Was anything ever so hilarious as Mr. Schwilk and his “poetry”?—so irresistibly, wildly funny?

Day followed day of grammar school silliness, Schwilk imitations throughout the school, boldly defiant answers to Schwilk’s questions, hidden chalk and hidden erasers in room 110, a general carnival atmosphere in his classes, intoxicating, cruel, contagious. Suddenly everyone was saying “I like a look of Agony!” and making references to “homely Anguish!”—and dissolving into helpless fits of giggling. The more pathetic Schwilk became, the more they loathed him: the more Marya loathed him. She wondered why his opinion had ever mattered—how he’d ever had the power to so deeply wound her.

Schwilk grew visibly more haggard; his classroom performance was less and less controlled; his instructions were frequently incoherent. One afternoon in April his briefcase was stolen from his desk, and though he raged and nearly wept, and threatened to call the police, it wasn’t returned; nor did anyone inform on the thief. (Who was Kyle Roemischer, as everyone knew. Kyle had walked off with the briefcase—hidden it in his locker—smuggled it out of the building—eventually tossed it into the canal. He had so little interest in Schwilk’s things he didn’t even bother to force the lock. “What do I want with his shit?” Kyle asked.)

Another afternoon—when the pranks were, perhaps, not quite so funny as they’d once been—a number of the boys held the door of room 110 closed against Schwilk so that he couldn’t get in the room, though the second bell had rung and classes had begun. He rapped on the door, tried futilely to push it in, finally begged, begged them to have mercy, to relent. . . .

In more confident moods Schwilk threatened to fail them all; he threatened to fill out “detailed reports” on their behavior. He even, to Marya’s especial amusement, threatened to “jeopardize” their high school and college “careers”! A hopeless fool, Marya thought. She stared at him as if she had no idea who he was.