The Cat at the Wall by Deborah Ellis Page B

what she would do. I swaggered a bit as I walked up to her desk.
    She put down her pen, sat back in her chair and looked up at me. She smiled her vampire smile.
    “It’s been quite a year, hasn’t it?” she said.
    I didn’t reply. She went on talking.
    “And it’s almost over. I wonder what the takeaway will be for you. When you’re an old woman and you look back on your time in the eighth grade, I wonder what you will remember.”
    She stood up.
    “One last detention,” she said. “Come with me.”
    I figured she was going to make me clean out some cupboard or storage room, so I followed her. But she stopped at the classroom door.
    Right beside the poster of the punishment poem.
    I looked at her.
    “I’m not copying it out,” I said. “The principal said I didn’t have to.”
    “I don’t want you to copy it out,” she said. “I just want you to read it. One time. Out loud.”
    I was sure it was a trick.
    “I just read it and then I’m done?”
    “That’s right,” she said.
    “You can’t make me read it.”
    “You are correct,” she said. “I am asking you to read it. You can choose to do it or not. But I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t. It’s simple enough.”
    I stared at her. Then I stared at the poster. My fingers started to curl into fists.
    “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll read it with you. We’ll alternate verses. I’ll start us off. Go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.”
    She looked at me and waited. I wanted to smash her.
    Instead, I read the next line. No, that’s not true. I didn’t read it. I recited it. Somehow, the poem had worked its way into my brain even though I did not want it there.
    “As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.”
    “Speak your truth quietly and clearly ; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story,” said Ms. Zero. She wasn’t reading, either.
    “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter,” I spat out. My voice got louder. “… for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself . ”
    “Be yourself , ” Zero said calmly.
    “Take kindly the counsel of the years …” You old cow, I thought.
    “Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.”
    “… be gentle with yourself , ” I said. The damn thing was almost over. My eyes were starting to sting.
    Ms. Sealand took a step toward me. Her face looked kind and concerned. She looked the way my grandmother looked when some ratty old, smelly old drunk came into the soup kitchen in the winter without shoes.
    “You are a child of the universe,” she said, putting her hand gently on my arm. “… no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.”
    I backed away. “And whether or not it is clear to you …”
    I knew the rest of the words in that line. Of course I knew them. They just wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
    I felt a tear dripping down my cheek. Ms. Zero wasn’t exactly blocking the door, but she wasn’t making it easy for me to run through it, either.
    I wasn’t going to let her win. I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and tried again.
    “And whether or not it is clear to you …”
    Ms. Zero finished the line for me.
    “… no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
    That was it. I’d had enough.
    I pushed my way passed Zero and out into the empty hall. I swung out at open locker doors and kicked a stray gym shoe out of my way.
    Stupid school, I thought. Stupid poem. The universe was not unfolding as it should. The universe was a big freaking mess where good people got killed and where people like me were able to keep on living.
    I went to my locker and I gathered up all my stuff. I was finished with that school and I was finished with Ms. Zero. I didn’t know what kind of lie I’d tell my parents to keep from having to go back, but I’d figure something out. I was