A Kingdom in a Horse by Maia Wojciechowska Page B

the terrifying crash of the animal’s impact. If they would only ask David how many bruises and how many gorings Jazzbo had suffered he’d be able to tell them. And he could tell them about the time a bull’s horn took one of Jazzbo’s eyes and how Jazzbo came back into the arena in three months to work again, a one-eyed, fearless clown who delighted the ones who didn’t know about the danger and petrified the ones who did. And he could tell them about Jimmy Schumacher, and about the time he got twenty-four stitches after one horn wound, plus broken collarbones, legs, and ribs, and a mangled foot.
    As the bell rang for recess David was sure that he was not stupid. He knew a lot more names and a lot more dates than all the other kids put together. It was just that they were names and dates no one in school seemed to care about.
    And knowing that he wasn’t really stupid was responsible for the fight that he got into that morning.
    “The dummy didn’t know any answers,” he heard Peter Pollock say behind his back. David didn’t want to ask for an apology, but swung out with both fists at the boy. It didn’t even matter that Peter was smaller and that David had once promised himself never to hit a smaller kid. They rolled in the mud of the schoolyard, hitting each other, until the cries of the other children brought Miss MacKean.
    David followed his teacher to the classroom. She did not speak until she reached her desk and sat down. Then she looked at him, and her blue eyes were dark with anger.
    “David,” she said, “I cannot allow such behavior from you. I had great hopes for you. When you came in that first day, I thought that you would be one of the few students I’d remember when I grew old. You have been a complete disappointment to me.”
    She lifted his test paper from her desk and held it at arm’s length.
    “This was to be more than a test,” she continued while David looked down at his muddied shoes. “This was going to prove to me whether or not you’d pass to the eighth grade without going to summer school. Well,”—she slammed her hand down and let go of his test—”you had one, a single, answer right.” She waited for him to say something and when he did not, she cleared her throat and more calmly asked, “What is your explanation? First for the fight, and then for your failure to answer the questions correctly.”
    It would have been much better had she just hit him, or punished him, but she had to choose the hardest thing, questioning. One thing he could not do was to tell her he hit Peter for calling him a dummy.
    “Well?”
    “I don’t know,” he said very quietly. “I don’t know why I got into the fight.”
    “Did Peter say something to you?”
    He didn’t answer.
    “I shall find out about that from the other children. Now, tell me, did you or did you not study for the test?”
    “I did.”
    “But if you did, how come you did not know the answers?”
    “It must be,” he said, “that I can’t concentrate.”
    She sat down at her desk, and he looked up at her, hoping that the answer had satisfied her. He was sorry for her for caring for him and the others, for being a teacher.
    ‘Would you want to tell me anything?” she asked softly. “Maybe you have a problem I could help you with. Maybe all you need is talking to someone. I know how it is sometimes. I was brought up without a mother, too.”
    He wished she’d leave him alone, and yet he could not be angry at her for wanting to help him.
    “I’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll just have to try harder, that’s all.”
    “Well, David,”—the bell rang when she said this— “I’m here to help you. Anytime you feel like talking. And I do believe you about wanting to try harder.”
    David was grateful to her. But he felt more discouraged than ever, for he really had been trying.

Chapter Seven
    “Well!” No one who had ever heard Margaret Evans’ voice could ever forget it, it was that unpleasant.