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Willy frowned at Miz Bella's back. He definitely didn't like her. At all. He had been a little intrigued despite himself at the bear story, but not enough to overcome his irritation for being here at all in the first place, having to put away the marbles, and finally having been reprimanded for drawing on his slate. She had never said that he couldn't, after all.
And now he had no room to write the letters. He started to erase the slate with his fingers, then stopped. Why should he have to erase the drawings? He even had a perfect excuse: he would get chalk dust on his hands. A surreptitious glance around showed that there had actually been little cloths with which to erase the board, but he could say he hadn't noticed them before. Which he hadn't. Smiling to himself, he started to write the letters in the little space which he had erased.
b. b. b b b. Now wasn't this easy? Just a little line with a bubble at the bottom. Granted, his letters were hardly as neat as the ones Miz Bella had printed on the board... but they were legible, anyway. And it was boring, writing the same letter so many times over again. How many different ways could he write the letter b? In one stroke. Starting with the little circle. Drawing the line from the bottom up instead of vice versa. This made the letter sloppier, but it was more fun that way.
e. Now this was a little harder. Sometimes the little loop was far to big, sometimes the tail too long. Plus, after about six e's he ran out of space in the previously empty corner. So he started placing the e's creatively all over the slate. One on the dragon's belly. Another on the man's shirt. So there were six e's in a neat little line and four e's all over the slate. Yes, maybe this could be fun.
a. None of his a's were in a straight little line. All of them were scattered, but at least they were easier and neater than the e's (but still not very neat). He looked at them curiously. They sort of looked like b's, except the bubble was on the other side and the stem was shorter. Or not so much shorter, in some cases.
Then the r's. By this time there wasn't a whole lot of space left on the slate, so it was a good thing that r's were such a skinny little letter. They were much harder than they looked, though, especially since his hand was starting to hurt from gripping the chalk. The little curvy line just did not look right. Sometimes it was too short, other times too long. Finally, he produced a reasonable looking r on his last try though. Done, he leaned back for scrutiny of his work. He decided he rather liked it: it was chaotic, almost. Much more interesting than the neat letters Miz Bella had printed on the board. And certainly, his letters were not nearly so neat as those. Willy decided to ignore that particular fact, though; it wasn't like he really cared anyway.
Satisfied, he got up from his seat and walked over to Miz Bella's desk. He noted the boringly plain slates of the other students working around him. Just rows of letters. His was much more interesting. Proudly, he displayed his work to Miz Bella. "I'm done."
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