Free View from Saturday (9781439132012) by E. L. Konigsburg Page B

that moment, but I did. He sat upright in his chair, not looking at Mrs. Olinski or the blackboard but staring into the middle distance, as if looking at the word
paraplegic
or the paraplegic herself was too painful.
    Mrs. Olinski told us that she had become paralyzed in an automobile accident. Confined to a wheelchair as she was, she could not reach the top portion of the blackboard, so, stretch though she would, the words were written in the middle of the board—eye level for most standing sixth graders.
    Hamilton Knapp, who had taken a seat in the very last row, farthest from the door, stood up and said, “Excuse me, Mrs. Olinski, but I can’t see what you’ve written. Could you write a little higher on the blackboard, please?”
    Mrs. Olinski smiled. “Not at the moment,” she said.
    Ham sat down and said, “Sorry.” She didn’t mean that smile, and Ham Knapp didn’t mean that “sorry.”
    The remainder of the morning was taken up with bookkeeping matters such as passing out supplies and assigning seats. We were seated in alphabetical order, and as luck would have it, Ham Knapp ended up way back in the room, in the very seat he had chosen for himself.
    Nadia Diamondstein was seated three rows over and two rows forward. I could see her red hair. Nadia and I were almost related. This past summer, her grandfather had married my grandmother. In August when I visited them, Nadia was visiting her father. We often walked the beach together. And one day after a storm, we rescued a batch of hatchling turtles and took them out to sea.
    The light from the window shone on Nadia’s side of the room. When she moved her head, the morning light caught in her hair the way the sun had when she turned her back to the ocean. Fringes of her hair framed her face in a halo. Whenever that halo effect happened, I wanted to stare at her until the sunlight stopped, but my heart stopped before the light did. Then there was a period during my vacationwhen Nadia chose not to walk with her father and me. I waited for her to catch up, and when I did, she slowed down, and I missed seeing the light in her hair. I never told Nadia how much I liked seeing the halo the sunlight made of her hair. Sometimes silence is a habit that hurts.
    Noah Gershom sat in back of Michael Froelich and in front of Hamilton Knapp. His father is our family dentist. His mother sells houses—a lot of them in The Farm—and for reasons too complicated to tell, Noah Gershom was best man at my grandmother Draper’s wedding early last summer. It was pretty funny the way it happened, but my mother, who was maid of honor, was not amused. She cannot forgive Mrs. Gershom for selling houses at The Farm. I think she would change dentists if there were another one as good in Epiphany. Potters have always taken good care of their land and their teeth.
    Julian Singh sat in the row to my right and two seats back.
    At lunchtime, I sat on the end of the bench. Noah took a seat next to me. Nadia came from the food line carrying her tray and found no vacant seat at any of the girls’ tables, so she sat next to Noah. Julian, who had brought his lunch, was seated at a table at the far end of the room, all alone. He finished eating and left the cafeteria without waiting for the bell or asking permission. When Mrs. Olinski saw him leave, she followed. She must have wanted to tell him the rules without calling him out to embarrass him. It took her a while to maneuver her wheelchair between the tables, so Julian had a head start. Shortly after Mrs. Olinski made her way through the door, the bell did ring, and we all left, andwere just behind Mrs. Olinski as she made her way down the hall.
    When we entered the classroom, we saw that someone had erased PARAPLEGIC and written CRIPPLE instead. Julian was the only person in the room. He was facing the blackboard, holding an eraser. He turned around, looking startled when he saw us file in,