The Cat Ate My Gymsuit Read Free

in front of the class and said, “I remember that when I was a kid, I used to be so embarrassed because I wore braces on my teeth and everyone used to call me ‘Tinsel Tooth.’”
    That may not sound important, her telling us that, but it made it easier for us to write about and discuss things that bothered us. You know, like mothers who insist on being Girl Scout leaders when you don’t even want to be a Girl Scout; falling down steps when you are trying to make an entrance; bad breath; having to take your younger brother to the movies; aunts and uncles who keep asking if many people “shoot up” marijuana; dumb stuff like that. It surprised me how many people had problems. I’m sure that lots of people had more trouble than we talked about, but Ms. Finney was careful not to let it get too personal.
    One time, she talked about some guy namedMarshall McLuhan, who wrote about people getting turned on by music and films and stuff. Then Ms. Finney turned off all the lights, put on a whole lot of light boxes that blinked on and off, turned on an album real loud, and told us to experience it. She said she wanted us to decide for ourselves whether this type of thing was an escape or a way to really get involved. It was really neat, but then the vice-principal, Mr. Goldman, walked in and called Ms. Finney out of the room. When she came back in, she looked very upset and put the lights back on and stopped the lesson.
    We also put on a play. Ms. Finney asked me to be assistant director. That was very hard for me. I had to get up and walk around the room and get stuff ready. I always feel safer sitting behind the desk, where nobody can see my body. But Ms. Finney asked, and it would have been hard for me to explain to her why I didn’t want to do it, so I did it. It ended up being O.K.
    Don’t get me wrong. Ms. Finney wasn’t perfect. She never got reports back on time, she gave hard tests, and once in a while she got mad. She also did weird things like holding on to a piece of chalk, forgetting what it was, and trying to smoke it. Sometimesshe let kids get away with too much. But she really tried.
    And we all really dug her. In the beginning, some of the kids were worried because they were afraid they wouldn’t learn what they had to know to pass the college entrance exams. Other kids thought that Ms. Finney was just plain weird. But eventually we all said that we did learn. We wrote more for her than we had ever written before. She never gave true-false or multiple-guess tests. I think most teachers like them because they’re easier to correct. Instead, she made us write our own interpretation of what we’d read.
    She brought in all kinds of books to read. And a lot of us bought paperbacks from the book club. It was like a celebration the day the books came in the mail and Ms. Finney sorted them out and gave them to us. I spent most of my allowance on books. We shared and swapped them. I feel like I’m addicted to the printed word. Like I need a book fix when I get upset.
    We talked about poetry and current events and plays and movies. Ms. Finney knew an awful lot, and she made us feel that we knew a lot too and were important. She really listened. It was amazing.
    And she didn’t talk to us just in English class. During her free periods she’d walk around the school and drop in on some classes, like home ec. and shop and art, classes where there were times that she wouldn’t be interrupting other teachers. She’d taste the food that the kids made, admire the sewing, and look at all the projects in shop. It made everybody feel good, like she knew that there was more to us than just the time we spent in her class.
    One day she came into my gym class. I had just told Schmidt that my little brother had misplaced his security blanket and was now using my gymsuit instead. Ms. Finney looked at everybody playing volleyball and then came over and sat down next to me.
    “Hi, Marcy.”
    “Hi, Ms. Finney.”
    “Who’s