The Cat at the Wall Read Online Free PDF Page B

woman and smiled through her entire speech. Not a real smile. The sort of smile my mother called a smirk.
    Sometimes I would raise my eyes a bit, as if I was laughing at some hair sticking straight up out of her head.
    Sometimes my eyes would go to her shoes, and I’d pretend to whisper to Josie, all the time smiling as if something was hysterically funny.
    It worked. I knew it would. I’d done the same thing in church when I was bored, to supply teachers I didn’t like, and to soccer coaches, too, just for fun.
    The speaker raised her hand to smooth down her hair. Then she looked down at her shoes to see if one was untied. And she lost her place in her speech.
    “According to UNICEF, there are seventy-seven thousand children around the world who are not in school … no, I mean seventy-seven million …”
    She had to look through her notes, and she knocked them off the podium. They flew across the gym floor. A couple of the Bright Eyes helped her gather them up, but she had to take a moment to put them in order and then find her place again.
    The rest of her speech was a mess. The students started to fidget and even the teachers stopped paying attention. She finished in a rush and hardly anyone applauded.
    “See?” I said to Josie.
    “You’re not very nice,” she said, but I could tell she was impressed.
    Back in the classroom, Ms. Zero stood at the front of the room and was silent for a long time, even after we took our seats and got settled.
    No one had been given a detention yet.
    Then she said, in a quiet voice, “Clare, please write your name on the side board.”
    I didn’t quite know what was coming, but I had a bad feeling that I was in trouble. I wanted to protest, but that would have gone against my practice of not appearing to disagree with teachers. I went over to the chalkboard as if it was a regular everyday thing, but my heart was beating fast.
    “Beside your name, put a multiplication sign, then the number one.”
    I did that.
    “On my desk, by the start of class tomorrow morning.”
    That was all she said.
    I hung back at lunch time, feeling the need to at least pretend I didn’t know why I was being punished.
    She didn’t even wait for me to speak.
    “Your behavior in the assembly was disgraceful. I have nothing more I want to say to you right now, and there is certainly nothing I want to hear from you.”
    She didn’t even give me a chance to talk. Like I said, she hated me from the start.
    I stayed in after school to make the copy. I almost didn’t. I almost left when everyone else did, but at the last minute, I decided to get it over with.
    “I’ll be right out,” I said to my crew.
    They went off together down the hall, talking and laughing and having a good time without me.
    I counted the verses in the stupid poem. Seventeen. I slogged through it.
    If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
    On and on it went.
    Ms. Zero worked at her desk the entire time I did the detention. She didn’t speak to me and I didn’t speak to her.
    Finally I copied out the last two lines: With all its sham, drudger y and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
    I handed my work in to Ms. Zero.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    She didn’t even look at me. She didn’t even ask me if I’d learned anything.
    My crew was gone by the time I got outside. I was late getting home. I told my father I’d stayed behind to help the remedial class. He said he couldn’t ask for a better daughter.
    Strive to be happy , I thought, as I flopped down on my bed. I’d be happy if I never had anything to do with that damned Desiderata again.
    And now I had to hear that same stupid poem coming out of that stupid little boy in the handcuffs.
    It was not very nice. It was not very nice at all.

Eight
    —
    I hissed right into the boy’s face to try to get him to shut up.
    He kept on going. He