CHICKEN PATTY WITH WHITE SAUCE; TENDER GARDEN PEAS
FISH ALTERNATE:
FILLET OF SOLE CRISPLY BROWNED WITH PARSLEY POTATOES, SHOESTRING STRING BEANS
CHOICE OF VANILLA OR CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM
PETITS FOURS
COFFEE-TEA-MILK
INTRASCHOOL COMMUNICATION
FROM: 508
TO: 304
Dear Syl—
Your letter-box is crammed to the gills, as usual; I hope I can squeeze this note in!
I'm supposed to lure you out of 304 during the homeroom period today: I promised your cherubs I'd think of something! They want to collect money for your Xmas corsage; it's traditional, and every year every teacher pretends great surprise at receiving it. (The one with the biggest corsage wins!) So be sure to drop in to my room—on some pretext or other.
Tomorrow will be wild! It would be good to fortify ourselves with a double malted after school today, but I know you're meeting with Ferone this afternoon. Let's plan to see each other during the holidays. I'll be pretty much alone, except for a couple of nights, when I am taking some of my kids who have never seen a live play to an off-Broadway production.
I understand tomorrow's Faculty Frolic is live, too!
MISS BARRETT,
Dear Miss Barrett,
Just to make sure I pass here is another Extra Credit Myth I remembered! Hero and Liandor poped into my head because I forced myself to remember that Hero is a girl! But the rest of it I don't remember so well so will talk about another Psyche. She was the sister that got left on the shelf when the others got married off but an Orcle told her parents to put her on a Mount top to wait for a husband. One day Cupid came along and became her husband but said she must never look at him! Her sisters told her to take a look and if it's a monster kill it, and if not don't! When she did he was awakened and fled away. After trying to kill herself she came to Venus to be a maiden under her. After doing some tasks she became imortal and had two children. All the other teachers are forced to pass me on, Ha-ha! because I'm outgrowing all my classes so I hope you will too with all these Extras I'm giving you!
Dear Miss Barrett,
I'm collecting money from the kids in Home Room for a Xmas present to send Alice in the hospital and would like your permission to do this. Would you care to join in? I keep thinking how she used to sit right in front of me. We want to get her one of those great big stuff animals on which we'll all autograph our names to show we didn't forget her. A pander or a kangarroo.
51. Love Me Back!
Thurs., Dec. 17
Dear Ellen,
It is 3:30 in the morning. I can't sleep; I need to talk to you. I want to tell you what happened this afternoon, exactly what happened.
It was late when he came in; I had waited, it seems, for a long time. I remember arranging and rearranging the papers on my desk, refreshing my lipstick, switching on the lights against the winter darkness. I remember the sounds of traffic and the drilling on the street below, and the way he suddenly stood in the doorway.
He closed the door softly behind him and leaned against it, waiting. I remember thinking how nice, he had spruced himself up for our interview: the toothpick was gone; he had taken the trouble to brush his hair.
I arose. I smiled. I was glad to see him, I said. I had been wanting to see him all term. He said he knew that; well, I had my wish, here he was.
Ignoring his insolence, aware of his resentment of authority, I stepped out from behind my desk and —to bridge the distance between us—I sat down, with my Delaney Book, in a student's chair, motioning for him to sit next to me. I knew precisely what I would discuss with him: reasons for staying in school, possibility of college, making up failing marks, attendance, attitudes. I was ready to point out the discrepancy between his capacity and achievement. I was prepared to understand his problems.
He swaggered towards me, but he did not sit down.
He stood above me, leather jacket unzipped, rocking slightly on his heels, looking down at me, but not looking at my face.
I sat holding my Delaney Book like a shield against my breast, with all those cardboard names on it, last first, printed in ink. He knew what I was after, he said. He recalled my every act of kindness to him, from the first day, when I had covered for him with McHabe. And about the wallet, he said, and when they found the knife on him, and the midterms, and all that talk, talk, and asking him all the time to see me alone. Well, we were alone now.
The drilling on the street must have stopped for a moment; I remember it had begun again, more loud and insistent. I felt my heart beating against the hard, wine-red cover of the Delaney Book. He must try to understand, I said. He must believe that I wanted only—I wanted—
He wasn't listening. He was looming above me, the years between us swiftly reversed, while I sat, an unsure school girl, reciting a tentative lesson. My words never reached him; I could almost hear them drop, one by one, like so many pebbles against a closed window.
You know how you move under water, heavy and graceful? By this time I was standing. I had somehow got up. I remember how carefully I had placed the Delaney Book on the arm-desk of the chair, balancing it so that it should not spill out all those name cards. Disarmed now, empty-handed, I was standing before him. I became
