With his legs crossed and his face turning beet-red with the strain of holding his bladder, Kim tried to screw up the courage to simply get up and go to the bathroom. After all, the fifth-grade girls were oblivious to the entire classroom which, Kim noticed on looking around, was generally quiet and calm. The girls surely would not even notice him leave. On the other hand, he would have to walk right past them to reach the door and he was scared to death of the potentially dire consequences of such flagrant disobedience of the rules. Kim had never figured out why, but in the end, he could not force himself to leave his desk. It had been as if the desktop that sprawled across his undersized lap, its yellowed surface cracked and worn by a generation of chubby-handed pupils wielding giant pencils, possessed some magic similar to that of the high chair that entranced him and pinned him to his seat.

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