FROM THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

worry about that later, I decided. I jotted down the title in my notebook, tucked it in my bag and tried to keep quiet. That evening, after I’d finished the rest of my homework, the note about the essay caught my eye. I began thinking about the subject while chewing the tip of my fountain pen. Anyone could ramble on and leave big spaces between the words, but the trick was to come up with convincing arguments to prove the necessity of talking. I thought and thought, and suddenly I had an idea. I wrote the three pages Mr Keesing had assigned me and was satisfied. I argued that talking is a student’s trait and that I would do my best to keep it under control, old fogey an old-fashioned person ramble on talk or write aimlessly for long convincing argument a statement made in such a manner that people believe it quaking in its boots shaking with fear and nervousness but that I would never be able to cure myself of the habit since my mother talked as much as I did if not more, and that there’s not much you can do about inherited traits. Mr Keesing had a good laugh at my arguments, but when I proceeded to talk my way through the next lesson, he assigned me a second essay. This time it was supposed to be on ‘An Incorrigible