sent for editing 3

OK, editor, here is my latest:

Tim loved Dorothy and Dot loved Tim. When they reached eleven they had already done that for one year.

In that year, the second year of the Special Class, they would meet by the run-off pond not far from the canal to walk to school. Tim would leave his bike hidden in the bushes. Dorothy arrived on foot. She brought enough sandwiches for both their lunches and an apple for Tim’s breakfast.

In spring the polliwogs in the pool had long strings from where their penises should be, drifting in the clear water. In winter the heads of frozen frogs dotted the ice. In summer there was no school so Tim sat by the pond or rode his bike into the centre of town with Marcus and the Billies. Dorothy was at the cottage.

Tim had to go backwards on his easiest route to get to the pond to meet her because he lived down in those houses where the river flooded. Dot lived in the places with big porches on the rise by the high school.

From the pond they would walk to school. They sat together in Special Class. But first they would spend time in the shallow, dark valley near the cement fence in a tunnel of bushes which overhung the path. Dot asked about Tim’s people and he tried little tricks on her. They didn’t work. Especially his voices.

Dot could conclude in her head a sum after following a string of fifty changes. For example take one, and then add five, take away three, divide by seven and so on. Those were addition, subtraction, multiplication and division but not yet logarithms. But so could Doctor Agnes who would test the class on the summing trick once a week.

Tim dropped out after ten changes. But Tim could put on a skit like where he was Pissaro and he would say what he thought when he first met the Incas and before Pissarro calmed down and became Spanish again. This was before Tim had read much on it. He was good at that. That time he made a breastplate of cardboard. No-one else did as well as Tim on those acting out things although Jeff once brought a saxophone to do Marco Polo.

Doctor Agnes asked them all to make sputniks that year at Christmas. She brought balls of Styrofoam which Tim had never seen before. They stuck toothpicks in them and pretended to be dogs barking from space. Doctor Agnes was very angry when some of them didn’t bark loudly enough, especially Gordon and Scott. After they had barked, they all sang ‘Oh Canada’ and exchanged presents.