Fear

Others were not so keen. This sense of freedom was an excuse to act the goat, to waste their time. I retreated to my world of the imagination, where authority and rules ceased to exist. Then suddenly I was grabbed by the neck. I shrieked, sent off balance from my solitude; the girl giggled raucously.

The dragon of a teacher called us up to her desk. There was to be no discussion; I had abused the privilege of the library by reacting with a scream. We were each told to put our hand out to receive the ruler. My hand! An instrument of creativity, sorely abused.

I had never much liked school before, and from now on I would regard it with the cold, bitter indifference of the prisoner.