Inappropriate Behavior

One-Sentence Story

Portrait of Virginia by Frida Kahlo

Today that new girl was absent from school (remember the one I told you about who’s been doing the inappropriate behavior, like just walking out of the classroom and talking about stuff that isn’t for kids our age, like wanting to have sex with some other kid?) and the teacher told us that she wanted to take the oppor... opportunity to talk with us about her because there was something we should know about her, which was that the reason why she started in our class so late was because her parents abused her so much—hitting her a lot, I guess—that she had to move to her grandma’s and that’s why she didn’t get an example of what things are right and what things are wrong, and she had to skip second grade in the process, too; and the teacher said that we could all help her by, like, be nice to her, don’t make fun of her if she makes fun of you, if she kicks you, don’t kick her back because she’ll think that’s the right thing to do, and so I think that if we all try to be more understanding with her and do those things the teacher said, it will help her stop doing the inappropriate behavior, don’t you think so, Mom?