Rusty was drawing a picture of a horse in his notebook. It was a very good drawing, with detail for the mane and tail; you could tell by the way the lines were drawn the horse was in motion.
"Rusty!" the teacher called for the second time, "Please pass your homework to the front of the class along with everyone else."
Homework ... he had done his homework last night. His mom made him do it right when he got home from school. Where did he put it? Maybe it was in his folder. He looked, but no, it wasn't there. Maybe it got stuffed in his backpack. Sometimes he did that. Nope, not there. One of the other students yelled out, "Hey, maybe his dog ate it!" The other children laughed until the teacher silenced them with, "That will be enough of that." She sighed, "Never mind. You can stay after class and do it. Now, everyone take your pencils out and let's start on the worksheets."
Pencil? Okay, he had just had his pencil because he was drawing the picture of the horse with it. He must have put it down somewhere while he was looking for his homework. Maybe the teacher wouldn't notice he didn't have it. Maybe he could find it before she noticed. Oh, no, now she was standing over him and she had that tired look he got from adults when they were trying not go get mad. "Rusty, where is your pencil?"
He wanted to cry. He hated school. The students were mean to him, he knew some of the other students didn't like him and thought he was stupid. Some days, he thought he was stupid. He thought, "I just can't wait until I am old enough to quit school."