Ms. Reardon looked over her glasses and sighed, “Ray, what sort of poem is this?”
“I believe they’re couplets.”
“Yes, good. Couplets. But the subject?”
Ray squirmed in his chair a little, “She did say we could write about anything.”
“Ray, it’s the first day of school. That’s what English teachers do. They don’t expect…this.”
“Just a poem,” Ray shrugged, “kind of pedantic really.”
“Do you know what that means?”
“Not entirely.”
Sighing again, Ms. Reardon looked over the poem again, “I’ll never look at Dick and Jane books the same way again.”
“You still look at them?”
“Don’t get smart with me,” she snapped. Exasperated she read, “See Dick race the train, See Dick’s blood land on Jane. How do you even come up with that? And it goes on and on and on.”
“Dunno,” Ray said, looking at the floor.
“Ray,” she said more sweetly now, “Did someone you know, someone close to you…well, did they…”
Looking up Ray answered, “No, no, no. Nope.”
“This isn’t your first trip to the counselor, is it Ray?”
“No mam.”