Miss Henshaw called all the children over to a corner of the room where they had to sit on their butts on the floor. Brian always hated that when he was a kid and now he recalled why. There was no way to get comfortable on the floor. He tried Indian-style, then sitting with his legs under him, then with legs stretched out. None of those positions was comfortable for long. Meanwhile the teacher got to sit in a nice comfy chair.
Miss Henshaw hushed the children and pulled out a pack of big cards. “Okay children, now we’re going to practice our letters. I’ll show the card and call on one of you to tell me what letter it is. The rest of you have to be quiet though. If you can stay quiet for me, everyone will get another star on their charts.”
The teacher began to flip the cards up, calling on the eager children one at a time. Seeing their former lab partners and prom dates hopping on their butts and stretching out their hands to identify letters of the alphabet made Brian, Megan and Rachel all share a collective groan.
“Rachel,” Miss Henshaw called, looking down at the girl.
Rachel looked up, stunned. All eyes were on her now and she actually felt fear. Miss Henshaw was giving her an encouraging smile. “Come on Rachel, you know what letter this is, don’t you?”
Rachel looked at the letter on the card and felt a bit sick. What letter was that? It was so familiar and yet she couldn’t quite seem to name it. How was that even possible?! She was grasping at straws, determined not to look like a fool in front of her friends, in front of this gaggle of stupid brats. Finally the name of the letter flashed into her mind, just as it looked like Miss Henshaw was about to call on someone else. “R,” she blurted out. “It’s an ‘R’!”
Rachel felt so relieved and proud for recognising the letter. Or at least she did until Miss Henshaw frowned slightly and gave a little shake of her head. “Sorry dear, not quite,” she said.
Rachel felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. Tears welled up in her eyes as she sat there stunned by her failure. Miss Henshaw pointed to a dumb looking twenty-year old named Becky who was busy sucking her thumb until a second ago. “That’s a ‘F’!” Becky eagerly yelled out.
“Very good Becky!” Miss Henshaw praised, while the girl beamed and returned her thumb to her mouth.
Of course it was an F! How could she have been so stupid? Rachel recalled that as a little girl she’d always had trouble with those two letters for some reason. They didn’t even look similar though? Now she’d been one-upped by a girl so dumb and juvenile she couldn’t stop sucking her thumb! It was beyond embarrassing, it was humiliating. Rachel felt salty tears tracing their way down her cheeks and she forced her head into her drawn-up knees to hide her shame.