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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
    THE EDGEVIEW EXPRESS
    DATED FIVE YEARS AGO

A LITTLE MORE CLASS
    “ H ey!” I shouted.
    Bloodbath, passing by in the other direction, glanced back and grinned. I guess the punch was his way of saying hello. It would have been nice to return the greeting with a baseball bat, but there didn’t seem to be one handy. I waited until he was out of sight before I rubbed the sore spot.
    Torchie didn’t even seem to notice. I guess punches from Bloodbath in the hallway were as common as mosquito bites near a swamp—a pain in the butt at times, but nothing unusual. Torchie stopped in front of an open door decorated with a picture of Shakespeare taped to the lower half. “Here we are. English class. You’ll like Miss Nomad.”
    I followed Torchie inside, where we grabbed the seats Cheater had saved for us. Between them, I felt like I was sitting in a box full of puppies.
    As the bell rang, Ms. Nomad swept into the room, her long skirt brushing the floor, her long brown hair brushing past her shoulders and flowing all the way to her waist. She wished us a cheery good morning, smiling as if today were the most wonderful day in the world and we were the most fabulous students a teacher could wish for. She was so young, I figured she couldn’t have been teaching for more than a year or two. She zapped a huge grin in my direction and said, “Welcome to the class, Martin. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Feel free
to join in the discussion.” Oh man, she reminded me of some kind of life-size talking animal from a cartoon. She beamed an even bigger smile in my direction. It looked like she had more teeth than anyone would ever actually need.
    I waited for her to say, Tell us something about yourself . I would have bet a million bucks she’d do that next. But she just picked up a book and started the lesson.
    Perfect. I relaxed and sat back. Maybe we’d get along just fine. Everyone groaned when she pulled out a book of poetry, but I sort of liked the first part of the poem she read to us.

    Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me.

    I actually felt a chill when she read that. I didn’t completely understand it, and I sure didn’t understand the rest of the poem, but those two lines sounded pretty cool.
    “I told you she was nice,” Torchie whispered.
    “Yeah.” Maybe this class would be okay.
    Unlike math, English class went well for almost ten minutes. At that point, we were talking about writing. “Writing is such a wonderful way to express yourself,” Miss Nomad said. “And the best part is that anyone can write.” She had a habit of walking all around the room as she talked, as if she were weaving herself among our desks. It made me feel like I was part of one of those pot holders kids make in craft classes. I was getting a sore neck from watching her. At the moment, she was passing right by me. As she said the word anyone she gave me this look that seemed to say, yes, Martin, even poor little you can scrawl meaningful words . She almost seemed to expect a poem to burst from my forehead.
    Move on, lady , I thought.
    She stayed where she was, her smile burning a hole through my face. All that talk about only sharing when I felt like it—that was obviously
a pile of crap. She wasn’t going to budge until I spilled some warmth.
    I raised my hand.
    “Martin, you have something to contribute?” Miss Nomad asked. “That’s wonderful. I’m so glad you’ve chosen to participate.”
    “Yeah. Maybe anyone can write, but won’t some people stink at it? I mean, anyone can paint, but most people really stink at that. I know I do. The last painting I tried looked like dog puke. And the same for playing the violin or making a chair. Have you ever heard someone who’s really bad on the violin? It’s not very pleasant. And I sure wouldn’t trust my butt sitting in any chair I’d made with these two hands.”
    She sort of gulped. In my mind, I saw this human goldfish that suddenly