I’m going to date myself pretty badly here, but remember when you were a kid in school and your pencil went dull? If you were a vain child like I was, it bothered you a lot. Suddenly, your pretty cursive (Your grand capital G! Your elegant capital S!) looked mushy. The lead on the page was faded. But you had a whole paragraph to write about tectonic plates and, other than the continents themselves, that wasn’t going anywhere.
So you would look in your pencil case to discover the rest of your options were likewise subpar. Also dull. Too short. Missing an eraser or, worse, sporting the kind of eraser that, if used, enhanced rather than erased your mistake. Yes, there was your shiny Lisa Frank pencil, but she was unsharpened and would stay that way because you were saving her.
You thought about how long it had been since you’d made a trip to the pencil sharpener. You knew your teacher, Mme. Martel, didn’t like the kids who made them too often. But it had been a few days.
So, you got up, you went to the back of the classroom. And, honey, you felt yourself relax.