6. Second-Grade Lesson (cont.)

Miss White was a mild-mannered, white-haired woman—I thought her hair the reason for her name—who doubled as principal and taught the seventh and eighth grades. She lived on the second floor of the school with all the big kids, a place we second graders never went, so she was more myth than reality to us. Still, I knew all about Miss White. My brother, Willis, had told me. She had a strap in her bottom drawer as all teachers did, Will said, but with one difference. Her strap had pins in it!

I climbed the wide wooden staircase normally forbidden to second graders, my feet like concrete. Even the note in my hand was impossibly heavy. I reached the large combined seventh- and eighth-grade classroom and made my way, slowly, painfully, to Miss White’s desk. She read the note I held out to her, looked at me over the top of the note, then read it again.

“Come with me,” she said, not unkindly, and I followed her into her small office. We both sat down.

“Are you sorry you did it?” she asked. Her voice was gentle, but her gentleness was no help. How could I answer a question like that? How could I be sorry for what I didn’t do?

“But I didn’t do it,” I said, filled with despair. She would, I knew, believe the note she held, not me.