Read A Deeper Love Inside for Free Online Page B

with decorated pencils, and even a pencil sharpener.
    On the first day of first grade, Ms. Jenkins made me want to win. Now I could get any kind of food or candy gift at home, of course.We lived in the projects, and we had everything to choose from cause Poppa kept us living and eating very well. But what Ms. Jenkins did was different. She filled us with a feeling that we had to work to win, that we had to focus to learn, and whatever was happening anywhere outside of her class didn’t matter. We had to get it right or be exposed and embarrassed.
    On our second day in our first grade class, as soon as we arrived she handed out blank sheets of paper and gave us our second quiz. We couldn’t believe it. We just looked around at each other.
    “Learning is not only repeating,” she told us.
    “Learning includes remembering,” she said, slowly pronouncing each word. “Everything you learn should be remembered and used in your life.”
    When she collected our papers, she made every student stand. She called out our names and separated us into two groups. “These are the students who remembered.” She pointed. “These are the students who forgot.” She pointed. Immediately she gave each student in the group who remembered a bag of multicolored marbles. Then, she told the kids who forgot. “If you don’t learn to read and write, you can’t do anything.” We stood there feeling ashamed. Shame was a new feeling for me. I was a rich girl from a rich family, the best family in my Brooklyn hood. I never had a reason to feel shame before I met Ms. Jenkins.
    As we, “the forgetters,” had to remain standing, answering Ms. Jenkins like we was in a chorus, I got red and redder. Ms. Jenkins called out, “If you don’t learn to read and write, whose fault is it?” Then she taught us all to respond by saying it out loud: “If I don’t learn to read or write, then it is my fault.”
    At the end of class I took my paper to Ms. Jenkins.
    “I got a 95,” I said to her. She looked down at me and said, “That’s not 100.”
    When I told Momma, she said, “Fuck her! Who does she think she is messing with my pretty baby?” Later that night, Momma gave me a card plastered with gold stars that she must’ve got from the five-and-dime. Now I had a hundred gold stars from Momma. But, somehow, I still wanted that one gold star and that 100 percent from Ms. Jenkins.
    By the end of first grade, I could read and write very well. Ienjoyed reading and writing to impress Ms. Jenkins, a teacher who we spent so much time with, that one day I accidentally called her Mommy. Even though I admired Ms. Jenkins, I didn’t enjoy reading books on my own, because the books were all boring. My real life was way better.
    As the best learners and rememberers were rewarded daily and immediately by Ms. Jenkins, I learned the deeper meaning of what she meant when she told us, “If you don’t learn to read and write, you can’t do anything.”
    As those of us who learned to read and write well sat watching a Disney animation film on a huge portable white and silver screen, while Ms. Jenkins’s personal popcorn popper popped popcorn, and her hot plate melted the butter, the forgetting, slow-learning kids sat in a corner rewriting their mistakes a hundred times. There was no movie, no popcorn, no butter, no fun, or relief for them. They couldn’t even see the screen. They couldn’t do nothing . Everybody knew who they were. I wasn’t down with them. I hate feeling ashamed.
    “Open it up to page 100,” the pretty Puerto Rican said, standing close, right in front of my desk.
    “I’m not listening to you,” I told her.
    “You wasted eighteen minutes already,” she said.
    “So what?” I answered, all blasé.
    “I’m Lina, number 2, the Diamond Needles. You better start showing me some respect, little girl. Riot left this for you. Read it,” she said, then walked away, strutting.
    I opened the book, thinking, Oh, so now she knows I know how