39 1 Leading and following thumbs, even here in America, land of the free and home of the brave. So, there was Mikey, labouring with his left hand to disguise his exquisite Catholic calligraphy. This was not his first time forging a note but I said nothing because most of the parental-excuse notes in my desk drawer were written by the boys and girls of McKee Vocational and Technical High School and if I were to confront each forger I’d be busy twenty-four hours a day. It would also lead to indignation, hurt feelings and strained relations between them and me. I said to one boy, Did your mother really write this note, Danny? He was defensive, hostile. Yeah, my mother wrote it. It’s a nice note, Danny. She writes well. McKee students were proud of their mothers and only a lout would let that compliment pass without thanks. He said thanks, and returned to his seat. I could have asked him if the note was his but I knew better. I liked him and didn’t want him sullen in the third row. He’d tell classmates I suspected him and that might make them sullen, too, because they’d been forging excuse notes since they learned to write and years later they don’t want to be bothered by teachers suddenly getting moral. An excuse note is just a part of school life. Everyone knows they’re fiction, so what’s the big deal? […] I threw Mikey’s note into a desk drawer along with dozens of others: notes written on every size and color of paper, scrawled, scratched, stained. While my classes took a test that day I began to read notes I had only glanced at before. I made two piles, one for the genuine notes written by mothers, the other for forgeries. The second was the larger pile, with writing that ranged from imaginative to lunatic. I was having an epiphany. I always wondered what an epiphany would be like and now I knew. I wondered also why I’d never had this particular epiphany before. Isn’t it remarkable, I thought, how they resist any kind of writing assignment in class or at home. They whine and say they’re busy and it’s hard putting two hundred words exquisite – framúrskarandi Vocational and Technical High School – verkmenntaskóli indignation – reiði strained – þvingaður hostile – fjandsamlegur a lout – dóni sullen – súr to suspect – gruna scrawled – krotuð stained – blettótt to glance – líta a pile – bunki genuine – ekta lunatic – brjálæðingur an epiphany – opinberun remarkable – merkilegt to resist – að standast a writing assignment – ritunarverkefni to whine – væla
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