"Miss Roach is a witch! And she eats roaches!"

A 3ft tall girl screamed as she ran toward us from across the playground. I already knew Miss Roach ate roaches. Everyone knew she ate roaches! I did feel nervous at the mention of a witch being among us if that was the situation we were in. It was early morning in Gainesville, FL, and a fog that had wet the ground and lurked about the houses and trees was disappearing, evaporating through the tall treetops of pine and oak, heading toward the blue sky.

The emergency warning-welcome we received wasn’t the greeting we were accustomed to at Stepping Stones; simultaneously, we started sizing up the small-statured source. We were sufficiently suspicious, to say the least. The young, 3-foot-tall woman who was talking to us—me mostly—was in her early 4’s. What she yelled at us could be the result of a number of things, I thought. This could be a result of her going through something personal, such as a ‘midlife crisis,’ or a simple game of pretend gone awry, as they often did between boys and girls at that age.

Ima and I both knew we stood in a place where rumors, conjecture, and flat-out lies flourished and ran rabid, getting passed around like pink eye.

As the 3ft tall woman continued, images from The Wizard of Oz poisonously seeped into my head, aided by my vivid imagination, bringing dark smoke into an even darker room where an evil-looking, green-faced witch slowly stirred something mysterious in a huge black cauldron while in a trance. A plate of roaches sat within arm’s reach.

"Why is that cauldron always so big…" but my thoughts were interrupted. It was the same 3ft tall girl, and she was still talking.

The weeks prior brought noteworthy concerns that we had no choice but to address. Which of my fellow scholars made the discovery, we will never know. It’s safe to say it was one of the girls, as they were much more assertive and observant than we boys were at that time. One of the more assertive and observant girls had overheard—or maybe just heard—their parents talking about something disgusting and disturbing.

There was a teacher at our preschool whose last name was actually Roach…

"Gross!"

Not long after the whistleblower informed me and a few others of the news, an emergency meeting was called to order. Four to five of us met at the swing set. Nobody used the swings. They were on the south part of our small, chain-linked area, perhaps 15–20 feet from NW 8th Ave, which runs east to west through Gainesville. The swing set was as far away from our line of four adjoined classrooms and, therefore, a decent distance from any eavesdropping grownups.

In hushed whispers and low, inaudible tones, we began talking and voicing concerns. Our fears were worn on our faces, and they could be heard in our small, confident voices. We all suspected the same thing: Miss Roach was likely a person who, for whatever reason, was very much into eating cockroaches.

We talked amongst ourselves for a minute or two and then took turns speaking individually. As each of us spoke, it soon became clear we all saw her last name as our main concern. We were partial to this sound, logical conclusion we arrived at, and even now, one has to admit it is a very solid argument—rooted in hard facts and bound by logical reasoning.

It was obvious to us that doing nothing was not an option. We intuitively knew action had to be taken. We were quite young and also quite small. Being physically overpowered was a regular occurrence in all our lives, as was losing most arguments.

At the swing set, everyone who had the desire to be heard spoke their mind and expressed their concerns. At the conclusion of our meeting, it seemed the best course of action, we felt, was to begin a small and effective campaign of sorts. It was to be comprised primarily of inappropriately suggestive and entirely one-sided surveys, which would be combined with rumors and speculation about Miss Roach and her proclivities.

We set out immediately and with haste but were diverted by our teacher, who made us eat cookies and drink the juice of apples. The cookies were classics—light brown in color and round-ish in shape, with a single round hole in the middle of each. The holes lent well to wearing the cookies as rings on our small, growing fingers. That day, I could see clearly we were growing out of such things, and I recall being mildly annoyed watching some of my classmates. Cookie ring fingers and apple juice seemed inappropriate, given the circumstances.

Immediately after snack time, we began. The one-sided, overtly suggestive surveys worked marvelously, but it was the rumors and blind speculation about Miss Roach that worked best.

After some time had passed—perhaps half a day—most everyone was informed about the situation. The energy at Stepping Stones started dying down. It was around this time that someone felt it was important to embellish a few things. This is to be expected of 3- to 4-year-olds. Some may be shocked to learn that a young person became bored with the exaggerations and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, began telling flat-out lies.

Before our parents came that day, a fellow student was all of a sudden admitting (for the first and only time ever) that someone they knew had actually seen Miss Roach eating a roach. Perhaps it was a close friend or a sibling, but we didn’t care about that trifling detail. What we heard was good enough for us; it was all we needed to hear at the time. In our small, wise minds, it was virtually a fact: someone, somewhere, had actually seen Miss Roach do it.

