The Rose Garden Disaster Stalking Jahari and Beatrice Party Time Morning Services Anger Moving Day Short Who's Pregnant? Moving Day Elephant Jahari and Beatrice revised Stalking Noon and Midnight Moving Day revised Vermont Country Store Mary's Move Sarah and Jinny Sarah and Jinny part II Sarah and Jinny part III Sarah and Jinny part IV Am I Invisible? What am I? My Happy Phone Emerald Janet The Raven The Garage Passion FancyCat GamePro The End of My Summer is Coming Did You Say Something? Emerald: A Short Story Fireflies Nana The Fair George and Margaret Sally's Schooling Bad News Nostalgia Magic Maker Little Demonic Microwave TV vs. Parenting oo. . .Scary Falling Down My Play 1 Bio of a Mage My Play 2 Jahari and Beatrice, the Play My Play 2, scene 2 Here I Sit I am the Best My Baby Kitty The Great Green Frog Jedi Untitled 1 Wanderers Spook Here I Sit (revised) I am the Best (revised) Today it Snowed The Great Green Frog (revised) The Weather I Remeber I Remember (Pantoum Revision)

Homework

They had remained constantly attentive to their goal, as a sunflower always turns and stays focused on the sun. That goal had been to get the very best education for their daughter. They were young and inexperienced, but they knew what they had had and wanted the same for Sally.

Tom and Jenny had been home schooling their daughter all her short life. They felt that public schools were like jails for the mind. So they hired people to teach her at home. And when she reached five-years-old, they had to deal with the teachers that the local school board recommended, because state law said that home-schooled children had to have the same curriculum as the rest of the students in normal public schools. Most of the teachers were good enough, but Tom and Sally expected more. They wanted her to have the education of a private school without actually having to send her to one.

Every year a member of the school board came to give Sally her yearly tests, and every year they would all sit her down in her father's office and tell her "Here is your pencil and paper, darling. We want you to compete as the greatest hero would in the race of his life." It had become a kind of ritual for Tom and Jenny, they believed that if the same thing was done the same way every time, then the same results would crop up every time.

In Sally's tenth year of life, things started to go awry. Respect for the teacher that had been sent by the board that year had dwindled to nothing when Tom found that she was a convicted felon. Sure, they thought, steeling cars in the city when a person is young is almost natural. But what kind of example does that set for the youth? They couldn't stand having that teacher around. They thought it was like having a rabid dog in the house, ready to pounce on their small, unprotected girl.

Tom and Jenny knew that they couldn't send her to the public schools. Her life would be ruined forever. But they didn't know what to do about this felonious teacher either.

NOTE: This was an assignment for my CCV Creative Writing II online class with William Noble.