Sylvia left me alone for
the first week of school, until Miss Underwood let us move our nametags. She marched
over to my table, ripped my nametag off the table, tearing it halfway through between
the N and the I, then slapped her nametag down in my place. By this time, I had
received plenty of advice from Kurt and Mrs. S and Miss Abby for how to handle even
worse bullies than Ricky and Donny. I picked up my nametag off the floor where she
tossed it and moved over to the table she had just left.
The funny thing was, everybody
at my table pulled up their nametags and moved to other tables, leaving Sylvia completely
alone. That worked out, because there were six places at each table and four tables,
but only eighteen students in the class.
Sylvia didn't even notice
that she had the fourth table entirely to herself until she looked up from taping
her nametag down again. Her mouth dropped open and she looked around the room. Then
she stomped over to Clarice O’Donnell, who had been sitting next to me at my first
table and had taken the same spot at our new table.
"What are you doing
over here?" she demanded.
"I want to sit over
here," Clarice said, her voice barely above a mumble.
"But I want you to
sit next to me." Sylvia reached over to pull up Clarice's nametag, which she
had just finished taping down.
"Sylvia, what did
I just tell everybody?" Miss Underwood called.
"You said we could
sit wherever we wanted now, we can sit by our friends. I want Clarice to sit next
to me." Again with the little stomp for punctuation.
"I also said that
everyone could make one move. You've already moved to a new table, and Clarice has
moved to a new table. No more moving."
"But Miss Underwood,
I want—"
"Clarice, do you
want to sit next to Sylvia?" Miss Underwood asked.
"Yes, she does,"
Sylvia said, while Clarice hunched her shoulders and shook her head. Everybody had
been watching in silence until that moment. Then they burst out laughing. Sylvia
turned red, darker than her blood-red nail polish.
"The rules are the
rules," Miss Underwood said. "Go back to your table, Sylvia."
"But I'm all alone!"
"Yes, and why don't
you think about why you're alone?"
"Clarice is stupid
and didn't do what I told her, that's why."
"No one is allowed
to call anyone stupid in this classroom."
Sylvia spent the rest
of the morning standing in the corner, doing her addition worksheet against the
wall, with her back to the rest of the room.
