Professional tailors have a saying, ‘Measure twice to make sure everything fits real nice.”I turned to face Ms. Sloane with the quiet satisfaction...of having performed well.“Birdie, what were you thinking?”Now if that query had a ringing of familiarity to it, it’s because that very same inquisition is sometimes put to me by Peggy and Auntie Pru. Perhaps it’s something the female form learns in some sort of classroom.As it happens, I’d had fish and chips the previous evening and my associate. It was both exciting and frightening me. I don’t know if she would’ve let me continue or not but even if she did I just couldn’t move my hand anymore as it felt paralyzed. ‘We best get going. I hope you’re hungry and I’ve some things to tell you, things overdue and things I want to know about you too, things I want you to tell me,’ she said. * Jillian’s apartment… * Entering her apartment I asked where Ellen was… ‘That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. We’ve decided it was. Nickolson was cowering in the corner of the room. In the end, the only things that prevented him from being expelled were the facts that he hadn’t actually hit the teacher and that Mr. Nickolson had knowingly provoked him. He still earned a lengthy suspension. His impromptu speech would remain as the gold standard for cussing in the school for a long time to come. ***** John spent the suspension in the house, refusing to leave his room. His mother eventually dragged John to the doctor’s. The. We agreed and after breakfast Amanda and I went up to our room to discuss the situation. Amanda was not really that interested in boys but I was, and I asked if she could introduce me to some nice boys at the picnic. She said there was only one boy worth talking about, a tall, handsome blond about the same age as me. I asked if she had been out with him. She said only once but would not go into any details about what happened, however she agreed to introduce him to me.Naturally we could not.