Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park

Author:Linda Sue Park [Park, Linda Sue]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781328781505
Publisher: HMH Books

* * *

On the last day of the term, she and Bess took their examinations in grammar, arithmetic, history, geography, and orthography. Miss Walters allowed them to choose the order of the tests; Hanna began with arithmetic, her least favorite, to get it out of the way. Bess did the same. They were given an hour to write down their answers for each test except arithmetic—an hour and a quarter—and history, forty-five minutes. The questions were difficult and seemed to get harder as the day went on.

Hours later, Hanna answered the final question, which required her to diagram a complex compound sentence. She was so tired that her pen wobbled as she circled the words and drew the lines.

“You may wait if you wish, girls,” Miss Walters said. “I won’t be long.”

Miss Walters had been grading each exam as the girls took the next one. At first, Hanna had found it distracting, wondering what mistakes she had made and how Miss Walters was marking them. But the challenges of the tests had forced her to concentrate, and she had spent most of the time alone in her head.

Now she stood and walked to the door; she badly needed to stretch her legs. She stepped out into the yard. It was very warm, the sun heating the air without a breeze to freshen it, as if pressing hard toward summer. She walked toward the corner of the schoolhouse, to stand in the shadow cast by the wall.

“Was it harder than you thought it would be?”

Hanna turned in surprise. Bess was in the doorway. She came outside and joined Hanna in the shade.

“Well, I knew the arithmetic would be hard,” Hanna said. “It always is, for me. As for the rest—” She looked at Bess and shrugged. “I’ll start over. All of it was hard!”

“I thought so too. Those history questions—I didn’t have enough time.”

“I know! I could only write down one or two points, when there was so much more I thought I should include.”

“What about geography? What did you write for the principal rivers of Europe?”

The girls chatted for a few minutes more. Then Miss Walters came to the door and called them in.

Bess smiled. “Good luck to both of us,” she said.

Hanna smiled back. For a moment, it didn’t seem to matter what she had scored on the tests. Because maybe she had made a friend.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.