Read Online Swan Place by Augusta Trobaugh - Free Book Online Page B

wanted to spend my lunch times in her classroom. She listened like she was taking in my words through her very pores. And when I finally stumbled to a stop, she said, “Well, of course, you may spend your lunch time in my room. But  . . . ” I held my breath. Miss Madison just had to help me, and whatever I had to do, I would do it.
    “Surely, you understand that you can’t hide from Michelle forever. That way, you let her win. At some point, you have to learn to ignore children like her.” Oh, how I did like Miss Madison grouping Michelle in with “children”! “And if you want to be in my classroom for your whole lunch time, you will have to put your time to good use.”
    “I will!” I agreed, with relief. She opened a bottom drawer of her desk and took out a new Blue Horse notebook.
    “When you finish your lunch, you will write in this,” she said.
    “Write what?” I asked, while she put the new notebook on her desk and pushed it toward me.”
    “Anything you want to write.”
    “Anything?”
    “Yes. Will you do that?”
    “I will,” I promised, and just then, some of her early students came into the room, talking and laughing.
    “Then I’ll see you at lunch time,” she said. And I could hear the gentle dismissal in her voice.
    I was ever so happy in all of my morning classes, knowing that I had the new notebook and that I didn’t have to worry about Michelle and her lies about me. Lunch time came, and I had a nice, long drink from the water fountain before I went into Miss Madison’s room. When I went in, she was at her desk, writing. She looked up at me, nodded her head, and went back to her work. I sat down in a desk in the back row, put my books away, and left only three things on the desk: my sandwich, the new notebook—open to that first pure, blank page—and my pen. I looked up at Miss Madison. She had a sandwich too, and while I watched, she unwrapped it, took the half in both hands, and bit down on it—all the while still looking at whatever she had been writing. So I did the same thing, only the page I looked at was absolutely blank—except for all those perfect, pale blue lines, waiting to be filled up. I looked up again. Miss Madison was dabbing her mouth with a paper napkin. So again, I did the same, with the sheet of paper towel that was my napkin. When she started on the second half of her sandwich, so did I. And when the sandwiches—hers and mine—were gone, she wiped her hands, gathered the waxed paper and the napkin together, and tossed them into the trash can. But I didn’t have a trash can to throw things in, so I wadded up my waxed paper and paper towel and stuffed them into my pocket.
    And I waited and watched. Miss Madison was still looking at a page of her notebook. But then she picked up her pen and started writing. I picked up my pen, too. But that beautiful, blank page seemed to look back at me and to say What now? What a good question! I thought. And what was it Miss Madison had said to me that morning when I asked about what I should write? Anything you want. I sat and sat and thought and thought. What did I want to write about? That was a hard question! But then I got to thinking about Mama and her honky-tonk songs, and I knew right away that was something I could write about. So I started writing and all of a sudden, my pen seemed to fly across the page. Why, I was so surprised when I heard Miss Madison’s voice suddenly jumping into the middle of my story about how Mama was so very, very beautiful and how she sang those sweet-sad songs.
    “Lunch time is over, Dove,” the voice said. “Go on to class and I’ll see you tomorrow at the same time.” But coming up out of the writing was like heaving myself out of a pit of deep mud that kept trying to hold onto me. That was another surprise, and when I looked up at Miss Madison, I could feel it was the same way for her. Like her hand hated to put down the pen, and her eyes wanted to stay looking at the paper.