Deconstructing Dylan Read Free Page A

intimidate. She was treating this new girl pretty rough, trying to embarrass her. She was being a bully in her own way. There are teachers who are kind human beings and there are teachers who are just plain cruel. Mrs. Gillis fell into the latter category.
    â€œWhy would I want to tell you anything about me?” Robyn snapped back. “I have a right to my own privacy and if you don’t like that &hellips; well, screw you.”
    I was falling in love. The Loch Ness monster was surfacing into the bright sunlight of a beautifulScotland morning. There was bagpipe and fiddle music in the hallways of all the empty castles.
    Mrs. Gillis glared at Robyn. A hush fell over the class. Mrs. G knew that she could send Robyn to the office and get the girl in trouble on the first day of class, or she could hold off and get back at Robyn in some more sinister way. Mrs. G wanted to hold off and wait until she had the field of advantage. She had played this game for many years. She knew how to get back at a student who didn’t show the proper respect.
    Robyn said nothing more but popped a piece of chewing gum into her mouth.
    I looked over at Caroline and could tell she was jealous. Robyn had commanded the attention and respect of everyone in the class. Whereas Caroline would use her flamboyance and exaggerated gestures to demand an audience, Robyn had demonstrated a fiery, understated quality that was far more powerful.
    â€œThe substandard use of English always indicates low moral character,” Mrs. Gillis said to the rest of the class. “Sometimes it reflects a person’s limited intelligence and maturity, one’s inability to function in society as a civilized human being.” Her voice was cool and clinical as if she were delivering an address to the United Nations.
    Robyn had decided it was a good time to study the nail of her thumb. I think she was holding back.
    â€œOpen your anthologies to page 324,” Mrs. Gillis said and dropped a copy of the book on Robyn’s desk so it made a loud wallop. Robyn just stared at the book like it was a dead rat that had been deposited in front of her.
    I think it was a poem by Robert Frost that Mrs. Gillis was teaching that day but it could have been Shakespeare. I can’t remember. I was studying the poetry of Robyn instead. She had shoulder-length black hair. She had large dark eyes and there was a fire in those eyes. Defiance was the name of her game. She had a beautiful full mouth that would be dangerous to kiss. Her skin was brown — something ethnic about her — black or South American or maybe Arabic, but none of the labels seemed quite right. She stared at Mrs. Gillis as if prepared to do battle with her most hated enemy. Mrs. Gillis pretended she did not see this as she reminded the class that the poem was going to be on the test and that the test was going to be “significant.”
    â€œThose who do poorly in Grade 11 academic English rarely get into university,” she reminded us. It was a threat, no more, no less.
    Caroline was looking at herself in her pocket mirror, putting lipstick on and fumbling with makeup. She too saw Robyn as a threat. I was suddenly glad that Caroline was out of my life. I now felt free and happy and ready to give myself over to this new dark, surly girl named Robyn.
    After class, I caught up with her and asked her where she was from.
    â€œI’m not from anywhere,” she said. “I live in the present and avoid thinking about the past. The past, as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t exist.”
    â€œOkay, good point.” I had only been trying to make small talk, but, like Mrs. G, I was being tested. Human or otherwise, which would it be?
    â€œWhere are you headed to?”
    â€œThe washroom,” she said. “I have to pee.”
    â€œOh yeah. Me too.”
    She stopped and gave me a look that announced her decision concerning which category I fell into. “This has been