Free The Teacher's Funeral by Richard Peck

allegiance. Little Britches didn’t, but her eyes were wide now. She was taking everything in.
    The pledge lasted little longer than counting us. But we took our sweet time settling back down. Tansy pondered, then said, “Arithme—”
    â€œBetter not,” Charlie called out. Though I wished he’d shut up and quit helping, he was right. Arithmetic wasn’t Tansy’s long suit. She knew her mathematics to the Rule of Three, but whether she could cypher into fractions, I had no idea. I knew I couldn’t. Anyhow, arithmetic isn’t any way to start the day.
    â€œSpellin’ School!” Charlie suggested. I’d never known that boy be so helpful. He ought to sit up there at the desk instead of Little Britches, being teacher’s pet. Tansy strode to the library shelf and pulled out the blue-backed Webster speller.
    Elsewhere, they called them spelling bees. We always called it Spelling School. As a school study, it was known as “orthography.” It was the most important subject in the education of that time. You may not have anything to say, but you dadburn better know how to spell it.
    â€œDivvy them up into two teams,” Tansy told Little Britches.
    She’d pulled her bonnet back on because she wasn’t staying. She blinked out of it at us. Pointing a tiny finger, she said, “That boy at the back with the round hair.”
    That’d be me.
    She pointed again. “That boy with the ears.”
    That’d be Flopears. Lloyd and Lester Kriegbaum fell in with him. That left me and Pearl and Charlie Parr on our side. Having Flopears on the opposing team made up for having to have Charlie on ours.
    We pushed back the desks and squared off. Pearl didn’t want to take part, but she recalled how close that pointer had come to her.
    Tansy opened the Webster in front of Little Britches, who gazed down at it like a small owl. “Point to a word,” Tansy told her.
    â€œWhat’s a word?”
    Tansy showed her.
    Little Britches pointed, and Tansy boomed out, “Russell Culver, asinine !”
    â€œAsinine,” I said. “A-double S—”
    â€œWrong!” Tansy grabbed up the cowbell on her desk and rang it over her head, introducing a new tradition to orthography.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with it?” I whined.
    â€œFind out!” Tansy barked.
    Little Britches pointed out another word.
    â€œLester Kriegbaum, ascend .”
    â€œAscend,” Lester said, “A-S-C-E-N-D. Ascend.” So that put their side one ahead.
    Little Britches pointed at the page. She was beginning to feel her power now.
    â€œPearl Nearing,” Tansy said, “asphyxiate.” Tansy smiled slightly.
    â€œTell her to pick shorter words,” Pearl snapped.
    â€œAsphyxiate.”
    â€œOh, all right. Asphyxiate. A-S-F—”
    The cowbell clanged.
    Little Britches pushed back her bonnet, and bounced in teacher’s chair. She scanned the page for another word, the longer the better.
    â€œThey don’t all have to start with A ,” Tansy remarked.
    â€œWhat’s A ?” Little Britches asked.
    Tansy looked out at us. “Flop—Floyd Lumley, ascend the rostrum and write the letter A on the blackboard.”
    The blackboard wasn’t anything as grand as slate. It was just a part of the wooden wall painted black. Flopears shambled forth. He picked up the chalk, pointed at the blackboard, and wrote a large, crooked A . Turning in her big chair, Little Britches gave him all her attention.
    â€œWrite, ‘A is for apple,’ Floyd,” Tansy said, and Flopears printed:
    A IS FOR APPEL
    And so it went. The morning melted away as we spelled each other down and taught Little Britches her ABC’s. Tansy said we had to look up the meanings of the words too, though we’d always thought just spelling them was plenty.
    â€œMiss Myrt didn’t have us do it that-a-way!” we bleated, as we were so often