thousands of dollars to her family. And so, the children hated 12th - - Page her for all these reasons of big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future. “Get away!” The boy gave her another push.
“What’re you waiting for?” Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him. And what she was waiting for was in her eyes. “Well, don’t wait around here !” cried the boy savagely . “You won’t see nothing!” Her lips moved.
“Nothing!” he cried. “It was all a joke,wasn’t it?” He turned to the other children. “Nothing’s happening today. Is it ?” They all blinked at him and then, understanding, laughed and shook their heads.
“Nothing, nothing !” “Oh, but,” Margot whispered , her eyes helpless. “But this is the day, the scientists predict , they say, they know , the sun…” “All a joke!” said the boy, and seized her roughly. “Hey, everyone, let’s put her in a closet before the teacher comes!” “No,” said Margot, falling back. They surged about her, caught her up and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door.
They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself against it. They heard her muffled cries. Then, smiling, they turned and went out and back down the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived. “Ready, children ?” She glanced at her watch.
“Yes!” said everyone. “Are we all here ?” “Yes!” The rain slacked still more. They crowded to the huge door. The rain stopped.
It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche , a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide which