Math class crept along very slowly. It is a day of opposites Rivky thinks her gaze now firmly planted on the clock willing the minute hand to leap closer to its destiny. She forces herself to peer at the board but suspects that Mrs. Fein falls into a familiar category: the teachers who refuse to chastise Rivky the way they would another student so as not to incite her mother the principal.
Little do they know that Rivky’s mother would sooner take a teacher’s side if for no other reason than to appear fair to the staff. Although Rivky knows she has some leeway in class it’s for this very reason that she behaves well. Her social standing would only suffer further for being favored by a teacher.
When the bell mercifully rings Rivky gets up uncertainly. She feels self-conscious and strange suddenly having somewhere to go. Does Aliza want to meet in the hallway or in the classroom? Is this a conversation meant for the bathroom? Is she going to mess this up?
Rivky looks toward the door and sees Aliza leaning against the doorframe. Aliza waves and jerks her head toward the hallway. Rivky slings her knapsack — pink garish all wrong but her mother found it on sale — over her shoulder and eases her way through the desks and the girls gathering their books.
