Chapter 1

Lizzie didn't hear the big grey door slam shut as she rushed down the stone stairs. She didn't hear her friend Shanice call out her name. Nor did she see the terror on the face of the driver who nearly hit her as she stormed across the school parking lot.

"Stupid school," she muttered. "No wonder they want to tear it down."

She smiled briefly as she imagined pulling bricks out from around the window of her second floor classroom and dropping them onto the pavement. She could almost hear them explode with a satisfying crack.

The curly-haired crossing guard, Mrs. Henderson, mistook the smile for Lizzie's normally cheery manner and playfully swatted the Fifth Grader with her stop sign.

 Lizzie scowled. She was not in the mood for games. She was angry, more angry than she’d been in her entire life.

 "Stop it," she barked at Mrs. Henderson. "Leave me alone."

 "Bad day Lizzie?" asked the guard, lifting the stop sign over her head and advancing into the crosswalk.

 "The worst," mumbled Lizzie. "Don't expect to see me again. I'm not coming back."

Tears welled up in the 11 year-olds dark brown eyes. As she raced toward home, she didn’t see Mr. Peters mowing his grass or Mrs. Mellor painting the gingerbread trim on the porch of the magnificent Victorian style home just two blocks from the school. She was simply focused on not crying. She wouldn't give Mr. Thompson the satisfaction of shedding tears.

 Mr. Thompson “with a p” was her teacher at Willow Street Elementary School. She'd been excited last June when she learned he'd be her teacher, but from the first day of classes, it hadn't worked out very well.

On the first day of school in September she'd been playing four-square in the playground with Shanice, Cassie and Emily. It was warm and the sky was blue and cloudless. The girls were trading stories about their summer adventures when Dennis (the Menace) Borden kicked a soccer ball into the middle of their game.

Lizzie knew he'd done it on purpose, so with a nod of encouragement from her friends, she grabbed the ball. With a major leaguer's concentration, she pitched it back at his head. It would have hit him too, if Mr. Thompson hadn't come out the basement door at that exact moment, and taken the ball in the chest.

For those 10 seconds it seemed to Lizzie that the world had stopped spinning. Children that had been running and laughing were now frozen in place, unsure where to look first, at Mr. Thompson or at her. Even the birds in the maple trees that ran between the school and the car lot next door seemed to stop singing so they could watch and see what might happen next.

They didn't have to wait long.

"I guess you'll be spending some time with me after class today, won't you Miss Paris?" said Thompson. It wasn't really a question.

He approached her, adjusting his tie. Her dark cheeks flushed as his eyes bore into hers, like a drill bit chewing through a piece of pine.

"No more four-square for you today, and I guess, nobody will be using this ball until tomorrow either."

After standing there for what seemed to be an eternity, Mr. Thompson turned away silently and disappeared back into the school, the soccer ball tucked beneath his arm.

Within seconds Dennis Borden was at Lizzie’s side.

 “You're done for now Lizzie," he whispered, obviously pleased with the havoc he'd created. "A detention on the first day of school. What's your father going to say?"

 Lizzie started to yell at him, using words that would make her father cringe, but the bell rang, and the insults were lost under the noise of 200 students scrambling to line up at the school's side door.

 That first day was a blur of activity. A new classroom, new desks, and even a couple of new students. Mr. Thompson seemed to have forgotten the soccer ball incident as he handed out textbooks with a smile and gave the class their first ever French lesson.

 Recess without a four-square was an unpleasant reminder of what lay ahead, but Lizzie managed to convince Shanice and Emily to play tag on the back field, far away from Dennis Borden, their new sworn enemy.

When the bell ending the school day finally sounded, Lizzie joined the other students gathering up books and papers, stuffing hers into a faded yellow backpack. With one eye on Mr. Thompson seated at his desk, head down working, and another at the door, Lizzie started casually for the hall.

 "Are you forgetting something Miss Paris?" Mr. Thompson asked without looking up.

She stopped. "No sir," she said, hoping it really was a question this time.

He let her stand there in an uncomfortable silence while the clatter of her departing classmates faded, and then disappeared altogether.

 "I thought you were going to be one of the students I could count on," he said finally. "Mrs. Butler had such good things to say about you."

"It wasn't my fault," she started. "Dennis Borden..."

He cut her off with a look that would have brought a tractor trailer to a halt.

 "It's time to start taking personal responsibility Ms. Paris. If you're going to succeed in this class you're going to have to control your temper and think for yourself. I want a one page essay by tomorrow on the importance of respect.

"You may go now. Don't disappoint me again," he said.

She'd completed the essay, and as the first weeks passed, she managed to steer clear of any further confrontations. Still, she never felt comfortable in her seat at the back of the second row, and her marks were never quite as good as she thought they should be. It seemed to her Mr. Thompson only called on her for an answer when she didn't put her hand up.

 Gone were the beautiful flowing script A's that topped her work when   Mrs. Butler was her teacher. This year it was a succession of assignments topped with unflattering B's and even one C+.

Today, though, as she stormed home with tears pulling at the edge of her eyes, a C+ would have looked good.