things to write about. The gun scared me, and I never told anyone I’d found it. But when I asked my mother in a roundabout way what, exactly, my father did for a living, I was disappointed to learn it had nothing to do with chasing bad guys and instead involved something called “insurance fraud” and (I later learned) the occasional wandering spouse. It was impossible to imagine the adults I knew hiding in some attic like Jo March or Hans Christian Andersen, chomping on apples and thinking about things. Besides, there were hardly any books in our home. True, my grandmother made weekly trips to the library, mostly for mysteries, and, true again, my mother’s parents had a huge stack of Reader’s Digest magazines. But the biggest collections of books in our extended family belonged to me.
My mother, while proud of my grades, worried about my increasing isolation. She urged me to go outside and make friends the way my brother did. Athletic and affable, Chipper collected friends like I collected, well, books. Nearly every week he’d come home from school with some new classmate. They’d ride bikes, make cardboard forts, shoot marbles, flip baseball cards—none of which interested me. Once in a while, though, because they were younger, I could cajole them into playing some game of my own invention. We’d play Circe and I’d turn them into swine. Or Dream Game, in which I’d have everyone pretend to sleep while I acted out my dreams of the previous night. These games never lasted long. My brother and his friends got tired of being transformed into livestock or having to snore on command. Your sister’s games, they complained, are really stupid.
One afternoon, fed up with the way I “moped around the house,” my mother made me call up a girl who lived two streets away. Squat and loud, a nose picker who never read anything at all, the girl repulsed me. Do it! my mother said, holding out the receiver. Do it or you can spend the entire week in your brother’s room. I’d already read everything in there including the baseball cards. So I caved. The neighborhood girl and I spent a desultory hour or two playing Barbies until I managed to fob her off on Chipper, who was always happy to have another kid around. Then I snuck off to my room to read.
All the students in Mrs. Satler’s classroom, even the tough kids, knew to keep out of her way.
On my first day in this new school I was assigned the last seat in a row of alphabetized fifth-graders, one of several exactly spaced rows, so different from the “open” classroom I’d attended the previous year. There we’d been encouraged to ask questions and “work at your own pace.” Fridays had been “casual” days; girls could wear pants. Nothing doing in Mrs. Satler’s classroom: Girls, you will be young ladies.
Earlier that year my father had moved out, the private eye shacking up with his secretary, and we’d gone to live in my grandparents’ house in a new school district. Mrs. Satler emphasized discipline, obedience, conformity. That first day, she read the roster in a voice that belonged to a bird of prey. She called each student by his or her full name—Patricia Lynn Horvath. We do not use nicknames here! On the coldest mornings she kept us outside. We stood shivering in our separate lines, boys and girls, stomping our feet, our faces hidden behind scarves and hoods, our eyes and noses streaming. To the right and left other students greeted their teachers and were let into their warm classrooms. We waited. Eventually Mrs. Satler would come to the door.
Good morning class, she’d recite flatly.
We looked at her. What kind of day would it be?
Good morning, Mrs. Satler, we’d reply loudly, in unison, cold air in our throats.
What? I can’t hear you!
GOOD MORNING, MRS. SATLER!
Is that the best you can do? In that case, you can all stay out there and freeze! And she would slam the door.
One day she grabbed a boy by the hair and, laughing maniacally, pushed his head into his locker. Another morning she whipped off her wig and waved it at us. April Fools, she screeched. I’m bald! Even the boys quieted, and a girl burst into tears. I knew that at night Mrs. Satler’s human shape fell away and she assumed her true form—the Medusa.
Mrs. Satler ignored her No Nicknames rule whenever it suited her, which was most days. I was “Sieve Head,” an honorific awarded me the day I forgot some homework assignment. Some kids, mostly boys, she hit with rulers. One or two girls she made pets of, praising their work, letting them erase the board. She was especially partial toward a Scandinavian looking girl named Nelsa who was embarrassed by this and used to tell the other kids, during recess, It’s not my fault, I hate her too. Because she was pretty, and uncomfortable with her status, no one held it against her.
I pleaded with my mother to let me stay home. I told her about the wig, the locker, the name-calling. She complained to the principal, but so did the other parents, all of them demanding that their child be transferred to the other fifth grade class. Mrs. Satler had us write letters. The theme: Why You Hate Me. We could, she said, remain anonymous. Still, we lied. She read the letters aloud. You’re a nice teacher. We don’t hate you. Sometimes you’re a little mean—here she lowered her glasses—but mostly you are nice. My mother later told me Mrs. Satler submitted these letters to the principal. Whether the ruse worked or whether it was something else, she remained in her job until she elected to retire.
Sixth grade was no better. Every morning Miss Swenson read to us from Pilgrim’s Progress. The pilgrim wandered a bleak landscape, beset by sin, while we fidgeted, itchy in wool sweaters, the gray sky hard against the window, the language of the story impenetrable. We memorized poems that were never discussed. One by one we stood to recite “O Captain! My Captain!” Walt Whitman, I decided, was a sailor, a famous captain’s son. His father had collapsed on deck (heart attack?) and now he was sad.
For hours we practiced penmanship, Miss Swenson’s leathery bicep jiggling as she drew cursive letters on the board. She had us copy long passages from our science text: That’ll teach you to be sloppy. I hope you all get writers’ cramp! One of her favorite pedagogical strategies was to pit students against each other. She’d select a piece of work she considered exemplary: a drawing, a story or poem. Look at that shading! Listen, how imaginative! Why can’t the rest of you do that?
The drawings often belonged to a girl named Joyce, and the writing was usually mine. We’d lower our heads, knowing what was next:
Now look at this. Someone’s NOT EVEN TRYING!
Miss Swenson tore drawings in two. Read stories aloud, mistakes and all. Looking back, I believe one of her favorite targets had dyslexia. She’d read his work (“dog” for “God,” “angle” for “angel”) while he sat at his desk, turning red.
Recess was payback. The kids who were mocked in the classroom vented their frustrations the minute they were let outdoors, insulting those who could not race, jump, or kick, shunning the awkward and slow. Unable to compete, I stayed apart, watching, wishing the teachers would let me read. I did not want to be Miss Swenson’s star pupil, Mrs. Satler’s joke. Hiding in corners, keeping my mouth shut, seemed the safest way of avoiding these twin dragons. If no one noticed me, no one could single me out.
I’d always been shy in school, but in this new environment I kept a monk’s silence, only speaking—whispering, practically—when spoken to. Sometimes not even then. I waited for the day to wind itself down so I could go home, where I felt safe enough to have a voice. I was hoping teachers and students alike would give up, leave me alone. It almost worked.
Each week the guidance counselor, a matronly woman, pigeon-breasted in frilly polyester blouses,
