The Mare

Ginger

When we got back to the house she said she wanted to write some more about what happened with the substitute. She’d written something already, saying she was sorry, that she just did it because she wanted the others kids to like her, that she was afraid to stand up and not go along. It was fine, and when she didn’t give me anything new the next day, I thought she’d forgotten about it. But she hadn’t forgotten. She handed it to me right before she left, and made me promise to wait until after she was gone to read it. I finally opened it when I was on the train, going back home from Penn Station.

You said I was doing what Beverly did to Joker beat him down inside. But that is not true. A teacher is like a trainer its us who are like the horses. The subsitute was like a trainer acting like he know what he is doing giving commands. But if you give the wrong command or in the wrong way the horse knows its bullshit and they won’t do what you say. They ignore you or throw you off of them. I saw Joker throw off Beverly once because she was mean with the bit and also her voice the subsitute wasn’t mean but he was stupid saying “Go away! Go away!” like we were bugs he should’ve said “Go back to your seats.”

And something else, if you are riding horses in a field and one breaks out and starts running they all do. They don’t follow you they follow each other. They forget they have riders and they run together maybe so fast everybody will fall off. Like what happened last summer and I didn’t tell you. I was the last to fall off. One girl got hurt.

I’m sorry if I was bad to the subsitute. I would not be that way with you ever. But that’s what happened. We ran together.