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appropriate for a parochial school environment.
You must work on delivering your class more promptly to the cafeteria at lunchtime and to their “extras”—gym, music, assemblies, Final Friday confessions, etc.
    A DDITIONAL C OMMENTS
While I have no strong objection to your acquainting the children with the French language, you must remember that this instruction falls under the category of “enrichment” and should not supersede academics and/or religious instruction. You might also wish to emphasize French culture, in particular the fact that France is a Roman Catholic country from which many saints have hailed. These include, of course,Joan of Arc as well as Martin of Tours, and Teresa of Lisieux (“the Little Flower”).
I appreciate your having volunteered to stage a series of costumed “tableaux vivants” for this year’s Christmas program, given your experience with theatricals, and I will certainly consider and discuss with the rest of the faculty in the coming weeks. However, you should know that our Christmas program is well established, and that the audience who attends annually has certain expectations as to the format. They might not embrace the sort of pageantry you propose.
    Very truly yours,
    Mother M. Filomina, Principal
    Reading Mother Fil’s comments, I felt sorta sorry for poor Madame. Sure, she was weird, but she meant well. And compared to Sister Dymphna, shehad way more of what Pop called “zippity-doo-da.” But Madame’s report card read kind of like a teacher’s version of Lonny Flood’s. I didn’t know what “vivants” meant, but I figured “tableau” was French for “table.” I didn’t get why Madame was volunteering to put a costume on a table, unless, maybe, a “tableau vivant” was like a French tablecloth.
     
    N o dawdling now! Line up! Dépêchez-vous!” she pleaded. Yup, she was definitely working on her “needs improvement”s.
    I got in line by the back door and Marion Pemberton cut in front of me. Marion’s a boy, not a girl, even though he has a girl’s name, which, in a way, is worse than having everyone call you Dondi. Marion’s the only colored kid in our grade. Black, I mean. At Sunday dinner last Sunday, Pop started telling us about, the day before, this sailor was sitting at the lunch counter having a tuna salad sandwich and a Fresca? And Pop could tell he was from the Southbecause he had a Southern drool, which is an accent like that creepy little girl on the Shake ’N Bake commercial who, when her father comes home and says, “What’s for dinner?” and the girl goes, “Mama made Shak’n’Bake and ah hailped.” But anyways, Pop said, “And then this colored guy comes over and sits down at the stool next to him, and the Southern guy gets up and moves two stools down, as if the colored guy—” And Frances interrupted him and said, “What color was he?” And Pop went, “Huh?” And Frances said, “Was he green? Yellow? Purple?” Then she told us that her civics teacher told her class that, from now on, colored people didn’t want to be called “colored” or “Negro” they wanted to be called either “black” or “Afro-American.” And Pop rolled his eyes and went, “Well, excuse me, Martin Luther King’s secretary, but do you mind if I finish telling my story now?” But anyways, when Marion Pemberton cut me in line, I said, “Hey! No cuts, no butts, no coconuts.” And he looked back at me and smiled and shook his finger in my face and said, “Wait’ll the NAACPhears about this!” And I elbowed him in the back. (But we were just kidding. Marion and me are friends. One time, he and his mother were at the bus station picking up one of their relatives who was coming in on the New York bus and Pop let me make Marion a free float—orange soda with vanilla ice cream.) Marion’s always saying that for a joke: “Wait’ll the NAACP hears about this!” Like when he doesn’t get picked right away in dodge ball, or when he wants to