C H A P T E R 1
I sat in my classroom, listening to Mrs. Johnson explain how to multiply fractions. The room was quiet. Almost everyone was listening attentively.
Randee made a paper plane, and he was waiting for Mrs. Johnson to turn to the blackboard so he could throw it to Mark. Although I was hearing Mrs. Johnson, I was not listening to her. The pitter-patter of the rain on the galvanized roof was more interesting.
I looked over at Kelley and whispered, “We are going to have fun today.”
“Yes,” said Kelley, smiling.
We both knew that when it rained this heavy, the stream usually overflows its bank and pours on to the road.
Although the water is not clear, you could see the little tadpoles, guppies, and small conch swimming in the water.
Some of the boys would find a pan to catch some of the guppies and conch to take home. They would put them into a drum half filled with water. The body of the conch is sometimes pulled out, and the shell is kept as an ornament.
The sound of a ruler hitting my desk jolted me back to reality. Mrs. Johnson spoke in a stern voice.
“Jan, are you sitting in my class, or out in the rain?”
I could feel all eyes on me. I felt embarrassed and when I spoke, my voice was shaky.
“I . . . I . . . I’m in . . . cla-class.”
Everyone started laughing, except Kelley.
“Quiet class!” Mrs. Johnson said in her most stern voice, and in the same tone, she spoke to me, “Jan, there is a fraction on the board. Go to the board and work it out!”
I knew that Mrs. Johnson expected me not to know how to multiply that fraction, and she was waiting for me to make a mistake. I was not worried because my father had shown me how to do fractions.
When I walked up to the board, all eyes were on me. I took my time in working out the sum. When I was finished, Mrs. Johnson did not praise me for doing the sum correctly. I knew she was a bit angry because she did not get the chance to embarrass me.
Mrs. Johnson took the chalk from my hand, and spoke to the class.
“Class, do you understand what was done?”
“Yes, Mrs. Johnson,” they responded.
I walked back to my seat, and Kelley whispered, as I walked by her desk, “Good job.”
“Thanks.”
I sat down, and I thought about Mrs. Johnson. She was stern. Many of the children did not like her, but our parents did because she was a very good teacher. Every child that came out of her class went into specialized Junior high schools. She was the type of teacher who would take a child to sit at her desk and teach them a math problem or any other subject they did not understand.
Most evenings when I arrived home from school and my parents ask me how my day was, I would try to convince them that Mrs. Johnson doesn’t like me, but my mom would say, “Jan, you are not in her class for her to like you; you are there for her to teach you.”
After a while when my mother would start saying those words, I would say them with her and we would start laughing.
Mrs. Johnson had the unhappiest face I had ever seen on anyone. I wondered if she had a family. An hour after my near mishap with her, school was dismissed. The rain was still falling, and the sun was shining. I knew that the rain was going to stop soon.
Many parents came to pick up their children from school. I was glad that my parents and Kelley’s did not come to take us home.
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