Chapter 24: Back at Nine

On Monday morning I hung thirty paper owls back on the ceiling of the art room.

The principal had said I could start fresh, and I'd said I preferred the owls.

The bell rang at eight-twenty, and my second graders came in all at once.

They had been told not to ask me anything, which they obeyed for nearly a minute.

"Ms. Holloway," a boy said, standing on his chair. "We made you a card."

It was the same boy who had hit my legs on the lawn.

He held out a sheet of construction paper folded in half, with glitter glue still wet on the front.

Inside, in purple crayon, it said WELCOME BACK MS. HOLLOWAY.

Under that was a drawing.

It showed a very tall man in a black suit, with a briefcase, standing on top of a smaller man in a gray one.

The smaller man had a mean little smile and was flat on the ground.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"That's your brother," the boy said. "My dad said he squashed him."

"Your dad said that?"

"He said it at dinner. He said, 'That brother squashed that guy flat.'" He thought. "I put the glitter on the brother."

I looked at the glitter for a while.

"Sit down," I said, in a voice that wasn't completely steady. "It's a beautiful card, and I'm going to put it on the wall."

I put it up by the window, next to the owls.

At three o'clock I drove to Evanston.

It was a ten-minute drive, and I knew the route already.

At the curb I stopped by the mailbox at the end of the walk.

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