The sparrow incident upset me terribly, and, in my eleventh year, gave me a lesson in life. I always counseled my index finger, "Miss Chopstick, we have to learn how to control our temper or we'll do ourselves in."

I called my index finger "Miss Chopstick" because she helped me eat.

I once heard my mama say that the faster you run in the rain, the faster you get wet. But like other people who pay no heed before they get wet, I continued to act and think as before. On the one hand, I soothed my Misses Do and Don't, while on the other, I tried to figure out just what had happened. Eventually, I convinced myself that it was something to do with my nerves or my blood or some other unobservable inner thing that made me run too fast, so I got soaking wet.

I was walking home alone. I knew that none of my little classmates wanted to or would dare to walk with me. No one wanted anything to do with me, because, in addition to being the youngest member of the class, I was skinny and weak and not very outgoing. An even more important reason was that Mr. Ti, the teacher in charge of our class, had been encouraging them to exclude me. I couldn't understand this and had long resented him for it.

I was very angry and hurt because he always tried to embarrass me and make me look stupid in front of the class. Although I was the youngest member of the class and not a particularly clever girl, on occasion I would stand up to him. When I was nervous, I would mix up my left and right hands, and my right hand would forget how to write. But I was always trying to prove that I wasn't the class dunce.

One time, he asked my mother to come into the office. He wanted her to take me to the hospital to see if I was mentally handicapped. He said I behaved like a mute. He had no idea that my brain was racing incessantly.