Read Online The Writing on the Wall: A Novel by W. D. Wetherell - Free Book Online Page A

the river and all roads meet. Alan had a truck now for business and he would drive me to the station where I would wait for the morning milk train. There were no cars for passengers but the trainmen were friendly and would let students ride in the caboose. It was thirty minutes ride and then I would walk the rest of the way uphill another twenty-five minutes. This was fine, since I still remembered how to read as I walked and it was while trudging up and down those steep sidewalks that I did much of my work.
    On the first day, not knowing any better, I wore my best frock. This made the other girls decide I was rich and stuck-up, though I felt like a bumpkin compared to them. But when I climbed up the marble staircase, found the locker assigned to me and went to my first class I was almost bursting from happiness and nervousness combined, since it was by far the bravest thing I had ever done.
    My first class turned out to be disappointing. I found a desk near the front and the boy behind me, when the door opened and the teacher came in, poked me in the shoulder. “Miss Crabapple,” he whispered and for the rest of the class I thought that was her name. She had a sour frown, sour eyes, sour wrinkles and she made us sit with our hands folded so it was like I was seven again and back at the county home.
    That was history. Mathematics was better and then came lunch which I ate alone under a tree and then it was time for English composition. The classroom was on the fourth floor off in a corner so it seemed exiled from the rest of the school, a secret room or garret that made me feel like Aurora Leigh living in London writing her poems. I felt a pleasant sense of anticipation even before the door opened and the teacher walked in.
    He was a young man, not that much older than the seniors, but he gave off an immediate air of authority and command—it was only later we found out he had been an officer in the Great War. He was handsome in the way men are who can force away their homeliness by sheer will power. You did not notice his big nose or over-large head or bad complexion—his blue eyes and spirited way of staring blinded you to the rest. You sensed that his face was not the barrier or shield that most people’s are and you were looking directly in to who he was, who he really was, with no excuses. Likeable is the handiest way to describe this. Likeable but with an edge.
    His hair was sandy and surprisingly unkempt. His eyelashes were the longest, most doe-like I had ever seen on a man and he seemed self-conscious about this, because he was always touching them, almost primping. He dressed shabbily, in a brown suit that hung loose from his shoulders. Combined with his dusty army shoes and half-tied tie it made him look absent-minded, which was the very last thing Peter Sass ever was.
    He sat at his desk with his head in his hands moodily staring out at us, then, as if electricity had just switched on inside his chest, sprang to his feet and started marching up and down the nearest aisle.
    “Who’s your favorite author?” he demanded, stopping at the first desk.
    “Uh, Longfellow,” the boy stammered.
    “Who’s your favorite author?” he demanded, stopping at the second desk.
    “Eugene Field,” the girl said primly.
    “And you?”
    “Edgar Rice Burroughs.”
    “You?”
    “Maria Susanna Cummins.”
    “You?”
    “Samuel Clemens.”
    The teacher stared down at him.
    “Sawyer or Finn?”
    “Tom Sawyer.”
    That took care of the first aisle. He marched down my aisle next, where there were only four of us.
    “Who’s your favorite author?” he demanded, stopping at the first desk.
    A blonde boy sat there, new like me and very handsome—the girls had been pointing at him, nudging each other and giggling before the teacher came in.
    “Oscar Wilde,” he said in a voice of complete and utter boredom.
    Mr. Sass, obviously surprised, hesitated, then moved on to me.
    “Browning,” I said before he could even