A teacher at the front of the room chosen for the work. Every child a library card. Every child a chair.

SCENE · LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA · ROOM 14 · 3:47 PM

Three-forty-seven on a Tuesday afternoon. The commandant is alone in Room 14. The bell rang twenty minutes ago. A sheet of construction paper curls off the back wall where the tape gave up in the heat. She sits at a student desk — her own desk is too high for what she is doing — and sorts a shoebox of pencils she bought at the Target on Pacific Coast Highway on her way in this morning. Fourteen-ninety-nine for seventy-two pencils. She counts them into piles of six, one pile per table group, because if she puts the whole box on her desk they will be gone by Thursday. The fluorescent tube in the back corner ticks. A kid named Andre left his library book on the reading rug. She picks it up. Bud, Not Buddy. She sets it on his chair so he sees it first thing in the morning. She turns off the light and locks the door. She has been doing this for twenty-eight years.