“Susan…” I was never called Susan. Except when I was in trouble. I looked up; Miss Bedford, blue eyes wide under raised brows, looked down with a severity belied by the twinkle. “Daydreaming again…?” She sighed and shook her head… I said nothing. There wasn’t much I could say… or she, for that matter. I never had to teach my mind to misbehave… it already knew how, without any help from me. The lessons were always done, only the handwriting invited censure, a messy scrawl where the words, unable to keep up with the imagination, got away and went off to play on their own.

I spent years working on that handwriting, perfecting a passable tribute to my mother’s copperplate script. By the time I hit adulthood, my public handwriting even drew compliments. My private version, however, copied out the text of library books I could not afford to buy…