Dorothy stood up, still grinning crookedly. She had been cast out before. She took pencil and paper. "I'd do anything to get out of here," she said.

"Thank you, Miss Gael. Take as long as you like."

Outside, Dorothy thought: So why on earth should I go to the bookroom? Stupid squirrel. Stupid groundhog.

Then she thought: Where else do I have to go? Only home. And I don't want to go home. I hate home. I'd rather stay here, but I hate it here, and everyone here hates me. I hate everybody and everything.

She went to the bookroom. Mrs. Warren glared at her. "Teacher sent me here," said Dorothy. There was one table and shelves of spare textbooks. Proud as they were of their schools, even the people of Kansas could not call this a library.

But it still smelled of books and varnish and sunlight. Sunlight came through the window, fierce and hot, Kansas sunlight, parching. It was warm and airless, and Dorothy felt sleepy. She wished she had come here before, to lay down all her cares. She bowed her head, to the table. She wanted to stay just here, in this one place, and never leave it.

Write something, he had said. Write about what? Write about all the kids who hate me? Write about how stupid little Emma is and how she follows me around because I scare people? Shall I write about how I am God's worst sinner, and how I know I am going to go to Hell and that that is the only reason I don't kill myself, because I see the Devil when I sleep at night, and that I smell Uncle Henry around my mouth all day long, and that nobody loves me. Not even God. Should I write that God doesn't love me? Or do I write about how beautiful you are and how I know how ugly I am and how you could never have anything to do with me?

But she found what she wanted to write about very close to the surface. She wrote about it, weeping. And then she dried her eyes and found she wanted someone to see it, just so that someone would know there was a bit more to Dorothy Gael than blows and bad blood.

She walked back into the classroom, hugging the paper to herself. She walked up to the Substitute's desk.

"That was quick, Miss Gael. Have you written something?"

Wordlessly, she passed it to him, a whole page both sides, and she stood over him and watched him as he read.

What he read was this:

TOTO

I have a little dog called Toto. He is a terrier which means that he has short wiry hair and is gray. He waits for me every day when I come home. When he sees me he comes running. He jumps up and down. He wiggles and nitters and wants me to pet him. I say to him "Good Toto, good boy." And he nitters again because he knows his name. We walk home together. He loves chasing sticks. I throw sticks for him, and he brings them back to me and drops them at my feet. When I throw them, he runs and runs, flat out. He even runs when I don't throw sticks. He runs all over the fields, yipping. It is like he is saying hello to everything. He chases the quail, but he never hurts them. He runs all over the hills. He runs and comes back to me and runs again. I can hear him barking.

I get home and Aunty calls hello and tells me what's for supper and I tell her all the things I did that day. So I fetch the water for Uncle Henry's bath, and Aunty Em says I can go and play with Toto. So we go out into the fields, for hours and hours and I sit down and eat an apple that Aunty Em give me, and Toto and I sit down, on top of a hill where I can see all the farm. Toto sits on my lap, and I scratch his ears and his neck under the collar. He licks my hand, and he goes to sleep on my lap. He has a cold wet nose. He goes to sleep with his nose against my arm. At night, I give him his supper in a red bowl. I fix him oatmeal and egg and a bit of jerky that Aunty lets me have for him.

I did not call him Toto. That is the name my mother gave him when she was alive. It is the same as mine.

That was where Dorothy had to stop writing.

The Substitute went very still and quiet. Dorothy knew he had finished reading, but he didn't say anything. Dorothy guessed that it wasn't very good. Nothing was very good, but that was as good as she could make it. So he had to say something.

He coughed and still didn't look up at her, and he said in a very rough voice, "Thank you, Dorothy."

Then he managed to look up and Dorothy saw that his face looked horrible and that he was trying not to cry. "I'm very glad," he murmured, "that you have something to love as much as that little animal."

You stupid, stuck-up, New York freeloader. You skinny little balloon-faced squirrel.

"I don't have a dog!" Dorothy shouted. Her voice went thin and screeching, and she kept on shouting, as loud as she had ever shouted, shouted to bring the walls down. "I don't have a dog because Aunty Em killed him! He was the only thing I got to take with me from home and just 'cause he barked and chased the hens, she killed him, and she didn't even tell me, so for years and years every time I heard a dog bark I thought it was Toto, and I run and I run after him, calling out his name, and she heard me do that and she never said nothing, she just let me call, because she hates me, she makes me work, and she never feeds me 'cause there's never any food and I'm always hungry and I don't have nothing and she never gives me nothing, and I can't say anything."

The Substitute was on his feet and the class gaped in amazement. The child had gone hysterical, just as suddenly as a roll blind when it snaps up. He tried to take her in his arms.

He tried to take her in his arms and she screamed. It was a horrible sound, a sound like a spaniel caught in a bear trap, a horrible wrenching yelp that turned into a thin, piercing, seagull wail, and she pushed the Substitute away.

"And every day Uncle Henry does it to me, he pushes me up against a wall or down into the dirt, and takes up my dress and he does it to me, with his thing, he does it to me!"

The other children heard. The Substitute gathered her up and tried to bundle her out of the room, but she fought. She pummeled him about the face. His glasses broke. "You stupid, stupid squirrel. Why did you have to come here? You stupid, stupid man!"

And then the great galumphing gal curled up onto the floor and wept like a baby.

She tried to dig a hole in the floor. Her hands were gouging at the varnished wood. She curled up smaller and tighter and tried to dig, her eyes closed, her mouth closed, like a mole, and when he tried to stop her, when he grabbed her wrists she fought and was as strong as he was. Finally he let go, and she went still. She went still, making a small, squeezed, wheedling little sound.

"If she gets up, keep her here!" he told the class. He turned and ran. He heard his flat feet clatter in the corridor, and he felt his bad heart beat. At first the Principal didn't believe him.

"Collapse? Dorothy Gael? That girl has the constitution of an ox."