He squeezed his eyes shut as if to blot out all this unpleasantness. All the same, he finally opened his eyes and spoke. As before, I heard it in my head, not in my ears.
“I put the ad in the paper,” he admitted. “But not for you.”
“What do you mean, not for me? I didn’t see anything there that said, ‘This ad is for everyone but Julie Gerchak.’ ”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should say I didn’t put the ad in the paper for children.”
“Children!” This really made me mad. “You call me children? I’m twelve years old. I’m old enough to steal cars. I’m old enough to have an abortion. I’m old enough to deal crack.”
This great huge fat ape began to writhe, I swear to God. Wow, I was really getting off on this. I was beating up on a thousand-pound gorilla.
He writhed for a while. Then he began to get a new grip on things. He calmed down and started talking.
“I’m sorry I tried to dismiss you so easily,” he said. “Clearly you’re not a dismissible person. However, the fact that you’re old enough to steal cars is not relevant here.”
“Go on,” I told him.
“I’m a teacher,” he said.
“I know that.”
“As a teacher, I’m able to help certain kinds of pupils. Not every kind. I can’t help someone with chemistry or algebra or French or geology.”
“I didn’t come here for anything like that.”
“These are examples only. What I mean is that I can offer only a certain kind of teaching.”
“So what are you saying? Are you saying I don’t want that ‘certain kind of teaching’?”
He nodded. “That’s what I’m saying. The teaching I’m able to offer isn’t a kind that will be helpful to you … just yet.
In a split second my eyes were burning with tears, but I certainly wasn’t going to let him see them.
“You’re just like everyone else,” I told him. “You’re a liar.”
That made his eyebrows shoot up. “A liar?”
“Yes. Why don’t you tell the truth? Why don’t you say, ‘You’re just a kid—no use to anybody. Come back in ten years. Then maybe you’ll be worth my time.’ Say that, and you won’t hear another word out of me. Say that, and I’ll turn around and go home.”
He sighed again, even deeper than before. Then he nodded, just once.
“You’re perfectly correct,” he said. “I was telling a lie. And I was expecting you not to see through it. Please accept my apology.”
I nodded back.
“But the truth may not please you much either,” he went on.
“What is the truth?”
“We’ll have to see. Your name is Julie?”
“That’s right.”
“And you don’t like being treated like a child.”
“That’s right.”
“Then sit down and I’ll question you as if you were an adult.”