Playing With Matches by Carolyn Wall

saying—”
    Miss Thorne was rising from behind her desk.
    Claudie was so angry, she was spraying spit. “You ain’t ever liked Genie. But she’s my twin, and we’re plain folks, so don’t you waste fancy words on us.”
    “—you owe me seventeen cents,” I said, because it was all I could think of. “For three lemons.”
    Miss Thorne snatched her roll sheet. “Clea Shine,” she said, “if you are quite through, I can speak to these girls without your help.”
    But I was wounded and definitely not done. “Miss Thorne, this room is a sad disgrace. You got no decent books. Why, look at that wall map—the Pacific Ocean is purely faded out.”
    There was not a sound in the room, from the hall or outside. Even the very air held still.
    “Clea Shine ! Take your seat!” Miss Thorne calmed herself. “I can see you are—knowledgeable.” She spoke that fine word as if it hurt. “But you will keep your mouth closed, and you and I will talk after school.”
    I sat and sulked. Later, I might get a chance to ask if we were going to cover the wars in Europe and Korea and do science experiments in which we would make fog and arcs of electricity. But just now, around the room, all the girls smirked and made knowing faces at one another.
    I slid into my seat and folded my hands. I dared not take a breath. Claudie had said I used fancy words ? I was surprised to seeso many big kids hunched over these little desks, and it came to me that most of them were repeating Year One—and many had probably repeated it before. Further, it was true that I did not like Plain Genie. She filled up my head with her whining. She was like the sticky Mississippi mud that sucked at your shoes. But did Claudie have to go and announce it?
    For now there was nothing to do but suffer the indignity of printing ABCs on primary paper.
    To my great relief, we went outside at recess, and although I looked for the twins, I didn’t see them. On a square of blacktop, a couple of jump-rope teams had formed, but when I approached, they all stepped away or turned their backs or coiled up their ropes like they were done anyway, and that surprised me. I was a champion jumper.
    At noon I dragged myself home for lunch. Auntie made me a grilled cheese, and while I poked it with my finger and tore at the crust, she asked me how the day was going. I said, “Fine.”
    She asked— wasn’t I hungry ? I lied and said we’d had graham crackers for a snack. I felt empty, all right, but grilled cheese would not fill me.
    In the afternoon, Miss Thorne called on me to come to the chalkboard and copy down numbers. We would learn to add apples. While her back was turned, I added to each number a string of zeroes. Some in the class snickered, but when Miss Thorne looked, they went quiet as scared mice. She asked me why I had done that.
    “Because, Miss Thorne, two apples aren’t enough to feed a family. It would take bushels to fill the bellies of False River, so I thought it more useful to create two thousand—”
    Nobody could shush a room like I could.
    By three o’clock, Miss Thorne looked tired even though theyear had just started. Everybody else left; I stayed in my seat, my hands folded on the desk. With all my heart I hoped she’d ask me how this class should be run.
    “Come here, Clea,” Miss Thorne said softly. “I can see that you are an intelligent and outspoken young lady. And while intelligence is an asset, it sometimes causes problems for your fellow students. Beginning tomorrow, I want you to sit on the other side of the room. At the back. In the corner.”
    “But that’s Year Two!”
    Miss Thorne sighed. “Clea, you already know more than most of these first-graders ever will.”
    Why did that sound like a not-good thing?
    “Tomorrow the principal will administer a test so we can officially pass you into Year Two.”
    I wasn’t so sure. “I don’t subtract.”
    Miss Thorne cocked her head. “Child, what is the capital of these United