The Cat at the Wall by Deborah Ellis

long moment, everyone played statues.
    Then another bullet hit the door.
    Nothing had been gained. Everyone was stuck exactly where they were.
    The gunfire attracted more attention. The sound of the riots came closer. It was accompanied by the sound of tanks and helicopters and army boots stomping the ground.
    “Our guys are here,” Simcha said. “About time.”
    Whatever was going to happen, I would have a front row seat.

Twenty-one
    —
    We’re coming up to the moment of my death.
    I blame a lot of it on my sister.
    Polly’s handwriting looked a lot like mine. I went to her and asked her to help me write out the punishment poems.
    “No,” she said.
    “Come on! If you don’t help me, I won’t be able to go on the trip.”
    “I don’t care.”
    “I’ll pay you,” I said, even though I didn’t have any money, and if I did, I sure wouldn’t give it to her.
    “I don’t need your money,” Polly said.
    Which, unfortunately, was true. After her furniture store radio commercial, other local businesses hired her, too. She did a radio ad for the health food store and one for Dollar Days, the annual sidewalk sale the downtown business association put on.
    “Help me or I’ll make your life miserable.”
    “I’m not afraid of you,” she said.
    My friends wouldn’t help me, either. I wasted lot of time trying to make them.
    “You should have done them as you got them,” Josie said. “Everybody else did.”
    I almost hit her.
    As the date of the class trip came nearer, I was forced to make a decision. I had to tell my parents about the detentions or I had to do the detentions myself. They already knew about the trip — Polly the rat told them — so they would know something was up if I wasn’t on it.
    I decided to tell them about the detentions.
    “Ms. Sealand has it in for me,” I said. “Really, she’s been terrible to me all year. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to deal with it myself. But she’s being really unfair!”
    My mother ended up in a meeting with the teacher and the principal during a lunch hour. My father couldn’t be there. One of his clients had died and the family was fighting over the will. But I had to attend.
    “This is about more than the class trip,” my mother said. “I don’t care whether Clare goes to Washington with her class or goes with us sometime on a family vacation, or doesn’t go at all, for that matter. This is about what appears to be systematic bullying by your teacher of my child.”
    The principal looked at Ms. Zero.
    “You are right that this is about more than the class trip,” she said. “The detentions are part of Clare’s assignments. If she does not complete them, the incomplete work will bring down her overall average.”
    “Now, hang on a second,” Mom said, getting up on her lawyer legs. “Are you telling me that you might lower my daughter’s grades if she doesn’t write out some poem you arbitrarily assigned for detention?”
    I had a very good feeling about the way the meeting was going, and I was right. The principal did not want a hassle with my mother. He directed Ms. Zero to wipe out the crushing load of punishment poems (he didn’t say “crushing load,” but that’s what it was) and to find another, more reasonable detention for me to do.
    Ms. Zero just nodded and said, “All right.” She didn’t argue. She did not look ashamed. She looked exactly as I imagine she would have looked if she had won.
    When I went back to class after lunch, my name was off the board. I got a lot of looks from the other kids, and a lot of questions at recess.
    I thought about bragging but I just didn’t feel like it.
    I think I felt shame. I’m not sure. It’s not something I was used to feeling, so I could be wrong.

Twenty-two
    —
    An army helicopter hovered right over the little house.
    I heard it come lower. It stirred up dust and blew off people’s hats and headscarves. It sent people scurrying into doorways and gutters. There was a