james



The room is silent and stuffy despite its size, the blue classroom chair
stiff and unyielding under my weight. I rest my elbows on the desk in front
of me, one of four bunched into a group, and I stare at the seemingly
endless lines of text printed onto the book in front of me. My eyes get
tired but I keep reading; there’s just ten minutes left until class begins.
My gaze leaps like a scared rabbit past the confines of the page and across
my desk to the others surrounding it. The corners of the four desks, pushed
together to construct a makeshift table, don't quite meet at the center and
leave a gap about an inch square and show a dark hole in the linoleum with
the back heel of a girl’s shoe. The zipped three ring binder on the desk
across from me has a small silver zipper tag, which dangles precariously
over the tiny chasm as if testing the waters before jumping. I smile at it,
telling it not to jump. The small Hispanic boy who owns the binder sees me
staring and whips it away, giving me a small glare. He hisses and asks me
what I’m doing, and my smile travels upwards to him. I say ‘nothing’ in a
very offhand voice and return to my book.



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