imperfection that should never have held together.  But it did.  And it was known to the world as Science High School.

The building itself warned the stray passerby.  Its facade was a granite whimsy ‑-a blend of Gothic, Dutch, and Medieval Makeshift.  No less capricious were those housed within.

Doc Mantel, for example, patrolled the first floor.  His post was near the offices, and periodically either he or they would declare silence mandatory.  Unwarned of this edict, we would chatter down the hall only to find Doc blocking our path.  With a gleeful flourish he'd fan out a sheaf of detention slips.  "Take a card, any card," he'd encourage us.  "They're all the same."  Our pleas of innocence, occasionally justified, went uncontested and ignored.  One Friday fully a quarter of the students spent an extra hour at school.

The third floor, the domain of Mad Dog Tyson, was another battle zone.  Mr. Tyson, however, scorned detention slips.  He threw blackboard erasers instead.  But chalk marks from these could be washed off on the second floor where Mr. Finkelstein and Mr. Warner held sway.  These foresighted gentlemen kept confiscated water pistols at hand.  Their adroit use of these weapons not only kept us in order but speeded up hall traffic as well.

Yet the hazards of the hallways paled beside other perils.  Notable among these were our lockers.  Eleanor and I shared one at the rear of the auditorium.  It had been designed not for two but for one, and that one an undersized elf.  Nevertheless we managed ‑-through precision engineering ‑-to fit in two sets of texts, two gym bags, two shop aprons, and twin lab smocks.  And somehow, when our labs added their touch of exotica, we found room for the specimen jars to be analyzed or the fruit flies to be bred.

But then complications set in.  Fashion that year decreed the trench coat, and each of us bought one.  They were huge, voluminous garments, cut on the bias, and with four yards of hemline each.  All by themselves they could've filled the hold of a ship.  Locker operations now became a test of dexterity.  In the mornings we used the cram and slam system.  Poor coordination here could result in fractured fingers.  Afternoons were simpler ‑-they required only speed.  Flinging the door open we would duck behind, neatly dodging the volley of sneakers that burst forth.

Only once did calamity strike.  The afternoon before winter recess I had just pulled the lock when a despairing wail rose from the far end of the auditorium.  "Save the flute!  Ronnie!  Save the flute!"  Flinging both hands upward I snatched the instrument in mid-flight.  Books, bags, and bottles rained upon me.

Eleanor sprinted to my side.  "I'm sorry," she apologized.  "We had music assembly today.  I needed the flute for band."

I brushed away a swarm of drosophila.  "What are these fruit flies doing here?" I demanded.

"Oh, those.  I was taking them home for Christmas."  Then mournfully, "But now their test tube's broken."

"Cheer up," I muttered grimly, handing back her flute.  "For Christmas I'll buy you an overripe banana.  We can start all over again."

Our classes were as crowded as our lockers, and as unpredictable.  Originally the school had been meant for boys only.  This misogyny had an enormous impact on our class, the first to go through as coed.  While girls in other schools took home economics, we had mechanical drawing and shop.  As a project in these courses my friend Maxine elected to make a periscope.  Neatly she traced its pattern, patiently she cut it from sheet metal, and expectantly she folded it together.  Then with a gasp of "Oh, God!" she burst into tears.  Mr. Kelman, the shop teacher, hurried to her side.  "Are you hurt, Miss Kaplan?" he asked concernedly.  "What's wrong?"

"Oh, Mr. Kelman," wailed Maxine, "the top tube bends sideways, and it's supposed to bend out!  What'll I do?  I'll fail!"

"There, there," comforted Mr. Kelman.  "You can still use it to see around corners.  And I don't fail girls ‑-they cry!"

Regrettably, the boys in our class were not as gallant as our teachers.  In physics, for example, Mr. Tyson had set up a demonstration.  With a light on, a glass pane reflected my image.  With the light off, Irv Guller's visage came through.  Mr. Tyson summed up our copious notes on the matter with, "...and there you have it: beauty and the beast."

"Don't you call her a beast!" shot back Irv.

With utter solemnity, Mr. Tyson proffered me his chalk eraser.  "Aim low, Miss Luria," he advised.  "Aim low."

Mr. Finkelstein, on the other hand, preferred verbal fencing.  In accordance with school policy he reminded us once not to chew gum.  He put it as a personal favor.  "During the war I was near big guns," he told us.  "I worried about losing my hearing.  Now, when I see your mouths go without sound coming forth, I fear I did lose it.  So to reassure me, you will not chew gum."

Ever understanding, we attempted to soothe him.  The next day we chewed only bubble gum, popping noisily to dispel dread of deafness.  After that Mr. Finkelstein relied on his water gun.  It ended his auditory problems once and for all.

Other teachers too found words unavailing.  Often they wrote off their loss with a laugh.  When Mr. Kaye rebuked Burt, busy talking to his female lab partner, with, "Wasting time, Burt?" the response was immediate: "No, sir.  Making it."

Burt was in his third semester when Mr. Warner demanded to know why the wooden hall pass had a strip shaved off whenever Burt used it.  Burt's explanation: "Because I'm a third termite."  This response gave Burt a nickname he kept for his high school career.

But others had nicknames as well.  Frieda's habit of sailing paper boats in the aisle led Mr. Bass to christen her "Commodore."  Sonja, who knitted through math class, was "Madame Defarge."  And we in turn would label our teachers.  With wicked glee we produced such titles as "Mad Dog," "Black Mike," and "Ptomaine Benny."  But practicality lay behind other sobriquets.  Since the school boasted two Mrs. Johnsons, we used nicknames to distinguish them.  J. H. Johnson, our history mentor, was known as "The Jug Head."

But it remained for Mr. Warner to finally depict us.  As seniors we had to take a regents exam.  This history test would stress the happenings from 1945 on.  For these we had little enthusiasm; even current events held no interest.  Since most of us barely glanced at a newspaper, Mr. Warner could elicit few intelligent responses. 

"What is the Truman Doctrine?" he asked one day.  I leaned forward to Eleanor, about to tap her shoulder.  But Mr. Warner, anticipating me, continued: "'What is the Truman Doctrine?' Ronale will now ask Eleanor.  And Eleanor will reply, as she has all term, 'Search me.'"

The entire class burst into laughter at this all too accurate prophecy.  Woefully Mr. Warner shook his head.  "Gerry," he commanded, "tell these cackling illiterates what the Truman Doctrine is."

Still laughing, Gerry admitted his own ignorance.  "I don't read the newspaper either," he explained.

"Marvelous," breathed Mr. Warner.  "You don't read the papers, she reads only the comics, and he looks only at the sports page.  Thirty zany individuals, thirty little worlds each in its own orbit.  And what holds you all together?  Levity!"

But our coming graduation was a nova flaring slowly.  Soon we burst apart, flying to a hundred different colleges and from there to a hundred different paths.  Time, space, and diversity of interest then ensured our separation.

And yet, in another way, we continued to hold together.  We had learned to laugh at human frailty, and it had linked us.  Years later, these links of laughter would form a chain of compassion, and this would bind us not only to each other but to all humankind as well.