If you’re not going to sleep, Casey, I want you to take these and write every word you see on the wall. One word on each card. This will be your little word bank, okay? Yes, ma’am. For the rest of kindergarten, while my classmates lay under the spell of tyranny, I sat cross-legged, eyes bulging in the no-light of nap time as I strained to make out the words on the wall. And if I could find Ms. McLemore again, that stocky, sweater-vested woman with the incredible gray-blonde Dallas hair and the ruler hand that struck like a jackhammer, I would thank her for not forcing me to sleep and for
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