Ms. Scott my fourth grade teacher was tall like me, had long brown hair like me, was a Ms. like I planned to be. Ms. Scott crossed then folded her long legs beneath her on a wooden teacher chair, pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and read to us after recess, Roald Dahl, perhaps, James and the Giant Peach. I would lay my head on my desk, one ear toward fluorescent lights, open to word drift, cool Formica against a cheek red from kickball, from chasing Stanley (chicken little) and Steven (Chicken Big).
Ms. Scott held a contest to see who could read the most books, started a caterpillar on the bulletin board, stapled a construction paper circle for each book read. The bookworm stretched off the board, across cinderblock wall, and many of the circles were mine.
Ms. Scott slipped a note into one book when she gave it back to me: You've read so much--I'm proud of you. But branch out now--read something more than Nancy Drew. Ms. Scott had us write in journals about our lives. I turned my spiral notebook sideways and wrote one letter beneath the next, streaming down the columns. I wrote in red ink between the watery blue lines: Ms Scott--I won the contest but never got the prize. She wrote back horizontally, in neat round letters like all teachers do: It gives me a headache to read your up and down words and red is not appropriate for schoolwork-- Write it sideways in black or blue. And so I did, and do.