Place in the City Read Online Free PDF Page B

day. If she were wiser, she reflected, she would have passed it over easily. But she wasn’t wise. How could you be wise in a world that leaped at you, no matter what way you turned your face?
    This is what had happened. She had come back to class after the noon recess, and there was the thing lying upon her desk. It had taken her almost a minute to realize what it was, and then she felt so faint and ill that she had to sit down, leaving it where it was. She couldn’t touch it; it was too evil. And then, there was no child in her class who was more than twelve; that was what added to the horror of it.
    She sat there behind her desk, staring at the class, and they looked at her too, eagerly. If only she had had some inkling of it before she entered the room, she might have gained the upper hand; she might had sent in one of the men teachers. But now she had lost out entirely, and she would never be able to look at the class with clear eyes again. They were actually laughing at her, those who were not all tight with the tension of the moment.
    She wanted to cry; she wanted to scream, but nevertheless she had to hold up: so she merely said, in as quiet a voice as she could muster: “Who did this?” And then she looked around the room, from face to face.
    The boy who couldn’t meet her gaze was Peter White. He tried to. The others looked at her, knowing from long experience that it was fair proof of innocence to look a teacher in the eyes, but when she came to Peter White, he turned his face away. She noticed that his lips were quivering, that his small white fists were clenched tightly upon the desk. And he couldn’t look at her. Now wouldn’t that be proof enough for anyone?
    â€œPeter,” she said, still trying to keep her voice cold and level.
    He still didn’t look at her, but he rose trembling from his seat, and she had not even asked him to rise. Now wasn’t that further proof?—and was it entirely her fault?
    â€œCome up here,” she said to him, and she looked at him very sternly, as sternly as she knew how to look at anyone. Perhaps it had some effect, because the tittering died out, and the class became as still as death. Slowly, oh, so very slowly, Peter marched up to her desk, but when he was there, he would not look at the thing on her desk, averting his eyes from that and from her.
    â€œLook at me,” she commanded.
    He turned his face to her, and she saw that there were tears in his eyes.
    â€œPick it up!”
    He shuddered.
    â€œThrow it in the toilet, and then go back to your seat.”
    He picked it up, but when he came back, he stared only at the floor. He walked to his seat, and sat there with his head bent over. Every so often, she noticed, his shoulders would heave in a dry sob.
    When the three o’clock bell rang, she said: “Peter White, remain in your seat.” He didn’t move. All that afternoon, he hadn’t changed his position, and now it seemed to her that he hadn’t even heard her.
    The rest of the children left, and then the two of them were there alone, and still she didn’t know exactly what to do. If she went with Peter to the principal, it would all be simple. Then the matter would be out of her hands and in his. But how could she, and how could she tell the principal what had been on her desk?
    But if she handled it herself, how could she punish him enough, make him feel what she had felt? And then, why had he done it? Why did he hate her? He wasn’t just a bad boy, only quiet, and rather dull.
    â€œCome up here,” she said to him; but he only sat where he was.
    â€œPeter!”
    Now he looked up, and she saw that his face was wet and dirty with tears.
    â€œCome up here to me.”
    When he stood next to her, she looked at him. He was thin; his face was very white, and the way he looked at her was worse than anything he had done to her before. Then, for the first time, looking into his eyes, she