Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize

by Margo Rabb

“Stop that bouncing on your ball, Miss Clark. Reasonable bouncing only.” I kept drawing the apples, trying not to move. Being at Thornton froze you in time, sort of strangled you everywhere, this smashed feeling always, deep inside you. This fear. What were we so afraid of? Never measuring up to her standards. Those standards had been imprinted on us since we arrived and this slow and constant squashing began. I was sixteen now but short for my age, and I felt smaller at Thornton every day. “The bouncing, Miss Clark. Enough. Come here. Bring me your ball.” I stood up and carried it to the front of the room. “Hand it to me.” Twenty-five pairs of eyes watched me, sitting still. It was only a ball. I didn’t even care about it. It was the drawings I cared about—but I had plenty more of them, years’ worth of artwork in my cubby. She couldn’t touch those. “You have no self-control,” she said. “No restraint, no acknowledgment of how your bouncing affects others. Give it to me.”