In the weeks that followed, if we did talk about Miss Roach, it was usually on the playground, where it was safe to talk. The speeches or admittance of thought regarding Miss Roach typically lasted a minute or so. More often than not, the monologue was primarily focused on her abhorrent, disgusting last name, which always got some kind of audible rise and reaction from anyone paying attention. We all felt her last name was relevant and important; this was the glue that held most of our well-thought-out arguments together, and for the most part, we stuck to that relevant and important fact.

Even today, most scholars have to acknowledge it makes for an extremely solid logic-based argument, which is nearly impossible to refute.

When someone would pause from playing to talk about the potential roach eater, we would politely stop what we were doing and listen. As we listened, we imagined our own daydreaming nightmares.

The scene:

—A dark, fusty room playing host to a disgusting roach feast featuring a Wizard of Oz-looking Mrs. Roach. There she sat in our collective minds, feasting on roaches, hand to mouth, like we ate our cookies.—

I thought it must have been satisfying for her to eat all those disgusting roaches while also promoting feelings of extreme embarrassment and shame for her and anyone associated with her.

I almost felt pity for her addictive affinity, but I was too grossed out by the fact that she was actually eating roaches to focus on those feelings.

Most of us, being in our mid-to-late 4’s, did not want to spend our time thinking about grown-ups eating roaches or being witches. We wanted to play with toys and have fun. But as one of our classmates eloquently pontificated, “Miss Roach is our elephant in a china shop.” We all unanimously agreed, nodding our small heads. She was right.

We had to address this woman at the end of our row of classrooms. It was “the last classroom on the block,” and it was being run by a lady who, at times, unabashedly ate roaches.

We left playtime and play pretend out of the equation and approached the situation like adults. Another meeting was called at the swing set. The information we had gathered while conducting surveys and rumor-spreading was significant. Her last name was indeed Roach. She did not change her name, like grown-ups can do. In fact, she didn’t seem embarrassed or ashamed of her last name being Roach whatsoever, which meant she may not be embarrassed about eating roaches either.

She had dark black hair, and we didn’t interact with her. Her room was down at the end of the classrooms—the last classroom on the block. Lastly, we had the student who knew someone who had seen her do it. They weren’t there with us at that moment, but it was okay; we remembered what they’d said.

A vote was cast, hands shot up as we looked at each other confidently. We all had agreed and voted.

From that moment on, it was a fact: The teacher, Miss Roach, was definitely, for certain, eating cockroaches.

Gross!

William Shakespeare wrote, “What is in a name? A rose by any other name smells just as sweet.” In 1984, I had not yet heard this hogwash. If I had, I would have disagreed with him. It’s worth mentioning I disagree with him now.

The news relating to Miss Roach being a witch was new information, and I could tell by how wide the girl’s eyes were and from her body language—my impromptu playground newscaster was serious. The energy was immediately elevated as more of our associates walked onto the scene.

She immediately raised the status officially to the level of “super serious,” which is four to five levels more serious than just plain serious.

As my small associate began at the beginning with the details, my attention shifted toward the adults, who were 90% mothers. They were discussing the recent headline: Miss Roach (an officially established roach eater) was a witch.

If I was told what she did to earn herself this new haunting title, I cannot remember. I recall feeling confused by the information and simply not understanding some of the words that were being said.

I was focused on the fact that she was a witch, and I wanted to know if she had a giant cauldron in her classroom or if she kept it at her house. Did she have her broom, and could she fly using it?

The conclusions my colleagues and I quickly came to made perfect sense to us at the time, and our position on the subject still makes logical sense today.

As best we could surmise, Miss Roach’s horrid roach consumption had to be directly connected to her being a witch. We also felt strongly that her being a witch tied directly to her insatiable appetite for consuming roaches.

Obviously, the two fed into each other, forming some sort of morbidly disgusting symbiotic witch-roach-eating relationship that we had no desire to fully comprehend.

On this day, our parents didn’t depart one by one to go about their mornings.

Today, they were standing around, talking in tones I could not hear but could understand. Looks of seriousness and concern became apparent as they huddled closer and closer together.

I recall that day the air was crisp and dry for Florida. The sun was shining on our playground, but it seemed to be more slanted at an unnatural angle.

Although the sun was shining, the light didn’t seem to touch Miss Roach’s classroom door the way it usually did. The cool air blew more leaves around the entrance, and there was a silence that was not there before.

Was it obvious to us children that something had happened in Miss Roach’s classroom?

Whatever had occurred, all of my classmates and I felt deep down inside that the eating of cockroaches would have been part of it.

That much we knew for sure.