Читать книгу An Ice Cream For Henry - Emanuele Cerquiglini - Страница 18

W ith her voice like nails down a blackboard and eyes like a hawk, Miss Anderson always made Henry break out in a cold sweat; every time she looked at him, she seemed to be saying the same thing: ‘ You’ ll never pass your exams. No chance.’

Summer was in the air at Northfield Elementary School. The mating ritual of two flies buzzing their way irritatingly round the classroom confirmed as much. Henry flicked the flies away from his face with his right hand, sending them toward the middle of the room. The class was waiting for Miss Anderson to collect the test that had proved beyond Henry. He was more about words than figures.

The buzzer sounding on Miss Anderson’s desk was the cue for her to begin her sixty-second countdown, at the end of which the pupils would have to put down their pens.

“Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six…”

That bitch loved counting down to zero. She had that smug look on her face, and it gave her a thrill when she caught the eye of a struggling student who seemed to be begging her for more time.

Henry had already put his pen down by the time she’d reached thirty. He looked down casually at his paper, where aside from a square and a few multiplications, he hadn’t managed to finish much - certainly not the divisions, which he found impossible once the numbers got too high.

Joanna complained that she just needed one more minute.

“You can’t cheat the clock! Eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.....zerooooo!”

Miss Anderson got up from her desk and headed straight for Joanna to collect hers first. Joanna threw her arms over her sheet in a desperate but vain attempt to keep it from her teacher’s grasp.

“I want to see ALL pens on the tables. Is that clear?” the teacher said sternly, waving Joanna’s test in the air.

Joanna Longowa was of Polish origin. The prettiest girl in class, she had long blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin that highlighted her rosy pink lips. Henry had liked her right from the third grade, when she and her family had moved to New Jersey. She was good at all the subjects, and her only flaw was her perfectionism. Henry was certain she’d finished the test and got all the sums right, but figured she’d just wanted to embellish her standard-issue paper with some doodles.

“Henry Lewis, what do you call this?”

“It’s my test,” Henry replied timidly. A few of the children couldn’t stop themselves from smirking. Everyone knew that Henry was dumb at math, but no-one was brave enough to mock him in front of Miss Anderson, because she’d mark you down or, worse, detain the entire class during recess for a whole week.

“Silence!” she yelled, reaching up slowly and clenching her fist around the two flies. She walked calmly to the open window and tossed the traumatized insects outside as if she were feeding the ducks.

There was complete silence as Miss Anderson finished collecting in the assignments, and only the bell at the end of the class restored the usual noise and commotion.