The Fourth Slip

Ages 15-18

Chuma has three opening paragraphs to read and three little slips for her marks.

She lines up the slips beneath the numbered pages. One, two, four.

"Choose the opening you most want to hear continued," the teacher says. "We'll use your marks to help choose two for the reading afternoon."

Chuma, sixteen, straightens her pages.

"If you recognize who wrote one, bring it to me," the teacher adds. "Another reader will take that entry. Leave its slip blank."

Chuma nods with the other two readers.

Yesterday, her friend reads her an opening about a cupboard. A single red boot sits on its top shelf. Nobody in the house admits putting it there.

Chuma likes the boot. She asks what comes next.

Her friend won't tell her until she finishes writing it.

Now Chuma reads entry one. A girl waits at the wrong garden gate. Chuma marks its slip.

Entry two begins with a parcel wrapped in six layers of brown paper. She marks that one too.

Then she turns to four.

The red boot sits on the cupboard's top shelf.

Chuma stops reading.

Her friend hasn't changed the beginning at all.

She lifts page four. The teacher is beside the other readers, comparing their first marks.

Chuma lowers it again.

She can be stricter with this one. Nobody could accuse her of helping her friend if she gives it the lowest mark.

She writes a one on its little slip.

The other two marks are threes.

She picks up the eraser.

The one disappears. A small gray patch stays where she presses too hard.

Chuma takes the page and slip to the teacher.

"I know who wrote four. She read it to me yesterday. I started to give it a mark anyway. I erased it."

The teacher looks at the blank beside the number.

"Has anyone else recognized this one?"

Neither reader has.

The teacher gives page four to the girl at the end of the table. She returns the blank slip to Chuma.

Chuma returns to her seat with entries one and two.

When the marks are ready, the teacher asks about the garden gate. Chuma explains why she wants to know who is waiting behind it.

Then they reach four.

"The boot makes me want the next paragraph," the new reader says.

Chuma leans forward. She wants to describe the little space between the cupboard and the ceiling.

The new reader turns to the teacher. Chuma sits back without speaking.

The teacher puts four beside the garden-gate story. They will read those two openings on Sunday.

The girl beside Chuma reaches for the blank slip.

"Is this yours?"

"Yes. I don't mark that one."

Chuma puts her two completed slips in the teacher's tray. She lays the fourth on top, number up, the gray patch beside it empty.